Don't forget your Kevlar Underwear...

The piece of humorous advice given to me before coming out my first time has haunted me over the last year and a half as I have dealt with the many layers of society here in Jordan. This little taunt has represented for me the many humorous and/or serious expressions of concern for my safety and security here living in the Arab World. I can’t help but wince when I think of this sentiment as it represents such a distorted view of life as it really is.

Having lived both in the rural badia outside of Mafraq, and the urban boroughs within Amman, I have seen a broad spectrum of Jordan. I have broken bread with the poorest of the poor in Zarqa and Safawi where I knew there was not enough food to share with me but I would never dare insult my host by refusing to eat. I have been hosted by royalty in palatial estates in Ajloun and Jordan Valley where I saw a luxurious standard of living few westerners will ever dream of. I have been readily invited into homes to eat and drink with people of all political views and affiliations including those that have been painted as my enemy.

Through all of these experiences I was never wearing my Kevlar underwear, though somehow I made it out ok.

I know I have only had a small sampling of the many rich treasures to be found amongst the people and cultures in this part of the world but it has been enough to gain a true knowledge and appreciation for life here. Through all my experiences there is one overwhelming theme that runs strong and deep in this culture… love. I hope you will excuse the seemingly trite and smarmy sentiment, but I can’t put it any more accurately and simply than to say that there is a love here that is almost palpable. There is a love of God, of family, and a love of others that transcends anything I have seen anywhere else in the world thus far.

I brought my brother Brenden out to the Badia this weekend and I stopped keeping track of how many times we were invited in for lunch or dinner after the first day as the invitations were endless. Despite the fact that we are foreigners and come from a country that paints people here as extremist and dangerous we have been accepted with open arms. We have been well fed and taken care of by such humble and earnest people here. We have been incredibly busy with our work so we have had to turn down dozens of invitations to eat and drink with complete strangers who were incredibly insistent on showing their hospitality.

I suppose it is all for the better as I was not wearing my Kevlar underwear so I wouldn’t want to do anything that was unsafe.

Brenden and I were two blonde haired blue eyed Americans walking around a small village on the Syrian border but instead of fear and hostility all we felt was love and hospitality. Small children ran up to us and practiced the few English phrases they knew “Hello, How are you, I am fine” before running back to their smiling parents who then beckoned us to join them for tea. When trying to buy some assorted items at local shops it was quite a task to get the shopkeepers to let us pay for the goods we needed as they all felt it an honor to provide them to us no charge as we were their guests. I couldn’t help but wonder about the inverse. What if two young men in Arab attire walked through a small town in the States? What would be the reaction? Would they be readily embraced, merely accepted, or disdainfully rejected? I would hope that my own culture would do as good a job at “loving one another” as the people here have done. It is amazing to see the contrast to what I am used to in day to day interactions here as expressions of love and respect abound.

I’m a bit concerned though as with all of these expressions of love surrounding me I need to remember to wear my Kevlar underwear to stay safe.

It is hard to put into words the hundreds of experiences I have had her and harder yet to fight such a broad and misinformed stereotype perpetuated in the States. I can simply urge you all to take a moment to drop your preconceptions. Take off your Kevlar underwear for just a moment and look at things here as they really are rather than how the media spins it to you.

I can promise you that the danger of ditching the Kevlar underwear is well worth the amazing love that you will find here.

The price of lunch and a haircut...

I had a little bit of extra time this afternoon amidst my many meetings here so I figured I’d take a minute and enjoy some of the local fare and get a much needed haircut. The food here is always absolutely amazing but as I’m so often invited to eat with people in their homes I don’t frequent the eateries around town very often. I stopped in at one of my favorite places to go get some shwarma which as always didn’t disappoint. I had a fantastic lunch and even though it was a bit pricier than I expected, was well worth it. I spent about 7JD which equates to about $10 which I don’t make a habit of spending but on rare occasion I figure it’s not bad to treat myself. Getting the same kind of meal in the states would cost me about the same price so it was great. When it comes to food here restaurants are not terribly expensive when compared to cooking for yourself but eating isn’t cheap in Jordan. The price of eating out reflects the price of food in general which is significantly higher than in the States. I had a great lunch though so I walked up the street looking for a place I knew of where I could get a decent haircut. I walked in and was greeted by the same barber who had cut my hair a few times last year and was surprised to have him remember me (though I don’t think he has many blond Americans come sit in his chair so perhaps I shouldn’t be as surprised). I sat back and enjoyed a full service haircut and shave which rivaled if not surpassed some of the posh high end salons I had been to in the States. As he finished up I started thinking how much cash I had with me to make sure I could pay for the service but was surprised when he told me how much I owed him. I ended up paying 3JD (about $4.20) for one of the better haircuts I have ever had. I thought about things as I was walking away and started to do some quick mental math. If any of you have gotten a decent haircut in the States you’ll know that it’ll cost you at least $10-$15 and I honestly doubt you’d get near the quality of service that I had received. I would say this is normal when travelling internationally as cost of services reflect the lower cost of living in the area but then I thought about my lunch tab. The cost of food, rent, clothes, or any commodity is incredibly expensive in comparison to prices back home, but the cost of services is nowhere close! I was curious if this disparity was consistent when considering more professional types of services so I asked my friend who is an attorney here in Jordan. This friend studied law in France at a very reputable law school and has been practicing for over seven years but is still making what is considered a below average income in relation to average reported income in Jordan. I suppose it makes sense that a nation that imports 90% of its consumer goods will have very limited purchasing power but this is quite a problem. Add to this the fact that the currency is pegged to the US dollar and it further complicates the issue. A weak dollar doesn’t impact purchasing power to the average American as significantly as consumables (especially food) are produced there in country so though there is some impact it is not felt as readily. Jordanians face much more dire conditions as they rely on the strength of their currency to dictate purchasing power for consumer goods. I’m sure I will get into a more in depth discussion of this situation and possible solutions in a future blog. This is by no means an in depth economic analysis of the situation but it’s interesting to note the real-world experience that points toward an important economic situation. In the states my barber can take the wage he earned to go buy lunch and have a little left over, but here my barber has to work three times as hard to eat.

A Dissonant Harmony

In this culture you have very few moments alone as people are so interconnected and don’t understand why someone would not want to be part of the group. It makes sense traditionally as living in such an arid climate, isolation meant death. Interestingly enough the Arabic word for lonely (وحيدا) is almost the same as the word for private (وحيد) so the guys I have been living with from AdDafyanna have demanded that I continue to live with them in their crowded crash pad rather than making me endure the awful fate of living alone in my own more spacious apartment in Arjan. Living with them at times is almost like summer camp as it is a lot of eating, talking, joking and laughing late into each evening. It has been wonderful to spend time with each of them as they all have such great hearts and have made such an effort to make me feel at home here in Amman. Abu Omar teaching me how to cook and insisting to go with me to get all my visa paperwork taken care of. Thamer, always making sure I have something to snack on and drink when I'm hard at work. Ahmed Naif helping me with my Arabic and cultural understanding. Ahmed always being so upbeat and happy about everything (though I think it is because he is getting married soon). And last but not least Ghalib, giving me a place to stay, spending time talking politics and life and making sure I have everything and anything I could possibly need. Getting to know these men has been a true pleasure and reaffirms what I expressed last year about the overwhelming sense of hospitality I have felt here in Jordan.

Despite this great camaraderie I was relieved to have a little time to myself to sit and think this morning as I had trouble sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb anyone so I went up to the roof where I had a beautiful view of the city below me just starting to wake up. If you wake up early enough here in Jordan you can hear the first idthan or call to prayer of the day, each from a different minaret, starting one after another with the personal touches and distinct tone and style of the mu’athim leading the idthan. It is amazing to hear each idthan begin and although they are all saying the same words, each is so distinctly different. They are not coordinated as each mu’athim is proclaiming his faith and inviting others to join in prayer independently but at the same time they all begin to join together and shift from patterns of slight dissonance to perfect harmony then back. At first it is an almost eerie sound until you let your mind go and stop forcing the harmonies and letting each idthan stand individually but also contribute to this great swelling of beauty. Each is different and does not fit perfectly one with another, but that is part of what makes the experience so beautiful. The message is all the same of proclaiming a faith and devotion in God. As the various idthan slowly faded away after echoing off of the steep hills of Amman into the still dark sky I sat there in silence for a while. My mind couldn’t help but draw the parallel to how we are each individually proclaiming our faith in life. We all are independently proclaiming what is important and what we believe in. We all shift between dissonant and harmonious expressions of our faith even with those we have much in common with (let alone those who may believe very differently than we do). We spend so much time focusing on the dissonance created by our differences that it causes us to ignore what harmonies may exist and we miss the beauty of the experience. Rather than being so consumed with bringing others into harmony with our declarations of faith perhaps there are times where it is better to just sit back and listen?

My Contextual Address

When I went to the police station to register and extend my visa I gave them my address. “One block east from the large supermarket in Arjan in the third building on the right on the fourth floor on the right side”. That is my official address… a description of how to get to my apartment from a well known landmark. This is quite different from a typical Utah address which denotes a point in space with two numbers representing a location on a city grid. The idea then is that a point exists regardless of the context and surroundings. Given the address here I can’t find my way without first knowing enough about the area to know where to start from and then I can very easily find my way. This is one of the best examples of a mindset here in Jordan (and I would say the Arab world in general) that you need a contextual understanding of things and can’t easily simplify things to generally applicable concepts. I am constantly asked by people back home about the political environment here, most of them looking for simple yes or no answers to their questions. They are looking for the simple state or "location" of things, but fail to really understand the context and as such don’t understand that a simple answer is impossible in this culture. It’s like someone asking for my address and I give them my “official address” which of course means nothing to them as they have no idea where the large supermarket in Arjan is located. Just as knowing the location of the supermarket is essential to understanding the location of my apartment, knowing the context of the history, culture, and mindset of the various groups here is essential to understanding the political situation. Things here can’t be taken out of context or relegated to simple yes and no answers so I would encourage all of you who want to know what is going on here to take some time to understand the history and culture of the region as without that understanding you’re sure to get lost.

The Return of Loren of Arabia

I am back in Jordan and life is good!

It is all so familiar but at the same time everything here is completely different... including me.

I hope all of you will forgive the lack of posting but I needed some time to reflect before posting. I felt that it was important to understand the experiences I was having before providing commentary about those experiences here for you all to read.

Last year when I left Jordan I was unclear about how things would turn out in my future. I did not have a set plan of action other than to go back to BYU to help out with some research in the Sociology department with Dr. Ralph Brown. Through various fortuitous events and some divine intervention I was able to put together an amazing team of graduate and undergraduate students to join me out here this summer and do some great things. We have created the organization Zaytoon International and you can check it out at www.zaytooninternational.org and learn more about our goals and progress there. In this blog I will focus more on personal insights and observations.

Being back here in Jordan I have had the chance to talk to many of my friends from last year and it has been absolutely wonderful catching up. The culture here is almost entirely based on face to face interaction and as such trying to stay in touch via email or phone is less than effective. I have been looking forward to talking with people here given the recent upheavals in the Arab world and I have not been disappointed. Politics are everywhere and it comes up in just about every conversation. There is an energy in the air that is almost palpable and it is a night and day difference from what I felt last year. This blog isn't here to promote any political or ideological agenda so hopefully you will all understand that I am simply trying to relay my experiences and observations. I'm sure some of my own opinions will come out in relation to those observations but I am not here to encourage a specific change or provide direction but rather promote general understanding.

I have so many things to write about, things that I have seen, conversations that I have had, ideas that have been shared with me, and I have only been here a week. This last weekend I was out in the eastern badia (rural Jordan) in the villages I lived in last year and I was amazed at the changes I saw. I am very fortunate to have lived in these areas last year to give me a point of reference as to how different things are now as otherwise I would not have believed it. Last year a friend of mine here who had lived in the states told me a key difference between Americans and Arabs. He told me that when he was in America (and in other places in Europe and the West) everyone was reading, newspapers, magazines, books, blogs, articles, everyone was not just literate and educated but they were aware. He told me that Arabs were literate and educated here but you would rarely see anyone pick up a newspaper or read a book. There were computers and available resources to connect to the outside world but little motivation to do so. This year everything is completely different! The friends I had who last year had little desire or need for an internet connection all have wireless internet and smartphones. People are constantly reading up and learning what is going on around them. People who had little interest in politics or global awareness are now consuming information at every opportunity. Instead of vague and generic opinions people have well established and diverse points of view. Where there used to be a sense of quiet desperation and acceptance there is now active discussion. There are new ideas being shared and considered, and everyone is taking part in the conversation. It has been said that the Arab world has found its voice and this is definitely the case in Jordan. So now Jordan you have your voice, the world is listening... what will you say?