52 New Things

Jordan Challenge 24 : Getting Active in Jordan

2012-01-17T03:44:00.000-08:00

Although winter in Jordan can't hold a candle to winter in Vermont in terms of temperature, snow or length, it is still not the mild drop in temperature I was expecting. It's cold and rainy and the tough part is that going indoors isn't a great help because nothing is insulated. The plus side, I guess, is that eventually you figure out that you're about as well off leaving the uncomfortable indoors and venturing back out. Which in turn (together with some of the great friends I've been lucky to meet since coming to Amman) inspired me to get moving again, on a bike and in the rock climbing gym, in the last couple of weeks.

Back in the first month I was here I took a bike ride with the awesome group Cycle Jordan. I'd been meaning to do some more, and when they sent out a notice inviting people to join in a Dead Sea ride as a way to end 2011 and prepare for 2012 on a high note, it seemed an excellent idea. Happily, my friends Elizabeth, Jayme, Sarah and Gaelle were all up for the adventure, and so off we went. In addition to the ride, Cycle Jordan treated us to a terrific barbecue at the entrance to Wadi Mujeb, a very well know National Park featuring a deep canyon that allows for "wet hikes" and abseiling in the spring (which will, I hope be the subject of a write up in March or April).

Jayme, Gaelle, Elizabeth and I on the bus from Amman (bikes on the roof).

A bit of the scenery from our starting point (Jayme's photo)

...and us at our actual starting point (Jayme's photo)

Gaelle, Elizabeth, Sarah and Jayme at the end of the ride.

Not only did Cycle Jordan provide a fabulous barbecue, they even brought marshmallows for roasting at the camp fire. We all agreed that we will definitely be doing this again!

One of my favorite discoveries from my 2010 Year of New Things was rock climbing. There are all kinds of reasons that I think it's a great activity, most of which I've chronicled in previous posts. When I packed my bags to move to Jordan for the year, I threw in my harness and climbing shoes, because I knew, both that Jordan has some very famous outdoor climbing areas and that Amman is home to Climbat, the first climbing gym in the Middle East. Though it took me a full four months to do it, I am happy to report that my gear has finally made it out of the closet and onto Climbat's wall.

My cycling friends Jayme and Gaelle are both also avid rock climbers, and unlike me, have been going on a regular basis indoors and out since we all arrived here in September. When Jayme reminded me that I had resolved to start in the New Year and more than a week had already passed, I knew she was right. So, on a Thursday night I joined the two of them, plus some of their climbing friends to re-acquaint myself with knots and ropes and sore muscles. I forgot to bring my camera, but happily, received a second climbing invitation almost immediately from yet another fellow Fulbrighter, Elizabeth K. Although I was still nursing sore shoulders from my Thursday night session, I joined Elizabeth, her friend Ahmad, fellow Fulbrighter Usama, and Tim, Ben and Will for a Sunday morning session as well.

Usama headed straight to the top on his very first climb.

Elizabeth and Usama show a little post-climb exhilaration after their first climbs of the day.

Ahmad showing his approval while Ben gives Will a refresher on knot-tying.

Tim and Ben do a quick consult before Tim heads up the wall.

It was Usama's first time climbing and Elizabeth's second, which threw me in the ironic position of being The Teacher of the Knot, meaning that I got to show them how to make a figure eight and "tie in" to start climbing. Turns out that spending a rainy day in a climbing gym with a group of people you don't know well is not only a great way to get some exercise, but also to get to know those people a lot better (nothing bonds two people faster than having one of them holding the other high up on a wall by the tension in a rope). And because Tim was involved, we also all had to stretch our brains a bit. In between climbs we had to try to figure out the ten countries of the world with four letter names (in English) and the four with only one vowel (y doesn't count). Now that my muscles are no longer sore, and I finally figured out the tenth country (Oman), I'm ready to head back to Climbat. Here's hoping for more time on a bike and on the wall in 2012!

Jordan Challenge #23: Cross the Border with Chris

2011-12-31T07:26:00.000-08:00

Before the year ends, I wanted to post one last challenge that I completed with Chris while he was visiting in November. This one turned out to take some doing, mainly because of forces beyond our control. When I asked Chris what he wanted to see before he got here, he suggested Israel and the West Bank, and Jerusalem in particular. On a map, that looks like a fairly simple undertaking. The distance from Amman, where I live, to Jerusalem is only 44 miles. But it requires a bus or cab from Amman to the border (known as the King Hussein Bridge on the Jordan side and the Allenby Bridge on the Palestinian/Israeli side), a different bus that goes through the no-man's land between the Jordanian and Israeli border stations, a third bus or cab once processed on the Palestinian/Israeli side, multiple checkpoints on both sides, and searching of luggage and passport handling on both sides. So, though the distance is short, the process is not.

And everything gets more complicated still when you're in the position I was at the time, of applying for my residence permit and fearing that my passport might get called for at any moment by the immigration people here for processing. But as always, Fulbright staffer and miracle worker Iman came through, made many calls to various offices on my behalf, and determined that I'd be able to make my way over without endangering my application process here. So, on Thanksgiving Day (the morning after our stuff-ourselves-silly Fulbright Thanksgiving Dinner), Chris and I packed our backpacks and headed over.

Once we arrived we set ourselves at the very spartan but awesomely-located Palm Hostel in East Jerusalem almost directly across from Damascus Gate. For those who have never visited the city, a huge proportion of what draws tourists and religious pilgrims of all persuasions lies behind the walls of the Old City, which is famously divided into Muslim, Jewish, Christian and Armenian quarters. Most of the Gates (and there are 11 total, though only 7 are open) enter into very complicated narrow streets that feel more like tunnels in parts, lined with shops, restaurants and holy sites. Inside the Walls are, among other attractions, the Temple Mount (Sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims as the place where Abraham offered his son Isaac in sacrifice (though God did not make him go through with it) including the Dome of the Rock where the sacrifice was prepared and also where Muslims believe that Mohammad ascended into Heaven), the Western Wall (also known as the Wailing Wall -- where Jews go to mourn that destruction of the sacred Second Temple), the Via Dolorosa (Way of Sorrows) where Christians believe Jesus carried the cross to his crucifixion, and several churches, including the gigantic Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the spot where Christians believe Jesus was crucified. One of the most interesting bits for me about this church is that parts of it are claimed by, among others, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Ethiopian and Egyptian Coptic Christians, and so the keys have been entrusted to a Muslim family to keep the peace among all the sects. For a direction-challenged person like myself, it's all crammed confusingly close together and it's incredibly easy to get lost in the narrow passageways.

Approaching the Old City from the West Jerusalem side.

Chris standing in front of the Western Wall. Though we visited it at night, there were hundreds of people there.

Standing within the Jewish Quarter of the Old City.

One of the cool things you can do inside the Old City is climb up on the rooftops near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and look at the Dome of the Rock. That's how this picture was taken.

Monks chanting a prayer inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The view of East Jerusalem as you exit from Damascus Gate.

While we were up on the rooftops, Chris made a friend. She made him sit there for about an hour, and if she'd had her way, we'd still be sitting there.

As it turns out, getting lost was actually a good thing, because it opened the way to a thoroughly wonderful experience. On our first night, I managed to get totally disoriented and a man passing by had a fun time watching Chris and I disagree about where to turn next. When we finally made our way out through Damascus Gate, he approached us and fave me a good-natured ribbing about my mistakes. This led to a longer conversation, which in turn led to what I have found to be a typically Palestinian response to strangers, a sincere and hospitable offer to come over to dinner. We accepted, and spent the evening at the home of Mohammad and his wife Yusra, after Mohammad gave us a tour of his community, the homes of his extended family, and the difficult changes that had occurred there since he was a child. Both Mohammad and Yusra had lived large chunks of their lives in the United States with other spouses, and had many interesting stories from those experiences. Mohammad had gone to college in the US and created a successful business there, while Yusra had married as a teenager and accompanied her husband to the US, where her husband died and she found herself suddenly coping with the challenge of raising four children as a single parent in a foreign country. However, both Mohammad and Yusra have deep family ties in East Jerusalem, and returned in part to help resist the shrinking of Palestinian control and ownership of land in East Jerusalem that has steadily eroded the community there. It was an amazing experience to share the lives of two of such wonderfully generous people who decided on a whim to open up their home to us.

Yusra and I (with the very few of the fabulous stuffed grape leaves we couldn't eat sitting on the table behind us)

Among other things, Mohammad and Yusra served us clementines off their own tree. We were raving about how good they were, so they sent us home with some that Chris and Mohammad picked.

From Jerusalem, we took a bus to Tel Aviv which is situated right on the Mediterranean Ocean. Our timing was less-than-perfect, however. It was November, and too cold for swimming (unless you were a surfer or diver with a wet suit and we saw quite a few). We also arrived on a Friday afternoon, and at sundown, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath, the outdoor market where we were haggling over dried fruit suddenly shut down in a hurry. We wound up staying a few kilometers down the coast in the lovely seaside town of Jaffa and spent a day or so exploring both places.

A view of Tel Aviv from the beach...

..and at night.

And a night-time shot of Jaffa, just a couple pleasant kilometer's walk along the seashore.

Then we headed back to Jerusalem, and ultimately, across the River Jordan (which is not, as the bible hymn says, "deep and wide", but actually has been overused to the point that it now most resembles a muddy ditch) to seek out a few more sights for Chris to see before he headed back to Vermont.

Jordan Challenge 22: Host a Fulbrighter Wigilia in Amman

2011-12-25T01:08:00.000-08:00

So, I think it would be a fair criticism if someone were to point out that some of the things that I have billed on this blog as "challenges" -- like going to a hamman or becoming a Rainbow Streeter -- are awfully luxurious as challenges go. But I do have to say that Challenge 22 really did take some doing in order to happen. For starters, there were some elements that seemed intent on stopping it, from my oven, which made a spectacular suicide attempt the day before it was to be put to major use, to the Jordanian postal service, somewhere in the bowels of which are residing communion wafers sent by my sister Katrinka from Tacoma for the Wigilia first course. Then there was the ever-expanding guest list for what is normally a seven course sit-down dinner. And finally, there was the Ingredient Substitution Challenge as I learned how to make some things from scratch (like the borscht, which we usually bought already prepared) and figured out what could fill in for something else (No dried Polish mushrooms? Try Chinese. Aren't communion wafers supposed to resemble unleavened bread? We surely are surrounded by that here. Can't find pickled herring anywhere in the city? Sift through the tins of canned fish at the grocery store till you find herring in tomato sauce.)

Making the transition from the sixth course (pierogi) to the seventh (dessert). By this time we were all well and truly carbo-loaded.

In the end, though, things came together remarkably well, mainly because of the people who attended, many of whom contributed a lot of time and talent to the meal. In fact, one of my favorite memories of Wigilia 2011 will be from the day before when eight volunteers came over to learn the fine art of pierogi and ushzka making. With amazing good cheer, they stuck it out for hours in order to make the mounds of dumplings that I thought we'd need for the meal.

Tim, Cooper and Jayme all peeled and chopped beets, carrots and potatoes in total accordance with my exacting "matchstick" instructions.

Elizabeth figured out the master list of who was coming while Donna whipped up the first batch of pierogi dough.

The kitchen crew (minus Jayme and Jen): Cooper, Mike, Donna, Angela, Elizabeth, me and Tim.

Things were supposed to start around seven, but wound up commencing closer to eight when Donna, our youngest Fulbrighter, went outside and found a star in the sky so we could begin, after Angela said a prayer for us all. There were some changes this year to accommodate both the large number of people and the fact that we had some non-Fulbrighters who were meeting the crew for the first time. So at the beginning of the night everyone was given a paper with their name on one side and a task on the other. Some were asked to make one of the seven toasts of the evening, while others were tasked with sharing Christmas memories and traditions to the whole group and still others were given the weighty burden, at the beginning of our good luck herring-and-pickles course, of making wishes on behalf of the whole group for the coming year. Everyone performed admirably well, and I will be indebted to the end of my days to the kitchen crew who had everything so spotless by the end of the evening that when I walked into my kitchen this morning, the only signs of the party were contained in packed refrigerator which clearly demonstrated that I have a long ways to go as a caterer making estimates -- I'll be eating pierogis and borscht for a good long time!

Right after the first course vodka toast, Sam (in the green shirt) led things off recalling the Flintstones movie that was a classic holiday staple at his house.

Mike dedicated his toast to our family and friends back home who have spent so much time and treasure supporting us so that we could be halfway around the world from them.

Among the family visiting from the US were Grace's parents and Aunt Rachel and Tess's daughter Gwyneth. Here are Grace's dad and mom, Paul and Martha, next to Tess.

Jen and Brad did a fine job on pierogi frying detail (and the stove even cooperated).

The day before, Cooper had made a monster pierogi with the last batch of dough. On Wigilia his roommates ceremoniously presented it to him to consume in front of the rest of us.

So, while it was clearly different than any Wigilia celebration I'd ever celebrated, either with my family or the Szubert family who began celebrating their tradition with us more than thirty years ago, this one will be highly memorable. 2011 will be the year that most of the Fulbright delegation to the country of Jordan came together, along with a few friends and visiting family members, to share a longtime tradition of one of us that was wholly new to the rest of us. At the end of the evening, a few people told me they hoped to celebrate future Wigilias, or incorporate elements of the celebration into their own holiday traditions. In a way, that is symbolic of our whole experience here in Jordan. We're here to share the customs, special experiences and skills of our hosts, and to decide for ourselves which parts we hope to include in our own lives, thoughts and traditions. One of the many wishes that was made during the Wigilia was that we could all remind ourselves to be present where we are, and to fully live and experience the opportunity we have in front of ourselves for the remainder of our Fulbright year. It's not a bad reminder for any time or place, actually, and I hope all of us, wherever we are, can make and keep that resolution in the coming year. (And if anyone wants a pierogi, please let me know -- I've got a bunch!)

Jordan Wigilia 2011 (top: Sarah M., Cooper, Anna, Sam R. Tess, me, Jen, Brad; middle: Sarah I., Almas, Tim, Elizabeth, Grace, Jayme, Sam; bottom: Mike, Donna, Angela, Luke (not pictured: Maria, Paul, Martha, Rachel and Gwyneth)

Jordan Challenge 21: Visit Lebanon

2011-12-23T14:43:00.000-08:00

A funny thing about travel, at least for me, is that the more places you go, the more places you discover that you want to go. Travel tends to beget more travel, both because it opens up the desire to see still more places, and because it creates an ever-growing list of places to re-visit. Lebanon is now squarely in the latter category: in fact I'd say that Beirut is now officially on my Top Five List of Favorite Cities. (In case anyone is wondering, the others are: Stonetown, Zanzibar; Burlington, Vermont (and yes, I am counting it as a city -- it's my list); Edinburgh, Scotland; and Tacoma, Washington).

I was thinking about my criteria when I was telling my friend Elizabeth that Beirut is a top-fiver, and it seemed so obvious. I think a truly cool city has to have most or all of the following:

It must be on or very near a beautiful body of water that is accessible to the locals and tourists, like the way Beirut sits on the Mediterranean Sea and offers a lovely Corniche for walking along the waterfront;

Here I am standing in front of some famous offshore cliffs called Pigeon Rocks on the seaward side of the Corniche.

It must have lots of pretty buildings, like the mosques and churches throughout the city of Beirut;

That thing being constructed in front of the beautiful Mohammed Al-Amin Mosque is a giant artificial Christmas tree being put up by the city. Despite the city's violent past, there are many signs of tolerant religious coexistence here like this one.

It must have at least one (preferably more) charming, pedestrian-friendly areas lined with local cafes and shops and few or no chain stores and restaurants like Beirut's lovely and fun Rue Gourard in the Gemmayzeh District;

Our first night in town Elizabeth, Grace and I went to the very memorable though-slightly-dodgy-from-the-outside restaurant, Le Chef. It was fabulous and we stuffed ourselves silly.

After we could eat no more we went walking outside and found that Beirut is a very pretty city at night.

It should be a college town, thus benefiting from the young population, forums for the exchange of ideas and culture and (most importantly) used book stores attendant therein. In this regard, the Hamra area around the large and extremely prestigious American University of Beirut (AUB) fits the bill wonderfully well.
It should have an interesting mix of cultures and populations, and ideally, should be a place where two or more cultures actually appear to meet. The first impression I had of Beirut was that this is where the Middle East meets Europe, and a lot of the best of both appear evident in the everyday life of the city.

The five of us downing croissants and big bowls of cafe au lait worthy of a Paris breakfast.

It should have an interesting history, and Beirut is just about impossible to beat on that score;

Way too much here for a blog caption, but it's true that Beirut has not yet fully recovered from the violence in its past, including the 2006 bombing it suffered when Israel attacked the city as a means of striking at Hezbollah.

and finally it should be surrounded by other beautiful, fun and/or fascinating places to see. Like archaeological sites waiting to be explored further down the coast, astonishing caves full of stalactites and stalagmites and mountains and cedar forests, perhaps?

Sadly, we were not allowed to take any pictures at all inside the Jeita Grotto, a series of two very large caves (you can take a boat ride, as we did through the bottom one) with the most amazing collection of stalactites and stalagmites imaginable.

After Jeita we journeyed onward to Byblos, a lovely port city with a colorful history and partially excavated ruins...

...one of the highlights was drinks and dinner at Pepe's (recommended by my friend Gary), where we could watch the sun set and read about all the famous people, from Marlon Brando to Eva Gardner, who had found the place before we had.

As anyone can clearly see, the case has made itself. Beirut is a winner. Though we had a sneaking suspicion that this was the case, my Fulbright partner-in-crime, Elizabeth, and our fellow Fulbright friends Tess and Christina felt it was our duty to confirm. We were lucky enough to meet up with still another Fulbright friend, Grace, who already knew all about Beirut's awesomeness, and was, in fact, back on a return trip. Between the five of us, we managed to make a pretty good dent in the city's sights, eateries, wine bars and day-trip attractions. But the one thing we all concluded is that Beirut surely deserves a (more like several) return visits. If you're in this part of the world, this is one place you do not want to miss.

Jordan Challenge 20 : Try a Hammam

2011-12-22T12:28:00.000-08:00

Way behind on blogging these days, and my big upcoming challenge -- hosting a Wigilia Christmas Eve dinner in Jordan for TWENTY-FOUR people -- is shaping up to be one of the biggest challenges I've taken on since moving here. For starters, turns out that a lot of Fulbrighters in Jordan didn't have plans for Christmas Eve -- but now they do, at my place. Then, although I have not one but two sets of some of the hard-to-get items (particularly unconsecrated Communions wafers) somewhere in transit or within the bowels of the Jordan Post Office, it looks like they'll not be arriving here. And then, the icing on the cake was the spectacular suicide of my oven and stove last night. That one, at least, was resolved with a new-wood-and-cardboard-foundation fix that only makes me a little nervous, so the Wigilia and tomorrow's cooking party to prepare for it are still on. Can't wait to see how it unfolds.

But in the meantime, I thought I' d try to catch up a little. In my original list of challenges for Jordan I had included a visit to a hamman (Turkish bath) and I can now report that it has happened. And will happen again, because it is one great experience. I'd heard a few warnings that the masseurs are not gentle, and it certainly turned out to be true. Yet the combination of steam and whirlpools and (vigorous!) scrubs and rough-ish massage leaves you feeling as if you've got an entirely new skin and at least a halfway new set of muscles. On the down side, you do feel a bit herded in the beginning, when you are processed as a group through the first shower and steam room. But then they start picking people off individually for their scrubs and messages, and suddenly it's easy to feel like you're the only one that matters.

I couldn't take any pictures inside, for obvious reasons, but did catch a few snapshots when Elizabeth and I took our inaugural foray on my birthday weekend to the Al-Pasha Turkish Bath.

The interior of this enclosed courtyard where Elizabeth is standing is very like the atmosphere inside the hamman (if you were to add a ton of steam).

We both paid the princely additional 3JD (about $5) for facials as well, and as you can see, I left with a whole new set of skin.

At around 25 dinars (less than $40) for several hours of blissful relaxation and being the center of a (steamy) universe, it's just about the best, and most cost effective, luxury I can think of. Yet another reason that everyone should come visit me in Amman.

It's Beginning to Look (Sort of) Like Christmas...Challenge 19: Getting Ready for a Jordan Christmas

2011-12-10T14:49:00.000-08:00

If I were back in the United States I'd be in the midst of finals week at Saint Michael's College. At my Catholic college and in Vermont generally (which looks like a Christmas card even when it isn't Christmas), Christmas would be twirling all around me like the thoughts in Herman Cain's head. Here in Jordan, where the vast majority of the population is Muslim, not so much. So, I decided that, as an expat, the challenge to celebrating Christmas overseas was to figure out for myself what are the indispensable parts, then find ways to make them happen. And anyone who knows me knows my two non-negotiations: celebrating Wigilia (the Polish Christmas Eve dinner introduced to my family by our close friends, the Szuberts when I was a kid) and making Christmas cookies. So, I've decided to celebrate Christmas in Jordan by celebrating Wigilia and making Christmas cookies. And because it's Jordan, both have shaped up as challenges in their own ways.

Turtle Green, a popular coffee shop on Rainbow Street put up some traditional Christmas garlands...

...while a tea and smoke shop a few blocks away offered a display of Santa Claus amidst the nargileh (sheisha) pipes.

On the Christmas cookie front, the big issue has been sourcing ingredients. Who'd have thought that pure vanilla extract, Hershey kisses and plain old chocolate chips could be so hard to find? My Fulbright colleague and friend,Tess, who also happens to be an extraordinary cook, suggested that we should go on an ingredient expedition to Cozmo, an Amman supermarket with a reputation for carrying lots of foods Westerners seek. I did find molasses, but struck out on vanilla and my chocolate products. So, I'm now using vanilla powder (which is not as good but at least does not have the chemical taste of artificial vanilla) and chopping up chocolate bars to replace chocolate chips. No substitute for Hershey kisses, but the ever-thoughtful Cooper, one of the residents of Carpetland, the Fulbrighter apartment nearest me, said he'd bring some back from the Kansas, where he's been participating in his sister's wedding, if he has room in his suitcase. I am anxiously awaiting the verdict on that one. For cookie cutters I have hearts and stars -- but the stars have kind of narrow points that make the "arms" fall off at inopportune moments. So, this year, we'll be eating lots of the not-so-traditional Christmas Heart.

So far, the substitutions seem to be working okay. My annual Christmas cookie production has begun -- here are Meltaways, Jam Thumbprints, Chocolate Sugar Cookies and Santa's Whiskers.

On the Wigilia front, things are coming along in a big way, literally. So far, eighteen people have answered my invitation to experience a Wigilia. Assuming my apartment can hold them all, and the recipes I've found on-line for borscht made out of canned beets are not disgusting, we should be in good shape. A team of people have volunteered for a marathon dumpling day, in which everyone will be put to work turning out ushkas and pierogis, and multiple people have volunteered to help out with the sizable amounts of vodka entailed in a dinner involving seven vodka toasts for eighteen people. How it all turns out will certainly be the subject of a future Jordan Challenge post, but the early signs are promising.

And best of all, I've found that, once I starting throwing myself into my two major Christmas pursuits, I started seeing Christmas all around me, too. I finally saw the definitively Christmas-y movie Love Actually (a bunch of my Fulbright friends were horrified that I had never seen it, and procured a bootleg copy -- perfectly fine except for some skips in the middle and the excision of some scenes deemed too racy for local viewers), a significant fraction of the shops on Rainbow Street have put up some decoration in honor of the season, and today, in honor of my birthday, my friends Elizabeth, Grace, Hannah and I headed back to Madaba, a town with a sizable Christian population for mosaic-viewing and Christmas shopping.

Grace showing off some mosaics in the partially restored Church of the Virgin Mary of Madaba.

Although you can't see the statue of Santa playing a clarinet behind us, what drew us to Haret Jdoudna for lunch was less the Christmas decorations and more the fabulous food.

Madaba even has a big Christmas tree set up in one of the city's traffic circles. Elizabeth and I thought the Christmas stocking ornament theme was a bit limiting, but still plenty photo-worthy.

So, I guess it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas, after all, if only you know where to look and are able to appreciate the form you find.

Jordan Challenge 18: Check Out the Madaba Mosaics

2011-12-02T11:14:00.000-08:00

From a tourist perspective, the town of Madaba only some 30 kilometers from Amman, is essentially Mosaic Land. Everyone goes to see the famous remains of the mosaic map of a big chunk of the Middle East -- at least as it was envisioned in 560 A.D. Much of the map, which sits on the floor in front of the altar of the Saint George Church, is still quite discernible, and every day tour buses deposit their human contents at the gates of the church to check it out before moving on to the Dead Sea and Mount Nebo (where Moses is believed to have died -- at the ripe old age of 120). But the tourists do themselves a disservice because Madaba is a lot more than a mosaic map. For starters, the map may be the most famous, but it is just the beginning of the mosaics to be viewed. Where other churches have paintings and stained glass, St. George's is chock full of mosaic scenes from the New and Old Testaments of the Bible, as well as various saints including, of course, the church's namesake.

Here's a portion of the map that is still quite well-preserved...

...and here it is "in context" on the floor of the church. I had to examine the other art closely to realize that all the other representations are also mosaics.

And here's Chris standing next to the map diagram outside the church that helps make sense of the mosaic inside.

Of course, there needs to be a mosaic of the church's namesake, St. George, carrying on with his slaying duties.

When I was a kid I liked the story of raising Lazarus from the dead, and as an adult AIDS activist I am always reminded of the modern "Lazarus effect" that African activists talked about when anti-retroviral medication finally arrived and started bringing people who were expected to die back to good health and vitality.

There is also a modern-day mosaic art industry and several other churches with their own treasure troves of mosaics, which leads to another Fun Fact About Madaba. In a country that is overwhelmingly Muslim, Madaba has a sizable Christian population, and just about every hotel in town is owned by a different Christian family group who will, if you are as lucky as we were, tell you all about the town and serve you up some delicious homemade fig jam at breakfast.

In addition to its mosaics -- old and new -- Madaba is also home to many rug weavers, and shops that sell their wonderful and colorful work. It also boasts a sand artist who is simultaneously the fastest and the best artisan of those I have seen in Amman, Petra or Aqaba. And it has lovely cafes and simple hole-in-wall shops that sell a very tasty and cheap dish of cut-up roasted chicken and shrek bread smeared with a vivid red sumac-based sauce.

Sadly, I lost the scrap of paper I used to write down this sand artist's name. But I am certainly going to head back to his shop when I return to Madaba because he is amazing!

But I would say that Madaba's greatest commodity is actually its hospitable people. In a country that rightly prides itself on hospitality, Madaba deserves special mention. We arrived in the middle of a heavy rain that we'd been caught up in as we were hiking along the road from the Dead Sea in search of a vehicle to take us the rest of the way. The cab driver who finally picked us up spoke almost no English and did not know his way around Madaba at all. When he dropped us at the wrong traffic circle for the Black Iris, the hotel we were hoping to stay at the for the night, a small group of men gathered in the rain to confer with us. They quickly decided that the youngest, a teenager, should accompany us to the hotel to avoid any further problems. He got us a cab, came with us and insisted on paying the driver. Then he got out of the cab when we did, pointed out the hotel, welcomed us to Madaba and walked away in the rain after wishing us a great time in his town and refusing to take our money. From that auspicious beginning, we were treated to on-the-house teas, people who walked with us rather than simply pointing out the directions of destinations, and general friendliness everywhere. No doubt about it, Madaba's got some great treasures on its walls and floors. But the biggest ones are walking around in its streets. Not the flashiest of Jordan's tourist destinations, but surely in the running as the friendliest.

Jordan Challenge 17: Hold a Thanksgiving Dinner in Amman

2011-11-30T11:44:00.000-08:00

Like floating in the Dead Sea, this one turned out to be no challenge at all, thanks to the concerted efforts of the Fulbright Commission staff, particularly Aya and Iman, who spent the weeks before relentlessly tracking down turkeys, missing RSVPs, and just the right combination of pot luck dishes. One of my favorite things about the Jordan Fulbright experience has been the opportunity to get to know so many of the people in our cohort. They are quite the collection of talent and positive energy, and I always look forward to big get-togethers like this one to catch up and see how everyone is doing. In addition, since it was at the beginning of Chris's last week in the country, it was a chance to introduce him to some of my friends that he still hadn't met.

The amazing Iman -- social worker, problem solver, logistics miracle worker -- and party planner besides. She's the best.

The Fulbright Commission has turned Thanksgiving dinner into an annual event (though we did celebrate it a day earlier than in the States), and provides the setting, three turkeys and some lovely pies. We are responsible for the other dishes, with some guidance from Iman and Aya, who made sure we didn't wind up with ten cranberry sauces and no other side dishes. It was a great chance for people to show off their culinary skills, and once again, I was reminded that this is one pack of people who are as handy in the kitchen as they are with the Arabic alphabet. We all stuffed ourselves, then in good Jordanian fashion, had some more.

So much good food, it was ridiculous. Not that I'm complaining...

Of course, it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without some kind of drama, but ours was not of the family version. Rather, the students (18 student researchers and 10 English teaching assistants (ETAs) -- or everyone but Tess, Angela and me) were all in the running for a trip to Morocco. It turns out that the Fulbright Middle East Program holds a student conference hosted in two sites -- Jordan and Morocco. Half the students in the region go to to one conference and half to the other, so half of each of our student groups would be staying for the Amman conference and the other half would be flying across North Africa to join the Morocco conference. So, as we all sat around in food comas, Alain, the Commission Executive Director, conducted a drawing to determine who would go and who would stay. Everyone accepted the results with remarkable grace, leaving me to conclude that all bad news should be delivered to people who have already been stuffed with turkey and Tess's pecan pie.

Our dinner table group -- Jacqui, Tess, Elizabeth, Christina and I (minus Chris, who was taking the picture). I think Tess and I are doing a remarkable job of not looking covetously at the residence cards the others are flashing -- which we are still waiting for.

Chris and I feeling happy and very, very full.

After we had all left the dinner, one of the Fulbright ETAs, Jennifer, posted a lovely list of things she had to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, ending with Senator William Fulbright, the man who convinced his fellow Senators that his new idea for a global academic exchange could truly serve American interests around the world.

This is Jennifer, who I mentioned above, together with Daniel and Hannah.

Like Jen, I'm grateful for Senator Fulbright and his vision among the many other things I had to be thankful for this Thanksgiving 2011.

Jordan Challenge 16: Float on the Dead Sea...in the Rain

2011-11-28T10:33:00.000-08:00

The whole point of the Dead Sea is that floating on it is absolutely no challenge at all. The Dead Sea sits on the lowest area of the earth, and apparently, that makes the water evaporate at a rate faster than in any other body of water. Added to that is the fact that the Jordan River that runs into it has practically entirely dried up through over usage, and you've got one very salty receding body of water. That hasn't stopped resorts on both sides of it from building luxury hotels and spas along the edges, but luckily, a few years ago the city of Amman, some 60 kilometers away, created a public beach as a slightly more economical alternative for those who want to take a dip and be able to wash off the salt (which is nine times as concentrated as ocean salt), but still emerge with at least a little money in their wallets. That beach was our stated destination when Chris and I did the next leg of our Discover Jordan Tour.

The plan was to spend the day at the Dead Sea (Chris was impervious to my warnings that, for most people, a bob about in the water is enough, then they're ready for something else) and the night and following day in the town of Madaba. Everything was all set, but the weather just wouldn't cooperate. I don't know if it's typical, but this past November Jordan has gotten entirely more rain than I would have expected in a desert nation. And the day we hit the Dead Sea was no exception.

This is what the Dead Sea looks like on a very overcast late afternoon in November -- so funny that there's no flora or fauna in the water.

As far as Chris was concerned, though, it wasn't much of a problem. For one thing, he has a passion for sliding on slick surfaces, and the tile surrounding the pool and dining area of Amman Beach definitely fit the classification of ultra-slick.

One of Chris's all-time favorite past-times -- sliding on slippery surfaces (while everyone around draws in their breath waiting for the fall that never happens).

And the nasty weather also scared off all but the most intrepid Scandinavian tourists (whom I'm guessing, like Vermonters, take pride in carrying on in bad weather). So we had the beach mostly to ourselves, and performed the necessary tourist ritual of bobbing in the water, completely unable to sink, no matter what we tried. The water is crystal clear because, except for brine shrimp, nothing -- no animals or vegetation -- can live in it. The beach bottom is coated with a layer of crystallized salt, which is pretty to look at but harder to walk on. And the water feels almost oily in its heaviness, though you know you're in it pretty quickly, when your skin starts to feel itchy and tight.

Here I am doing the Dead Sea Float. You pretty much have to float on your back because getting the water in your mouth, or worse, your eyes, is a terrible experience.

Chris cleverly brought a prop -- a Motor Trend magazine -- for his float.

We managed to outlast the rain, and when it finally grudgingly turned into a thin sprinkle, headed down to the water where Chris, I think, stayed in the water -- and marvelled at his transitory incredible floating abilities -- longer than any other swimmer (floater) that day. I'd been once before with friends and former students Siham and Connor, and remember finding the whole thing a bit odd. But it would certainly be a crime to come to Amman and not go. Yet another unique experience for the books here in Jordan.

Jordan Challenge 15: Learn about the Royal Family -- by Visiting their Cars

2011-11-27T13:00:00.000-08:00

There's no question that Chris and I lucked out in terms of travel during his almost month-long visit. We made the most of a month of weekends and were helped out by an extra-long holiday week to see all kinds of places. But there's also always the unexpected bonus right in your own backyard, and one of our favorite little jaunts was the one we made to the Royal Automobile Museum.

The biggest challenge was figuring out how to get there. The ubiquitous Lonely Planet guidebook that is constantly waved around by all ex-pats, including me, is both out of date and hopelessly vague in its instructions. Directions to the museum are a case in point, "in the northwest suburbs of Amman, north of 8th Circle." We finally resorted to the last-ditch of resort of choice -- hailing a cab, calling the destination, and when a person comes on the line, having that person feed directions to the cab driver (in Arabic, of course).

Once we arrived we joined a few school groups of excited elementary school children in their uniforms filing past the cars. And there were a ton of cars. For me, it was a chance to learn about the Royal Family, and by proxy, the history of Jordan since the automobile. Those not up on their Jordanian politics might not be aware that Jordan is actually the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan -- that is, a monarchy. The current king, Abdullah II and his venerable father before him, King Hussein, are/were both huge car enthusiasts. They shared a love of fast vehicles, and were both accomplished pilots and road rally drivers. I was, however, disappointed that the most famous car that features in the legends about King Hussein, a taxi, was not there. Even now, more than a decade after his death, King Hussein remains a larger-than-life figure, and one of the many stories about him and his amazing common touch is the "taxi story". According to many people I've met here, the king had his own taxi, which he would occasionally disguise himself and drive in order to ask his subjects just what they thought of the king and how things were going.

My favorite car in the museum, because of the sheer novelty of it, was this Amphicar. It could literally drive on water and the late King Hussein bought it in 1966 to take guests for "drives" in the Red Sea in Aqaba.

And my favorite picture in the museum was this one, also of the late King Hussein. Here he is, every inch the carefree teenager, not knowing that the next day his grandfather, King Abdullah I would be assassinated, and he would become king at the age of 17.

I think for Chris it was also a chance to see some extremely fancy cars up close and personal.

Until I went to the museum I did not know that such a thing as a Bugati Veyron existed, nor that it one of the fastest cars in the world...

...but Chris did. Here he is in front of the Bugati and some other very fast toys in the royal collection/

But we both had a great time, and it was an excellent way to spend a morning in-between trips to more far-flung places. If you like fast cars (like Chris) or you don't, but like modern history (like me) it's certainly worth the extra bit of effort it takes to figure out where it is. I'd say go.

Jordan Challenge 14. When in Jordan During Eid, Head to Aqaba

2011-11-20T08:41:00.000-08:00

There's nothing like leaving your own culture to make you realize which cultural values are so deeply embedded that you don't even notice they are cultural values. Being in the Middle East, like being in East Africa a few years ago, makes me acutely aware that I am an American who thinks about time the way an American does. For us, time is a commodity to be scheduled and once the schedule is in place (as far in advance as possible), to be adhered to as rigidly as possible. Jordan's not like Tanzania, where a 6 pm dinner appointment might just as easily mean 7 or 8, but there is a certain fluidity to time here that is tough for a lot of Americans, including me, to acclimate to. Some of it is fun, like the fact that waiters will NEVER kick you out of your table here, and you can sit for hours without ever being brought a check. But other parts really challenge Americans to put their day planners away, because we can schedule till we're blue in the face, but things might change. Religiously-based holidays, for instance, can only be estimated on the calendar and aren't actually fixed till a few days before the holiday based on where the moon is. This year, that turned out to be a bonus for everyone when Eid al-Adha -- a very big holiday in the Muslim calendar commemorating the end of the Haj and also God's relenting and allowing the prophet Abraham to sacrifice a sheep instead of his son -- happened to start on Sunday (which is the first day of the work week here). Then the powers that be announced we'd be having the whole week off for Eid. Bonus!

We had hoped to spend at least part of the Eid holiday visiting the West Bank and Israel, but that was not in the cards because I am still waiting for my Jordanian residence permit, making travel across the border quite tricky. So, we decided to visit some places in Jordan, including first Petra and then Wadi Rum. And Aqaba, it turns out, is only an hour's drive away from Wadi Rum and situated right on the Red Sea. So of course, we decided to check it out as well. The only problem with our little plan is that it was shared by many Jordanians who were as excited about the week-long holiday as we were. We found this out through experience, when, for instance,we showed up at the JETT bus station an hour early to get tickets to Aqaba, only to find the bus sold out. No matter, we bought tickets for later in the day and luckily had thought to book a hotel room earlier.

Although Aqaba reminded us both of other seaside resorts we've been to, the beautiful mosques of Aqaba were part of what made it unique.

Chris and I both thought that Aqaba reminded us of Mexico, particularly the Baja coast, in terms of both weather and the general atmosphere. Of course, Mexico has many fewer mosques and many more displays of skin among the beach goers, but still, after the rainy chill of Amman, the easygoing atmosphere was quite easy to take. We sandwiched out trip to Wadi Rum in between two days and nights (at two different hotels) in Aqaba and managed to get both desert and beach sand all in one trip!

On our first night in town we took a stroll on the waterfront. The lights behind Chris are of the much larger Israeli resort of Eilat across the water.

Here's where the Middle Eastern perspective on beach-going starts really diverging from ours. The only people wearing swim suits on the public beach were little children and teenage guys. As you can see with the woman sitting in the foreground, Jordanian woman pretty much stay fully clothed on beach days.

Chris enjoying a (non-alcoholic) drink at sun-down and taking in the terrific view.

We never made it down to the resorts south of town where the snorkelers and scuba divers explore what are supposed to be amazing coral reefs -- that will have to wait for another day. But we can now say we've taken part in an important institution -- celebrating a part of the Eid vacation on the shores of the Red Sea the Jordanian way.

Jordan Challenge 13: Roughing It in Wadi Rum

2011-11-16T00:07:00.000-08:00

Change a few factors and a place you've already been can be a whole different experience. Not exactly a startling revelation, but a true one, nevertheless. Only a few weeks ago, I visited Wadi Rum for the first time ever with my good friend and fellow Fulbrighter, Elizabeth. My second visit, this time with Chris -- who has been wonderful in so many ways, beginning with his willingness to take the plunge and come for nearly a month of whatever I had in store for him here in Jordan. Unlike Elizabeth and I, revelling in our tent containing towels folded up like swans, Chris was interested in roughing it a bit, and our driver and guide, Salamah, was more than willing to accommodate. From the truck we rode in, which Salamah reported was the same age as its twenty-five year old driver, to the night we spent under the stars -- no tent, no sleeping bags and no artificial light beyond Chris's headlamp and Salamah's tiny light on his cell phone.

The beige truck is Salamah's, and he's sitting patiently next to it, waiting for us to climb down and head to the next site.

We started out from Aqaba, with intentions to take a local minibus. But alas, it was Friday morning, and no minibuses were going out, so we had to take a cab, with the driver insisting all along the way that we meet his "friend" who would take us to an undisclosed camp and some equally vague sites within Wadi Rum. We opted for the Visitor's Center in Wadi Rum instead, to our driver's great disgust, and contracted with Salamah to take us out in his ancient truck to a whole range of sites. Salamah was as good as his word and took us to, among others, the site of Lawrence of Arabia's home when he lived in Wadi Rum (the house is not there any more, though); Lawrence's Spring; the Red Dunes (which are just about the best workout I can think of as a climb. I thought I might die slogging up them, but Chris, of course, sprinted to the top and then rolled back down, just for the fun of it); cliffs we could climb up to view Nabatean drawings; Jebel Khazali (a siq that you can climb through for about 150 meters);

The siq was pretty narrow in parts, and lots of fun to explore.

and (my favorite) Little and Big Bridges, two sandstone formations that have been carved by the wind to resemble rock bridges high off the ground).

Here we are on top of the Red Dune -- after some strenuous effort to get there....

...and Chris rolling back down (rolling, that is, til he ran into the scrubby bush standing in front of him in this picture).

One of the great glories of Wadi Rum is the sand itself. It's a uniform, beautiful orange-pink color, and guaranteed to bring out the inner child in anyone. You can't help but run your fingers through it and start scheming about how to bring some home.

Big Bridge is also a good workout, but there's no motivation like having a Bedouin child fly past you on the ways up and down, as you're trying to negotiate the rock face.

Chris and I on top of Big Bridge...

and coming back down -- which is scarier than the uphill part.

Of course, Chris also needed to try out camel riding, so we did some of that before we began our tour, and about midway through the day Salamah made the suggestion that we not go to a camp in the evening.

First stop on the tour: a couple kilometers on the back of a camel.

He offered to pick up some blankets and food, and set us up at a site in the desert instead. We knew it would be a full moon that night, and the idea of sleeping directly under the stars with a minimum of gear, noise or other people had a lot of appeal.

Salamah made roasted chicken for dinner over the fire. Note the cell phone-as-flashlight function.

One thing we learned is that the Bedouin are quite social. No sooner had Salamah lit our fire for the night when his friend and fellow driver/guide, Salaam showed up, and an hour later another friend, Khaled came as well. They sat on the camp well into the evening, and when Salaam finally left he was so out of it that the next morning Salama realized he had taken one of Salamah's sandals and left one of his in its place. Khaled decided to spend the night at the site as well, and slept in the bed of his truck.

Salamah's friend, Salaam, showing off his favorite cigarette brand in between extolling the virtues of the carefree Bedouin existence.

The next morning when I woke up, Chris was nowhere to be seen until I looked up. In the wee hours of the morning he had woken up and hiked to the top of a sand dune with his cushion and blanket in order to sleep get a full view of the morning sunrise and early-morning creatures-- two and four-legged -- who would be out on the desert tracks below. When we were all up, we gathered some more wood and Salamah brewed still more sweet tea and put some bread on the fire for a camp side breakfast before we broke things down and headed back to the main road to catch a local ride back to Aqaba.

Nothing looks quite as scruffy as a campsite the morning after sleeping around the fire, but it surely served us well.

An expression you hear a lot in Jordan is "as you like". It can take on a whole range of meanings from "okay have it your way, but you're an idiot" (when, for example, you're about to foolishly disregard someone's obviously sound advise) to "whatever you want, but don't be stingy" (when a taxi driver doesn't turn on the meter and wants to guilt you into paying a generous fare). But in the case of Wadi Rum, I think it means that the choices you make, from which sites to visit, how you get there, and how many creature comforts you part with along the way, will have huge impacts on the experience. Roughing it in Wadi Rum left me with sore calf muscles, a lot of sand in my hair, and tons of great memories and images. As experiences go, it's a winner.

Jordan Challenge 12.1: Petra by Night

2011-11-14T00:53:00.000-08:00

So, Chris and I have returned from exploring the southern part of Jordan, which we broke into two trips. First we went to Petra for a couple of days, then came back to Amman and restocked our cookie travel provisions, and then headed to Aqaba and Wadi Rum. All three places turned out to be unique travel experiences, so each will get its own posting, beginning with Petra (and I should note that if the photo quality of some of the shots is better than usual, it will be because I'm liberally borrowing from Chris's pictures).

When I put together the list of challenges for my Fulbright experience in Jordan, I envisioned Petra as the "Camel's Hump" of my Jordan experience. For non-Vermonters, Camel's Hump is possibly the most well-known of our many day hikes in the state. During my year of 52 New Things, I resolved to hike it in all four seasons, and had a great time seeing the mountain in different ways. So, I thought I'd copy the idea with Petra, and think of ways I'd like to experience it that are a little different. I came up with three: by night, in the winter, and in the company of an actual archaeological expert. So, I am happy to report that I am 1/3 of the way through my goal, having experienced Petra at night with Chris and several hundred other chattering tourists.

Chris and I having tea at Petra Kitchen in Wadi Musa before embarking on Day 1 of Petra explorations

Along the way, of course, we also did a lot of exploring of Petra by day and, since my camera was no match for night-time Petra, that's what most of the photos capture. Anyone who's seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade has actually seen Petra, because there's a famous chase scene in the movie that was filmed there. Petra is an ancient Nabatean town that was carved into the sandstone cliffs. Westerners didn't know where it was until a Swiss explorer named Jean Louis Burkhardt tricked his way in in 1812, pretending he wanted to make a ceremonial sacrifice.

Here's Chris about to enter the Siq.

The way in is actually possibly the most awe-inspiring feature of the whole place. You travel through a siq, which is an amazing canyon (except caused by tectonic shifting instead of water) that goes on for 1.2 kilometers. In parts it's just wide enough for a horse-drawn carriage, which a few people use, and just when you start wondering how much longer it will be, it opens into a wide space and you face the most famous structure of Petra, the Treasury,

The view of the Treasury right at the end of the Siq right before heading into the open space directly in front of it...

...and the Treasury in all it's glory.

After the Treasury, there are miles of ruins, most incredibly well-preserved, for the exploring. After the Nabateans, Petra was used by the Romans and the early Christians and then, of course, the Bedouins, so there are all kinds of structures to be examined. There is an ancient theatre, countless cave homes and tombs, a set of Royal Tombs, a high place of sacrifice, ruins of temples and churches, and, if you're feeling ambitious, 800 steps (950 according to the Bedouins trying to get you to hire a donkey) up, a Monastery. The options are endless, which is why I advise people to do what we did, and buy a two-day ticket.

Here's Chris from a cliff overlooking the Monastery

At 8 pm on the night of the first day we showed up at the gates again, with several hundred other people, for our night-time experience. The path to the Siq (about half a mile) and then the Siq itself, are lit with thousands of candles, and there are amazing shadows everywhere. When everyone has filed through the Siq into the open space in front of the Treasury,the audience is seated on row after row of mats to watch a show of Bedouin music (and of course, the drinking of tea, because pretty much every event in Jordan involves the drinking of tea). After the show, everyone files out again, though this time Chris had the brilliant idea of waiting out the crowd. So, we climbed up on some higher rocks and watched the hundreds file through the path we had taken in, and then joined at the back to experience Petra at night more quietly.

The photo doesn't do it justice, but here are people filing through the Siq at night.

Though Petra at night was much more of a community affair than I had envisioned, I highly recommend it. I've never seen anything like the Siq, and walking through it at night in candlelight and long shadows is an amazing visual and sensory experience. If you ask me, it's another one of those things that everyone must see at some point.

Jordan Challenge 10 and 11: Not on the List: Rain and Eid al-Adha

2011-11-06T01:28:00.000-07:00

So, when I drew up my initial list of challenges, it never occurred to me to add either of the ones that have loomed large this week. Both are actually blessings, yet for a foreigner (two foreigners in fact, since Chris is now here visiting me), they entail a few challenges. They are rain, and Eid al-Adha.

Chris standing in front of the Royal Cultural Center, underneath a picture of King Abdullah II and his ancestors

Back in Vermont we get lots of precipitation, though the flood levels it reached not once but twice in the 2011 were a major cause of damage. But here in Jordan, one of the most water-scarce countries on earth, rain just wasn't in my mental array of challenges to watch out for. Though again, nothing in comparison to the snowstorm that the East Coast of the United States got over Halloween weekend, it's gotten noticeably colder in the last couple of weeks, and that made the rain all the more uncomfortable when it arrived with a bang on Thursday night. That was the night that Chris and I, and my Fulbright colleagues Tess and Angela had been invited to the home of Dr. Nidal Younis and his wife, Dr. Abla Al-bsoul, for a dinner with the Jordanian Commissioners of the Fulbright program here.

As is often the case here, the major complication is actually getting there. Though we had a detailed map we had no idea where we were going, nor did our driver, who was filling in for Mohammad (about whom I wrote in the previous post), and we were meeting a previous Fulbrighter, Kathryn, who lived in another part of the city and would be following us. Apparently the first major rain here is a particularly treacherous thing because it mixes with the long-term accumulation of dust and oil on the road to create a slick surface that cars spin out in easily. Although we arrived a half hour late for the dinner and saw several accidents on the road, we were all happy to get there in one piece. One of the purposes of the dinner was to introduce us to traditional Jordanian food, which our hosts did with a vengeance, but just as I was taking my first pictures the power went out (which our hosts surmised happened because of someone having an accident with the power line down the road). So, alas, I have only a shot or two of the impressive spread as a memento of our dinner.

This is mensaf, the Jordanian national dish. It is lamb cooked in a fermented yogurt sauce over rice with pine nuts and/or almonds and more sauce on the side. It is served covered with a very thin bread called shrak.

Since Thursday night the skies have stayed most grey, with on and off rain during the day and evening.

Finding a place where Chris could run outside was another pretty major challenge. Here he is preparing to dodge the rain at Sports City, a giant complex of gyms and courts with an outdoor running path.

Although the rain may have put a damper on things, the timing of Eid this year has most people in a great mood. Unlike in the Christian calendar where the dates of holidays are fixed, in the Muslim one they move around. And because the start date depends on the moon's movements, the exact dates are not usually fixed until a week or even less before the holiday starts. Eid al-Adha marks the end of the Haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, and it commemorates the story in the Old Testament when the prophet Abraham agreed to sacrifice his only son Ishmael as proof of his obedience. At the last minute Allah intervened and let him sacrifice a lamb instead. Now Eid al-Adha is a multi-day family holiday involving prayer, animal sacrifice (and both feasting on and donating the meat to the poor) and gifts, particularly new clothes. (The Jordan Times carried an interesting not-like-it-used-to-be story on the celebration of Eid, for anyone interested in a bit more detail.)

These billboards advertising 99 JD (about $140) sheep for Eid have sprung up all over the city in the last month. If you are in a mall there are stalls kind of like the Salvation Army bell ringers in the States, facilitating the sponsorship of a sheep donation for a poor family for Eid.

This year Eid starts today (November 6), a fact that became obvious this morning sometime around 5 am when the usual morning call to prayer was replaced by a very long prayer that was repeated over and over for at least 45 minutes. Today is a Sunday and the beginning of the work week here. Therefore, the authorities have officially decided that the country can take the whole week off and Eid will extend all the way to Thursday, which allows for a 9-day break if one tacks on the weekends at both ends.

Overcast day or no, I had to show Chris Books Cafe, and I'm sure we'll be back multiple times during the course of his visit.

While I'm certainly not going to argue against a nine-day break, it has put a wrench in some of our travel plans, as it has meant that Jordanians have flocked to some of the places we had thought likely candidates for travel during this period. The original plan had been to go to Israel and the West Bank, but my residence permit processing is another casualty of the Eid holiday period, and without that travel over the Israeli border is problematic. So, it's looking like Petra and possibly Wadi Rum are our Plan B, and hopefully we'll take off tomorrow. After all, we are Vermonters (or honorary ones, at least). What's a little inclement weather and a few delays in the face of an impending outdoor adventure?

Jordan Challenge 9:Fulbrightain Ride Naqahtain through Wadi Rum

2011-10-29T10:08:00.000-07:00

All the people I know who love to travel, myself included, do it for a combination of reasons. There is the chance to see amazing new places, obviously, and taste, hear, smell and feel things totally out of our usual comfort zone. Just as important is the opportunity to connect -- briefly but meaningfully -- with people who are simultaneously distinctly different and profoundly similar to ourselves. And I have the strong suspicion that I'm not the only traveller I know who is particularly excited to see places I vaguely heard of as a child, and always thereafter associated with exotic, almost mythical, tales and adventures. Once in a great while all these reasons come together in a short space of time to create a particularly memorable experience. That's what happened this weekend when Elizabeth and I visited Wadi Rum.

Wadi Rum is the classic Arabian desert, made famous to Westerners by the story and movie of Lawrence of Arabia. It's a land of pink and orange sand, spectacular wind-carved sandstone cliffs and canyons, sun and shadows. Although the Bedouins who still live there are as likely to be driving (VERY FAST) pick-ups and 4x4's as camels (though there are still plenty of those) and the camps they've created have fluorescent bulbs in addition to the lanterns, it's a land otherwise virtually untouched by time, homogenizing commercialization or liability lawyers. The only thing that determines how fast you go in a truck or how high you climb on a cliff is you, and your willingness to take on the dares of your utterly carefree Bedouin driver or guide.

With absolutely no idea what to expect, and our major goal being to scout out the area for future trips, my good friend and fellow Fulbrighter, Elizabeth. and I took off on a Friday morning in the taxi of Muhammad, who enjoys the well-earned reputation within the Amman expat community as the most honest and caring driver in the city. As we travelled south with stops along the way for many tiny cups of sweet coffee and tea, he generously threw in numerous lessons on Islam, Jordanian culture and language. In Wadi Rum we he introduced us to Meta'b, our Bedouin driver, who proceeded to spin several 360s in the truck (with Elizabeth and I in it) in the gas station parking lot as a little mini-orientation. Afterward an older man in a police uniform waved him down, and I thought we might at least get reprimanded for this display of recklessness, but it was just Meta'b's uncle wanting to say hello.

Over the next 36 hours we

drove to some of the more famous cliff formations (including one where that we arrived just after sunset, and promptly got stick in the sand. Meta'b yelled something in Arabic (which I later learned was, "anyone who loves the prophet Muhammad, come out here and push!") which amassed an army of young men in about 15 seconds flat who laughed and joked as they impossibly pushed the truck out of the sand pit and up a dune);

A view of the desert -- and our white truck -- just minutes before the sand swallowed it, necessitating the concerted efforts of a dozen good-humored Bedouins

spent the night at a beautiful new camp and ate a dinner of meat roasted in a deep pit and shrek bread cooked over a giant stone;

Pulling the sheep and chicken out of its charcoal burial so we can devour it

A view of our camp from inside the tent where we ate

Elizabeth points out the amenities of our tent, including our favorite, the towels folded up like swans on our beds (which we didn't use because neither of us felt like taking a cold shower in the chilly morning).

hiked out of the camp and up a sand dune with Muhammad and Meta'b late in the night to see the thickest carpet of stars I've witnessed outside of rural Tanzania and held a competition for two hours to see who could see the most shooting stars while learning the differences on the Islamic and Christian takes of the New Testament and cracking jokes (the theme of most of them being that Arabic has a special construction for words in between singular and plural that involves adding "tain" or "ain" to double them);

Muhammad, Elizabeth and I drinking three more of the innumerable cups of tea we were served in Bedouin tents all over the desert

hiked up sand dunes and cliff formations to see Nabatean hieroglyphics and amazing views; and

Meta'b and I standing in front of a wall of Nabotean hieroglyphics after climbing up to get to them.

Resting on top of a high sand dune -- you can't tell from the photo that only a minute before I was desperately panting for air -- hiking uphill in the sand is hard!

fulfilled a longstanding dream of both Elizabeth and I to have our Lawrence of Arabia moment by riding through the same area he did, the same way he did, on camelback.

Fulbrightain (two Fulbrighters) riding on naqahtain (two female camels). Our work here is done.

Not bad for a day and a half.

One trip, two new friends. Here's Elizabeth on the way to Wadi Rum with Muhammad...

...and just before we left saying goodbye to Meta'b.

Wadi Rum needs to go on everyone's bucket list. Seriously. I can recommend an amazing camp and some great drivers who might just become long-term friends. All you have to do is go.

Jordan Challenge 8: Visit Jerash and the North

2011-10-16T03:52:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the best thing to do when a plan falls apart is to re-group and figure out something else. That was definitely the case this weekend. My friend Elizabeth and I had made a big, ambitious plan to head out to the Wadi Rum desert and check things out there. We both really want to try a camel trek, but also neither of us have ever been there, and both of us are planning to take other people there this year. So, we wanted to go see it for ourselves as a sort of reconnaissance trip. But a lethal combination of deadlines, Arabic tests and drivers who turn their phones off for very long periods of time laid waste to our marvelous plans.

And so instead, late on Friday night (which is functionally our Saturday night), we hit on the brilliant idea of calling up the backpacker hotels in Amman to see if we could tag along on one of the trips that they schedule for their guests if they can scrape up a minimum of four people. Sure enough, the Farah Hotel (where I've stayed in the past with intrepid student/friend/travellers Siham, Connor, Kate and Alexsis) had two guests who wanted to go out to Northern Jordan if only two more people would join in. We signed up a little before midnight and showed up at the lobby the next morning at 8 am and off we went.

The loop we took had three stops, all of them great in their own way. Here's the list, actually, from the bulletin board at the Farah:

It all started out with a single little piece of paper tacked to a bulletin board...

My friend, fellow Fulbrighter and partner in crime for the day's adventure, Elizabeth. Here she is tucked into a little staircase of what we agreed was our favorite structure among the ruins of Jerash -- the smaller North Theatre.

So, the four of us, two tourists from Serbia and Croatia, Elizabeth and I jumped into a van and our driver headed north. We first went all the way to the northwest corner of the country to the town of Umm Qais. For those who know their bible stories, Umm Qais is featured in a story from the book of Matthew (8:28-32). According to the story Jesus was passing through the area and came across a pair of people possessed by demons. So he cast the demons out of them but the demons, looking for some other lives to ruin, then took possession of a herd of pigs who, alas, dealt with their demon possession by flinging themselves into the sea, presumably the Sea of Galilee.

Plenty o' columns still kicking around Umm Qais

Elizabeth ignoring the multi-national view over her shoulder in order to decide whether we should get fattoush as well as hummus (silly question, we got them both, obviously.)

Although it's fairly unclear (at least to tourists) what route the suicidal pigs took, the area is also known for its amazing Roman ruins, though these are smaller and much less-visited than the ones in Jerash further south. My favorite thing about Umm Qais, however, is the phenomenal Rest House there, where you can sit and have a late breakfast and see into Syria, the disputed Golan Heights, Israel and Palestine and the Sea of Galilee. Everything below looks so calm and sweepingly beautiful it's hard to reconcile with the turmoil in the news that mention of many of these places evokes.

From Umm Qais we started going south and stopped at the very impressive Qala-at Al-Rabad (Ajloun Castle). You can see it for miles around, as it's perched up on a very high hill above the Jordan Valley. The Crusades are a topic I never thought much about till I came here, but you can't help but think about them at the Ajloun Castle. It was built in the 1180s and was apparently an important part of the defense against the Crusaders. It's really pretty huge and just gorgeous inside and out. I'm a big castle-goer as a tourist, and I'd put this one right near the top of the list of ones I've ever walked through.

Among my less-bright moves of the day was failing to get a single of picture of the castle in its entirety. But even from this one showing one of the corner towers you can get a sense of just how huge and impressive it is.

Our driver was pretty strict with our time limits (especially after Elizabeth and I went overtime at Umm Qais), but you could have spent all day exploring the vaulted passageways like these that were all over the place inside.

Our last stop of the tour was the biggest -- the ruins of Jerash. They're located right in the middle of the modern town of Jerash, and they are pretty spectacular. There are parts of Roman streets, still paved with giant stone and lined with columns, two theatres, various temple and fountain ruins and, most fun of all, a hippodrome that has been restored so they can do shows for the tourists with recreations of army legions, gladiators and chariot racing. We sat in front of a group of super-exited kids who desperately wanted at least one of the defeated gladiators to have to get the thumbs down (though we learned that actually the signs were thumbs-up (live) or thumbs on their side (die).

Chariot racing! How cool is that?

In Jerash there are still a bunch of places like this with intact stone-paved roads (where you can actually see the wagon ruts worn into the stone) and columns along the side.

Apparently, the desert weather here has done wonders in helping with the preservation of these historical sites. Tramping around the ruins, it was fun to try to imagine Northern Jordan as first the biblical land of Gilead, and then as the area of not one but ten Roman city-states, and finally what it must have been like when it was holding its own against the Crusaders from Europe. It was a phenomenal day, and I can't wait to have a second look with visitors and friends in future visits Northward. Next stop (hopefully) -- Wadi Rum!

Jordan Challenge 7: Teach at the University of Jordan

2011-10-12T09:44:00.000-07:00

Today I wrote the first of what I hope will be a monthly blog post for our political science blog at Saint Michael's College, and it made me realize something funny. In my list of challenges in Jordan, I never listed the nominal reason I'm here in the first place: teaching at the University of Jordan. I think part of the reason that I didn't think of it as a challenge is that, because the courses I could teach were a poor match up with the courses they needed taught in the American Studies program this semester, I actually have a very light load. In fact, I'm only teaching one graduate course, and that's to a small class. To remedy the situation for next semester I'll be submitting a list of courses I could teach not only in American Studies but also in several other grad programs run within the Faculty of International Studies where I'm assigned. I've been assured by my Dean that I won't get off quite this easily next time.

On further reflection, though, I've come to realize that my teaching assignment, light as it is, is still a challenge, for both my students and me. There's nothing like an intensive three-hour discussion-oriented format to make a person remember that linguistic and cultural differences are real. For starters, the course, like all the courses in the graduate American Studies program, are taught in English. This is obviously a huge boon for me, since I don't speak Arabic (though I am definitely putting in some real time in and out of class trying to learn it) but it is a huge burden on my students, who must not only communicate during class time, but also complete all their assigned readings and papers. On my end, all the professors, administrators and staff I have worked with are fluent in English, and graciously don't make a big deal of the fact that I can't join in the small talk of the department. But the actual documents of the program, including things like the roll sheet for the class, are in Arabic, and so the secretaries very kindly transliterated the students' names for me, or I wouldn't have been able to see who was who in our first class meeting.

We all agree that my office is a much better place to hold class -- among other things, the chairs are more comfortable.

As for cultural differences, there are the obvious ones, such as differences in dress (e.g. out in public people dress much more conservatively than they do in the United States) and religion. But there are also many more subtle differences that come out in interesting ways during class discussions or day-to-day interactions. One of the interesting differences between the way Islam is practiced in Jordan and the way Christianity is practiced in the United States, is that Islam is much more woven into the fabric of everyday life. There is a call to prayer five times a day, and so we take our break during class so that it will coincide with the call that occurs during that time. Everyday speech has many references to Allah (like insha'Allah -- if God wishes, which is the standard response to any stated plan). Culturally, the family unit is very important here. Most single adults live with their parents, only moving when they get married. Family homes (and therefore lucky foreign renters like me) have lovely formal dining rooms where everyone gets together for meals, and extended families are very important too. In our class, which is about American social problems, we've been talking a lot about the American value of liberty and it's connection to individualism in American culture. This is quite a contrast with values here that focus on individual's roles and responsibilities within their family and community.

Here are Eman and Israa...

....and here are Rana and Rola. When I told them about the poli sci blog they all agreed to be photographed, though they did suggest in the future a bit of advanced warning would be nice.

These differences in values translate into differences in the way we see social problem. For example in discussions and a writing assignment my students wondered if perhaps the disintegration of the American traditional family and the large amounts of liberty we Americans take for granted are factors in the alcohol and drug use and violence that they pointed out as some of our social problems. (Two others that were often listed were racial inequality and gender discrimination -- which I had not predicted as topping the list.)

So far we've had a very values-focused discussion, looking at the way that Americans view equity, security, efficiency and liberty. We've also done some review of American history and next week will do the same with American political institutions. After that we dig into three social problems areas: health care; racial and income inequality; and criminal justice. We'll end with students presenting their research on their own choice of an American social problem. I'm lucky that I have a class that's very forgiving of my inability to speak Arabic and lack of cultural knowledge about everyday things they take for granted. I'm learning a lot from them, and hope they feel the same way about me and the class. Should be a fascinating semester!

Not a great shot, but one I associate with leaving campus. The campus is very large, and all of it is surrounded by a big fence with three gates. This is the main gate, and there is a very big road in front of it, and a collection of fast food restaurants and businesses catering to students on the other side.

Jordan Challenge 6: Become a Rainbow Street Regular

2011-10-07T08:53:00.000-07:00

So, given the fact that some of this year's challenges, like learning even a little Arabic, are going to be monumental I think I deserve to throw some easy ones in there too. And this one definitely qualifies as easy, and also delightful. I think every city has a neighborhood or area that is known to be a little (or maybe a lot) more international and artsy and bohemian. In Amman, that is Rainbow Street. One of the only things that makes Amman even vaguely navigable as a city is that it has seven traffic circles running consecutively westward from the city that help you get your bearings because they are called "First Circle", "Second Circle", etc. Happily, Rainbow Street begins at First Circle so it's easy to reach, even by a directionally-challenged person such as myself.. It's connected to another street called Omar bin al-Khattab, except that everyone calls that street Mango Street. The main point of all of this is that both Rainbow and Mango Streets are loaded with cafes, bookstores, cool little shops and ex-pats. And at the risk of becoming a cliche, it's where I intend to spend a good amount of time during my Fulbright year.

Things are off to a strong start, thanks to some of my Fulbright friends, most especially Elizabeth, who embodies the term vivacious in all that she does, and one of my awesome graduate students, Rola, who knew after only a few weeks of classes that I clearly needed to spend a morning exploring beyond Books Cafe, where I usually make my beeline on arriving in the neighborhood.

Rola invited me to meet her at First Circle on a Wednesday morning. Once we'd both arrived, we went for a walk down Rainbow Street that took in bookstore shopping, a visit to the Jordan River Foundation -- a nonprofit founded by Queen Rania selling high-end crafts made by Jordanian women -- and finally, a new cafe for both of us, the Old View Cafe on Mango Street. As you can see from the pictures, the food was fantastic (these are various forms of manaqeesh -- a kind of flat bread covered with various savory toppings) and the views even better. We spent a phenomenal chunk of the day with Rola explaining all kinds of things to me -- from Jordanian words to customs, and we will surely be back.

The Old View Cafe comes by its name honestly. The view is truly fantastic!

And the food is quite tasty. Yet another reason to be grateful to Rola -- being introduced to kiwi-lemon juice that we both had.

Here's Rola hamming it up a bit.

And here she is in front of the Jordan River Foundation shop and doing a little promotion for my book on AIDS policy in the US that I lent her for a paper she's going to research.

Today (Friday) is the day of worship in Jordan and kind of like Sunday in the United States. Nothing happens in the morning but in the afternoon after noon prayers some things do open, including most of the shops on and around Rainbow Street. It's also the day of the Souk Jara, another Rainbow Street institution. It's an open-air market of crafts, art and food, and loads of fun. So, of course, Elizabeth suggested we should have brunch at the expat standby, Books Cafe, and things got even more fun when our Fulbright friends Christina, Jayme and Kelsey agreed to join as well. After a very leisurely load-up on many carbs and iced drinks, and running into quite a few other expat friends, we finally relinquished our cushy couch to other hungry Friday fans, and headed to the Souk Jara. A few paintings and book purchases later we declared the afternoon a success and broke to go to our respective houses to whip up something tasty for a Fulbright potluck we'll all be attending tonight.

Two more Fulbright students -- Grace and Hannah -- demonstrating that it is, in fact, possible to do work on Friday afternoon at books. They are both working as English Teaching Assistants and were working on their next week's lesson plans.

The brunch crew: Kelsey, Christina, Elizabeth and Jayme.

And here they are again in the heart of all that is happening in the Rainbow Street neighborhood -- on the corner of Rainbow and Mango Streets.

The take-away point is this: if you're in Amman you owe it to yourself to check out Rainbow Street and while away a few hours in the cafes and shops. And if you're in Amman for a while, it might just become a habit.

The Jordan Challenge 5: 0.0 Learning Arabic (the Baby Step Way)

2011-10-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

So, when I posted my List of Challenges for my year in Jordan, I had a multiple-part goal of learning some Arabic. While I can report some progress in my process -- I have a very patient tutor, Ghada, who teaches me four hours per week and I have produced sheets and sheets of awkwardly- handwritten Arabic alphabets in my big green notebook bought for the purpose -- I am still an emphatic failure when it comes to the product, as in actual ability to speak, write words, or comprehend what people are saying.

For anyone who has not ever undertaken the study of Arabic as a second language, I feel the need to point out a few things, all of them in defense of my main point, which is that Arabic is really, really hard to learn. Here are a few of the reasons why:
1. The alphabet is completely different than the Roman alphabet. So when you start studying Spanish or French or Kiswahili, you are using letters you already know (albeit with a few additions or subtractractions). Not so Arabic. Here, for example, is the way that the word "Arabic" looks transliterated into Arabic: أرابيك
The letters are (from right to left -- another complicating factor): alif/raa/alif/ba/yaa/kaaf
2. In Arabic some of the vowels get dropped out. If a word has "short" vowels in it, the short vowels are little dashes and symbols above or below letters that they follow, but in everything except children's books and the Holy Koran they get dropped out. It's kind of like the shorthand people use when texting, except it's universal. Supposedly, once you learn enough vocabulary and have some actually reading chops, you are able to figure out contextually what the word is without those little dashes to help.
3. Here in Jordan, there are two Arabics: Modern Standard Arabic and Jordanian Arabic. It makes sense to learn Modern Standard Arabic because that is the way most things are written across the Arab world, but if that is all you learn, you won't be able to understand people here in everyday conversation.
4. There are about ten letters that have no equivalent sound in English. Lots of them are made in the back of the throat and I am a long, long way from accomplishing most of them.
5. Most of the letters have four forms: how they look standing alone, at the beginning of a word, in the middle of a word and as the last letter of a word. So, when you are memorizing the alphabet you have to memorize all four forms just to recognize the letter.

I know there are many other ways in which Arabic is distinctly hard, but I don't know what they are yet, because in Arabic-learning terms I'd say I'm about in preschool. I know the alphabet and the numbers to ten (which also look different than Roman numbers) and can read a few words here and there like the stop signs that are ignored by all the drivers, and, in fact, everyone but me (and I believe this also makes me the only person to appreciate the literary value of the common stop sign). And at the gym where I run on a treadmill with a TV screen that allows me to watch bad American programs, I can sometimes pick out pronouns in the Arabic subtitles below.

Oh, and I can write my name. And thus, it seems appropriate to close with a little visual. Here are my official Fulbrighter business cards for the year. One side is in English, the other in Arabic. I circled my name on the Arabic one (although the transliteration is actually closer to D. (as in Dr.) Batreesia Sibleen, since there is no P in Arabic).

My one source of hope is that I am surrounded by dozens of extremely bright Fulbright students, all of whom hit the ground here already knowing some Arabic, and they are now studying in earnest while conducting their research or teaching assistant assignments. If they can do it, I have hope that I may progress from preschool to somewhere solidly in the elementary school range by the time I leave. I will definitely report in on what I hope will be progress.

The Jordan Challenge 4: Go on a Bicycle Trip with Cycling Jordan

2011-09-24T08:59:00.000-07:00

I've seen a couple people on bikes in Amman since I got here, and I'm pretty sure they both had a death wish. I have to psych myself up just to cross the major streets here; I can't imagine being in traffic on a bike. But, as I learned today, outside of Amman is a whole different story. I had taken the advice of one of last year's Fulbright students and resolved to do a bike ride with Cycling Jordan this year. Once I joined their Facebook Group, I was privy to the weekend schedule and saw that there were not one but three rides this weekend. I picked what looked like the easiest one (a morning of cycling outside the town of Madaba south of Amman), threw caution to the wind and signed up.

This morning, as I prepared to catch a cab to our meetup location at the Abdoun Mall, though, I was having some pangs of trepidation. I didn't know where I was going and wouldn't know anyone when I got there. What if I couldn't keep up? Turns out that my worries were for naught. Cycling Jordan runs multiple trips every weekend, and Sari, the inspiration and coordinator behind the whole thing, has been doing this since he was in his second year at the University of Jordan (he's now graduated and does this on the weekend in addition to his "real" job). It's all been honed to a science.

One of the things that made the cycling experience so cool is that the trip was anchored at a farm outside Madaba. Here I am in front of a grafiti'd logo there, about to board the bus back to Amman.

There were close to twenty of us who met up at the mall parking lot, and after signing some paperwork and paying the trip fee, we boarded a bus and headed out of town. Our destination was a private farm in the countryside of Madaba. Once we arrived, we were all issued bikes and helmets, a brief orientation of the rules of the road, and off we went.

Sari (in the yellow jersey) assigning us our bikes

The whole experience was very laid-back. We stretched out, with people adjusting their own paces, and about every 15-20 minutes we'd stop for a water break and to make sure everyone was okay. We rode on paved country roads where we were passed by the occasional car or truck, not-so-great bumpy roads, and dirt roads: the bikes performed really well on all of them. There was even a truck that followed us that a few people used as a rest stop when they got winded. After an hour and forty-five minutes of riding (I timed it out of curiosity), we wound up back at the farmhouse where we'd started.

Not a great picture but I had to include it. I had been cruising along thinking "this isn't so different than the desert fields outside my hometown of Twin Falls, Idaho." Then I saw the camels pictured here and thought, "Actually, yes it is. I'm biking in the Middle East right now!"

On a dirt road we had to stop for the herd of goats who clearly had the right-of-way.

A great thing about Cycling Jordan is that it's purposely designed to help people meet other people as much as it is to give them some fresh air and exercise. When we got back to the farmhouse we relaxed a bit while Sari and the other trip leaders put together a light meal for us -- pita bread, hummous, fuul (bean dip -- their's was a particularly good one), tomato/cucumber salad and tea. We sat in the sunshine and chatted while we ate, and I got to know some of my fellow riders better. There was Elvira, a German development worker who recently arrived here after an interrupted tour in Yemen; Tareeq and Waded, a great Jordanian couple who recently relocated back here after years of living abroad; and Ahmad, a recently-graduated Palestinian doctor who went to med school in Egypt and is now interning at a hospital in Amman.

Two of my new friends, Waded and Elvira, relaxing after the ride.

Sari kept telling us the fuul was really good while he piled on our plates -- and he was right.

Eventually we loaded back up and headed back to the city on the bus. At the mall Tareeq and Waded graciously offered rides home to Elvira and me, and with any luck, we'll be meeting up for another biking expedition, or maybe one with a hike thrown in for good measure. My original challenge was to do at least one ride with Cycling Jordan, but right now I'm thinking that shooting for one or two trips each month would be great. So, if this sounds like anything anyone here in Jordan or planning to visit wants to try, be sure to let me know. Double thumbs up for Cycling Jordan!

The Jordan Challenge -- 3. Learn to Use my Oven

2011-09-22T21:01:00.000-07:00

I think most people have irrational fears, but mine are different than other peoples'. Thanks to an awesome first-year biology TA who forced us to handle them, I like snakes, and after reading Charlotte's Web growing up, I see spiders and the webs they create as miracles of nature. My attempts at rock climbing have made me see heights as challenges, and put me on a plane -- any place, any size, any weather-- and I'm happy as can be.

On the other hand, there are some fears I always thought I'd grow out of, but since I recently reluctantly came to the conclusion that I am a grown up (and have been for quite a while), I think I'm stuck with them. The two worst of these are fear of the dark and fear of gas and electrically-powered things catching on fire or exploding. The latter fear gained a bit of momentum when my friend and former student Jamila had a gas oven blow up in her face here in Amman while she was studying abroad a few years ago.

Thus, I am quite proud to announce that I have completed the third challenge on my list -- making my Jordanian oven work -- with good results according to my Fulbrighter friends Mike and Cooper, who kindly served as guinea pigs for the resulting oatmeal raisin cookies. When my landlady showed me how to light the oven (whick needs to be re-ignited each time it's used -- no wasteful pilot lights here), she unconcernedly stuck her hand and a lighted match deep into the depths of a hole that I couldn't even see. I invested in one of those lighter wands but still had to take the bottom part of the oven out to see what I was doing. But, as far as I'm concerned whatever it takes is fine, as long as it means I'm back in the business of cookie baking, and here's the proof that I am.

Despite a few glitches -- golden raisins instead of dark, sub-par vanilla, and about a dozen attempts to get the oven lit -- here they are the official First Cookies I've Baked in Jordan. Definitely not the last.

Still warm, and ready to be taste-tested by Mike and Cooper.

Chris, Leah, Josh, Siham and Drisk, if you want your Chris Crinkles, Almond Bennetts, Leah Lasches, Maple Hoxies, Siham Surprises, and Lemon Driskies, you know where the kitchen is. Come on over and I'll bake you some. And everyone else, if you've ever wanted a cookie named in your honor, this might be your big chance. Come to Jordan and there might be some cookie-inventing in between hiking through Petra and trying mensaf.

The Jordan Challenge -- 2. Learn Something about Antiquities

2011-09-21T12:13:00.000-07:00

So, when I started my list of Jordan Challenges I purposely left it unfinished, partly because I'm lazy, but at least partly because I (to only somewhat misquote Donald Rumsfeld) didn't yet know what I didn't know. Tonight I began to fill in that gap a little, when I came to realize that I will never, ever have such an amazing opportunity to learn all about antiquities and archeology as I have right now. I still definitely want to try to actually go on a dig, but in the meantime you practically can't walk down the street here without bumping into an authority -- local or from the far corners of the earth -- on the Ancient Near East, particularly what is referred to as the Levant (the area encompassing what is now Syria, Israel and Palestine, Iraq, and Jordan). In addition to the fact that each of these countries has a government department of antiquities and that the University of Jordan has world-class scholars on the subject, the area on across the road from the University is home to several research institutes that host scholars as well.

This picture of Dr. Oleson talking is deceiving. It looks like there's only a few people when it fact I took it from where I was sitting on the side, in the overflow seating area. As I mentioned before, there are LOTS of people interested in these topics here.

Tonight, some Fulbright friends and I went to see one such scholar, Dr. John Oleson, give a talk entitled "Sand without Lime" that burst all of our bubbles about the perfection of Roman architecture and construction. After tonight I can now say with some assurance that faulty architecture, fraudulent contractors and major cost overruns are not the province of modern times -- they date back to antiquity, and there is a lot of lamenting in the records to prove it. The talk was given at ACOR, the American Center for Oriental Research, which sits on a hill and provides a research library, housing and all kinds of other support for the scholars and students who come here from around the world to conduct digs and look through archives and collaborate with their colleagues.

Some of my Fulbrighter friends -- Cooper (who was the only one to obey my instructions and pretend to be having cocktail conversation), Mike, Tess and Christina -- at the ACOR reception after the talk.

One of things that I like best about the Fulbright program is that its designers understand -- clearly and deeply -- that the value of the program is not only about the stated research or teaching project that brings a scholar or student here. It's also about experience -- everything from learning how people get their day-to-day needs met in a different country and culture to the ways that we differ (and don't) in the sources of our joys and sorrows to the special things that can only be learned in a place where those things are actually common. Here, antiquities and their study -- so foreign and exotic to we Americans -- are all around us. I'm definitely planning to keep taking the opportunities that present themselves to learn more.

This post would not be complete without a special mention of my nearest neighbors - Fulbright students Mike, Luke and Cooper. In addition to being fabulous human beings, all of them speak Arabic (though they're here in part to learn more) and each has taken a turn in the past several nights sitting in the front seat of taxis and directing the drivers in Arabic to tricky spots that would have defeated lesser humans.

50 Jordan Challenges: The List

2011-09-15T23:50:00.000-07:00

So, taking a leaf from my 2010 52 New Things adventure, I've decided to embark on a new one. This one will attempt to pack 50 challenges (and document them) into my ten month Fulbright experience here in Amman, Jordan. That sounds more ambitious than it actually is: some of the things I'm labelling as challenges are everyday experiences I'm going to have to master whether I call them challenges or not, and others are trips I've been hoping to take for years. But as I learned in 2010, thinking of challenges and actually making a commitment to do them, begets more opportunities, more new ideas, and more new friends (and old) who might just be interested in doing some of them too.

So, here's the list so far. It's obviously still in formation, and, as in 2010, there will be things to be added and things that get knocked off. So feel free to make suggestions, sign up for ones that look of mutual interest, or make your own list for comparison!

Things I Need to Do to Acclimate to Life in Jordan

* Learn to use my washing machine. This was the first thing I thought of with the list, and I'm happy to say I've done it (and did a post to prove it).

* Learn to use my oven. My oven and stove are connected to a propane tank, and both the oven and individual burners need to be lit any time you use it. I can't even figure out where you light the oven or what the mysterious dials mean. But as everyone who knows me knows, I can't go too long without baking something, so this is a must.

*Get to know my neighborhood. A funny thing about Amman is that here, addresses are meaningless. Give an address to a cab driver and he'll just stare at you. You have to know a nearby well-known landmark that you can direct him to, then tell him how to get to the place from there. I am, to put it mildly, directionally challenged. So, the recent assignment given by our Fulbright Commission director Alain, to draw maps for him of our place within our neighborhood (to have in case of emergencies) means that I actually need to get out and get to know my local landmarks.

* Learn some Arabic! Everyone has warned me that Arabic is a very tough language, so I am going to set up some baby-step goals. The first: being able to ask Nasser, the guy I've been buying my fruits and vegetables from, for what I want in Arabic.

* Learn some Arabic, part II. I think my second goal will be to learn to write a full sentence that includes my name.

* Learn Arabic, part III. The third, and this one feels pretty tough right now -- but I do have ten months -- will be to try to read a children's story in Arabic. The idea was suggested, like a bunch of things on this list, by my new friend Christina, who is a font of ideas, wisdom and excellent tidbits about the Arabic language for a total newbie like me.

Uniquely Jordanian Skills and Experiences

* Learn to cook a Jordanian main or side dish. There's tons of things I've eaten that I have no idea how to make. I hope to learn from a pro how to make one or more of them.

* Learn to make a Jordanian dessert. Everyone who knows me knows I'm all about the sweets. I want to make one of the pretty and fancy desserts or pastries that get produced here.

* Ride an Arabian horse. Suggested by my sister Katrinka, and complicated by the fact that I've only ever ridden a horse a few times in my life, period. But maybe that makes it that much more of a challenge

* Do a fun run here in Jordan. One of the toughest things about being here so far is that I can't run outside. I'm a painfully slow runner, and running on a treadmill is not only boring, but a constant reminder of that. So, I think a good way to get motivated will be to sign up for a 5 or 10 K during my time here (and no, I'd rather not try the Dead Sea Marathon unless there's something shorter attached to it.)

* Go on a bike trip with Cycle Jordan. This was suggested by Megan, an outgoing student Fulbrighter. The group takes trips to all kinds of cool spots around the country. I think it would be a great thing to do from a biking and an exploring Jordan standpoint.

* Watch a movie in Arabic. Suggested by my new friend Christina. I think I'll need to try to get some Arabic-speaking friends to go with me so I can find out later if I got the gist of the plot at all.

* Visit Petra Three Ways. When I did my 52 New Things, one of them was to do what is probably Vermont's most famous hike, Camel's Hump, in all four seasons. Similarly, I'd like to go to Petra in three different ways. They are: to see Petra at night (the long Siq is supposedly lit by thousands of candles); to visit Petra in the winter; and to visit Petra with someone really well-versed in its archeology. (I just had to post the picture below because it's from the first time I went to Petra, because it features my close friend Siham, who I hope will be taking part in one of these Petra adventures again, and because it's my favorite picture I've ever taken).

My first trip to Petra with my friends Siham and Connor, was one of the best experiences of my life. We were befriended by a couple of Bedouins, Khalid and Ibrahim, who took us on a hike out of Petra over the cliffs into the desert and spent the night in one of the caves they took us to. Here is my friend Siham with Khalid.

* Go on an archaeological dig. My new friend Elizabeth knows lots of people working in the antiquities realm. Here's hoping she can swing a tag-along for a day or two at a site somewhere. How cool would that be?

* Go rock climbing in Wadi Rum. Wadi Rum is the legendary desert of Lawrence of Arabia. It's full of cliffs and canyons and is said to have some of the best rock climbing in the world. I am just a novice at rock climbing, so I won't be able to take advantage of all it has to offer, but I sure would love to see and try it anyway.

* Go snorkeling in Aqaba. Aqaba sits on the coast of the Red Sea and has spectacular coral reefs, which I definitely want to check out.

* Explore the tiles of Madaba, the City of Mosaics. There is a really famous one in a Greek Orthodox church that is a 6th century Byzantine map of Jerusalem and other holy spots, plus a museum and lots of other smaller mosaics in other churches in Madaba.

*See the ruins of Jerash. Jerash is considered one of the best preserved Roman provincial towns in the world, and you can still go to the theatre, hippodrome, nymphaeum and other sites. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to catch one of the re-enactments they do of chariot races and gladiator battles.

*Visit Umm Qays. This is another ancient city full of ruins that overlooks the Jordan Valley and the Sea of Galilee. It's also the place where Jesus worked the miracle where he cast demons out of a man and into a herd of pigs that then ran into the Sea of Galilee and drowned.

* Visit the Desert Castles. These include Qasr al-Hallabat, Qasr al-Azraq, and Qusayer Amra in he Eastern Desert and Qasr al-Mushatta to the South of Amman.

* Go hiking in one of Jordan's nature reserves. Mujib Nature Reserve is in a very low altitude gorge that opens into the Dead Sea it offers both dry trail hikes and river hikes. I might try to do that or try a visit to Dana Biosphere Reserve or Ajlun Nature Reserve, both of which have hikes as well.

* Visit the Dead Sea and cover myself in mud. I've been to the Dead Sea once before, but it was a bit of an impromptu visit and Connor, Siham and I managed to make do without swim suits. This time I'd like to actually plan the trip, and find out if my skin really will be beautifully revived after being slathered in mineral-rich mud.

* Experience a Hamman. This is a Turkish bath, and I understand that the experience includes a steam bath followed by a very vigorous scrub and massage. I've heard different (including a bit of a horror story from my new friend, Fulbright student Cooper) about them, but definitely want to try it out for myself.

*Visit a Biblical site. Jordan is loaded with them, from Bethany Beyond the Jordan, where John the Baptist baptized Jesus, to Mount Nebo, the final point of Moses' flight from Egypt to Mukawir where King Herod had John the Baptist beheaded. This is another one off my sister Katrinka's suggestion list. Not sure which I'll visit yet, but I hope to see at least one of them while I'm here.

Because I'm in the Neighborhood: Beyond the Border

*Go to Beirut. I've wanted to do this for a long time. It's supposed to be a great city and I really want to see it.

*Visit the wine caves in Zahle in Lebanon. This one was recently suggested by my new friend Catherine and she made it sound so fun that all of us at the table were ready to pack our bags immediately.

*Return to Bethlehem. Kate, Alexsis and I experienced some of the most amazing hospitality of our lives when we visited in May. I hope to return and see the wonderful friends that we made.

*Visit Tel Aviv. Kate and Alexsis were able to visit Tel Aviv during our trip, but I had to return to Amman early. They came back with reports of a beautiful and lively seaside city that I'd like to see.

*Take a ferry to Egypt. This is yet another great idea from Christina. There's a ferry that runs from Aqaba across the Red Sea to Nuweiba, Egypt. What a fun way to do the crossing.

*Visit Turkey. My former student and friend Alexsis studies abroad for a semester in Instanbul and her dispatches back home filled me with the desire to see it myself. I'm determined to do that during or at the end of this Fulbright period.

So, there it is. Anyone who's been counting will see that there's still a good bit of room for some more challenges to hit 50, and I think that's a good thing, because obviously, I don't know what I don't know yet. But I'm putting it out there in the hopes that it will inspire me, as well as other Fulbrighters who are here and people who are contemplating visiting, to dig in and explore. If anyone sees anything on the list that they'd like to do together please contact me; and if there are other suggestions I'd love to hear them. Here's to an amazing experience in Jordan!

The Jordan Challenge: 1 -- Learn to Use my Washing Machine

2011-09-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

So, I had an exciting thought a few nights ago. Given that I am in Jordan for ten months with opportunities and challenges swirling at me like crazy, I thought it was time to resurrect my 2010 obsession and create a new list. Here's my thought: A Fulbright Year of 50 Challenges. As with the original list of 52 New Things, it will be drawn from all kinds of categories. Some won't be particularly tough, but more along the lines of things I definitely want to take the opportunity to do while I'm here. Others will be simple but important things about conquering everyday life here, as is the case on this one. And, as in the original list of 52 New Things, a few will be really pretty hard. I'll be posting the list in my next blog post after this one. But in the meantime I thought I'd share the first Jordan Challenge. It is short, but oh-so-critical: learning to use my washing machine.

First of all, I'd like to point out in my own defense that this is not as simple as it sounds. When I moved in my landlord went to great pains to show me the two full pages of instructions he had posted on the wall above the washer after repeated expats had unwittingly assaulted the machine in a whole variety of ways, all of them resulting in disastrous breakages. And, to put some teeth into his warning he let me know in no uncertain terms that his patience was at an end: break it and it would be my problem, not his.

Page one of my two sheets of posted instructions. Perfectly clear. Any questions?

So, it was with some trepidation that I bought my new front-loader detergent, put in my clothes (not less than 3 kilograms but not more than 6), selected what seemed to be a few dozen settings and pushed the final start button with a small prayer for my washer's safety.

The object of my trepidation, and my first knowing encounter with the finer points of Turkish appliance design.

I am happy to report that both the washer and the clothing survived my efforts (though I do now know that perhaps the fabric softener to which I've had a lifelong aversion might have a place in my life after all). No one uses a dryer here, and given how dry the air is, the clothes that I hung on my shower line were ready to go in no time. I feel the washer and I now have a good relationship, or at least an understanding. Onward and upward to further (hopefully more exciting) challenges!

Home Sweet Home in Jordan

2011-09-13T11:49:00.000-07:00

It's Tuesday night in Amman, and tomorrow it will be a week since I arrived in Jordan. We're in the midst of our Fulbright Orientation, but for the first two days we'd break after lunch and pile into vans to tour the city of Amman and pursue the all-important task of finding our homes away from home for the next 6 to 15 months (mine is ten). As Fulbrighters go, we're particularly lucky because here in Jordan we have a full-fledged commission, with an awesome staff looking after our welfare. Last night we had a lovely dinner in our honor at the giant Mezza Restaurant, and I thought I'd put in a picture of our hosts, the Fulbright Commission staff.

Our awesome Fulbright staff -- Fearless Leader Alain, Eman, Aya, Jawad and Miracle Worker Iman

Thanks mainly to the amazing efforts of Iman, who somehow manages to get our whole group (and I think there are about three dozen -- scholars, students and English teaching assistants (ETAs)) housed with astonishing speed, I was able to find and move into my new place after only two nights in a hotel.

My apartment is in a residential neighborhood in an area called Shmeisani, which is about halfway between the heart of the downtown and the University of Jordan. It's also made my life personally easier this week, because it's only about two blocks from the "Fulbright House" where the Fulbright Commission works and where we go for everything from our mail to crisis management.

Here I am in front of my new building, pleased as punch that I'm done lugging suitcases up the stairs.

I'm the smaller rear apartment on the top floor

Bonus! The chance for sweets, tea breaks and sitting outside just down the street

The inside of my apartment is a bit worn on the edges, but very spacious and airy. Like all the others we looked at, it's already furnished and has mainly tile floors and lots of dark wood furniture. I picked it because it was midway between some places where I thought I'd spend a good amount of my time; it was on the top (third) floor (cool, except for the day I climbed up the three flights of stairs with my big fat suitcase and duffel to move in); has two bedroom (with two single beds in the guest bedroom for visitors!); and most importantly, it has a large balcony that runs the length of the guest bedroom and living room. Here are a few inside views:

My new friend Tess stayed with me a couple days while she was apartment-hunting, and here she is in the living room. She just found herself a palatial gem and I'm already calling dibs on her oven for Christmas cookie -baking.

The whole American disintegration-of-the-family-meal-thing hasn't hit Jordan. All the apartments I've seen, including mine, have full dining rooms with plenty of room for the whole family to eat together.

Plenty of space for sitting outside and enjoying the sunshine.

So, that's my new place. Here's hoping that at least a few of my nearest and dearest will be inspired to come see it for themselves!

Thursday's the New Friday, and So the Adventure Begins

2011-09-09T01:30:00.000-07:00

The first full day of my ten-month adventure in Jordan is done, and one of the things I'm getting used to is "weekend shift". Here, the day of worship is Friday, and the weekend is Friday and Saturday. That makes Thursday night equivalent to our Friday night and Sunday is the first day of the work week. Right now it's Friday morning (we're seven hours ahead of Vermont), and not much is open because it's the equivalent of Sunday morning in a Christian country.

So, I thought I'd do a quick post about the two conclusions I've come to after my first 24 hours here. They are:

1. It's good to be a Fulbrighter, especially in Amman. Being a Fulbrighter means that someone meets you at the airport and carts you and your luggage back to a hotel. It means that there will be some sort of orientation after your arrival and someone to turn to for advice. In Amman it means more than that, because there is a full-fledged Fulbright Commission, headed by a charming executive director, Alain, with a host of helpful staff, all housed in an actual office/home that you can visit. Being a Fulbrighter also means that you'll be in good company, with a pack of other new arrivals, some of whom will already know the country intimately and speak Arabic fluently, others who will be brand new to the whole scene. But all of them will be interesting, because they are the sort of people undaunted by the prospect of taking a chunk of time out of their lives to go somewhere completely different to live and learn and be challenged in ways they can't really anticipate in advance. Which brings me to conclusion 2:

Obviously, I had to go back to my favorite Amman hangout, Books @ Cafe, during my first 24 hours here. Here are my new friends, Tess, who will also be teaching (nursing) at the University of Jordan this year, and Christina and Elizabeth, who are here as Fulbright student fellows doing research and Arabic language work.

2. No matter how much you try to prepare for a trip like this, you can't. Of course I am already wishing I would have packed some different clothes (less short sleeved tops and more with 3/4 or long sleeves, plus more formal clothes), taken 12 passport pictures (which I did and then threw out both times I went to Tanzania for extended stays), and brought different books. But even more than the packing is the mental prep, which I guess is just impossible. There's no way of knowing how things will unfold until they do. You can't force it, and that's one of those life lessons I keep having to re-learn. Experiences like this are good for that.

It gets a little chilly at night (hence the scarf) and we stayed at Books long enough to get the spectacular view of Amman in the evening. A great way start my first Thursday (Friday-ish) night in Jordan.

Next week we have orientation and the University of Jordan opens and (fingers crossed) I'll find a home for the next ten months. I'm sure there will be plenty to post about, but for now,

The Long Good-by: See You Next Year, Camel's Hump

2011-08-27T12:57:00.000-07:00

Now that the countdown to Jordan has officially begun, life is starting to feel like a series of goodbye's, purging of possessions and packing. One consolation is that a surprising number of Saint Michael's alumni are in similar situations, having spent the summer in Burlington and now making tracks to jobs and graduation school in other locations. On Thursday one of them, Kate, and I decided to put our packing aside and do the Camel's Hump hike that she never quite got around to during her four years of college.

A view of the trail on the way back down.

Given the ominous look of the weather, we thought it best to sign in in case we got stuck in the mud somewhere.

Kate did the honors when it was time to sign out.

The whole idea felt very appropriate for a whole host of reasons. First was the fact that it's pretty much a crime to do an entire degree at a Vermont college and never do a Camel's Hump hike, and Kate was determined to fix that before she left. From my angle, Camel's Hump featured very heavily in my life (and on this blog) last year when I got to hike it with all kinds of people, in all seasons and during all hours of the day (and night). Yet in 2011 I hadn't hiked it even once, and the opportunities to do it before I head to the Middle East were rapidly drawing to a close. And finally, as Kate pointed out, there is something incredibly cool about the fact that she and I (and Alexsis) did our first hike of the summer in Jordan at Petra, where I'm now headed for ten months, and our last hike of the summer at Camel's Hump, the quintessential hike of the state of Vermont, which we are now leaving.

It's hard to convey in a photo how much the wind was whipping around and how bad the visibility was up top. But you can sort of tell from the pained look on Kate's face as she clings to the rock.

It wouldn't be Vermont if there weren't at least a little kink in the plans, and we were a little surprised at how uncrowded the parking lot was when we got to the trail head for the Burrows Trail. Apparently, many lesser souls were deterred by the dark, overcast skies. We marched upward however, and passed a few intrepid fellow travellers on their way down who accurately warned us that the top was extremely windy and foggy. But as we all know, it's not the destination but the journey that counts. Through the rain, the wind and the fog we had a great hike and took the opportunity to say goodbye to an icon of the state we've both come to love. In a little over a week I leave for Amman and in a few months Kate will leave for Columbia, and both of us will take up our teaching posts for the year, Kate teaching English with the Harvard affiliated program World Teach and me as a Fulbrighter at the University of Jordan. But of course, we'll be back, and on the lookout for all our Vermont friends on the Camel's Hump trail.

A Truly Vermont Summer New Thing: Bread and Puppet

2011-08-13T10:23:00.000-07:00

As my time in Vermont winds down, I find myself more motivated than ever to both wring every ounce out of summer that I can AND to do as many things as possibly that are quintessentially Vermont. Last Sunday Paul who is always thinking of cool Vermont (and Quebec) things to do, provided yet another. Every year Paul goes up to Glover, Vermont in the area we call the Northeast Kingdom, for the annual Bread and Puppet show that runs on Sunday afternoons in August. This year Chris and I, as well as our friend Sue, rode up with him (in his shiny new white Jeep).

It's a little hard to explain what Bread and Puppet actually is: it describes itself as "cheap art and political theater in Vermont", and it was founded by Peter Schuman -- who still directs it -- in the 1960s. Our friend Sue told us that the name comes from the practice they used to do of serving homemade bread and garlic spread at the free performances. The centerpiece of Bread and Puppet is the paper mache puppets, many of them huge, that they use in their political skits and parades. The whole thing has moved several times in its history but now its permanent home is a farm in Glover, and the large barn has been converted to a museum featuring many of the puppets and sets of previous performances.

Given how visual the whole experience is, pictures are probably the best way to describe it, so I'll let some of the ones I took speak for themselves. Here they are. Take a look and then head up to Glover sometime to see it for yourself!

A central premise of Bread and Puppet is that art is for everyone. The Cheap Art Bus is one way of realizing the reality. Here Paul and Chris browse through the options.

The Museum, located inside a converted barn is literally crammed floor to ceiling with puppets, paintings and paper mache sculpture. I don't know why these particular figures "spoke to me" but they definitely did.

Paul and Sue in front of one of the many exhibits.

Chris pointed out this Gandhian quote to me, which sounds a lot like the liberation theology's "option for the poor". It's incorporated into a larger exhibit from a previous performance.

The visual variety in the museum was endless but the irony was pretty consistent. Here a devil prepares to destroy a village protected by banners proclaiming that "everything is fine".

The ceiling was fantastic as well.

Some of the exhibit's themes were not immediately self-evident -- here Chris puzzles one out.

A shot from this year's outdoor performance, "Man = Carrot" featuring, among many others, dozens of Glover area children on stilts, giant carrots, two fifteen foot puppets doing a lesbian wedding, a paper mache puppet of God and his secret service agents (wielding lightning bolts) and Vermont Yankee.

One More New Thing in New England: A Weekend in New Bedford

2011-08-04T17:55:00.000-07:00

Back in December 2009 when I was putting together the 2010 list of New Things, fellow list maker Leah urged me to include a weekend in her hometown of New Bedford. I never did get around to it in 2010, and in 2011 she once again reminded me that I really needed to check it out. With roughly a month to go before I ship out for my 10 month adventure in Jordan I realized that the opportunity was dwindling and I'd better seize. So, now I'm back from four fabulous days in New Bedford, made all the more great by the fact that the time was at different points spent not only with Leah, but also Chris, Siham, Drisk and Leah's friend-since-childhood and fellow New Bedford local, Yun.

Chris and I drove down on Thursday and Leah introduced us to her hometown with a huge dinner at a local Portuguese hometown favorite, Antonio's which we made extra-gluttonous by visiting the Gulf Hill Dairy, which is shaped like a giant milk bucket and is ideally suited for watching a sunset over the water.. Later that night Leah tried the new cookies I had made in her honor, Leah Laches. As all my friends know, one of my favorite things to do is bake cookies, and I particularly love inventing new cookies and naming them after the people near and dear to me. Leah had let it be known that she was definitely next on the naming list, and so Leah Laches have joined Chris Crinkles, Almond Bennetts, Lemon Driskies, Siham Surprises and Maple Hoxies in the roster of my namesake cookies. Leah Laches are a peanut-butter-and-jelly-twist on the classic rugelach, and luckily, Leah pronounced them worthy of their namesake.

Here's Leah and her terrific mom, who outdid herself in hospitality at the cookout she hosted for us and other guests on Saturday.

Leah, preparing to find out whether it's possible to cram a huge cone of ice cream on top of an Antonio's dinner and not get sick. (Turns out that the answer is yes, but you might still really regret it.)

Chris, Leah and Pumpkin hanging out in Leah's apartment while she passes judgement on the cookies named in her honor.

On Friday Leah had to work, but Chris and I found plenty to amuse ourselves as tourists immersing ourselves in New Bedford history. I never read Moby Dick till I was an adult, and I have to confess I was freakishly fascinated by the long, drawn out descriptions of whales and whaling. So for me, touring the whaling museum and nearby Bethel (site of the famous sermon from the pulpit that Ismael hears before he sets off on his voyage under Captain Ahab's command) was hugely interesting.

Among the many really remarkable things to see at the Whaling Museum are four real whale skeletons hanging from the ceiling. If you look carefully you can see the one further away is actually two -- the larger is the mother and the little one is her baby, which was still a fetus when she died.

The famous Seamen's Bethel that features prominently, like the entire town of New Bedford, in the beginning of Herman Melville's Moby Dick.

Late Friday afternoon Chris took his leave of New Bedford to go pick up his brother from Logan Airport and head to Southern Vermont, but luckily the relief team, composed of Siham, Drisk and Yun, were on hand to take over. Together, we ate and sunned our way through New Bedford, crashing a fabulous family cookout hosted by Leah's parents, trying Cape Verdean food at Izzy's restaurant, and hitting the shore for swimming, sunning and beach-combing twice in two days.

Drisk and Siham try a breakfast with a Portuguese twist at Izzy's. Drisk was having a dish called cachupa. He said it was excellent.

Although the others didn't get the memo, Siham and I knew that the beach color of the weekend needed to be red.

Drisk, Siham, Leah and Yun worship the sun and rejoice in the second straight day of perfect beach weather.

The verdict of the visitors was that Leah and Yun are right. New Bedford is a lot of fun. It has a great blend of history and current happenings (did you know that New Bedford actually has one of the biggest still-running fishing industries in the country?), people (and therefore food) from around the world -- from Cape Verde to Portugal to the Pacific Islands to Scandinavia -- and ports with tall ships a few miles down the road from gorgeous beaches. Who knew?

How to Beat the Heat: Get Outside!

2011-07-23T10:28:00.000-07:00

So, right now I'm in the throes of getting ready for the biggest challenge of 2011, which will be living for ten months in Jordan as a visiting professor in the American Studies program at the University of Jordan in Amman. I'll be leaving the first week in September, and it feels like most of my life consists of throwing things away -- at home and at work, and trying to figure out what I need to bring for my trip.

But it's also summer in Vermont and it would be crazy to spend all my time indoors doing those things when the sun is shining gloriously outside (at least when there's not a storm brewing). This last week brought two new opportunities in the outdoor realm although, alas, I only brought my camera to one of them. Two of my big challenges for 2011 were to become a better hiker and work on my rock climbing and I've failed miserably in both areas. But they did each get a boost this last week, first with a hike to a summit I'd never climbed before -- Hunger Mountain-- and second, with a rock climbing expedition to Bolton.

The Hunger Mountain hike fulfilled a pact with my student/friend/fellow blogger Alyssa, who had just returned from three weeks of adventure-filled exploration in South America. Alyssa is part of the MDG book group, and is working on both the MDG 3 (Gender Equity) chapter and the case study on Ecuador. In the latter capacity, she joined Jerry and Drisk in some pretty extreme travelling through the cities and jungles of the country. One thing I've discovered is that a great way to de-brief from these country trips has been over bike rides and/or hikes, and as we powered up the mountain (or more accurately, Alyssa powered up and I panted after her) she told me some pretty incredible stories of ten-hour canoe rides into the Amazon, jungles with the most amazing diversity of birds and animals imaginable and episodes of beyond-reality-TV caliber wading through mud and swamps deep into the rain forest.

Alyssa and I at the summit of Hunger Mountain. The wind was whipping around, which was great because it had been one hot climb up.

Here's a picture of Alyssa that gives a little better sense of where we were.

This was not only a new hike for me, but a whole new area. It would be cool to come back some time and do one of the longer hikes that start from the same trail head.

My other adventure of the week, rock climbing at Bolton was, like so many of my adventures out of doors, provided through the good graces of the Saint Michael's Wilderness Program, which set up some opportunities for faculty and staff to try some sports this summer. Six faculty/staff signed up but on the day in question, four dropped out so it was just Tom and I who showed, giving us one-to-one instruction time with our two awesome student instructors, both named Andy.

The first that came with this particular adventure was rappelling, which I had never tried before. It's not that different from being lowered down at the end of a climb, but the first time you try it, it's plenty scary. Basically, you have to back off a cliff and the first step down is a definite leap of faith. And the fact that rope really does get hot from all the friction is not initially reassuring either. But once you've done it, like so many other things, it's pretty cool. And once you're at the bottom, there's nothing to do, but climb back up! The two Andys set up top ropes for two different routes for us, and we both climbed them both.

I'll be interested to see what transpires with both hiking and rock climbing in Jordan. I met a rock climber among the students at the Fulbright pre-departure meeting who will be in Jordan when I am, and who was excited to hear about my sighting of a new climbing gym a little out of Amman on the way to the airport. And one never knows; maybe there's a climb in world-famous Petra in the year to come. For now, I think I need to concentrate on more purging punctuated with time outside in the greatness that is summer in Vermont.

A 70th Birthday Celebration and Trip Down Memory Lane: Frankenmuth!

2011-07-17T18:38:00.000-07:00

This was a banner year for birthdays in my family. In January I was in Michigan celebrating my father's 80th birthday, and last weekend I was back again for my mom's 70th. In both cases, my sister Katrinka, who is probably the most organized member of our family, was the logistical genius that made things happen. For this celebration she had the great idea of bringing my parents, sisters (plus families) and I together (brothers Jim and Jean couldn't make this one with their families) to a place that we used to nag our mother to visit incessantly as children.

Frankenmuth was settled by German Lutheran immigrants in the 1800s and brings a bit of Bavarian flavor to an area where you wouldn't expect it. It's a little hard to pull off since there are no mountains to complete the picture, but there is plenty of Christmas glitz. The tourism of the town centers around the entrepreneurship of two families the Zenders and the Bronners. The Zenders created two German restaurants across the street from one another in the center of town, Zenders and the Bavarian Inn (which boasts a life-sized glockenspiel that does a show based on the legend of the Pied Piper every three hours). The Bronners, on the other hand, had the idea of selling Christmas before the age of Christmas tree stores. When we were kids they had three stores, but now they've consolidated them into one mega-Christmas store with every ornament, outdoor display and Santa-themed thing you can possible imagine.

In case anyone out there is looking for inspiration for trimming this year's tree, I've put together a little montage to help you out. Check it out:

My personal favorite of all the Christmas ornament displays. Something new for Say Yes to the Dress!

Anyone up for a beer can tree?

In case you'd like something for your bathroom, here's purple and pink!

Car lovers should love this one. Note the license plate and hub cap highlights.

Nothing says Christmas like a fake child dressed up like a flower between a "tree" tree and a snowflake tree

I made my niece Daisy pose next to this tree for hunters that might be equally suitable at the NRA's office

Anyone whose appetite for ballet was whetted by viewing Black Swan might read some sort of dark symbolism into this upside-down ballerina tree

We stayed at the Bavarian Inn Hotel (complete with five pools, an arcade and underground miniature golf!), shopped for all manner of Christmas knick-knacks (most appropriate for me, perhaps, since I'll be missing American Christmas this year while in Jordan) made pretzels, rode in a horse-drawn carriage and ate lots of German food. The reaction of my nieces Tigist and Daisy and nephew Alex confirmed my realization that Frankenmuth is HUGELY loved by kids, though the older set might need to lower the bar on expectations based on their childhood memories a wee bit.

Here's the pretzel-rolling crew -- Katrinka, Tigist, Alex, Donna, Brian, me and Daisy-- hard at work in the basement of the Bavarian Inn

Our favorite restaurant in Michigan when we were kids and site of my mom's birthday bash -- the Bavarian Inn

But though Frankenmuth might be most fully enjoyed by kids with big imaginations, continued fascinations with Christmas, and the desire to swim in all five pools, it was also a fun way for three generations to help my mom celebrate a landmark birthday. Happy birthday Karine Siplon!

My mom (sitting between my nephew Alex and my dad) receiving her birthday cake.

Work and Fun on the 4th of July Weekend

2011-07-05T08:21:00.000-07:00

One of the best things about the enormous challenge that is the MDG book project is that all of the past and former students who are part of it are such great people. It's pretty much impossible to get all, or even a majority, of the contributors in the same place at the same time, but whenever I know that a few who are alumni are coming to Burlington, we try to pull together an in-person meeting. My two most stalwart teammates in last year's quest for 52 New Things, Siham and Leah had been away from Burlington for far too long, so when they decided to come up for the 4th of July weekend we knew a meeting was in order.

The July MDG meeting crew: Siham (Goal 5, Team Rwanda), Leah (Goal 7, editorial team), Amanda (Goal 5, Team Rwanda), Matt (Goal 8, Team Bangladesh), Michelle (Goal 1), and Annie (Goal 7, Team Bangladesh)

In addition to the 3-4 person teams that are working on individual chapters on the eight goals that constitute the Millennium Development Goals, there are four teams that have recently completed field research in four case study places that we are including in the book -- Ecuador, Bangladesh, the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and Rwanda. (Two of the students involved in the case teams have been keeping their own blogs -- Annie (Bangladesh) and Alyssa (Ecuador), which I hope everyone will check out as well). Over the fourth of July weekend representatives of three of case study teams were in Burlington, so we knew we had to call a meeting and take the opportunity to talk about commonalities and differences in our experiences, as well as check in on the general chapter work. I'm going to ask each of the teams to help write a longer post about the four cases, but in the meantime I should note a few of the immediate things that jumped out to all of us. Of the three teams that were represented, it seemed as though Rwanda was making the most headway in the goals. As we talked through the interviews and observations we had made, the concept of government capacity loomed large. Rwanda has done remarkably well in marshaling the relatively large amount of resources that have come, often from donor nations in recent years to make notable strides, particularly in the area of health. The military occupation of the OPT and the poverty and lack of government capacity in Bangladesh have seriously hobbled both nations from making similar strides. The Ecuador team was still in-country at the time of our meeting, but we're all looking forward to comparing notes with them soon as well.

Leah, Siham and Chris demonstrating the most important Burlington past-time -- sitting on a rock on Church Street and people-watching while eating Ben and Jerry's ice cream

Once our work was done, it was time for Leah, Siham and I to make the most of a fabulous summer holiday weekend, and I think we did a fine job. Last July we had a similar weekend when we visited the Rokeby Museum. This year, we didn't go to the Rokeby, but we did lots of other Burlington stand-by's, like the Farmer's Market and a little jaunt up Mount Philo. Leah and I also took a turn at stand-up paddle-boarding, and of course, we went to all our favorite breakfast and dinner places and watched the fireworks at the Burlington waterfront. Just one more weekend reminder that it's hard to beat summer in Burlington!

Siham is not capable of coming to Burlington without visiting her honey man at the Farmer's Market. Chris tried to convince her that she needed that lighthouse candle but instead she bought the biggest jar of honey in the world.

Leah and I had a great time paddle boarding but learned an important lesson -- it's easy paddling out with the wind, much harder paddling against it on the way back.

I made Siham and Leah pose for this picture under the rock overhang because I had taken an almost identical one on last year's trip to Mount Philo.

One Challenge is Back on Track: Hell Brook Trail is One Helluva Hike!

2011-06-29T06:24:00.000-07:00

If anyone ever asks me what's the hardest trail I've ever hiked, I've got the answer: Hell Brook. It's not the longest, or the most famous, but it puts you through your paces. My handy Guide to Vermont's Day Hikes (an excellent little book by Jared Gange) says that it is "perhaps the most continuously steep and rough trail in Vermont", and it's the most direct way to the Mount Mansfield summit. It starts out hard, and then about halfway up, gets really hard, with mostly-rock face that requires you to use your hands and feet all the way. Then you get to a point called Lake of the Clouds where you can see the "Chin" (which is the summit). That ought to be encouraging but it's not, because it looks so daunting.

Oh, the optimism at the trail head. No idea what lies in store for me.

Working up a sweat, but still don't know about the rock wall coming up...

The first night I ever met Chris he told me that he hikes Hell Brook Trail all the time as fast as he can, and he promised to take me on a hike there. Yesterday, he made good on his promise, though, I'm grateful to say he did not hold me to doing it a fraction as fast he does. That's good, because given the fact that his record to the top is 41 minutes 15 seconds (I think), and it took me an hour and 45 minutes to do the same thing, I probably would have burst a blood vessel if I'd tried to speed it up much more.

Not even winded, Chris hanging out at the summit.

Despite the fact that it's quite the challenge, it's actually a lot of fun (in a twisted kind of way). Although it doesn't require ropes or anything like that, anyone who's done some rock climbing will really enjoy the second half, where, as in rock climbing, it's all about finding hand and foot holds and strategizing the way up some pretty steep rock faces. In deference to the ridiculous knee injury I incurred on Saint Patrick's Day, we decided to go down via the Long Trail, rather than directly back through Hell Brook, and then Chris, who was of course, hardly winded by the leisurely pace (for him) of the whole excursion, ran back to the car that was parked about a mile down the road at the Hell Brook Trail head.

Feeling celebratory (and chilly) up top.

On the way back, we were passing the Ben and Jerry's factory in Waterbury, and Chris announced he'd never been. Muddy legs and all, we did the factory tour and devoured some free samples. Hell Brook Trail + Ben and Jerry's = Pure Vermont Summer. Unlike Chris, I'm not likely to make the trail a weekly part of my exercise, but I'd certainly be up for doing it again before the summer's over. Anyone who wants to give it a shot, let me know!

In case anyone was worried, here is visual proof that Ben and Jerry are hard at work creating NEW flavors that will be hitting scoop shops soon.

A hike up a really hard trail, some of the best ice cream in the world, and an obligatory tourist shot to wind it all up. Gotta love Vermont!

New Thing 9 : A Summer Weekend in Montreal

2011-06-14T08:13:00.000-07:00

Last year, in the flurry of thinking up New Things, my friend and colleague Paul came up with some great ideas, one of which was to take a day trip to Montreal to try two things I'd never done: visit a professional sports tournament (the Rogers Cup) and eat that classic Canadian Junk food, poutine. We had a great day last year, and I should have known that Paul would figure out a way to do it one better this summer. This year he rented a terrific apartment for the month of June in Montreal and invited friends to come see him, which Chris and I were happy to do.

Should you find yourself visiting a friend in Montreal for a summer weekend, here are some tips on how to make the most of it.

Go to Mount Royal Park and climb up to the top to take a look at the city. That's what we did on the first day we were there and it was beautiful. The park was designed in 1876 by Frederik Law Olmsted, the designer of New York City's Central Park and Tacoma's Wright Park (that's my favorite park in the world, only partly because it's where my awesome niece Tigist and I play when I go visit her).

Chris and I taking a look at Montreal from the top of Mount Royal.

Rent a bike. Montreal's bike system is spectacular. This is true for two reasons. First, they have an incredibly user-friendly (except for figuring out the weird system of using your credit card twice on the same account to get two bikes) rental system. You use a credit card to get a bike out, and that gives you unlimited biking privileges for 24 hours. You can drop off the bike anywhere there are stands (e.g. next to pretty much all metro stops and tourist sites) and get another just by inserting your credit card again on the same account you already opened for the day. The second part of what makes the whole thing so great is separate two-line biking roads through much of the city. You're rolling along right next to a major road with no fear that a car is going to come along from nowhere and run you down. Awesome!

These are the bikes that are available all over the city. They're pretty heavy-duty and even have lights for nighttime use.

Paul, of course, rode his own. Here's he's locking it up so we could head down to the waterfront where Cirque de Soleil was setting up for a new show.

Go during the Fringe Festival and feel like an artsy person. One thing Montreal has in common with Burlington is that in the summer it's inhabitants and visitors feel a moral obligation to get outside. After a long hard winter, everyone has earned the right to enjoy all the long days and sunshine they can cram in, so there's lots of festivals and city activities. We were there during the Fringe Festival, which is a month-long set of theatre and performance art. Friday night we went to How to Become Jayee, a somewhat confusing play that's about three people doing a play about J. Edgar Hoover. Saturday night we caught a rising comedienne, Robby Hoffman, who also just happens to be the relative (niece, I think) of my colleague Robert Letovsky. One (small, of course) downside of living in the town of Burlington is sometimes remembering that it's just not a city. But if you need an urban feel, it's lovely to know that Montreal and all its festivals are just couple hours away.

Eat. A lot. We took this goal pretty seriously. One of the best things about Paul's neighborhood-for-a-month is the bakeries -- tons of them. There were three Montreal bagel shops within easy walking range, all of them open 24 hours a day, which I think is an uncommonly good idea. We ate out at all kinds of yummy restaurants (though alas, no poutine on this trip), and my favorite was Robin des Bois (Robin Hood), a restaurant that not only served us a fabulous dinner (I had a really great vegetable stew and Chris and Paul both had mussels), but takes its name seriously. Volunteers act as servers, and the money they and the restaurant make are donated to a number of charities listed on the menu.

This was my favorite bagel shop because the people inside were so nice. When they heard that we were from out of town and wanted to take a picture they invited us behind the counter to pose in front of the wood-fired oven.

Be prepared for any kind of weather. Another thing that Montreal has in common with Burlington is that the weather can change on a dime. In three days we had hot sun, cold rains and everything in-between. The worst of the rain came on Sunday afternoon, making the visit to the Fine Arts Museum to see the temporary exhibit of terra cotta warriors from China just the thing (except for the fact that much of the rest of Montreal had the same idea). Paul's place is terrific, and loafing around reading weekend papers was a pretty good option when it was inclement as well. But when the sun was shining (and even when it was drizzling), we were out on the bikes and on foot, exploring neighborhoods and seeing the sights.

Our gracious host, Paul, relaxing with the weekend paper while we waited out the rain.

Friends of the Earth Middle East: Giving New Meaning to the Purpose of Challenge 6

2011-06-01T13:21:00.000-07:00

The more I travel the more I realize two things. First, the world is full of opportunities, but most of the time we miss them because we're so preoocupied with other things, and second, people who think they can't make a difference when it comes to intractable problems need to travel a little more to find the people out there who are making that difference. Our experience with Friends of the Earth Middle East has been an amazing proof of both these points.

First, a brief recap is in order. Kate, Alexsis and I constitute Team Palestinian Territories and we've been travelling in Jordan and the West Bank learning about how people living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are doing in the quest of reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). One of my major challenges for the year (Challenge 6, in fact), is to write a book on the MDGs with a group of about 25 Saint Michael's College students and alumni. We have teams working on all eight chapters (for the eight goals) and we also have teams focusing on four cases studies. (The other three are Ecuador, Bangladesh and Rwanda, andI'm hoping they'll guest-blog at some point on their experiences as well.)

One of the things we learned early on in our exploration is that water is the key to many aspects of development. In case you've ever wondered, here's how much water there is in a cubic meter.

We've met with a number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Amman and the West Bank, and are grateful to them all, both for their excellent work, and for making time to meet with our little group and patiently answer our questions, many of which probably seem self-evident or elementary to them. But we owe a particular note of gratitude to Friends of the Earth. The organization has not only inspired us all on a personal level, its staff has gone out of its way to facilitate both our understanding and our travel experience in ways that can only be classified as phenomenal.

The story actually began in Washington, DC over a year ago, when Kate was studying there and attending a panel on water issues at the Woodrow Wilson Center. One of the speakers was Gidon Bromberg, the director of the Tel Aviv office of Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME), and his talk left a deep impression on Kate. This spring when we were brainstorming ideas of groups to contact regarding our trip, on Kate's suggestion we contacted the Amman office of FoEME, and it was, in fact the first meeting we conducted on the trip. At the office several staff members as well as the Jordan Director, Munqeth Mehyar, made time to walk us through the in's and out's of both water policy and the challenges of doing regional work in this part of the world. They introduced to a number of different projects that FoEME are working on, including the Good Water Neighbor Project, which pairs neighboring communities in Jordan, the Palestinian West Bank and Israel to work on shared issues of concern regarding water and sanitation. And they told us a particularly inspirational story about two local communities, one Palestinian (Wadi Fukin) and one Israeli (Tsur Haddassah), that went beyond even the original goals of shared water work to jointly successfully oppose the section of Seperation Wall that was scheduled to be built between their two communities.

Much of the success of the collaboration of Wadi Fukin and Tsur Hadassah is due to the tireless work of community activists for peace in both villages. Here is Kate with FoEME Field Organizer Fida, and local Wadi Fukin activist Abu Mazen.

When they learned that we were travelling to the West Bank, they put us in touch with the Bethlehem office of FoEME, and from there things just kept accelerating. The Palestinian office is the home base of any number of fabulous staff and interns, but most deserving of acclaim from our point of view is our new friend, Samiramis (Shamo), the energetic officer of government and public relations. Introduced to use by Chelsea, an American intern from UC - Santa Cruz who befriended us our first night in town, Shamo not only facilitated our visits to the Auja EcoCenter, Wadi Fukin (the Palestinian village from the story above) AND the Tel Aviv office, where our work in a sense came full circle, when Kate was able to personally meet Gidon, who spoke in Washington, DC and our group was able to see all three coutry directors working together. Along the way, Shamo also moved us out of our hotel and into her own home, where she served as an amazing personal host for the rest of our time in the West Bank.

Shamo not only opened up huge opportunities for us in our search for information about the MDGs, she also opened her own home to us. Here she is answering Kate's questions at the Church of the Nativity, which is down the street from her home...

and here I am in her kitchen learning to prepare fresh grape leaves for stuffing from her mother.

A simple blog post can't really do justice to the work that Friends of the Earth Middle East is doing, but it's worth it just to scratch the surface. The organization is unique in its 3-part horizontal structure that creates equal partnerships across the Jordan, Palestinian, and Israeli offices. Pretty much everything they undertake is an incredibly heavy lift, from trying to rehabilitate the Jordan River (water source for all three areas) that has virtually dried up, to creating brand-new models for everything from eco-tourism (which we got to see first hand at the Auja EcoCenter in the West Bank) to water neighbor pairings.

Fadi and Mohammed show Alexsis and Kate the map they use to explain water issues to children who visit the EcoCenter.

The main building of the Auja EcoCenter. Like the rest of the facility, it was constructed with an attempt to reuse materials and with a gray water system plumbing system.

The work can take a heavy toll on the personal lives of the staff of all three offices, who are sometimes viewed as disloyal to their respective countries for working across deep political, ideological and cultural boundaries. But what comes through loud and clear in all three offices is the strong commitment of those who staff them, and the successes they have already had in a place where they odds are usually stacked against them.

Alexsis and Kate, together with all three of the country directors, Gidon (Israel), Munqeth (Jordan) and Nader (Palestine)

Research is often all about trying to understand problems and then searching for solutions. Friends of the Earth Middle East is helping all of us, and especially the people most affected, understand some critical problems, and facilitating solutions from those communities. Their work gives meaning to both research and development, and we are grateful for their guidance, friendship and example.

Challenge 12: A Year (Almost) of Living in Jordan -- Ready, Set....

2011-05-29T21:08:00.000-07:00

My plan had been to make my next couple posts be about Friends of the Earth Mddle East and water issues we've been learning about respectively, but Kate and Alexsis have my camera right now while they finish up our meetings and do a bit of tourist-ing. So, I decided instead to use some pictures I already transferred to my computer to post about the big challenge I'll be taking up in the fall -- my ten months as a visiting Fulbright professor at the University of Jordan. I thought it would be fun to give a little flavor of Amman, both in terms of what tourists see and what my everyday life might be like.

Spending our first 24 hours of the trip in Dubai predisposed us to be on the lookout for the biggest and/or mostest of everything. Here I am pointing to what Amman claims is the world's tallest flagpole. But I like the photo because I'm also pointing to the city that will be my home for the next academic year.

I had a meeting Sunday morning at the University of Jordan, and learned that my teaching, which will be in the master's degree American Studies program, will mostly be at night. I will likely have two courses per semester, with each being taught for a three hour block in the evening. As I mentioned in a previous post, here the work week is Sunday through Thursday, so two of those evenings I'll likely be teaching though I don't yet know which courses. As for where I'm living, that's still not settled either, but a great thing about the Fulbright program here is that it is administered by a Fulbright Commission, and I met the charming and incredibly knowledgeable Director of the Commission, Alain, a few days ago as well. The office very kindly arranged to take me around to a few of the flats being used by Fulbrighters this year, and it is possible that I will be renting one of those flats in September. Below is a picture of the living room in one of them with Kate and Alexsis (who came along to give moral support and advice), Hussein, the Commission's driver, and the building superintendent.

Attention potential visitors: this might be the kitchen/living room in which you'll be drinking lots of mint tea when you come see me.

As for the all-important question of what I'll be eating next year, two items I know will figure prominently. The first is hot tea with lots of mint and sugar. As one of the many hallmarks of Jordanian hospitality, they serve it everywhere here -- not just in cafes and restaurants but when you walk into a shop as well as when you enter a home -- and it's positively addicting. The other is zatar, which I unfortunately don't have a picture of. It's a mix of dried herbs, with oregano featuring prominently. It can be baked right on the top of pita bread (sometimes with white feta-like cheese) or you can dip your pita in olive oil and then zatar. Either way, it's great. It's very common to be served meze, which I mentioned in the previous post. It's a whole host of salads and spreads and fresh vegetables, which are eaten together with pita bread. Below is a picture of Khaled (who repeated last year's feat of introducing Siham, Connor and I to Amman by doing the same thing for this year's group), Kate and Alexsis tackling the spread on the table.

Dinnertime (about 10:30 pm) with Kate, Alexsis and Khaled

Although drinking, as you might expect in a very Muslim country, is not very common here (though it does definitely exist), the Jordanians love their bars and cafes. Instead of alcohol, they smoke, both cigarettes and the nargileh (sheesha or, as the signs catering to tourists sometimes call it, hubbly-bubbly) and drink lots of tea and coffee. Altough the nargileh at first seems strange to some Westerners, it's actually a really nice communal way to pass the time. You don't inhale deeply as with "regular" tobacco, and you are usually sharing the water pipe so a lump of sheesha lasts a long time. The smoke is flavored, mostly with fruits like apple (my favorite), mint, lemon, and other varieties. The bars will usually be playing Arabic music, sometime taped and sometimes live, and they definitely cater to a late night culture. It's not unusual for people to eat supper here between 8 and 10 pm and then move on to a coffee bar.

Sitting next to the live singer in the coffee bar we visited on our first night in Amman

Finally, I should mention that Amman is quite the city to explore, and it's good that I'll have ten months to work on that project. It's spread out over a lot of hills, and the roads are very twisty and though parts are shady and spacious, other parts have that crowded chaotic feel of a capital city in a developing country. Interspersed throughout are just the right amount of antiquities popping up to keep things interesting.

Alexsis and Kate exploring the Citadel at the top of the city

A lovely view of the Roman Theatre, which is undergoing some kind of renovation project at the moment -- here's hoping they finish before I come back in September.

So, that's a little glimpse of the city I'll be coming home for ten months starting in September. One of the many things we can learn from the Jordanians and the Palestinians is hospitality, which they have raised to an art form. Anyone who makes it to this part of the world will recieve a very warm welcome!

Thursday Night in Bethlehem

2011-05-28T04:16:00.000-07:00

So, it's been a week since my last post, and a whole lot has happened. Alexsis, Kate and I have been travelling first in Amman, Jordan and then in various places in the West Bank learning about how the people living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (actually only the West Bank since we can't go to Gaza) have been doing with regard to the Millennium Development Goals. Along the way we've been greeted with incredible kindness and hospitaliy wherever we've gone, and so the next few posts will probably be a mix of serious (and sobering) discoveries from our research and attempts to offer a sense of the fabulous adventures we have had along the way. So, in the spirit of fun adventure, it seems appropriate to begin with the story of how we spent our first Thursday night in Palestine.

In a future post, I'll be writing specifically about Friends of the Earth Middle East, which has been the organization we've worked with most since arriving here. But for now I'lll just say that by Thursday night we were being hosted in the beautiful home of our new friend (and Friends of Earth staffer), Samiramis (who everyone calls Shamo). Americans are used to thinking of Saturday and Sunday as the weekend, but here it's Friday and Saturday so that Thursday night plays the role of Friday night in the states. For us, that meant a social agenda arranged by Shamo in two parts: first an engagement party of the son of a close friend, and second, a very important viewing of the TV show that all Palestinian televisions were tuned to that night, New Star.

About half our table at the engagement party was American -- all invited by Shamo. Here she is, together with me, Kate, Alexsis and Chelsea, the FoEME intern who introduced us to Shamo.

The engagement party was a lot like a wedding, with LOTS of singing, dancing and food. Here's the bride-to-be being hoisted up on a chair during a dance.

One of the hallmarks of Middle Eastern hospitality is a generosity with meals that is unbelievable. At the party we stuffed ourselves with mezze -- the plates of hummus, fuul, vegetables and salads that are served with pita bread here -- as well as cake and chocolates. But just when we thought we couldn't eat another bite, they brought us all the actual diinner, which was chicken, rice and vegetables. There was a live singer interspersed with Arabic dance music and lots and lots of dancing. But around 11:30 we had to make our exit because we had another event to go to.

Apparently, the singing competitions typified by American Idol in the US are actually a global phenomenon. The Palestinian version is New Star, and Thursday night was the grand finale where the winner would be selected from among three finalists. One of these finalists was George, the Bethlehem hometown favorite. So, we went to the restaurant of George's family to watch the final episode and cross our fingers.

These posters are plastered all over Bethlehem. But this one is special because it's hanging outside George's family's restaurant, where we watched the results of the competition.

Alas, although we faithfully stayed till the bitter end around 1 in the morning, George was destined to be a runner-up that night. But happily, all three of the finalists will be on a tour in the US together, so do keep your eyes out for George, possibly coming to a town near you.

New Thing 8 :24 Hours in Dubai

2011-05-20T15:11:00.000-07:00

So, I'm sitting at the Dubai Airport right now. It's 2:00 am here, and I'm waiting with two of my favorite newly graduated Saint Michael's seniors, Kate and Alexsis, for it to be 4:30 so that we can check in for our 7:30 am flight to Amman, Jordan. It's all part of the MDG book project that I've written lots of posts on (and will be writing more as the summer unfolds). But today's post is devoted to our 24 hour layover in Dubai, which actually was a long time coming, considering that it was on the heels of an epic ten-hour overnight bus ride from Burlington to New York City and a twelve hour flight from JFK to Dubai.

This morning we rolled off the plane, put our backpacks in "left luggage" for the day and headed into town after changing some cash and getting complementary visas from the government of the United Arab Emirates. Not knowing which way was up, we decided to take a river tour along the "Creek" which runs from the Indian Ocean through much of downtown Dubai, and we lazily hopped in a cab to get there. Our first surprise came when we were tucked into a "Ladies Cab" -- which could easily be distinguished by its pink top and woman drive (and its slightly heftier price tag than the "ordinary" cabs).

Alexsis and Kate enjoying the shade while we wait for our Creek tour to begin.

It was hot hot HOT in Dubai today, and we were more than happy to sit in the shade with about 25 other tourists and listen to an recorded English-language detailing all the notable buildings we were passing on both sides of the Creek. And one thing you can't help quickly picking up on is that Dubai pretty much exists to be notable. If there is a way for something in Dubai to be biggest/tallest/priciest/mostest-in-any-way, it will be, and if possible the new superlative thing will be attached to a gargantuan mall, where affluent (or at least heavily indebted) people of every race, religion and creed can gather together in the common purpose of shopping till they drop.

Oh look! It just wouldn't be a proper Dubai attraction if it didn't set SOME kind of record -- in this case, the largest plexiglass sheet ever. But walking underneath sharks and sting rays, I must admit, was pretty cool.

Anyone who knows me well may not believe this, but today my day centered around shopping (though I actually didn't buy a thing beyond some food and admission tickets). Alexsis, Kate and I went to two of the biggest malls in the world, as well as one of the world's most famous gold markets (or Souk, as it's known here). And while we were checking these places out, we naturally wound up viewing the world's only indoor ski resort with an actual functioning chair lift and everything, as well as an aquarium and "water zoo" that of course, had to set a Guiness World Book record (however obscure).

After a winter of skiing together at Smugg's Alexsis and I couldn't bring ourselves to shell out the money to try indoor skiing -- it just looked so silly (and yes, that's a real chair lift that we're pointing to).

In the interim I am proud to say that we did also manage to eat a lunch at a local Iranian restaurant, where Kate got to try the Middle East staple of schwarma (Alexsis, who studied abroad in Turkey and travelled widely during that semester, is an old pro) AND we figured out the city's rather excellent public transportation system. After our first pricey cab ride we ditched that option and bought day-long tickets that worked on the metro, public water taxis and buses, all of which we rode on multiple occasions. Finally, around 10:30 pm we came back to the airport, retrieved our packpacks and had some less-than-divine airport food. Now Alexsis and Kate are napping and I am blogging.

Kate and Alexsis standing in front of their millionth gold shop in the Gold Souk during our evening of window shopping.

I am quite positive that the UAE has much more to offer, culturally, historically, and physically, than the gazillions of buying opportunities we saw today. If you love the glitz and over-the-top quality of Vegas, you're going to adore Dubai. If Vegas and/or shopping are not your things, you might want to dig a bit deeper than we did, because Dubai at face value is a bit surreal. For us, it's onward tomorrow to Jordan and then on to the Palestinian Territories and Israel.

Challenge Substitutions: Acting Locally and Globally

2011-05-15T15:39:00.000-07:00

Back at the end of 2010 I decided that 2011 would be the Year of the Challenge, and put together a list of what that would look like. Then Siham and Leah, predictably, helped me to refine it a bit further and became this list. But alas, finances and injury conspired against me to knock two challenges off the list. When I managed to pull my MCL on a Saint Patrick's Day skiing accident, all hopes of a running-based challenge went out the window. And, although I am confident that Leah, Siham and I WILL take a cargo ship to Alaska, it will not be happening in 2011.

Of course, in line withe the old saying that for every door that closes, a window opens, circumstances have also dictated two new challenges, one for this summer and one starting in September and running into 2012. They have both been caused by the exciting opportunity that opened up with the Fulbright award to Jordan for the 2011-12 school year. Thus, the new official Challenges are: first, to wring every ounce of summer possible from this Summer in Vermont and second, to spend an entire school year teaching in a new place (specifically, the University of Jordan).

This first challenge means that I want to do every uniquely Vermont thing I can this summer -- hiking and biking new trails, trying out new and old sports on Lake Champlain and exploring the nooks and crannies and villages of Vermont I may have overlooked in the past. And so I began the Challenge in earnest last weekend when I celebrated National Train Day by taking the train from Burlington to Bellows Falls, and visited Saxton's River (where Chris's mom, gracious mom, Ingrid, hosted us and kept up the traditional of serving some of the best food I've ever had) and Grafton, home of Chris's former employer, Sue, and site of the Vermont Museum of Mining and Minerals. I come from a family of museum lovers, and that love has been nurtured in large part by my sister Katrinka being a professional museum consultant and content developer. I especially love local museums, particularly when I know the people who helped create and fill them. So I had been dying to see the Museum of Mining and Minerals because Sue founded it and Chris helped set it up, and additionally built a number of the rock structures in it. Last weekend they were adding the newest rock installment, a fairy-sized house made of agate and other stones. This joined the fairy mine and lapidary (if you're not sure what that is, check out the picture below) and a new set of stunning geodes. Here's a fun set of pictures from the museum.

A close-up of the fairy lapidary

Did you know that garnet is the Vermont state gem? If you want to see a fabulous set in all its different forms and levels of processing, come to Grafton to see the museum sometime.

The state gemstone, and the state mineral, talc (shown above), were officially declared by the Vermont State legislature following a campaign initiated by Sue.

Here are Chris and Sue, with Chris's newest work, the agate house, between them.

A close up of the agate house. All the pieces were hand cut -- my favorite is the perfectly-matched stone shingles on the roof.

Chris bringing in his newest work

I asked Sue to take a tourist-y shot of Chris and I in front of the museum she founded

So, the newest challenge of living a truly full Vermont summer has begun, but it's about to be interrupted. On Wednesday, Kate, Alexsis and I embark on a middle eastern adventure that will include buses, planes, layovers in exotic cities, and lots more. I'll certainly be blogging about it in the next two weeks.

Time for a Re-Set: Challenges 5 and 6

2011-05-02T07:52:00.000-07:00

Who knew that a little pull to a medial collateral ligament (MCL) could take a person so far off her game? It's been over a month, and I'm still limping. Any attempts at running are distant memories, and I learned the hard way last week jumping up to grab a silly exercise ball that my knee is NOT jump-ready. However, I am pleased to report that I am slowly starting to get back on track. I need to do a major overhaul of my entire list of 2011 Challenges, given that the knee injury sidelined some, and my upcoming trip to Jordan has placed different ones front-and-center. But this post is about two challenges that are being dusted off -- and one's even being put on the fast track. They are rock climbing (Challenge 5) and the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) book project (Challenge 6).

Rock climbing had fallen completely off my list of activities on Saint Patrick's Day when I hurt my knee but I'm happy to report that, with a little help from two friends, I got to get back on the Saint Mike's climbing wall last week. My ever-patient student, MDG collaborator and climbing coach Amanda was on hand to help, and Alyssa, another student and MDG collaborator took up my challenge to try it out for the very first time. She managed to get all the way up on her first go -- impressive.

Here's Amanda showing Alyssa how to tie the ropes before she starts her climb

Alyssa coming down after her impressive first climb all the way to the top

Me trying to learn how to lean to the side for more leverage in a hold -- it's harder than it looks!

As for the MDG book, we need to get into our speediest mode for two reasons. One is that we need to get a substantial amount of the text actually written this summer. Early summer is also when we're headed out -- in four country case teams and with incredibly generous support of the office of the Academic Vice President of Saint Mike's, Karen Talentino -- to make it all happen. Last Friday we got a chance to share some of the work in progress at Saint Michael's College's third annual student symposium. I'll be doing a whole post on the MDG book project and where we're at with it, but for now, wanted to post some pictures from the day of students involved in the MDG project presenting at various research venues throughout the day.

Here are Alyssa and Jerry working on a poster presentation on how Ecuador is doing on the Millennium Development Goals

Connor (part of the team for MDG 2) reporting on the problems of water scarcity for the refugee population in Jordan that we researched together last summer with Siham

Alexsis (part of the team for MDG 8 and the Palestinian Territory case study) giving a presentation on her last summer's Provost Grant research on the financial crisis in the EU

As I mentioned above, there's a ton of work to be done this summer, and teams of students (and I) will be writing feverishly in the months ahead. But for now I wanted to send out a little post as a shout-out to the students on this project and what they've already accomplished. Now it's back to our last two weeks of school -- classes this week and finals next -- to finish out the semester.

I made Jerry and Alyssa (Team Ecuador) and Matt and Annie (Team Bangladesh) pose with me in front of their posters on those topics

2011 New Thing 7. Free Cone Day

2011-04-26T05:19:00.000-07:00

Last night I was downloading some pictures and realized I had recently done a blogworthy New Thing and it hadn't even registered. Every community has its own local traditions that might be observed in other places, but not with the same meaning. Here in Burlington, Vermont Free Cone Day (FCD) is one such event and, though I've lived here for a dozen years now, I'd never been.

The MDG independent study group hard at work: Alexsis, Ben, Amanda and Matt

For the sake of any ice cream haters out there (for they would be the only people who don't know this), I'll recap: on April 12 Ben and Jerry's ice cream stores throughout the world open their doors to everyone and give free cones to anyone willing to wait in line for them. For us Burlingtonians, this day has special significance, because our downtown is the birthplace of the Ben and Jerry's scoop shop and though the company got sold to Unilever some years ago (to our everlasting sadness), Ben and Jerry are still prominent Vermonters and supporters of the lefty politics that makes the political right wing of this country avoid our state like the plague. Plus, on a good year April 12 is our first day of spring, since the one that the Weather Channel claims (March 21) is usually marked by some kind of blizzard here.

This year April 12 fell on a Tuesday, which is also the day of one of my favorite activities of this semester, my independent study meetings with Alexsis, Amanda, Ben and Matt. Every once in a while a teacher gets lucky by having an astoundingly great group of students all in the same class. That happened to me in fall 2010 when I taught a new course on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) for the first time. As I've written elsewhere, and will be writing about again shortly, the interest of the class has blossomed into an amibitious book project, drawing in a lot of outstanding alumni, that we are pursuing together. On Tuesdays I have been teaching two different independent studies with four of the students involved in the project. Alexsis and Matt were not able to take the original class and so have been doing the readings from the course and meeting for the discussions. Ben and Amanda were in the original class and signed on for an advanced topics version of the MDG experience. All four of them have also been helping bring together the logistics of the project, which are about to get complicated in a hurry, because this summer, with major support from the office of the Saint Michael's College Academic Vice President, Karen Talentino, we are continuing with the writing and sending student teams to four countries to gather information. That project will be its own post, but for now, I'll just say it's a lot of work to pull together, and it's been great to have the support of the independent study team.

When we met on the twelth it was a beautiful and sunny late afternoon, and we quickly decided that we could just as easily discuss our aganda standing in line on Cherry Street as around a table in Alliot Hall. So, we crammed into my car, headed downtown and loaded up on ice cream. Oh, and learned a new truism -- nothing says Millennium Development Goals like Ben and Jerry's.

MDGs + free Ben and Jerry's + warm spring day = the Perfect Independent Study Class

2011 New Thing 6: One Weekend, Two Road Trips

2011-04-13T09:16:00.000-07:00

I've been to both Boston and Washington, DC lots of times before, but never via road trips on the same weekend. It all started out when two Saint Michael's College clubs -- the Student Global AIDS Campaign and the Dear Hilary Campaign for the Congo -- decided to join forces and take a bus down together to Washington DC so that we could spend Friday doing a rally at the state department ("Joining Hands for the Congo") and some lobbying on Capitol Hill.

Late Thursday afternoon 55 Vermonters -- about 30 students and faculty from Saint Mike's, the rest members of the local Congolese community (and a few, like my friends Cleophace and Pierre, who are both) loaded up the bus and headed out for the 10+ hour drive to the Nation's capitol. The next day we held a big noon-time rally directly in front of the state department, complete with drumming, a song in Swahili that Naweza patiently taught us on the bus ride down, speeches, and most importantly, an appearance by a number of state department officials working on African issues who came down and asked to meet with some of our leaders. One of the chief demands they discussed was our call for a special envoy to the Great Lakes region. Given that the Congo is (and has been for 15 years) experiencing the greatest devastation caused by conflict on the planet (more deaths, rape and murders than Iraq, Afghanistan and the Sudan combined), we believe that the focused attention that a special envoy could bring to the conflict is obviously warranted, and in fact, long overdue.

One of the best things about being political in Washington DC is the chance to see some of my favorite alumni. Here I am (complete with rain-soaked hair and a Michelle Duggar-esque t-shirt and long skirt ensemble) with Kelly and Siham.

Sam, Alexsis and Alyssa -- we thought we were early, but actually we were just waiting on the wrong side of the state department building. (Alyssa has her own blog: get her version of events at http://alyssasmc.blogspot.com/)

After the rally ended, a team of us headed over the Senate buildings to lobby on global health spending and issues in the Congo. Our group, pictured here talking to a staffer for Senator Kerry, also met with staff from Senator Leahy's office, which the other team visited the offices of Senators Collins and Shaheen

The trip to DC was the epitome of speedy. We left Burlington on Thursday afternoon and arrived back on Saturday morning. For me, that was pretty necessary, because I also had a plan to spend part of the weekend in Boston, visiting my beloved niece Tigist and her parents, Katrinka and Brian, who were in town for a conference. It was a lot of driving for a single weekend, but some things are so completely worth it. Here's some pictures featuring the cutest three year old in the world (that would be Tigist).

Tigist and mom (my sister Katrinka) hanging out at the New England Aquarium.

Siham joined us for dinner Sunday night. She and Tigist share an unusual hobby, namely finding the teeniest tortilla chips in the basket to eat.

Although Tigist was too little to appreciate it, we had dinner at the Border Cafe in Cambridge because it has special significance to Katrinka and Brian -- it's the place they met. Here they are with Siham, Tig and Brian's colleague, Kell.

Saying goodbye to Tig before heading back to Burlington Monday morning.

A Major Development in the Quest for New Things: It's Jordan, Baby

2011-04-01T10:38:00.000-07:00

So, it's not every day that a form letter has the power to rock your world. But that's what happened to me Monday when I finally got the answer I've been waiting for since I sent in an application back in late July of 2010. On Monday I found out that I've been selected for a Fulbright award to teach for the 2011-12 school year at the University of Jordan. For those who might need a slight refresher on their Middle East geography, here's a little map for reference. The University of Jordan is in the capital city of Amman, so that is obviously where I'll be as well.

As you can see, Jordan has some neighbors who have made the news quite a bit in recent years. It shares borders with Israel and the West Bank, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Although I will miss people here terribly, it will of course be a win-win situation for everyone when as many of my family, friends and past and current students as possible take up my call to visit me and explore the wonderful country of Jordan and the surrounding area. Chris and I have already started to think about all kinds of interesting possibilities for him to spend part of the year there, and Katrinka, Brian, Siham, Leah and Jamila are cooking up itineraries as well.

Everyone who knows me knows that I am, to put it mildly, directionally challenged. Here I am at a major University of Jordan landmark with our incredibly gracious host, Inas. I think I'll be orienting myself with the tower a LOT next year.

So, a couple of this year's challenges just took center stage -- like trying to learn a bit of Arabic -- and at this time next year I'm expecting to be posting new things left and right. But for now I just wanted to do a wee bit of recap about a few of the reasons I am one very lucky person to have been given this opportunity to go to Jordan. Here are three from among the many I might have chosen.

Hospitality I wrote a whole blog post about this last year. Siham, Connor and I were blown away by the amazing hospitality we encountered absolutely everywhere -- from the Omrans, who knew only that we were friends of friends and made us at home in their house, to Inas who showed us all over U of Jordan and treated us to the biggest lunch of our lives, to Mazen who not only set up our visit to the Baqaa refugee camp, but accompanied us inside, to Khaled who quickly became our favorite new friend because of his sense of fun and willingness to introduce us to so much of Amman. I've been to some astoundingly hospitable parts of the world, but Jordan really is in a class by itself.

Here are Connor, Siham and Inas in the U of Jordan faculty dining room trying to eat a bit more of the biggest lunch in the world that Inas treated us to. I am going to need to limit my time there next year or I may come back to SMC as the biggest person in the world.

Our amazing friend Khaled took us to yet another fabulous dinner right before our trip was coming to an end.

So much left undone Siham, Connor and I all agreed that last summer's trip to Jordan was a major highlight of our lives so far. There was so much there that we loved, from the big (like Petra) to the everyday (like hanging out at Books Cafe watching the night descend upon the hills of Amman). But there was so much that we couldn't get to in two weeks: the desert of Wadi Rum, the mosaics of Madaba, snorkeling in the Red Sea, the Roman ruins of Jerash, or seeing any museums at all, actually. And then there is so much travelling to the fabulous surrounding countries to be done (We did pop over to Jerusalem and I got in a viewing of Cairo, but Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, the entire Gulf Peninsula, and more of Israel and the Palestinian Territories as well as Egypt, are just begging to be explored.)

Here are Siham and I taking a breather from playing tourist in Jerusalem.

It's easy to see why Siham, Connor and I became semi-permanent fixtures at Books cafe in Amman. The open air, the fabulous view, the friendly people (and Green Mountain Coffee to boot) -- what more could you want?

Petra Wrote a whole bunch about this last year too, since it was only probably the most unexpected adventure of my life. But even if Ibrahim and Khaled aren't on hand the next time I return to show me and whoever I'm with a bit about life among the Bedouins, Petra will still probably be the most breathtakingly visual experience I've ever had. Can't wait to see it again, and to share it with people who come over to visit me.

Look at how tiny Connor and Siham look. Everything about Petra is truly amazing.

There's lot more to do with this semester, and with some ongoing projects, especially the MDG book, before it will be time to focus on the Fulbright. And besides, there's lots of details I still don't know. I'm pretty sure I'll be teaching from September to June, and that I'll be teaching both graduate and undergraduate students in the American Studies program there. I'm headed to Washington DC in June for a few days of orientation with other Fulbrighters going to Middle East, and should learn lots more details then So now it's back to work, and trying not to think too far in the future about the what life will be like in Amman. But one thing I know for sure is that it will be an amazing adventure, and I hope many of the people in my life will want to come share a bit of it with me.

2011 New Thing 5 + Challenge 2: A Weekend of All Things Maple

2011-03-24T07:47:00.000-07:00

Vermont is a year-round destination. People come in the winter for the skiing and other snow-based activities in the Green Mountains, they love hiking and paddling in the summer, and the fall, of course, is full of some of the best foliage displays in the country. About the only time that Vermonters don't suggest for tourists to come is now -- the beginning of mud season, when the rocks protrude through the diminishing snow on the ski slopes and the dirt roads become impassable and every morning it's any one's guess whether it will snow or rain or feel like a sunny spring day. The silver lining to mud season, though, is that it's also maple season, and there are dozens of maple sugar houses that kick into high gear to get their trees tapped and sap boiled for the year. Each year one weekend is specially designated for all the sugar houses to open their doors and welcome the public, and last weekend was that open house time. Chris, Siham and I headed up on Route 15 to the area of Vermont known as the Northeast Kingdom to check out some of the sugar houses there.

Lots of Vermont farms do maple syrup production in addition to producing other agricultural products, and our tour began at one of those places, the Boyden Valley Winery. It was packed, and after checking out the boiling room, we headed back to the car for a path a little less-travelled. We quickly found it, just down the road at the Lasting Spring Farm, owned by the Hunt Family. They've had to sell off much of the family farm, but still operate a saw mill and the kids of the family had only just put out the flags saying they were open for the day. The Hunts obligingly explained all kinds of things about their operation to us, from the layout of the tubing system that conveys the sap to the boiler room to the fact that Saint Albans, about 50 minutes north of Burlington is actually the hub of syrup production equipment for North America.

Chris getting some lessons in the science of syrup from one of the long-time experts at Boyden Winery

Siham saved her questions for the Hunt family. Their brand-new sugar house (made from trees they milled themselves) is just down the road from our first stop.

After visiting the Hunts, we headed still further north to the town of Johnson, where we left off our quest of all things maple for a detour to the Johnson Woolen Mills, another Vermont institution for the past 167 years. We tried on many forms of flannel before hitting our final syrup destination of the day, the Dodge's Sugarhouse at the Mansion House in Johnson. This one was particularly appealing to Chris because it involved a 3.3 mile drive to the end of a heavily rutted dirt (mud) road. There we had still more maple samples and syrup on snow, and finally broke down and bought syrup and maple cream as mementos of our days' travels.

Siham and I couldn't resist trying on some (a lot) of things at the Johnson Woolen Mill. The giant flannel shirts were pure Vermont but the hats took me back to my hometown of Twin Falls, Idaho.

For those who have never seen it, this is what fresh, hot maple syrup on snow looks like.

The next day it was time to put the syrup to use, and I tried my hand at modifying baking recipes to incorporate real Vermont maple syrup. The results turned out pretty well, I must say. That night Chris, Siham, Josh, Dan and I tried out a pretty good mix -- salad with maple vinaigrette, roasted Brussels sprouts in a maple reduction (Sihams's contribution) and three new baked goods -- maple-cranberry scones, maple sugar cookies and maple rugelach. Josh has been not-so-patiently waiting for a cookie named after him and I thought it would be the maple sugar cookies. But when the group unanimously decided that the maple-chocolate rugelach I concocted was the best thing in the batch, that became his cookie of choice. Hereafter the rugelach will be known as M.R. (Maple Rugelach) Hoxies, and I've promised to make a second batch in the near future for people to try.

Here's Josh holding the cookie that I thought was going to be named in his honor But after trying the rugelach, he declared that it was the rugelach that would henceforth carry the name of Maple (Rugelach) Hoxie.

Here was the day's haul of baked goods . The smaller plate has MR Hoxies and maple sugar cookies and the larger one has maple-cranberry scones.

Despite the crutches it was a fabulous weekend, and proof that there really is no bad time to visit Vermont. Even in mud season, there's lots to see and do (and eat).

2011 New Thing 4. Not what I had in mind for a new thing: learning to get around on crutches

2011-03-22T08:20:00.000-07:00

My big plan for spring break 2011 (March 14-18) was to stay right here in lovely Vermont and soak up all the opportunities that came my way to work on my 2011 challenges during that time. And I was off to a good start. I went skating on Monday and then with Ali on Wednesday. The ski season will be drawing to a close soon, and I was resolved that I'd go at least twice during the break as well. On Tuesday Alexsis and I went to Smuggs and had a great time.

A happy day at Smuggs. Note that Alexsis isn't even wearing her coat!

The top of Smuggs is very picturesque. There's a guy stationed up there taking pictures to sell, but of course, Alexsis and I took our own.

But then on Thursday it all went, as the British like to say,pear-shaped. Thursday was, of course, Saint Patrick's Day and the Mad River Glen ski resort was offering a killer deal: wear green and get a lift ticket for only seventeen dollars. Who could resist that? Certainly not Chris and I. The catch is that Mad River Glen is not your ordinary ski resort. In fact it's unique in a number of ways, beginning with the fact that it is technically a cooperative, owned by its members. It also relies solely on Mother Nature for its snow since it has no snow-making equipment. But it's two biggest claims to fame are that it is one of two resorts left in the country (the other is Alta in Utah) that doesn't allow snow-boarders and it is home to the last operational single chair lift in the country. It also has a local reputation for having very challenging runs, so much so that its slogan is "Ski it if you can."

Here's Chris riding the country's last operational single chair lift.

In our regular skiing trips to Smuggs Alexsis and I developed the habit of trying to do at least one run during the day that was a real challenge. So, I thought I'd try to apply the same logic to Mad River Glen. After spending the morning skiing trails marked as intermediate with embarrassingly diminutive names like "Bunny" while Chris raced down all kinds of black diamond (expert) runs, I thought I should try just one. Yet another unique thing about Mad River is that while other resorts mark their advanced trails as single, double or triple diamonds, here they just put up a single black diamond for everything hard and let the skiers sort it out. So, I selected one called Canyon because it had a short upper part and I figured if it were too much I'd get off after that and go to something easier.

Chris warned me that it would be hard, and stayed at the top of the trail so he could follow me to collect my skis when I inevitably fell and lost them on my way down, which is exactly what I did. After doing a bunch of stop and start turns around the moguls (the hills of snow that make it so hard to navigate), I tried to do a few consecutively, got going too fast and crashed. My skis came off, my knee got twisted and I slid downhill much more rapidly than I'd been skiing. Chris helped me collect myself and after I got back together I took my humbled self back to my easy trails. My knee hurt but I didn't want to be a wimp, so I skied a couple more runs before realizing that it really hurt and I probably should stop.

After a sleepless night of not being able to find a way to place my knee that didn't hurt a lot, I got up the next morning to discover that I couldn't actually unbend it all the way. I spent the morning at the Fanny Allen walk-in clinic, (where I had an only-in-Vermont moment when both the doctor and the nurse who saw me teased me for thinking I could handle Mad River Glen as a novice skier) and discovered I had strained my medial collateral ligament (MCL). Happily, it turns out that this is one that tends to heal on its own.

So now I am hobbling on crutches and discovering what many other people already knew, which is that the world does not go out of its way for the temporarily or permanently disabled. The hardest part, which I had never given a thought to before, is that if your hands are full with crutches, they can't be used for carrying things, which makes grocery shopping an interesting experience (but fine if you have a loyal friend like Siham carrying your basket around for you). And stairs are a very major pain. For the first time ever I am welcoming the fact that it's mud season here in Vermont, because it's a lot easier (albeit messier) to keep upright in the mud than on the ice that coated the sidewalks just a week or two ago. Luckily for me, I think my MCL will heal quickly (my knee already has a lot more range of motion than a few days ago), but the experience has taught me some important things about my own limitations (on the ski slopes and off) and about how great it is to have supportive people in one's life. Lots of people offered all kinds of help, everything from running errands for me to giving me rides to work, and Chris and Siham (who was up for the weekend) especially have been champs.

Happily, my crutches didn't keep us from celebrating Maple Syrup weekend. Here are Chris, Siham and I on Saturday during our tour of the Northeast Kingdom's sugaring operations. That was its own New Thing, and together with the maple cook-a-thon on Sunday, will get its very own post.

So, my ski season for this winter has come to an abrupt end. Here's hoping for a quick recovery and a chance to get back to the other challenges of 2011.