i entrusted this donkey with my life

I'm not sure why ‘ass’ is an insulting and demeaning term.  And the term exists in almost all languages.  Bengalis scold each other with a scoffing “gadha naki?” when they refer to someone being an idiot, i don’t know how many guys I’ve referred to as ‘asses’ and the kids in my classes  scrunch up their faces and mutter a despicable “hamarr” to whoever it is that they are furiously pissed off at.  Of course you can always call someone something that’s much worse than an ass, but really, these animals, fellow donkeys, should be praised.  They are probably one of the most resilient and strongest animals around.  In India, I’d see lines of donkeys slowly walking by with the kid responsible for keeping an eye on them occasionally striking them on the side with a thin narrow slender stick or a tree branch, and these eeyore like donkeys trot along, with a giant sturdy canvas bag like thing swung over their backs carrying literally tons and tons of bricks that no human being could every carry.  Lifting up 5 or 6 pieces of bricks is probably  a challenge for most, but I’d see these donkeys carrying 50 or 60 pieces, just slowly trotting along. 

One of these donkeys, one in Petra Jordan, not in Udaipur, India, carried me up almost a thousand steps up the edges and swerves and sometimes smooth and sometimes rough and choppy curves of an ancient mountain up to the very top, to the ancient site, supposedly the most worthwhile spot, to the Monastery, an age old architectural wonder perched on the very top of a mountain in Petra, the red rose city.

The hike up to the Monastery, the very last stop in Petra was sped up to a 20 minute hike instead of an hour long one riding on the donkeys.  We were pressed for time. Our day in petra had begun at noon and starting from the entrance and making our way to the top of the monastery had already taken us to 6pm and we wanted to be back by 5.  We actually got done around 7ish, after every bit of our physical strength was exhausted and we were all wiped out.

“A rose red city half as old as time” is how the city of Petra was described by the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt after it was rediscovered in 1812.  And since then this stone city, which arguable stands uniquely with no other  contesting place on earth resembling anything like it, has been brought to your western eyes by movies such as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and if you go to Petra now, you’ll see small shops with the Indiana Jones hats, and young boys riding horses egging on tourists to ride through the city with “Indiana jones” style horses.  I gave in. not only did I buy the touristy Indiana jones hat, I also rode the freakin horse.  It was pretty darn fantastic.

 UNESCO calls it one of the most precious cultural properties of man’s cultural heritage and BBC says its one of the 40 places in the world you have to see before you die.  I intentionally try to avoid reading up on things I’m going to see before I see it because I want to view it with fresh eyes and then go back and learn about what I saw.  Sometimes expecting something to be wonderful makes it as wonderful or not as wonderful depending on your perception and really takes away from the inherent aesthetics and history of what is in front of you, and I don’t want to see world wonders with anyone else’s eyes but mine.   

Without having a preview or trailer of what it’s about,  I was pleasantly overwhelmed with what I saw that day.  I was literally wide eyed.  As a person who is exhilarated by bright colors or colors of the earth,  especially natural hues blending in together and dancing in harmony  on the steep natural sides of giant boulders in an inimitable way, I drew into Petra because of its unique blending point of an immense natural wonder meeting man made genius.  Most wonders of the world are either one or the other.  Man made or natural.  Petra is a simultaneous composition of both.  In the past year, alhumdullilah, I was fortunate enough to see the Taj Mahal as well as the Great Pyramids of Giza.  And as crazy as people may think I am, Petra beats them all.  The Taj Mahal is glorious and the Pyramids are breathtaking but Petra is  a journey  and not a destination point like the others.

 The stone.  The sheer stone city, the red stone, with swirls of colors, the ancient grooves, pillars, structures,  tombs, buildings, sacred burial sites, just sitting there, waiting for your eyes to feast on and wonder what kind of world this city must have existed in when it was originally built is mind staggering.

The rising sides of the steep carved mountains majestically shade over the narrow path in between (and by narrow I mean only several feet wide in certain spots) which provides a calming, and soothing cool walking entrance to the contrasting scorching and blistering bare and sunny trek beyond the Siq. The Siq is the official entrance to Petra, a natural gorge.  It’s absolutely breathtaking.   I mean just look at this thing :   

You are literally walking in between a natural split.  The swirly red stone, and the looming two sides of the crack provide shade that you wont find for the rest of the walk in Petra.  At the end of the gorge is the Treasury or the Khazneh, which is a massive construction carved in the 1^st century.   As I stood in front of the face of this structure, I was at awe trying to imagine what this must have looked like 2,000 years ago if it looks like this now.   I must say, I just knew before going to Petra, that going to Petra is the thing to do if you go to Jordan but I had no idea what that meant.  I had no idea that it basically meant going on a journey to “rediscover” an ancient stone city.  It’s not a single monument or a single destination spot, but it’s an actual lost city.

By the end of this trip, my feet were blistered.  The most memorable part of the day was a slight detour that our group of seven took.  We started climbing a mountain and were told that the very top was a sacred burial site.  And we kept on climbing, not knowing where it ends really.  And we climbed for a good hour at least.  I was drained and exhausted but the view from the top was something that I will never forget.  Not only could you see all of petra from a birds eye view but you could see unbelievable terrain.  And looking closely at the panoramic breathtaking view, you could see things like shepherds herding their animals and going down sides of mountains.

The donkey.  I was reluctant to do the donkey trip up to the monastery.  But you realize when you’re so close to something so ancient and so amazing, if the only way to do it in time is to ride a freakin donkey, you will get on the donkey.  So I got on the donkey and held on to dear life as it went up.  And going up, as its feet trotted up the broken uneven steps, sometimes missing them completely, sometimes brushing your body against the rugged mountain, I kept on thinking about how much fun going down the mountain would be..  At that point, going up that high on this animal, with nothing but a rein on my hands, which meant absolutely nothing, I realized that one wrong move would have me tumble to, well, death, or a lot of pain at least.  There was no other option but to hold on, reallllllly tight, and trust this animal completely and let go of any fear, any discomfort, or worry, because there was absolutely no point in doing any of that.  All you could do is trust, and let go,  and just enjoy the ride going up and somehow safely come down again to level ground. 

-----------------------------------------------

leaving you with a poem about Petra which won the Newdigate Prize for Poetry in Oxford in 1845 :

Petra

John William Burgon

It seems no work of Man's creative hand,

by labor wrought as wavering fancy plnned;

But from the rock as by magic grown,

eternal, silent, beautiful, alone!

Not virgin-white like that old Doric shrine,

where erst Athena held her rites divine;

Not saintly-grey, like many a minster fane,

that crowns the hill and consecrates the plain;

But rose-red as if the blush of dawn,

that first beheld them were not yet withdrawn;

The hues of yough upon a brow of woe,

which Man deemed old two thousand years ago,

match me such marvel save in Eastern clime,

a rose-red city half as old as time.

Part II - Umm Rami

I got to this job via the place that I eventually found to take Arabic in (finally!!!).  now was it the several series of emails that i sent to the University of Jordan that led me to find this Arabic course? no. was it the slew of emails that i sent out to 'language' centers that i found out about via google? no.. was it the asking around friends and kids who are taking summer courses that led me to find an arabic class? nope.

it was the lady that brings me coffee twice or three times a day, whom i can barely communicate with because my Arabic is as weak as her English is, but someone that I share a silent, but loving respect with, who just took me out, after finding out that I do wish to study Arabic over the summer, not just vegetate in my room and drink her coffee, walked with me for 15 minutes to take me, literally, inside the registration office of the Modern Language Center right in the area where I was staying, which I had no clue existed.  She waited while I enrolled, and walked back with me with an understanding smile.  

Umm Rami (mother of Rami), kind of a silent figure that I smiled to for the first couple of days here, somehow tended to my needs without me ever asking for it, and half the time noticed me not taking care of myself way more than I even did.  She saw the clothes that I had spilling out of my duffel bag resting behind the door, and without saying anything, dragged this heavy wardrobe closet thing out from another room and into my room, saying to Suzanne (who knows English so she is the middle woman translator) that " I don't like her clothes on the floor, please tell her to put them in here", or her coming into my room and asking why I haven't asked for laundry and insisting that I hand over SOMETHING that needs to be washed, and neatly having it folded on the corners of the bed the next day, or worrying that I didn't eat all day, so coming into my room and giving me a plate full of those cheese pies with a beaming "Sahtain!" (arabic way of saying "bon appetit"), or being like "why haven't you asked for something cold?? when it's so hot outside today" and then bringing over a cold glass of Tang.  and mid day, and around 3pm she'd always bring in a small cup of that strong Arabic coffee stuff.  The thing with that coffee is that I know Arabs love it. 

     Typical Arabic Coffee presentation

                  The Stuff I drink

But I'm Bengali.  and we drink a lot of tea, i mean a lot. but when we Bengalis say "tea" we mean like 75% milk and 25% actual tea and like 3 teaspoons of sugar.  so this Arabic coffee stuff, straight up espresso, real coffee thing WITHOUT milk, is a bit too much for me to take.  In fact I hate it.  I want my milk concoction.  But Umm Rami makes it every day, twice a day, and I can't throw it away because she'll see it.  So, I drink it.  And honestly it's not too bad after the bad taste is gone and you swallow the whole thing like a quick shot.  My non-alcoholic self actually has a fun time pretending that it's a shot glass.  And after a couple of weeks of having this stuff a couple of times a day, I can actually drink it without making too bad of a face.

This was pretty incredible, and I can't wait to continue my Arabic, so that I can speak to Umm Rami, but she told Suzanne that her family is all over the place, and they are all either displaced or refugees or in some situation where they can't see each other and that she knows what it feels like to be alone in a country and not know anyone and how much being helped can mean.  At first I didn't realize where this was coming from, but after ruminating for a while, I realized she was referring to me, and it was honestly too sweet to think of how she embraced me under her wing..after recognizing me as a refugee lol.

So, the point being.  this lovely woman not only led me to my job, but also to a productive summer of Arabic learning like I had originally wanted.  I feel utterly blessed and humbled and just...damn. God is too cool.  People in your life, no matter what their role, how big or small they might seem on the surface, are just, honestly guiding angels.

part I Teaching

OH. MY. GOD.  the total adrenaline and high of bouncing around in a classroom came back today and I came back to my place absolutely beaming, totally high off the energy (this cumulative energy of students that just rubs off on you).  it feels freakin amazing to be in a classroom.  i came back to see Suzanne, the front receptionist lady, super excited about how much i loved my first day, gave Umm Rami, the super friendly, mother figure, wonderful woman that she is, who usually tends to everyone in the office giving them coffee or tea or tang, a giant hug and a kiss and a box of chocolates, that i really just had to pick up on the way home (there's a giant chocolate shop on the walk back that i just never noticed before) and Suzanne was radiating the beam saying "wow I really envy you!".  DAMN it feels REALLY good to have a job that you absolutely love.  i kind of forgot that i loved it.  i reeeeeeeeally love it :)  i can't explain what it is, and i can't tell you what it is, and if someone saw me teaching in a classroom they probably wouldn't know how much  i was loving it.  but it's a pretty special job. :)

My first class had no desks, and my book that I have to use, (yay it comes with a dvd) is a conversational book for English from 1991.  It physically pained me to conduct a lesson on the awfully pixalated, fro-haired, poofy skirted 90s 'trendy' girl character's dialogues and the dudes straight legged white jeaned strange pick up lines greeting.  Like most of everything that happens to me these days, I had no idea what to expect.  I was just nervous with the prospect of teaching for TWO entire hours, when in Ramallah I struggle with the 40 minute blocks.  So this was my first class : no desks, just those white plastic chairs in a room.  How many students? 42.  this officially beats what I thought was the worst number of students that I'd ever seen, which was my own class back in elementary school in the inner city public schools of Brooklyn (what up P.S.152) boasting 35-37 students per class.  This might be funny to some of you, a nightmarish hell to others, and just absurd to most.  My youngest student in this class, is 6 years of age.  And my oldest student is 24.  in. the. same. class. 42. students.  I am covering..kindergarten through University aged kids. in. the. same. class.

The second class, thank God, is just 20 something number of just the older kids.  What's interesting is that I got the textbooks for that class 5 minutes before class and was told that by day 10 (as in 9 days from now) i have to give them a midterm exam on the first 3 units.  Shock news to me that I was actually in charge of teaching a crash course curriculum,  when i was getting hired yesterday  I was told I'd just be teaching conversational english and that I could scare them by threatening to give a test but not really give one.  well that story changed today! lol. regardless, i was thrilled to teach a class where there are no fights, where the kids are actually sitting down, and I can actually talk and teach.  something that was rare in Ramallah I felt.  Honestly, SubhanAllah and a thousand Alhumdullilah's for a great day.

back in the classroom

the 2 week lull in Amman somehow abruptly ends today.  The super nice lady here who has taken care of me like i'm her daughter found me a language center to go to and start taking Arabic classes.  When I showed up to the center, they thought I was there for English lessons until I opened my mouth at which point they told me the cost of the Arabic program followed by asking me if I wanted a job.

And they said "great you're interested! do you have time to take the test?" so i took some 3 hour long proficiency test and then was told that I start working "TOMORROW" as in TODAY.  Back to the classroom for me (I'm both nervous, excited, jittery and anxious to face a classroom full of faces, where things going wrong or right is dependent on a split second neglect sometimes).  Now I'll be teaching intensive English, each 2 hour long lectures/classes/conversation for 2 class periods a day, and then taking a 2 hour long arabic course in the evenings.  And this all happened in a day! Whaaat!

wish me luck

I shamelessly admit that I only care about football once every 4 years

I shamelessly admit that I only care about football once every 4 years during the World Cup Fever.  I am definitely one of the masses when it comes to the World Cup.  I haven't watched  a match since the last World Cup, I have no strong allegiance to any team or to any country, minus picking a team to root for only at the beginning of the match  (most of the time the underdog team, because it's more fun) and cheering and rooting them on and getting fully absorbed into the world wide frenzy, and becoming one of the trillions of pairs of eyes glued to the field and that darn soccer ball.   I do however wish to see a non-european/non south american team win (not happening this time).  The world cup, even for someone that doesn't know a thing about sports, has been twisted with strange turns of events, with random absurdities from refs not counting or counting legitimate goals to Brazil's fallout to Germany's cutting speed slaughtering Argentina out of the running for the Cup.

I must say experiencing the fever is much more eventful, much more enthused, much more exciting and much more fun outside of the States.  Restaurants and cafes are jam packed.  Yesterday my friend and I were turned away from a couple of restaurants because it was completely full before rushing over to another cafe where we dodged being turned away only because of the kindness of the cafe host squeezing in 2 seats for us. We stayed an extra three hours to catch the next game, trying to avoid the whole trying to find a spot again.
I wish America was equally enthused about this instead of ruminating in their egocentric bubbles of self-absorption where a semi-comparable energy is exerted for the Super Bowl, which is just America playing hand football and the "world series" for baseball, again just America playing, or for basketball..again which is  just America playing.

Because this frenzy takes over every 4 years, it certainly makes you think of where you were 4 years ago and makes you wonder about where you'll be 4 years from now.  It becomes a landmark in time.  Last time, I was lucky enough to be in Singapore, and this time around, I'm experiencing the game watching obsession in the Middle East.

Ramallah.  The dichotomy of a modern hip and "urban" (i put urban in quotation marks, because really Ramallah just started getting street signs last month, before there were no street signs) capital center of Palestine, undoubtedly the most liberal place, with clubs and coffee shops made very international friendly  can easily make one forget that there are refugee camps down the road or that it's a city under occupation.  Quite easily going to some of the nice cafes in town, you could forget where you are, and only "see" the nice presentation of the shops, the delicious meals, and the hospitable waiters scratching down your order and then bringing the food to your table.  Sitting at sandwich shop, I could easily close my eyes and literally feel like I'm eating lunch in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Not getting all the games at home on our TV exposed me to a number of cafes in Ramallah that I hadn't gone to before.  Y and I went to see one of the beginning games at the French and German Cultural Center, then come another game night when we went to see it in a pretty hip place called Beit Aneesa, and then to another place called Snowbar (not Snow Bar, but snowbar, which means pine nut in Arabic).  Beit Aneesa had waiters running around tending to the fully packed arena, down to the floor where me and Y were squished sitting amongst a throng of giant Brazil fans (all internationals) cheering on the match and enjoying a mug of beer.  Snowbar, damn, that place, is this incredible cafe, that reminds of me of an enlarged Cafe Driade on crack on Franklin Street back in Chapel Hill (for those that know where it is, tucked away, underneath trees, with a very earthy, humble and non-conventional cafe shop feel), completely surrounded by Pine trees, people relaxing in giant crowds on nicely furnished tables and chairs, puffing on the flavored smokes of sheesha and watching the game on a giant screen.  Really, I haven't been to a place that nice even during my college years in North Carolina. It's a surreal escape.  Ramallah, arguably, itself is a surreal escape, which at times is consoling and at times extremely disturbing.

In Amman, as I've been trying to situate myself for the last couple of weeks, boasts a fair number of cafe shops, especially on a popular international hang out street called Rainbow Street.  Loads of american college kids hanging out there.  Several very goofy named restaurants, for instance "Shwarma-mama" or "Shwarmize it" and an ice cream place called "Licky Licious".  You'll see pubs and giant gay cafe hang outs like "Books At Cafe" which is a ridiculously nice place, with giant expanded rooms, and sitting areas. Each of those separate components of the Cafe could be a restaurant by itself, and it has a nice little bookshop underneath the pub and the cafe.  Their nightly screening of the games takes place outside, with a semi view of the city of Amman or at least one of the hills with the twinkling lights of buildings behind the giant screen which is situated on a wide platform that's made to look like a football field.  Pretty nice and fabulous.  Except hanging in places like this will quickly burn a seething hole in your pockets! Jordan is expensive.

Germany's victory led a couple of kids with a giant German flag draped over their backs to go around singing crazy German songs.  While the Argentinian fans had a sad droopy faced mass exodus.  Can't imagine the tension that's coming up for the Semi-Finals! and what's going to happen when the games stop? a huge part of my Amman experience will definitely be gone.

paws for this one

cats just scurry out of those big public trash disposals and scamper away and catch you by surprise for a second long fleeting moment, when you dont expect anything four legged, fuzzy or living to just pop out of those bins as you walk past them.  but theres tons of cats, no so much in Ramallah, but loads more in Nablus.  One of those Nablusi cats got pretty darn lucky, in fact luckier than most Palestinian human beings, as luck met chance and the kitty captivated an international's heart with something that the locals could not give a crap about: it's kitty cuteness.  

street kids in nablus beat cats and play with them and toy around with them or pelt stones at them to pass time, and entertain themselves.  now of course this sounds absolutely horrible to us, people not living under an occupation or in a developing country, where cats are creatures of companionship, endearment, and again cuteness. We like to hug them, and pet them and stroke them and make them a part of our family ( i don't, i can't stand cats).  We don't beat cats, we take them to animal doctors, give them medicine, buy nice food for them and heck even dress em up sometimes.  Come to think of it, cats and dogs in America are probably luckier than the majority of human beings around the world.  Anyways. That's beside the point.  The point is, in Nablus a cat's life is a life of struggle.  They live in a city where the people have lived through atrocious amounts of trauma, plagued by war for decades. 

This is actually my rommmate's story. When she was working in Nablus, she found a tiny kitty stuck in a hole in the wall, whimpering, scared out of its wits. Albeit not being a cat lover, M saved the cat.  And promptly handed the kitten over to the other internationals working at the school, and the kitty was adopted by a couple of american girls.  Peebs.  the cat even got a name, and for about a year lived inside the apartment with these americans in a little bubble of its own, saved from the dangers of the Nablusi streets and the children, reared with love and affection.  Then one day, it came time for the internationals to go back home, back to America.  What would happen to this cat? It would die if it was let loose in Nablus again, it has absolutely no survival skills to combat unloving, unaffectionate attention from the townspeople.

it was decided that the cat needed to go as well.  My roommate somehow became the one responsible to carry out this mission.  What exactly was the mission you may ask.  The Mission : To prove that this was an Israeli cat.  Not a palestinian one.  So that it could board a plane and go home..to California, USA.

Now what does this entail? here goes.  Maggie had to arrange for the cat to come to Ramallah from Nablus.  That was an amusing journey because no one had a cat carrier, but someone did have an old bird cage, so maggie put the cat in the bird cage and sneaked it through the checkpoint.  sneaked it again through the checkpoint to take it to Jerusalem.  we were kind of worried as to how the soldiers would react...to a Palestinian cat in a bird cage trying to pass a checkpoint.  Would they shoot it because it's palestinian? Would the cat not be allowed through because it's Palestinian? Would it be harassed? Held up? Detained? Arrested? Because all of those things happen to people.  But no, the soldier thought the cat was cute and let it pass without any qualms.  again, the luck of this cat surpasses the luck of the people.

Next : in Jerusalem Maggie had to prove that the cat was Israeli and that it needed a check up.  Her skillful fabrication skills linked with her incredibly friendly non threatening demeanor got the job done.  Then came another step.  Finding a cat carrier for the plane.  Maggie went to the store and I think struggled to find one, but ended up finding a bag, the only one left that was going to be Peebs'.  A camouflage bag.  

The trusted cab driver for the internationals in Nablus, along with all the locals that these internationals knew, were acquainted with and friends with, were partially amused and partially laced with outrage and jealousy.  This cat was going to America.  Most of them could not dream of that fate.  Heck, many of them can't even go to Jerusalem, a town that is 43 miles away from them. 

So the morning of Maggie's flight From Tel Aviv to the States came, and there went Peebs, peeking from a camouflage bag, hiding its true Palestinian identity to pass through Israeli security to start life anew, in America.  

 Meet Peebs: 

From Nablus: 

To Cali: