Jerash and more and more

Today was a day like no other day in its wavering outlines and particular emotional flavor. It was the first official day of the DePaul program in Amman. The morning was spent in a confusing sequence of speakers at the University of Jordan, no particular information was gleaned and protocol appeared to be the order of the day. We did see a few antiquities, one of which I was enchanted by because of his resemblance to a Miyazaki character. Here he is - the adorable little basalt sphinx of Umm Qais...


After that we headed into the mouth of the lion. Jerash is home to the Palestinian refugee camp with the poorest conditions, at least in Jordan. It houses primarily Gazans who left their homes in 1948 or 1967. We met with the deputy director of the camp in his office, where we all crowded in and sat on seats in a semicircle. One of the men served us coffee - rotating around with only two cups as he alternated from person to person. It was a strange scene. There were unsmiling security guys. The director explained the dire conditions of the camp. Two doctors for only 300-400 people a day, no NGOs serving the population, open sewers, intermittent utilities, extremely overcrowded schools and on and on. It was apparent from our drive in that the camp was worse than the worst slum in the U.S.

At one point there was nearly an argument between the director and some of my fellow students when the deputy asserted that the Palestinians were the only "real" refugees. This was an important point for him and his tone and body language were emphatic. One of my cohort raised the point of the Bhutanese and another talked about indigenous populations around the world, but the Palestinian would not be driven off message. There was a hum of tension in the air. It was unclear to me how much of it was posturing and how much was lost in translation, but in any case, who argues with a Palestinian camp director in his own office? Here is the camp deputy director. He has a great face - one that I will remember for a long time.



The residents of the camp in Jerash are in an impossible situation politically. After the Six Day War in 1967, Israel seized Gaza from Egypt. The residents of this camp are, as I said above, Gazans - which makes them somehow persona non grata. They are refugees of a different status than nearly all the rest of the Palestinian refugees in Jordan. They do not hold Jordanian passports and do not have the right to work or travel outside of Jordan. The difference is visible everywhere as the Jerash camp is, no mincing words, a slum.

We toured the camp with escorts from our security detail and with camp leadership. I stayed back with the two Jordanian police officers who accompany us everywhere. One in particular, Mahmoud, is our driver and is particularly kind and always has a smile. He pulls into traffic with our bus in a way that earned my respect immediately. I was kneeling down and talking to the children who were all around us. They were beautiful children, may Allah give them perfect health, and I started giving them the bracelets and Hot Wheels cars I brought from home. It was great fun. I had to be careful only to do it when there were small groups and the cops helped me out with that. There were donkeys and goats and open sewers and elders in traditional costume sitting on blankets. It was surreal. But incredibly powerful all the same. These were people who were very determined to be doing what they were doing. They are in a terrible place, but they're waiting to get what they want. They could leave Jerash and emigrate elsewhere presumably. But they are resilient, and they wait to use the keys to their houses that they have hanging by the front doors. Whether you agree or disagree with their cause, you've got to hand it to a people who are willing to live for decades in what can be called squalor for a cause that they believe in. My respect for the people of Jerash is great. And those sweet kids, whose faces I can't think of without tears, I hope they enjoy those toys one millionth as much as I enjoyed the bright as the sunshine smiles they gave me. My heart explodes with the loveliness of their grins.

Arrival

I just had to check my calendar to see what day of the week it was. The flight was 12+ hours and the time difference is eight hours. I slept for ten hours and now I am truly disoriented. Presumably I'm going to have to get good at this whole world travel thing at some point but apparently now is not the time. The group we're traveling with met us as soon as we made it through customs and has taken care of every last detail for us. We have a security detail, our restaurants are chosen, basically we are totally infantilized. I think that is adding to my disorientation. I tried to sneak away from the group and grab an American latte (Illy!) at a cafe we passed today and was mortified to look up and see fourteen people waiting for me, including one security guy.

On the flight I sat next to an older Jordanian woman, clearly a matriarch, who was working over a rosary in her jewel-encrusted hands. After some conversation I asked her what it was like being a Christian in Jordan. She said that it had been better under King Hussein, and that his son's Jordan was a less tolerant country. Her husband had a house up in the mountains overlooking Amman with a swimming pool and gardens that he had inherited from his parents. I was immediately invited to visit. She told me about her children, who are scattered around the world, and introduced me to her son and daughter-in-law. The son had married an American who was busy reading Twilight novels the whole flight. When we were about to get off the plane, the American wife put on a Reds hat, and I told her I too was from Cincinnati. Everyone starting exclaiming and it turned out they were all living in Cincinnati and owned a high-profile fast food chili business. We were all very excited about this coincidence and now we have vowed to visit with one another. I love small worlds.

One reason I tell this story, besides the fact that it was funny, is that when I told the wealthy Jordanian woman that I was going to be visiting Palestinian refugee camps, she had what I would call an unexpected reaction. I am new to the politics of this region. I know enough to know that there are layers upon layers upon layers, but when the woman said that the Palestinians have money and that they only pretend to be poor so that I will feel sorry for them, I was surprised. "They are sneaky," she said with a sneer. It was the sort of casual racism that we see in our country more often than I would like. Still, I was blindsided.

Today, the group program starts officially. I will see if my third meal in Jordan involves a three for three on hummus and baba ghanouj. Inshallah.

Difficulties

I have delayed and delayed the beginning of this - the start of recording my thoughts about this travel experience. I am set to leave this week to go to Amman, Jordan, with a group from DePaul, where I am working to get my Master's in International Public Service. This is a fact that in and of itself is not unusual but given the arc of the story, the circumstances that I leave from and the trip I'm preparing to embark upon, it manages to transcend the everyday. We will be traveling in Amman and around Jordan studying issues relating to refugee management with a focus on the Palestinian situation. During the course of our travels, we'll also get to see Petra (!!!), the Dead Sea and spend a night in Bedouin tent. Clearly, I am beside myself with excitement.

The delay in starting the blog has stemmed from a deep-seated belief that my thoughts and observations are no more or less special than anyone else's. If anything, expressing my own American entitlement in a public forum seems to me to be an unbearable thought. I will strive to keep a lid on it - the entitlement, that is - but know that it will come through in the form of my assumptions and ignorance of many situations and lifestyles.

And the reason my journey is less predictable perhaps than my fellow students comes from my background. For the past 13 years or so I have been near fully occupied with the business of being a wife and mother to three daughters, now 12, 10, and 7. I have taken a couple of brief and very intense breaks to work as a political communications director for two congressional candidates and volunteered with great fervor for Secretary of State (!) Clinton's Presidential run. That work brought me to where I am today, striving to gain the knowledge and experience necessary to work in a similar communications/press capacity for an international aid organization.

I'll try to keep the reflections relevant. And I can promise they'll be humble.