back from a hiatus! :)

i admit, i completely checked out for the last month.  in fact i arguably checked out completely from my ownself, just took a month long break and forgot about everything. perhaps i didn't realize how burnt out i was. i apologize for not keeping the blog updated , and for being really awful with emails, and just disappearing.  i've been getting random spurts of messages from friends wondering where i am and what in the world i'm doing.

so here goes!

roughly a couple of months ago, i had sent out a long detailed personalized email to close friends explaining my trek from ramallah to eilat to egypt to aqaba to amman and then that switched to a dreadful trek from ramallah to jerusalem to tel aviv to fly out of Ben Guirion Airport, where I was classified as a threat level 6, a potentially friendly brown and petite terrorist :) it was nerve wracking and uncertainty was the only guarantee.  i was leaving palestine, dreadfully not knowing if i'd be coming back to that apartment or if i'd be  back to see my lovely students, or to see palestine again, and not knowing what would happen in jordan.  at all.  had absolutely no idea where i'd be living, or what i'd be doing.  all i wanted to do was come to jordan for a couple of days, and then go to syria to learn arabic in arguably the best place to learn arabic : Damascus.
I was turned away at the Syrian border, which was not the most pleasant experience and i realized that i'd be in jordan for some indefinite amount of time.  why indefinite? the process started in April, when we started writing fake letters to I'm not even sure who, some Israeli admin of the Catholic Church to grant us, myself an international who'd like to work here, to work in "israel".  the process was started, and it's quite rare, extremely rare that i was even able to start this process to seek out 'legal" permission to work in "israel", and the only reason I was able to do this is because I'm affiliated with the Church and not any Muslim organization.  Feels really funny to say that but thats the truth of the matter.  The final step of the process was for me to leave Palestine, as my tourist visa was going to expire, and wait for the Israeli authority to approve of all of my information and grant me a visa.  Basically, in joe shmoe language, what I/we were tryign to do is seek out legal permission to work illegally :)   i'm basically asking the Israelis to give me permission and with their permission work in Palestine.  It's quite twisted and quite awesome.  I'm gonna be applying to grad school soon, and I wonder if I can put that on my resume and my application : i legally worked illegally.  ? The Israelis gave me permission to work in a land they illegally occupy where they don't want internationals.  but here's the catch, they didnt even realize what kind of permission they were giving me.  :)

it was a lot of holding a long breath.  Alhumdullilah, thankfully, and I feel immensely blessed and humbled, that I found a job.  I found an amazing Arabic class. Most importantly I found incredible friends, and for the first time in about 6 months I had an active social life, and I was able to let go of stress, Palestine stress.  It was in the back of my mind at all times of course, but somehow I found a daily routine in Amman, and what felt like an uncomfortable displaced encounter with Amman, suddenly felt like a cozy escape.  Like I said, I checked out completely.

about three weeks into being in Jordan, I got an email from my boss from Ramallah saying that my visa was approved!!

what???? all i had to do now was go to the embassy to pick up this piece of paper that me and my roommate have been dreaming about for months.

I stalled for a week.  why? i'm not sure but subconsciously I think i was trying really hard to grab on to this cozy escape that crept up on me and gave me a nice sense of comfort, in a non occupied land, where there are no soldiers or checkpoints and no paranoia about international passports. I delayed and stalled, foolishly.  And finally when I went to the Israeli embassy one really hot afternoon to pick up my visa, i was turned away by very unfriendly soldiers.  Suddenly I felt myself getting furiously outraged at the pointless waiting and arguing and being a subservient being to those with guns and authority.  I realized that I had forgotten about my Palestinian lifestyle and that this is so normal and interaction with soldiers that I've had plenty of before, never had made me mad, it was something I adjusted to.  Somehow I forgot what that felt like?  I talked to my boss here, and she told me that I need to set aside a whole day to go to the embassy.  she said to get there at 5:30 in the morning and expect to be there until late afternoon , waiting in the hot sun.  I remember thinking to myself, why of course, how did i forget the ludicrousness of Israeli authority.  My boss also told me that I couldn't go until my summer teaching session was over, or I'd get fired.  So i stalled for another week.

A good friend of mine was leaving that day when I went to the embassy.  I had gotten plenty of warning emails from my boss saying that, this visa that was approved, if I didn't pick it up "soon" it would expire, and it would make this month long wait futile.  And I'd have to wait in Jordan for potentially another month.  If all failed, I'd have to go back to the States I suppose.  So that day that i went to the embassy for the secnod time, i was thinking of my friend who was leaving and thinking about what i'd do for another month in jordan if my visa really did expire.  i was mentally preparing myself for another month of uncertainty.  I got there at the embassy and several hours later, several pointless queues later, I was standing in front of a small window on a white telephone speaking to an Israeli authority on the other side of the window, lying out of my teeth about where I live, what I do, and why I want this visa.  He didn't seem to think anything suspicious,  and he even went as far as to ask me if I'm living comfortably in Israel, and I replied with an enthusiastic "of course!".  he asked if i live in a suite in the church, and i told him, no just a cozy single room.

he told me to come back three hours later in the afternoon after taking my passport.  my paranoia built up again, because I didnt want them to catch the fact that on that passport there is no entry to Jordan stamp.  so...its kind of suspicious that here I am in Jordan, for a month, and there's no entry stamp?  yikes.

i got there later in the afternoon and waited another 45 minutes before my passport was returned to me, officially stamped with a legitimate visa from the Israeli ministry of education.

i realized holding my passport in my hands that I could leave Jordan that night if i wanted to.  I could leave! I could work in Palestine!

You know what it felt like? You know when you are playing a fierce game of tug of war, and suddenly out of nowhere the other teams lets go? thats what it felt like.  I couldnt believe that i had this visa in my hand.  i just could not believe it.

what  i also couldnt believe was that now i'd have to say goodbye.  i was prepared to say goodbyes to my friends who have slowly started leaving one by one as this summer is coming to a close, but i certainly was not expecting to say MY goodbyes.  I wasn't prepared to tell my Jordanian friends "hey I'm leaving".  The day before the embassy, i finished work, i finished my classes, i said goodbye to my students and to my arabic teacher, half expecting to see them again because i was half anticipating having to stay in jordan for a month more.   After I got a slew of facebook messages from my summer students telling me that they missed me, I realized that these students that I had seen, laughed, taught, yelled and joked around with for four hours every day for the past month, just kind of scattered away.    I'm not sure why this visa made me so emo.  Im ecstatic but at the same time I felt torn in a way that I really didn't see coming.  I guess this is how you learn about yourself, when you're made to deal with unexpected emotions and sentiments and you're forced to navigate through them.

I felt quite emotionally overwhelmed, especially with Ramadan coming up.  I am looking forward to it, as it is definitely going to be the most challenging.  I am happy that I'm going to have my first Ramadan in a Muslim majority place, in Palestine.  However, Ramadan essentially is family time.  You wake up at the crack of dawn to eat with your family and you get together during Maghrib to break fast, eat and pray together.  Experiencing Ramadan in isolation from my family will be very difficult.  But I am looking forward to the challenges that Ramadan will bring, there's nothing easy about it, but its the kind of hardship that chisels out a better self.   Looking forward to it :)

I've a couple of days left in Jordan which I'm trying to spend wisely, being very relaxed.  InshAllah on Monday, I will try my luck going to Palestine :)