An Ivy in Amman

Today was an eventful day for the school community and especially for the junior fellows. On campus, the school hosted its inaugural annual International Peace Day. While, off campus, Columbia University celebrated the official opening of its Middle East Research Center. For its peace day, the school created an alternative schedule in which students, instead of attending classes, gathered in small groups for discussions, made posters of historical figures, and heard guest speakers such as the minister of social development and His Majesty King Abdullah. Since the itinerary of events at the Columbia Middle East Research Center wasn't scheduled to begin until 11:45, the junior fellows were able to attend the school's morning meeting that began the school's day of peace. The school community began its meeting with a video made by Peace Around the World (student club). Next we listened to the Minister of Social Development for about 45 minutes. Her talk focused mainly on the role of youth in Jordan, discussing how Jordan needs to accommodate a greater increase in births and how Jordan needs to provide resources for its youth to actively engage in community service. After this first part of the day students and teachers met with their assigned activity groups in their assigned locations across campus to discuss peace in the Middle East and to make posters on famous historical figures who have contributed to peace. Meanwhile, the junior fellows got ready to leave for Columbia’s Middle East Research Center. When we arrived we registered at the front desk, collected our nametags and pamphlets, and wandered around until we found our way to the auditorium. The first panel/lecture for the day was titled “Changing Perspectives of the Middle East in the Media”. The panel of speakers included Ethan Bronner, Ipek Taha, and Rashid Khalidi. The main points of discussion centered around the recent turmoil in Gaza and the frustrations that journalists faced when trying to report on those events. They also discussed how American perspectives almost always have a bias for Israel and acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and its positive contributions, whereas most of the world explores both arguments. After a short but incredible lunch break, we then gathered back in the auditorium to hear from the program’s guest of honor, Jeffrey Sachs, who was the only speaker to have the stage all to himself and whose time was the spoken of as the most valued. Indeed, even Mr. Sachs himself didn’t hesitate to inform us that he had a call with the UN in 40 minutes and that he was frustrated with Obama Administration’s decision to increase the national deficit to over one trillion. As for what Jeffrey Sachs actually spoke of, he basically expressed his views that most of the world’s most serious regional conflicts, such as Sudan, Central Asia, and even Gaza, can actually be described as water and natural resource conflicts. He didn’t say that these conflicts were only results of lack of natural resources, but he did say that they were major factors. He also talked about how global warming is indeed real, how the Middle East can and should invest in solar, wind, and hydro electric (Red to Dead Canal) power, and how countries simply need to effectively assess the prices of these new technologies. After Jeffrey Sachs we heard a talk about Islam in the 21st century from two speakers with slightly different experience but with similar opinions. The speakers were Peter J. Awn, Dean of School of General Studies and director of the Middle East Institute, and Naif Al-Mutawa, creator of THE 99, the first ever comic book to feature main characters with Islamic backgrounds. Both speakers expressed their opinion that Muslims need to send the right image of Islam to rest of the world so that outsiders do not form opinions based on the views of radical views. Mr. Naif Al-Mutawa even said that Muslims need to “take charge” of their religion. He then told a story about a disagreement he had with someone about the proper interpretation of the Quran. In order to support his own interpretation, Al-Mutawa asked this person if he knew what the first word of the Quran meant. When the man responded that the first word meant “read”, Al-Mutawa retorted by saying that the first word also means “spread” (i.e. the prophet did not know how to read when he received the word of God. Al-Mutawa then posed the question of how someone can be so sure about an interpretation of the Quran if that person doesn’t even know the meaning of the first word. After all the speakers had presented, the day’s events ended with a reception, a jazz performance, followed by a dinner, all of which took place in the central courtyard.

Rain

Today I was planning to go into Amman to do some much needed sightseeing of the city's attractions, such as King Abdullah Mosque or Amman's Roman aqueduct. But, since Jordan's long awaited rainy season is hitting us with a monsoon today, I think I'll just take it easy and stay on campus. I said that the rainy season was long awaited, but that isn't entirely true. We had had one or two rain storms before today's, but not enough to adequately prepare Jordan for the summer and the harvest season. So, really, I'm happy that it's raining today because I'm always hearing that Jordan is on the verge of a drought and that Jordan "is in real trouble". One of our students even submitted an article about the steps Jordan needs to take in response to the lack of rain to a student journalism competition. But, to be honest, we haven't yet experienced any hardship here at school. I'm still taking unnecessarily long showers, the school is still watering the grass, and people in the city are still washing their cars in the streets. Maybe this happens every year? One thing that really has been bothering people (or the students at least) is the complete lack of snow this winter. King's Academy is basically selling itself to prospective students by saying that part of its boarding experience involves living on a campus covered in snow. We have pictures of the school's winter wonder land on our stationary, admissions brochures, and even on our website. But students are still hoping that we'll get at least one snowfall before the end of winter.

Giving Tours

As part of my "internship" in College Counseling here at school, I am sometimes asked (usually at the last minute) to give tours to university representatives. My tours usually show the auditorium, the library, one entrance of the sprawling academic complex, the dining hall, and sometimes the dorms and athletic facilities. Every representative asks different questions but they almost all ask about the make-up of the student body and faculty. Now you'd think I would have asked someone for an official percentage, but I'm still answering these questions with my guess that "most" of our students come from Amman and that "about half" of our teachers are American. These are the answers I gave to our most recent visiting representatives. However, these representatives were from universities but from an American, after-school program called Single Planet Immediately. (I’m using synonyms so the Google police won't find me). SPI is a Seattle-based after-school program that seeks to provide low-income students with an international perspective and with opportunities to attend college. SPI teaches Arabic and Chinese after school twice a week, runs, summer camps, and awards scholarships to motivated students. SPI has been called one of the most innovative and successful after-school programs in the country (by Time Magazine I think). Anyway, these three representative and one of their students are touring the Middle East because their looking for potential partners with whom they can create study abroad programs for their students. From my understanding, nobody here at school really knows how we could help with that but we've at least had a chance to meet now. S'anyways, I actually gave these representatives a tour along with another JF. I think the school may have asked two junior fellows to give this tour because these representatives said that they're trying very hard to promote the gap year idea for their students. I'm guessing that our representatives got really excited when we told them that our gap-year program is almost entirely all expenses paid. It was hard to tell though because they were pretty much excited the entire time since they only had twenty minutes to tour the campus before they had to leave for Amman. Some highlights of the tour were when they asked each of us to promote the gap-year experience on camera and when my colleague made me lock elbows with her and "frolic" across a stretch of grass (the rules technically say you have to if you walk on the grass). I think our representatives especially liked seeing that because I'm pretty sure I saw one of them filming us when we were ahead of them. I'm not sure what's going to come as a result of SPI's visit, but it was a fun tour and they were all really nice people.

Valentine's Day

We have Halloween and we have a season of giving, so it's no surprise that we have a Valentine's Day celebration, complete with a coin drive, flower delivery service, and a Valentine's Day dance. It's also no surprise that we're celebrating Valentines Day through out the entire week after Valentine's Day. For some reason we just can't celebrate holidays on their actual date: we celebrated Halloween a week early (parents weekend) and we had our season of giving in November (December break). S'anyways, we had a coin drive for Gaza but I don't think that went really well because we already had a major coin drive for Gaza in January. Then the student government and student live office ran a flower delivery service that let students by friendship flowers and romance flowers for the friends and valentines. Of course, students could send flowers anonymously if they wanted. I'm happy to say that I even got an anonymously sent flower, though it was a friendship flower. It made my day, but I have to admit that I felt a little disconcerted when I saw a sophomore girl with a bouquet medley of friendship and romance flowers. Then two nights ago the school had its Valentine's Day Dance. It was actually because of this dance that we celebrated Valentine's Day a week late. They didn't start planning and promoting the dance until two days for Thursday, the 12th; and so the day students and weekday boarders didn't have enough time to plan. Overall, though, our Valentine's Day celebration was just as successful as those for Halloween and the season of giving.

Guest Artist

Last Monday, the school hosted its first guest speaker since Jane Taylor visited in November. The speaker was a poet named Suhair Hammad, a Jordanian born poet who grew up in Brooklyn. She recited a few of her poems but she mostly related her personal philosophy on poetry to the audience. She said that, for her, poetry is a means of expressing frustration in a non-violent, constructive, and creative way. She said that that poetry is about how one feels and taking everyday feelings and observations and creating from them………….So, I guess she doesn't sound that inspirational. But our students absolutely loved her. She was an expert in what I've heard referred to as "Slam Poetry". She had energy, attitude, and way of captivating the audience. Our students absolutely loved her, but I don't think anyone in the audience knew what to do with her. Whenever she tried getting a response or discussion or rise from the students, they mainly just gave simple, short answers or said that they didn't know. She asked one of our students what it feels like to be a student here and she asked everyone how they felt about not being able to help the victims of the recent Gaza attacks. But I know that she felt that she connected with the audience on some level because two of our students were brave enough to get on stage with her and read their own, original work. And the "performance" lasted longer than it was supposed to so I guess that means we were doing something right.

Jesus in Islam

So, although I cannot claim to be an expert on any matters of Islamic Doctrine simply because I meet with a university certified instructor once a week for a one-hour discussion, I still think I should write about my understandings and interpretations. I'll start off by writing, ironically enough, about the place of Jesus in Islam. So then, Jesus is a major prophet in Islam and should therefore be respected. Last week I read that, when Jerusalem was first conquered by the expanding Islamic Ummayad Empire, that the Muslim conquerors refrained from destroying the tomb of the Sepulchre because of Jesus' special status as a prophet in Islam. All prophets in Islam-including Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Jesus, and of course Mohammad- have the special status of being chosen to spread God's message on earth. Some prophets may have emphasized certain aspects of God's message over others, such as the pragmatic aspects preached by Moses (Musa) or the spiritual aspects preached by Jesus (Isa); but they all preached the same message. But Mohammad is considered the final prophet because he delivered God's message to the world in a pure, unaltered form. Back to the Jesus though, an undisputed belief in Islam is that Jesus was not crucified by the Romans but instead was physically taken up into heaven right before the Romans were going to arrest him. Muslims believe that one signal of Judgment day will be Jesus' return to earth, when he will live out the rest of his life as a mortal and die.

Haram and Halal

Moving on, I'll relate my understanding of the dietary restrictions in Islam. In Islam, God states that consuming anything that is good for the body is halal (allowed) and that consuming anything that is bad for the body haram (not allowed). Our instructor says that many people focus too much on few harams in Islam and too little on the many halals. Although the Quran does forbid the consumption of alcohol, our instructor says that a Muslim's decision to drink or not drink alcohol is not as important as his/her faith and observance of the fundamental beliefs of Islam-those of living with God, living with the poor, and bettering one's self and the world. As for the dietary restrictions on the consumption of pork, I believe that there is pragmatic reasoning behind this haram. The main reasoning being that, during the prophet's time, it was completely impractical to raise pigs in the Hijaz region, where Mohammad lived, because pigs required large amounts of food and water and yielded relatively little meat in return. In other words, pigs were seen as useless and expensive animals.

Prayer

Next I'll write about the pillar of Islam that addresses prayer. One of the pillars of Islam asks that Muslims pray five times a day. Our instructor says that God asks Muslims to pray five times a day because he wants them to live in close relationship with him and to remind them not commit Haram. The five prayers occur at these times of day: first light, noon, afternoon, sunset, and evening.

Part of this pillar mentions the weekly occasion for congregational prayer. Muslims congregate for prayer on Friday during the noon prayer time, usually in mosques. The pillar requires all men to attend Friday congregations but only welcomes woman to attend. Our instructor says that women can go but usually don't.

Jinn and Eve

Not only does Islam have humans made from earth and angels made from light, but also jinn made from fire. Unlike angels, God created jinn and humans to have free will. I believe that there are good jinn as well as bad jinn but that they are both invisible to humans. However they do influence human behavior, just in unseen ways. A well-known jinn in Islam is Iblise. The story that our instructor told us is that God created Iblise before Adam but that God asked Iblise to bow to Adam (I think because God chose Adam to inherit the earth and chose to test him in this role). When Iblise refused to bow to Adam God banished him to hell. Shortly afterwards, however, Iblise got his revenge on Adam by tricking him and Eve (Howwa) into eating the forbidden fruit. I should note here that our instructor told us explicitly that Iblise tricked Adam and Eve in unseen ways and that it was ABSOLUTELY not "Eve's Fault".

Jihad

Now I'm tired and don't feel like writing much more, which is a shame seeing as how I'm about to write about on one of the most popular western misconceptions of Islam: the meaning of the word, Jihad. Our instructor tells us that the world Jihad comes from the Arabic word, ja-ha-da, which she translated as meaning to do one's best/ to strive to do better. However, by the end of the lesson I understood Jihad to mean to be faced with a difficult decision but to make the right choice. People can jihad (I think she used it as a verb) by choosing to do one's homework, to clean one's room, to donate to charity, by choosing to many other small, but good things. We did discuss why Jihad is associated with war and violence today, and I now have my own understanding that I feel correctly reconciles the true meaning of Jihad and the exaggerated meaning. I think one can jihad by choosing to defend one's homeland from an outside aggressor. This makes sense to me because many people have to struggle to make the decision to go to war and defend one's land/country. I also think my understanding of the word makes sense because it explains why many people believe Jihad to mean holy war. People can believe they are taking on a Jihad by killing innocent people if they believe their homeland is being attacked or if they have no other means of fighting. Anyway, I'm done.

Islamic Theology

And my last bit of news is that a small number of junior fellows and I have succeeded in organizing our own directed study in Islamic Theology!! We meet once a week to discuss with a teacher from school to discuss any thoughts or questions we have on our assigned readings-presumably, either text or article excerpts . We've only met once and we still don't have our reading for our next meeting, but I'm very optimistic. For one thing, we're lucky enough to have the head of the department of ethics, religion, and philosophy teaching our class. She has a bachelor in Islamic law and a ministry issued certificate in Quranic reading and recitation. But I'm really optimistic about this directed study because our first meeting went so well. Our teacher began the lesson by teaching us that Islam's mission is to make the world a better place and that the "core of Islam is how to be good to others". We then moved on to talk about the six articles of faith-faith in God, faith in angels, faith in prophets, faith in books, faith in judgement day, and faith in Khudr (fate and predestination I think). Anyway faith in God basically means faith that God deserves to sole worship from Mankind for his benevolence and power. Faith in angels basically means faith that angels exist, are completely obedient to God, are made of light, don't have survival needs, and assist God in numerous ways. Iphrael, for example signals the end of time when he blows his horn. And the Angel of Death holds the souls of dead until this time when God judges them. One interesting thing about the Angel of Death is that he comes to a dying person in either a good form or a bad form, depending on how that person led his/her life. Another interesting thing is that the Angel of Death has no name, not even the name, "Azrael"(apparently this name originates from The Old Testament, but I'll have to research that). We talked a little about Faith in Prophets but not in enough detail because class was ending when we reached this article. Anyway, I'm exited to see where this goes.

More on Gaza

As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues to devastate the land and people of Gaza, now raising the Palestinian death toll over 1000, people everywhere are coming together to respond to this crisis. Throughout this entire week the school and its community has been investing nearly all its energy and resources into providing aid for the people of Gaza and the people whose lives have been affected by the crisis there. Last Tuesday, for example, the school made its first official use of our spiritual center of the year by holding a candle light vigil in the spiritual center's central courtyard. The school invited all members of the community to this vigil, where students and faculty alike could read a poem, sing a song, or simply express themselves on the crisis. The vigil began at 7:00 in the side dining hall, where the community service department and student volunteers were distributing prayer flags and selling bracelets, pins, and Kheffiyehs (Palestinian, black and white scarves/head garb ) to raise aid money for Gaza. Once everyone had settled the community service department invited students and other guests to talk, read, or sing about the crisis. In the half hour that followed we heard both students and faculty sing songs, both in English and in Arabic; read poetry, in English, Arabic, and even Japanese; and share their experiences of living in Palestine and meeting people from all over the region. Afterwards, we passed around candles and lit them from person to person until we were ready to proceed outside and up the hill to the Spiritual Center. We gathered around the central fountain and stood in silence until about 7:55 when the head of the community service department reminded us that the students needed to be in their dorms by 8:00 for study hall.

This was the first community event of the week to raise support for Gaza. The second event, called "Pizza for Palestine" was two days later in the dining hall. The event all started with the generosity of one of our student's fathers, who owns a pizzeria in Amman. To help the people of Gaza and to provide a tasty alternative the regular dining hall menu, this man donated over 850 Jordanian Dinars worth of pizza to school, all of which was donated directly to buying aid supplies for Gaza. Pizzas sold at 8 JD for a whole pizza and 4 JD for a half. What I'm still unsure of, however, is whether the dining hall served just plain spaghetti and salad by coincidence or as a motivating factor for students to buy pizza and give money for a good cause.

And our third event for this week, "Souq Gaza" is actually taking place tomorrow in Amman, though the school isn't organizing this one. I'm not sure exactly what to expect but I'm sure I'll see local merchants selling both donated items and their own local products at prices set to raise money for Gaza. The school plans to participate by setting up its own booth, which will sell items donated by the school, and by bringing its own students eager to do some shopping.

Winter at School

Okay, so this is my first major entry in a long time. I'll start with the basics of what's been happening here. Coming back to campus in late December and early January, I have seen for the first time what the campus looks like during the winter. The grass has faded from its healthy shade of green to a barren quilt of brown and grey patches. I guess the campus doesn't plan to water the grounds much this winter. This might sound environmentally friendly except that now I'm pretty sure we don't have any means of reusing our shower water as part of our grey water system. Apart from the grass, our sycamore trees have completely lost their leaves, though the jacaranda and olives look almost the same as they did during the summer. But of course, nobody can see the biggest change in the campus since winter set it: the change in temperature. The temperature here fluctuates just as dramatically as one would expect in a desert region. During the day the temperature can get as high as the low sixties, whereas it can drop to the low forties to the high thirties at night. I know that the temperature can get that low because we had nothing else to talk about at the beginning of the week when the heat still hadn't completely turned on. For most this week I had been sleeping in sweatpants and sweatshirt and praying every morning that the showers would dispense their reliably hot water instead of the luke warm rinse that it gave on the first morning. But the heat has finally turned on and I am now warm enough to live and work here.

Environmental Awareness at school

Although we're consuming precious fossil fuels and wasting energy in the excess heat we produce, the school is planning to raise environmental awareness in the community this winter. Already in the dorms we have stickers above the light switches reminding people to turn off the lights and the students are already outraged at the mere mention of the phrases, "Meatless Monday" and "Tray less Tuesday". But the real eco-friendly initiatives won't start until later in the winter. By then the school will have hopefully begun its compost pile, its recycling program, and its dorm water consumption competition. An extra initiative that I plan to take is to pick up more trash around campus. Earlier this year, I chose to ignore trash left on the grounds and around the dorms because I wanted the students to see what a littered campus looks like. But that was a stupid idea because the grounds keeping staff provides a practically 24 hour sweeping service. But I do think that these initiatives are truly going to spread some much needed environmental awareness around campus this winter.

The January Intersession

So, because its really too cold to exercise outside and because we only have one pool, one gym, and no hockey rink; the school is running an intersession season for the month of January instead of a winter co-curricular season. During this intersession period the school will be taking full advantage of its faculty's talents so that it can offer fun workshops for its students. These workshops could range in anything from cooking, to mosaic making, to salsa dancing, to photography, to gym training, and even to robotics. From what I've seen, though, a lot of the students are not taking full advantage of these rare and fun activities. In fact, every time that I have asked a student if he/she is excited for the intercession period I've only elicited a reply of about two sentences, except in the case of salsa dancing that is.

Gaza

Now I come to topic that is on almost everyone's mind here at all times: the situation in Gaza. Since late December, the situation in Gaza has only gone from bad to worse. Gaza city has been bombed on an almost daily basis while friends, allies, and supporters have had only limited means to communicate and to send much needed medical supplies. But the school is doing everything is can for "our brothers and sisters in Gaza", as I've heard students refer to residents of Gaza during morning meeting. The school has asked the community to donate money and/or any medical supplies to the community service office and to keep the people of Gaza in our thoughts and prayers. Unfortunately, actually getting the medical supplies into Gaza is the hard part since very little humanitarian aid is being allowed into Gaza right now. Next week, the school plans to hold a candle light vigil in the spiritual center. Some of the junior fellows are even trying to organize a trip to Madaba so that we can donate blood. Now, although I try to mention students as little as possible in this blog, I feel that I do need to mention the words of one student in particular so that I can convey a sense of how close and how real this conflict feels to me now. During an all school meeting a student stood in front of the stage next to Dr. Eric to talk to everyone about Gaza. The student related that she hag lived in Gaza city from age 1-9 but that here grandmother still lives there. The student told us that she had spoken to her grandmother a few days before and had heard that her old school had been bombed and that the city "smells like death". I'm gradually starting to feel closer and closer to this conflict almost to the point where I feel as if I'm surrounded by it. Not only is Gaza city only about a 4 or 5 hour drive from here, but now Lebanon has joined the conflict by firing its own missiles into Israel as Egypt works continuously to negotiated a cease fire. I'm honestly starting to feel a little scared actually. Neither Israel nor Hamas is showing any signs of compromising and nobody knows how exactly how bad this situation might get or when it will show signs of improvement. I hate to sound egocentric, but I'm trying to give my future self a sense of what I'm experiencing here at school. I think about the suffering and destruction that is taking place so close to me every day and I hope that I can give my money, my blood, and whatever else I can to the people and families of Gaza.