First Day of Our Long Awaited Seminar

Today the junior fellows met in the library rotunda for our first class of our "Seminar on Jordan and the Middle East". I say long awaited because most of the junior fellows, if not all, accepted their job with the understanding that the school would create this seminar for them. Personally, I took this job because I wanted to learn more about Islam and the history of the Middle East. Since we the junior fellows had discussed at our weekly meetings that we were mostly all interested in learning about these two topics and that we would be able to design the seminar according to our own interests, I decided to wait patiently for this seminar to begin. Now we have our course syllabus and have met for the first time. Today we discussed a short story that we had read the night before and a poem by a well known Palestinian poet who recently passed away. The short story was called "Tigers on the Tenth Day" and was written by Zakira Tamir. We discussed how the Arabic speaking world hadn't been actively producing works during the Ottoman Empire and that Zakira Tamir helped revive modern Arabic literature during the 20th century. The story we read was about a caged tiger who slowly comes to submit to his tamer and to forget his own identity. We discussed that Zakira Tamir used his writing to protest the oppressive regimes underwhich he lived. The next reading that we discussed was a poem called "My Mother", by Mahmoud Darwish. Mahmoud Darwish was a Palastinian who fled his home in the 1948 war. His death last August has saddened many of his admirers, including our head librarian who reportedly needed a moment to collect herself when talking about it to a school tour group. The school is even planning to honor his life at an upcoming school meeting. I think the school plans to bring a musician to read Darwish's poetry and accompany it with his own music. Anyway, "My Mother" is about Darwish's regrert at living in exile (Israel) and not being able to be by his mother's side when she passed away (At least, I think that's what I remember hearing today). In this poem Darwish writes about his longing to be with his mother again. However, I believe that Darwish also used the word, mother as a symbol for a Palestian homeland. I'm not sure yet what I think about this seminar. I feel so busy right now because I feel as if I have been and still am gradually committing myself to more and more small responsibilites here and there. I feel really stressed when I start thinking about the prospect of writing 10 papers in addition to all my other responsibilities. I am also not sure what this seminar will teach me about Islam and the Middle East. But I mean that literally: I simply do not know how much I will learn because we only meet once a week and because our seminar is set to cover multiple topics in addition to Islam and history. However, the seminar nevertheless looks interesting as well as promising. Our coordinator tells us that we will here lectures from various esteemed teachers and professors, both from and not from our school, who will discuss various topics with us such as Islamic art, women's studies, and the issue of Palestine and Israel. So, time will tell.

Machaerus

Today I visited my first real biblical site: Machaerus, the hill that was once the site of the castle of Herod the great. This site is said to be where Salome, stepdaughter of Herod Antipas, asked for "the head of John the Baptiser" (Mark 6:24) and where John the Baptist was imprisoned and beheaded. I suppose my main motivating factor for making this trip was my memory of seeing Gustave Moreau's "The Apparition" in Paris. The painting depicts a scantily clad Salome pointing to the apparition of John the Baptist's floating head. It was one my favorite paintings from Paris I remembered particularly well. Today, all the hill really has are a few minor ruins and incredible views of the surrounding hills. It sounds like it's really useful as a starting point for a hike to the Dead Sea. The hike up the hill itself is fun and the view at the top really is spectacular, but neither can really compare to what I experienced I Mt. Sinai. Still I didn't want to be anywhere else today. And as a result of this trip I now feel comfortable using the public bus transportation system! Also, in Islam John the Baptist is known as the prophet Yahya. Also, I heard about this place from the school. It tried to organize a trip there last week but it had to cancel is because not enought people signed up. I might have been the only one. Maybe because it was still midterms? Who knows?

Halloween

If someone were to ask me what aspect of American culture the school has most successfully brought into its own community, I would have to say Halloween for sure. The reason that I can talk about the school's reception to Halloween already, when Halloween is still one week away, is that, last night, the entire school community decided to celebrate Halloween a week early. I say "the entire school community" because I didn't see just the students enjoying themselves. I saw students, faculty, and even faculty children. The program was for the evening was so extensive that the school even arranged for a shuttle to drive weekday boarders and day students into Amman when the evening's events ended at 11:00. The Halloween program for last night included pumpkin carving from 4:30-6:30, a pumpkin and squash themed dinner from 6:30-7:30, trick-or-treating from 7:00-8:00, a Halloween dance from 8:00-11:00, and even horror movies in the dorm from 11:00-???.. Although, the school had to create the halloween experience from nothing, I was still very much impressed with the quality of the events and how well the students responded to idea of Halloween. I think I'll first write about pumpkin carving. Pumpkin carving took place in a centrally located courtyard that is surrounded by three dorms. I arrived at exactly 4:30 because I was looking forward to this Halloween event the most. When I arrived I saw one of the heads of the office of student life standing with about 35 pumpkins around her. When asked where these pumpkins came from, she responded by informing us that they were all bought at the vegetable market in Amman. One thing I should mention about these pumpkins, however, is that none of them really looked like a traditional New England pumpkin. For the most part, they were small and either gray-orange or green-orange. But we soon found out that they were carvable and that were just as orange, pulpy, and seedy as any other pumpkin we've seen. And to my great pleasure, they even smelled like real pumpkins. The only thing that was missing at that point was the brisk, autumn air that nips just enough to remind you that it's not summer anymore but not quite winter either. But we soon had that too because the temperature started to drop about half way through. In total, I'd say I saw about 25 students carving pumpkins. It might have been more if the juniors hadn't gotten out of their Yale information session one hour into the event. So a modest success in terms of numbers but a complete success in terms of the quality of the experience. For dinner the dining hall had pumpkin-cheese ravioli, pumpkin/squash soup, squash, pumpkin crumble squares, as well as chicken and hummus on the side. I really can't call dinner a success simply because it was meal that I think we all would have gone to anyway but I can say that I gave and heard great reviews. I can, however, say that trick-or-treating was a success because I saw practically the entire student body (remaining on campus) participating. For about 45 minutes, packs of students migrated from one candy station to the next. The school set up candy stations at various dorm entrances and exits and assigned a faculty member to greet trick-or-treaters and hand out candy that the school had bought a few days before. I was especially happy to see that the assigned faculty members were only giving candy on the condition that students actually said the words "trick-or treat!" This way students who had never experienced Halloween before would understand that the school wasn't just giving away candy on a random night. The dance was just a dance, so that's all I'll say about that. But I completely forgot to mention the students and their costumes. Unlike all of my previous schools, King's did not allow its students to wear their costumes during the class day. The school instead highly, highly encouraged students to dress up for trick-or-treating and the dance. The school even encouraged its students to the point where a week earlier it organized a shopping trip specifically meant for costume shopping. I therefore had to wait until dinner before I started seeing any costumes. Sure enough, though, I could see students sporting their costumes by dinnertime. I am happy to say that it seemed as if practically every student was putting at least some thought into his/her appearance. I did find, however, that there were a lot of repeats- princesses, brides, and blood stained victims and killers. This isn't to say that I didn't see some especially interesting costumes. I saw jokers (from The Dark Knight), cow girls, and a face book page. So, Halloween I think was a great success. All I think that needs improvement now is the students' creativity for costumes. High school students back in the U.S. generally think outside the range of just witches and zombie killers. They use the opportunity to be as creative with their appearance as they want and sometimes even spend weeks in advance thinking of their costumes. But I think that the school needs more time before it really sets a high standard for Halloween costumes.

Residency

I got my residency cards today!! I can now legally live and work in Jordan! Now I just need to decide when I'm going to take advantage of my 95% discount and go to Petra.

Madaba and Mimar

Although I have known about the city of Madaba, located about 3 miles west of the school, ever since I arrived in Jordan and even made several trips there, I never really had my own feel for the place until last week. Madaba is the fifth most populace city in Jordan with 60,000 inhabitants . It is known as the city of mosaics because it is home to beautiful examples of Byzantine and Umayyad mosaic work as well as skilled mosaic artisans who make, in my opinion, exquisite masterpieces. It is also known for having a significant Christian population-at one point comprising about half the population but now about one third. Madaba’s most well known mosaic is without a doubt its mosaic map of the holy land. Although some parts are missing, it is one of the oldest geographically correct representations of the holy land in existence. Its detail is so great that it actually depicts locations and landmarks within the city of Jerusalem as well as in other cities represented on the map. The map dates back from the 6th century AD and is located on the floor St. George’s Church, a church built in the 19th century on top of the remains of the original building that housed the mosaic map. Handcrafted mosaic copies of the map and specific locations on the map can be purchased from the many artisans in the surrounding area. Just to say something on these handcrafted mosaics, I think they are some of the most beautiful pieces of artwork that I have ever seen and I now want to see as many original and copied mosaics as I can. If anyone would like to see pictures of these mosaics or to give me money to buy some mosaics for them , then just let me know. I said before that I didn’t have my own feel for Madaba until last week. When I say I have a feel for the city I really mean to say that I have a good idea of the history and layout of the city, as well as a familiarity with a neighborhood(s) of the city. I now have a familiarity with one of the mosaic of the Madaba. In this area, I and many of the other junior fellows visit/have visited a falafel shop, a café, a cake and ice cream parlor, a well known, full restaurant and craft complex, St. George’s church, mosaic shops, and MIMAR. MIMAR (Madaba Institute for Mosaic Art and Restoration) is the future name of the Madaba Mosaic School, a school that educates and instructs high school students in the art of mosaic construction and preservation. It is located right next the Madaba Archeological park, a museum affiliated with the Department of antiquities whose collection includes mosaics built on site as well as mosaics brought from the surrounding region. Some of these mosaics are much better than the mosaic map in terms of the quality of the representation and their preserved status. The mosaic map is simply more well known because of its historical and religious significance. Now, the reason that I only came to acquire my own feel for Madaba just last week is that I am now volunteering at MIMAR once a week. Several other junior fellows and I are assisting a school faculty member, who is also a trained art historian, to catalogue the school’s library collection. The collection itself isn’t really that amazing but it does include written works on Jordan, Madaba, and mosaics in general. These works are about 25-40 years old and are in some cases no longer in print. Also, some of these works are written in Italian and/or French because it was originally the French and Italians were primarily involved in the excavation and restoration of these mosaics. Now, however, it is a mix of Jordan, the U.S., as well as various European organizations who are expected to provide funds for current and future projects, either restoration projects or projects to help the tourism and mosaic industry grow. Now, all I’m doing in Madaba and with MIMAR is literally helping to catalogue the library. I simply take a piece of paper write down the name, number, and a brief description of the book and its content. I wouldn’t exactly call the work fun, but it is nice to get off campus and be involved with something in Jordan besides the school.

PSAT and baking powder

Yesterday I helped Ms. Hala administer the PSAT for about 75 of our students. I think I only need to say that those four hours were among the most boring and tiring in my life. I found baking powder at Cozmo the other day: it was in the jello section and not with the flour, sugar, and yeast. I also went back to the same barbershop that I had visited a few days before to get my mullet fixed. Mission accomplished. The same guy cut my hair and he only charged me half price. We've also finished the alphabet in Arabic. We are not practicing with reading and writing. Pronouncing the different H sounds if especially difficult for me because I always feel so out of breath after adding and extra gutteral "ha" sound to the end of a word.

Cobbler and Egg Sandwiches

Well, a group of two or three students ended up single handedly finishing the cobbler I had made on the weekend (minus the piece I had taken to encourage others to try it). Although the idea was to share the cobbler with everybody, I guess I should be content since I still consider it a failure. As for my egg sandwiches, however, today I made Panini pressed, pita bread, egg and cheese sandwiches for eight different students on my hallway, all of whom gave me good reviews. It ended up being a good thing that I didn’t cook bacon on the side. It just would have been too hectic and too messy. And by not cooking bacon I definitely avoided any sort of awkward cultural moments (although the majority of the students on my hallway are Muslim, there are some non-Muslims).I’m now hoping that these positive reviews will inspire other students on my hallway to ask me for more sandwiches and other breakfast foods. If this happens, however, I’m going to have to ask them to start paying their share of the cost of ingredients. But at least I accomplished my two goals, the first being to actively and publicly display my appreciation for my hallway’s great behavior and the second being to show the students that we do in fact have working stove tops that we can in fact use to cook. I also fulfilled a contractual obligation because resident faculty members are required, though not enforced, to provide some snack or meal for their hallway now and then. I’m now thinking of buying falafel sandwiches for my hallway on Monday night. But this time the student life office will definitely reimburse me because I will be buying food for everybody on my hallway…including me :)

My First Haircut Overseas

Last night at around 7:00 PM I walked into a certain barber shop and purchased my first haircut overseas. Before I write about the experience and the finished product, I think I’ll describe the factors that led to the fateful decision of getting a haircut overseas. When a certain someone suggested that I get a haircut before I left for Jordan, I decided that, since I only had a vague idea of what I was getting myself into, I would keep my hair the way it was and arrive in Jordan with the complete assurance that I at least had my hair with me. But for the past two or three weeks now I had been seeing the consequences of my decision everyday when I looked in the mirror. Not only did I have wings growing on the sides and on the back, but I also had a shaggy mop of hair on top. Because I wanted to avoid the classic scenario of an authority figure telling a junior that he needed to fix his appearance, I started to think about taking the initiative and getting a haircut myself. It’ s also possible, though, that I only really began thinking of haircuts when I noticed a large number of my colleagues leaving for Amman or Madaba and coming back with these fantastic, stylish haircuts and hair makeovers. In particular, my male colleagues were all getting haircuts that I wanted transplanted directly onto my own head. So, when I heard one of my colleagues (teachers not junior fellows) say that he got his haircut in the Amman district that I am most familiar with, I asked him exactly where he got his haircut and exactly how much it cost him. So, last night I decided that I would finally embark on the adventure and spare myself the trouble of getting this haircut on my weekend. Finding the place really was simple enough. It really was just right down the street and to the left of seventh circle ( very close to where the bus drops faculty members off). However, I certainly encountered a few surprises once I found the place. For one thing, the shop was tiny, with only three chairs, one barber, and comfortable waiting space for about six people. Now, this is a big city with lots of barber shops, I am sure; but I was kindof hoping for a chic and stylish men’s salon. Another surprise was that the place was playing a pirated copy of the latest Vin Diesel, action-packed thriller on a TV in the top ceiling corner; this certainly did not help me feel at ease. But the biggest surprise for me was learning that the one barber working in the shop that night didn’t speak a word of English! The reason this was such a surprise for me was that most of my colleagues who were getting haircuts in Amman don’t speak a word of Arabic, this goes for the teacher who recommended this place to me in the first place. Since I had heard that men in Amman are known for being stylish and that barbers in particular think they know what’s best in terms of hair fashion, I decided trust the barber who couldn’t speak a word of English anyway. When the barber asked me (or at least I assumed he asked me) how I wanted my hair, I replied with the word, “short”. “Short?” He repeated uncertainly. “Short,” I again repeated nervously. But thinking that he might take this to mean a buzz cut I added, “not short” and covered my head with my hands in an odd attempt to communicate how I wanted my hair to look. And, with that, the barber then proceeded to make a few, very small clips to my hair. When he finished I thought that my hair looked the same and so I repeated my request again and supplemented it with a few finger-scissor motions to my hair, specifically to my wings, bangs, and sideburns. When I saw the finished product I was thrilled to see that it had come out to look, against all odds, just like a typical cut I might get in America, except for one slight feature that is. Looking in the mirror, I was pretty sure that, while my hair in front looked fine, I had what looked like a very small mullet in the back. But I decided, that since I couldn’t monitor the back of my head and that since the front looked as satisfactory as it did, that I would wait to get back on campus and ask for an opinion. When I asked the first person on campus that I ran into (a junior fellow) if she thought I had a mullet, she replied by saying that she did indeed think that I had small one but that she thought I could get it taken care of easily because I’m a guy. She also went on to say that, in her experience, many Middle Eastern barbers just don’t have a concept of cutting the hair on the back of the head. She said that even she has to insist every time she gets a cut. The second person I ran into (a faculty member) then told me that I had what people in the 70’s would call “a shag”. But since this morning, I have gotten completely unsolicited compliments on my haircut, compliments from students, who have all said that I should keep my hair the way it is, and compliments from junior fellows and colleagues who have said my hair looks great and that the back looks “fine”. But I think I’m pretty sure that I would nevertheless like a barber to clean my cut and fix the back. Hopefully this will happen soon.

My Weekend (future)

Luckily, though, I have a chance this week to save my cooking reputation. I’m planning on making bacon and egg sandwiches this Wednesday morning using the hallway stove top and Panini press. If my students receive my sandwiches well, both before and after consumption; then I’ll ask the student life office to reimburse me for the cost of ingredients. And since I’m looking ahead into the future I think I’ll write about my plans so far for this weekend. On Thursday afternoon I’m thinking of going into Madaba to look at mosaic stores and visit the falafel place I tried ordering from the other night. I’m going to ask the falafel place exactly why the number I dialed didn’t work, what number I should try calling in the future, and if they could please make me a falafel sandwich. On Friday I am only planning to make two trips into Amman. The first trip will be an afternoon trip to get a haircut. The second trip will be a group trip led by our Arabic teacher to what he describes as the best ice cream place in Amman. On Saturday I’m spending the entire day on campus. I’m going to wake up at 7:30 to help Ms. Hala ( head of college advising and my internship boss) supervise a PSAT from 8:30-1:00. And afterward I am going to assist Mr. Matt with a SAT 2 prep session in the afternoon. For the prep session I’m really only going to sit there, pass out supplies, and make copies of handouts. These plans are all subject to change, I might add. I don’t want to feel disappointed this Saturday night if my plans don’t go exactly as I wanted them to. Anyway, that’s all I have to write for now.

My Weekend (Saturday)

For Saturday, as I wrote before, I had just two tasks. The first was to chaperon a shopping trip to a mega store, where I would buy necessary supplies and ingredients, and the second was to bake a cobbler in the kitchen of a faculty member. Unfortunately, the shopping trip was only and an hour and a half long and so I was not able to find everything I needed. Even more unfortunate, was my idiotic idea to substitute active dry yeast for baking power in my cobbler recipe. The cobbler tasted fine in the end…it just didn’t rise. At one point I was so embarrassed over the mess that I had created that I was thinking of throwing it all away. Luckily, I decided let the dish sit in the faculty member’s fridge overnight because I was able to serve it the next day (Sunday) as a sort of optional desert to the mini pizzas that I had ordered from the dining hall for my hallway. I had the idea at some point during the late afternoon on Sunday and so I took the cobbler from the faculty fridge and put in the common room fridge right before dinner sot that nobody would go looking for it. But when I picked up the mini pizzas ( they looked terrible so I’m definitely ordering falafel sandwiches from town next time) I learned from the faculty member who was covering for me during the last 10 minutes of study hall that some students had already eaten half of one my cobblers and, even more remarkable, said they liked it. With the boost of confidence that this gave me I spend the next 15 minutes presenting and marketing my “weird looking fried dough”, as I was then calling it;. I ate about two and half servings to show people that it wasn’t deadly and I even resorted to describing it as “tasty as it is weird looking.” Although I got two or three students to finish the second half of one my cobblers, I couldn’t get anyone to touch the second one. When it came time for the students to return to their own rooms I resigned myself to put the remaining cobbler into the fridge and stick a note on the front door asking people to feel free to try it. I haven’t been back in the dorm since this morning but I’m pretty sure it’s still there seeing as how school is still in session. If nobody has touched it by 10:30 tonight I’m going to have to accept defeat and throw it away

My Weekend (Friday)

The next day, Friday, was supposed to be the highlight of my weekend. I had signed up for a school trip to Dibeen Forest, a RSCN site (Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature) that the website described as hosting a “pristine pine-oak habitat”. The proceeding sentence then went on to explain that “these Aleppo pines are some of the oldest and largest in the Kingdom.” The website also mentioned something about deer, bird, and flora, but I skimmed over this and assumed that Dibeen forest was home to endangered animal and plant species that we might occasionally see during a hike. After a 2 hour bus ride that left at 9:20 AM, we arrived a hill top that was covered with trees that looked exactly like the trees that I had seen all along the road sides of Jordan. However, these trees were more numerous and didn’t appear to have been planted with any deliberate placement. On this hilltop, however, we did have an excellent view of a valley of green. Never before in Jordan had I seen a group of trees so densely populated that I couldn’t see the ground underneath them. I then figured that this was probably the forest we were looking for and that we would probably hike down to it. Something I forgot to mention was that as soon as drove up to this hilltop, someone in the bus looked out the window and said that we could see deer about 50 feet away from us. Looking out the window, I saw a group of deer in a grazing pen surrounded by some sort of metal fence. When we got off the bus the first thing we did was approach this grazing pen. At the same time we realized that the people in next to the fences were letting the deer out of their pen to come and meet us. Before any of us really knew it, we were immersed in a sea of deer. These deer, however, didn’t really look anything like the deer I was used to seeing in America. They were about half the height, twice as thick, and all had bambi-like spots on their back. For the next 25 minutes our group contented ourselves with taking pictures of the deer and feeding them some of the pita bread we had brought along on our trip. Although I had never seen domesticated deer with absolutely no fear of humans, I grew bored of them in about 10 minutes. But after another 10 minute we proceeded to the open area with the view of the valley that I mentioned earlier. There, we took some pictures of the group and explored the tree dotted hillside for about 20 minutes. Although these pines looked like the same short, stubby, and deformed trees that I had seen all over Jordan, they really were very beautiful. They were a light shade of green and all had large pine cones growing off them. Moreover, their placement was natural and wide and complemented the altitude of the rocky hillside. But, after our short exploration of the surrounding area, we all headed back to the bus for a ride to see the hyena pen. Now I hadn’t read anything about hyenas on the forest website but I figured that they would be more interesting than deer. Also, since I had heard that they were also in the forest, I figured that we would see more of the forest during our drive. In about five minutes we arrived at another hilltop that looked almost exactly like the one we had just seen, except for one difference: no animal pens. In fact, there were no animals to be seen anywhere. After we walked down a road for about two minutes I heard someone say that the deer were somewhere near the restaurant where we were planning to eat lunch. We then contented ourselves with more picture taking and short distance exploration. We never actually did see any hyenas because we learned on the bus that a trip to see them would delay our lunch plans till 2:00. Since most of us were already fairly hungry and since we had seen in our experience that Jordanian restaurants usually served food at their own pace, we decided to skip the hyenas and head right for lunch. On our way to the restaurant, we drove down the hill into that valley of dense forest vegetation. The trees in this valley certainly were much taller and much more closely concentrated, but the area really just reminded me of one of those camping/rest areas with picnic tables where families come to play football and grill burgers and hot dogs. I won’t say anything about the restaurant except that it overlooked a river valley, was outdoors with a canopy, and served delicious mezze and grill- pita, hummus, eggplant spread, herbs, yogurt, vegetables, French fries, spiced ground lamb kababs, grilled lamb, and grilled chicken. I ate as much as I possibly could at this restaurant because I was so thrilled to be eating good, Middle Eastern food again; in Dahab we basically lived off of store bought pita and condiments, inferior quality falafel sandwiches, and medium quality pizza. After lunch we began our two hour drive to campus and arrived at around 4:30. Thus, was our trip to Dibeen forest. But, luckily, the day wasn’t completely wasted because I was able to meet up with some family friends were visiting Dr. Eric and Dr. Meera for dinner. Then in the evening when I was on duty in the dorm, I watched Casino Royal and wrote post cards to about half the people to whom I had promised to write.

My weekend (Thursday evening)

Now, my plan to get a haircut failed because I just didn’t have the time to get off campus on Thursday night and be back in time for BBQ and games at 5:30. To say a few things about BBQ and games on the dining hall patio, I’ll think I’ll just that that the music was too loud to carry on even the slightest conversation and that the sun set so early that the ping pong tables and playing card packs were pretty much useless by 6:30. At this point, I retreated into the dining hall for a relaxing dinner with both faculty and students, where we ate our meal in peace and enjoyed each other’s company and conversation. Meanwhile, a group of about 15 juniors danced in a huddled pack right in front of the DJ and speakers, leaving at least 90% of the available courtyard space completely empty. Of course, this makes sense considering that Karaoke wasn’t scheduled to start until 8:00. At about 7:10 I walked out of the dining hall onto the dining hall courtyard where I ran into one of my good friends from the freshman class. I asked him how his evening was going and then informed him that I would be able to go on the Dibeen Forest trip after all (he had told me earlier that he was going and that he was sorry that I didn’t have time for it). He replied by saying that he weekend was going horribly and that he wouldn’t be able to go on the Dibeen Forest Trip because his Mother was feeling sick. I asked why he wasn’t enjoying his weekend, or at least the first night of it as I pointed out; and he told me that he was a five day boarder and that all of his friends had already left for the weekend (he was staying for the night. Since I was planning on spending my evening just doing laundry so that I would have more time for the rest of the weekend, I invited him back to my dorm to hang out with me. When I tried thinking of both something other than laundry that I needed do to as well as something that might cheer up this student, I thought of one thing: filling out me absentee ballot and voting for the president of the United States of America. While we (but mostly I )read and re-read both the English and Spanish directions to be sure that we knew what we were doing, the student game himself the talking cure, complaining about the imperfections of the school and asking questions about etiquette. These questions ranged in topic from appropriateness of asking someone about his/her religion to the proper phrasing and tone of questions and replies. When I had finally assured myself that I completely understood the ballot directions, I wrote in the name of my selected candidate, put the ballot inside its envelope, sealed and signed it, put that envelope in another envelope and then sealed that envelope. I gave my ballot to Tiffany Norman (Freshman Dean and teacher) today (October 13, 2008), and she is going to give my ballot and any other faculty member’s ballot/emergency ballot to the U.S. Embassy representatives who are coming to campus this weekend to pick them up. After I filled out my ballot, the student left and I did my laundry and made my bed.

My Weekend

Up to this point, my weekends have been evenly spaced breaks in the weak that have given me time to explore the area or at least rejuvenate for the upcoming week. This last weekend, however, was a major disappointment in almost all respects. The main reason that is was so disappointing was that I simply didn’t accomplish any of my goals for the weekend. There is the possibility, though, that I was setting myself up for disaster from the very beginning. After all, this was my weekend on duty, and I didn’t really need to put so much pressure on myself to accomplish so many things. Nevertheless I wanted this past weekend to be as productive as possible so that I could spend my next weekend either resting or exploring. Now then, for my weekend I had the following items on my to-do list: get a haircut, supervise BBQ and games from 5:30-8:00 on Thursday night, go on the school trip to Dibeen Forest on Friday morning, be on duty in the dorm from 8:00-12:00 on Friday night, chaperon the shopping trip into the city from 12:00-2:45, buy cooking supplies and ingredients, and bake a cobbler for my dorm before study hall at 8:00 on Saturday night. With only the King’s Academy faculty shuttle for transportation, my opportunities to get off campus were quite limited. This, in turn, added to the stress of the weekend.

Eid Al Fitr and Dahab (Hiking Mt. Sinai)

Now, back to our hostella (my new word for posh hostels). Apart from the employees at the front desk being aware of only about half of their offered services and trips, there was something else that I thought was odd. There were absolutely no women working here, just 7 or 8 men ages 25-35. The initial presentation of the hostella was so good that I just figured that there had to be a woman working on the team because I just couldn't believe that these amateur young men could keep the place running so well. I keep mentioning how Penguin Village offered day and overday trips to local attractions so I’ll now write about the one expedition we actually did set out on. For some reason we all really wanted to climb Mt. Sinai at 1:00 in the morning so that we could reach the top in time to see the sunrise. The total expense of the trip was $18, which covered the cost of our four hour bus ride to the base of the mountain and back to Dahab , our guide who led us up the mountain with the light of his cell phone, and our entrance fee to St. Katherine Monastery, located at the base of the mountain. We left Dahab at 11:00 PM sharp for our two hour bus ride to the mountain base. When we got out of the bus at the mountain base we all quickly put on as many warm layers as we had thought necessary to bring. In actuality it was probably only 60 degrees but it felt more like 40 compared to the tropical, beachside weather that we were used to. Then before I knew it, our bus driver was introducing us to our guide and within two minutes we were setting off. Our guide told us that we would first have to climb seven kilometers of hills before we reached the final ascent up the mountain known as “the stairs of repentance”. All the time that we were walking we were in near complete darkness with mountain silhouettes on either side of us but with the clearest starlit sky imaginable above us. We started out walking on a fairly flat dirt road at first but we soon started our actual hike up the surrounding hills. When we began climbing our first major hill I started to worry because I couldn’t see anything and thus had no idea when and where we could take a break. But before long we reached a little hut situated on on a level plane to the side of the main trail. This hut was lit by gas lamps and was manned by a local resident who was selling water, tea, and candy bars, all neatly arranged and displayed next to his front counter. We rested at this hut for about five minutes, during which I rehydrated as much as I could in case we wouldn’t be stopping again anytime soon. But after another 10 minutes of hiking we reached another hut almost identical to one we had just rested in. Thus the routine of the hike became hiking for 10 minutes under the light of the starlit sky and our battery lit cell phones and then resting in mountain huts that doubled as convenient stores. We reached the stairs of repentance I think some of us were a little surprised to see that the stairs weren’t the intricately carved, stone steps that we had imagined. Rather they were just a series of semi flat rocks stacked one on top of the other, though at times were indeed flat enough to be considered stairs. These stairs, in my opinion and in the opinion of the group I think, were of low-medium hiking difficulty. The steps were fairly evenly spaced apart and fairly regular in the height. They helped set a nice pace and were ideal for practicing one’s hiking step. When we reached the final resting hut before the last 50 or so steps to the summit it was about 4:00 AM. We now had nothing to do but sit and freeze from cold air and wind chill until sunrise. Luckily, the huts were now selling blankets. For anywhere from $2.00-$4.00 we could grab a blanket and be allowed to squat in a hut for about an hour and half. This was clearly a complete scam, however ,because the owners of these huts (there were several all next to each other here) clearly didn’t wash the blankets and had a piles and piles of them inside and all around their huts. We were at their mercy and had to consent to renting overpriced blankets to avoid slipping into hypothermia. The good news is that we brought plenty of water and therefore never had to ask what ridiculous prices they were charging for something that they actually did need to replenish regularly. For the next hour and a half or so we basically huddled together under blankets for body heat. Then at about 5:30 we took our blankets, climbed the last fifty steps, found a nice piece of real estate, and huddled for warmth some more until the sun rise. When the sun finally did rise I was shocked to see just how many people had also climbed the mountain this early in the morning and who were now sitting on the summit of Mt.Sinai witnessing this gorgeous spectacle. I even go so far as to estimate that there were as many as one hundred other hikers on the mountain that morning. As soon as the sun had warmed the air around our clumps of bodies and blankets, we began our decent down the mountain so that we could have plenty of time to tour St. Katherine’s monastery. For some reason, though, we decided not to retrace our steps down the mountain the way we came but instead to take another trail with pointed signs reading “St. Katherine’s”. Since other people were taking this path as well, we decided that it had to be safe and that it had to lead somewhere. Oh, and as for our guide, we really hadn’t seen very much of him since 4:00 AM so, when we did see him, at around 6:30 we just said a quick hello and left while he was trying to find the other hikers in our group (not the other gap year students but other people from Penguin Village who also went on the hike). Back to the hike though. The trail we took was absolutely incredible. We were finally seeing all the incredible views and details that we had missed during the night. My one complaint about the decent down, however, would be that it was too fast. But this is understandable because we really didn’t know for sure where this trail was leading us and we needed to at the base of the mountain in time for our shuttle. When we finally did reach the Monastery, I think we were all just too tired to really appreciate it. After all, none of us had gotten any real sleep that night except maybe for the naps we took the day before. But I do remember enjoying the walk through the church and seeing the crowd of people surrounding the famous burning bush, or rather what some claim to be the famous burning bush from the Bible. But other than that I really wasn’t interested in anything else other than getting back in the bus and sleeping. Thus was our one planned activity during our five day vacation in Dahab. The rest of the time we just swam, tanned by the beach, napped, read, and dined. And that was our break for the most part.

Eid Al Fitr and Dahab (more on Dahab)

Around Penguin Village but still in the mid-range area were tourist shops and restaurants, the majority of which were located on the main beach side promenade. On the beach side of the promenade there were the restaurants and on the other side the gift shops and diving centers. Each restaurant was pretty much the same as the one next to it, almost all having two seating options of either rugs, pillows, and a coffee table on the ground or an actual booth and mid-height table. Then the restaurants would usually cover all of this with a canopy and bring out the food from a kitchen next to the shops and dive centers. Although the restaurants all greatly resembled each other both with their menus and prices, the quality of the food varied noticeably from one establishment to another. This especially surprised me because I couldn’t imagine how many different whole-sale food suppliers there could possibly be in the area. We at about three or four of these restaurants during our stay and, for the most part, we mainly ordered pizzas because they were cheap and easy to split. For the rest of the time were bought cheap pita bread, medium priced sliced turkey, cheese, nutella, and fruit. I also brought some Nature Valley granola bars from home to supplement this diet. To the north of this area and up the coast we finally come to the “traditional” Bedouin community. I’m not sure what made it more traditional because I certainly didn’t see anybody living tents. There were building complexes, markets, and drug stores just like the area where I was staying. But, here, there were a more abandoned or vacated lots, a lot more camels and goats, and almost no foreigners. It was when I explored this area that I remembered that I was in a country where Islam was the predominant religion, for I found the mosque from which I had been hearing the distant but distinct calls to prayer. My real reminder, however, came when I tried ordering a falafel sandwich at around 6:30 from a one of the beach side restaurants here. When I made my order the restaurant owner told me that his kitchen could begin making it in fifteen minutes. Since falafel is usually pre-maid and ready to go, I asked if I could be served anytime sooner. Again, I was told I would have to wait fifteen minutes. But then a fellow customer who was noticing my confusion told me that that evening was the last night of Ramadan and that the kitchen crew was currently breaking their fast for the day. My embarrassment for having forgotten it was still Ramadan when I had been living at a school where I had to wait for the call the prayer to end before I could begin eating my evening meal was so great that I wanted to start recited all my knowledge of Islam right then and there just so the people around me wouldn’t think me completely ignorant. I decided, however, that I be doing myself and all foreigners more of a service just by apologizing and nodding in understanding. One observation of this northern, traditional area that I’ll write down here was that a lot of the children were playing with highly realistic toy guns that even made a slight popping noise when the trigger was pulled. These toy guns were more realistic than any other toy guns I had ever seen and I just couldn’t believe that the parents of these children didn’t seem to mind raising their children in this violent context.

Eid Al Fitr and Dahab (our lodgings)

It was in this middle class area where we stayed. Our hotel/hostel, for I don’t make a clear distinction because I still don’t know what to call it, was named Penguin Village (my descriptions won’t do the place justice so I recommend looking at the gallery on their website at http://www.penguindahab.com/ . It had a beach side restaurant-complete with a wooden/bamboo upper deck for tanning, cushioned chairs for reading under the deck or looking out toward the ocean, seating areas consisting of rugs, lounge pillows, and a center table; and of course very decent food for very decent prices. Even though the restaurant was right on the beach, we were warned not go swimming because of the inherit risk of stepping on sand sharks. We therefore had to walk about a mile down the coast to the fancy European resort area if we wanted safe swimming. However, the water next to our hotel and restaurant was absolutely an absolutely beautiful shade of both Caribbean and sapphire blue, and the view of Saudi Arabia right across the gulf was, for me, awe inspiring. Penguin Village also had it own internet café which provided slow but decent internet quality for about $1.60. Its rooms for the most part surrounded a center courtyard that was right in front of the restaurant. The room I stayed in had four beds, each provided with two sheets, a blanket and a pillow; a bureau and two bedside tables, a working bathroom, though the water had a salty, iron taste to it and the pressure was minimal; and a broken down air conditioner complemented by two working fans. We stayed in this room all for the low price of about $6.00 per night. But my overall favorite resource that this hotel/hostel had to offer was, of course, the front desk. It was also because of this front desk that I cannot decide if this establishment fits under the hostel or hotel category. All around this front desk are signs displaying all the services and trips offered by Penguin Village. These services and trips include transportation to ports up and down the coast, guided hikes up Mt. Sinai, over day trips to Petra in Jordan, camel safaris, dinner with local Bedouins, as well as snorkeling and diving trips to national parks and secluded diving spots in the area. Unfortunately, as I quickly discovered, there were really only one or two employees of a team of about seven who knew anything about these services and trips. But I could even with them that they did indeed offer this services and trips, or at least some of them, I first had to find them because they were only stationed at the front desk during short, sporadic intervals during the day. This isn’t to say that they weren’t working because they certainly were. They were just running back and forth and from room to room looking like they were struggling to hold the place together while they left the front desk completely deserted. I didn’t mind waiting at the front desk for someone to stop by and answer my questions but I did mind that they were leaving spare room keys, money, and in some cases passports without anyone to keep an eye on them. Granted the passports were usually kept in drawers, but the room keys were hanging in plain sight. Our passports, luckily, were only kept here for about an hour on the first day so that the front desk could photo copy them and fax these copies to the American Embassy in Cairo; I was certainly impressed by this.

Eid Al Fitr and Dahab (Dahab)

Skipping past the ferry ride, I think I’ll just go ahead and talk about Dahab now. Dahab, in my opinion, is divided into three sections. To the south, there is the expensive European hotel/resort area. This area is right on the main lagoon where some of the best windsurfing conditions in the world are found. Of course the water is perfect for swimming and the view of the surrounding mountains is picturesque. Up the coast to the north we have the middle class area where we stayed. In this area, there are markets , restaurants, tourist shops, and diving clubs. While we saw more native Egyptians in this area, though they were mainly running the shops, restaurants, and hotels, the area was mostly populated by tourists of all nationalities and ages. There were college students who were back packing across the Middle East, Families bringing their children (ages infant-18) for a relaxing vacation, and even more experienced travelers who were staying in Dahab to experience its world renown diving spots.

Eid Al Fitr and Dahab (Traveling)

Marking the end of Ramadan is the celebratory holiday of Eid Al Fitr, a holiday of alms giving and family. For this holiday, the school gave a four day vacation to its students and teachers. For this holiday break, I along with six other junior fellows chose the coastal village of Dahab, Egypt to spend our days relaxing under the sun. The trip started in Amman, the capital city of Jordan. From Jordan we took a four hour bus ride down to the coastal city of Aqaba. The bus we took was a comfortable, air conditioned coach bus which transported us across the country for half the price of a half-hour taxi ride from Amman to the school. This was by far the smoothest phase of travel during the trip. We arrived in Aqaba at about 6:00 PM only to fully realize that, while we had researched all the details of transportation and lodging in Dahab, we had forgotten to find a place to stay for this one night in Aqaba. But somehow, either by the internet research done with Quiznos wi-fi or the sidewalk chats with fellow tourists, we managed to find a direction to set out in. And sure enough, we soon found a simple, fairly clean hotel, located right next to the center of town, offering beds for the low price of about $9 per person. After settling in and making a quick trip into the city to purchase a falafel dinner, we were pretty much ready to call it a night early so that we could wake up at 4:00 AM the next morning to catch our 7:00 ferry ride to Egypt. Of course, by “call it a night early” I mean to say that we somehow went to bed around midnight. As for the ferry ride, well, this was probably the most jagged phase of travel. Although we’re all proud of ourselves for managing to get to wake up and get to the port in Aqaba by 4:20, the men at the ticket counter had news that would turn our feelings of pride and accomplishment to feelings of complete panic and confusion. The officials at the port informed us that our 7:00 AM ferry would actually be leaving at 12:00 AM and that our tickets would actually cost us $75 rather than our estimate of $40. After the trip, I compared our Lonely Planet research to the information on the ferry’s website and while some points of information were advertises as they were, others didn’t match up at all. Adding to our early morning confusion, of course, were also the facts that we couldn’t read the traveling information written in Arabic, we were traveling with expired Jordanian tourist visas that we needed to get extended before we could leave, and that almost all the desks were still closed at this hour in the morning. So we did the only thing we could do at that point, and that was wait. When the clock finally hit 7:00 we resumed our persistent series of questions and requests for visas, exit stamps, and tickets of course. With our persistence and the occasional translator were all set to go and on the ferry by about 10:00.