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.