Article: Dead Sea ecosystems

Published in The Jordan Times, August 31, 2006

Protecting local ecosystems

Environmentalists voice their concerns to Grace Peacock about the destruction of the Dead Sea’s bird habitats as a result of development.

AMMAN - A surprise road development along the north shore of the Dead Sea has environmentalists decrying the loss of a valuable bird habitat and the disregard of developers and the government to unique local ecosystems.

The construction appears to have gone ahead without required environmental assessments or any notice to agencies responsible for protecting the fragile natural beauty of the area.

Dr Fares Khoury, an ecologist at the Hashemite University, first discovered the development this spring when he took his students to the area in Sweimeh for an ecology field trip.

“It was a total surprise to see all the construction. Half of the tamarisk trees were gone and the area was completely eroded,” he told The Jordan Times.

Dr. Fares Khoury at the Sweimeh site.

In spite of protests, the roadwork continues unabated. More trees have been cut and the natural springs in the area have been covered up with gravel.

“This particular area is a key habitat for the Dead Sea Sparrow and the colony depends on this patch of trees. Now that it’s destroyed that means that at least half of the population there will be gone,” Khoury explained.

The Sweimeh tamarisk habitat was also the only location in the Jordan Valley area where bird-watchers could visit freely to view the endemic bird species. Other areas nearby are in restricted military zones and require special permits to access.

Concerned that valuable bird habitats could be in jeopardy, Khoury contacted the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN), which immediately sent letters to the Jordan Valley Authority (JVA) and the Ministry of the Environment (MoE) for an explanation.

Yeyha Khaled, RSCN acting director general, said the letters addressed several issues. The first was that this particular area along the north shore was included in a JVA land use plan as an “Important Bird Area” - as designated by Bird Life International. RSCN was a consultant on the plan and made sure all environmental considerations were taken into account, including the protection of this bird habitat.

The fact that a road had suddenly been built right through it didn’t make any sense.

“We were very worried that now there will be no habitat for the Dead Sea Sparrow to stay. We’re afraid it may not exist anymore in Jordan,” said Khaled.

Secondly, there was no indication that an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) had been carried out for the road development. An EIA is a study conducted to assess the effect of development (or any other new element) on a particular environment to determine if it will upset the current ecological balance. It also ensures that the environmental effects of the proposed project are fully considered before it is implemented.

The Dead Sea Sparrow

Khaled said the RSCN is always invited to sit in on the “scoping sessions” for EIAs around the Dead Sea and since he hadn’t been told of any scoping session he assumed the EIA had been ignored.

Months later, his letters to the JVA and MoE still received no response - something Khaled found very troubling and indicative of bigger development issues at the Dead Sea.

“It’s not just about this one road. We’re concerned about all future development in this area. We need responsible investment that doesn’t damage Jordan’s environment and doesn’t jeopardise our future,” Khaled said.

“[The JVA and MoE] need to be guardians of these ecosystems.”

According to Khaled Nassar, director general of the Jordan Society for Sustainable Development, EIAs are meant to be completed in the preplanning phases of development and approved by the MoE. In most cases they are required in order for the developer to get a licence to build.

“But here’s the dilemma,” he says. “Some developments start building before they have had their EIA completed. They do their EIAs while the construction is going on and by the time it’s finished it’s too late to implement any of the recommendations. What’s the point of this?”

He says the EIA is a tool that needs to be developed to its full potential. Occasionally he says the assessments are not conducted by certified environmental experts and sometimes they’re not regulated efficiently enough to minimise the impact on the environment.

“There’s a lack of awareness. When handled properly the EIA can be a very effective tool. But when you’re doing an EIA just to register your development, it can be disastrous,” he said.

When contacted by The Jordan Times, the Jordan Valley Authority, through the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, responded with a letter indicating that the road was being built to serve tourist developments north of Sweimeh. They denied that it was having any effect on nearby tamarisk habitats and made no mention of whether or not an EIA had been carried out.

A Dead Sea Sparrow nest

However, the Ministry of the Environment’s Secretary General, Faris Junaidi, said an EIA was completed in 2002 along with a scoping session in adherence to environmental bylaws and regulations.

“For some types of development there has to be an EIA study before the project is started and for this road there was an EIA done in 2002. All aspects and many issues were taken into consideration, like biodiversity and pollution... everything has to be accounted for,” he said.

According to the International Hospitality Forum, the Dead Sea will soon see over $1.4 billion in tourism developments including the construction of resorts totalling approximately 2,000 rooms and 850 villas and chalets.

With so much planned for the Dead Sea, environmental groups are calling on the government to take a far more comprehensive approach to capacity management.

Munqueth Mayher, chair of Friends of the Earth Middle East, says minimising impact on the environment cannot be left up to each individual hotel and development. Nor can it be left up to one country on one shore of the Dead Sea.

“All countries - Jordan, Israel and Palestine - need to sit together and create a full integrated master plan. The ecosystem here is so small and sensitive that it will be affected by the activities of any of the neighbouring countries,” he said.

As for the Sweimeh road development, much of the damage is irreversible.

“The habitat there and the springs suffered extremely when they started building the road,” said Mehyar. “This area is very unique to science. It’s the only place 400 metres below sea level that has springs, hot water springs, all kinds of habitat, flora and fauna all unique to this environment. Losing that is a loss for the whole world, not just for Jordan,” he added.

Khoury predicts that the new road will bring increased disturbances to the wild animals in the area, as well as introduce intrusive species and further upset the hydrological systems.

He hopes the development can be stopped and the habitat restored - though he admits it may be too late for that. At the very least he hopes this will stir up public support and awareness for the protection of ecosystems around the Dead Sea.

“We all need development in Jordan. It’s clear that we need investment in order to grow,” he said. “But there are certain areas that are just too valuable, too precious to destroy.”

Taxi interrogation

Knock on wood, I haven't had any terrible taxi experiences in a long while.

Sure there was the taxi with the soaking wet backseat (I could only assume it was sweat from the previous passenger - ew), the guy who chased down a car that cut him off and the driver with the romantic melodies tape from the 80s featuring Wham's Careless Whispers -- but those incidents barely made a mark on my day. Nothing unusual, thank goodness.

Yesterday I had a very nice old man drive me home.

He was a small man, with glasses who spoke broken English and had a sad muscle twitch. I briefly wondered if he was medically fit to be driving a car, but figured my luck surviving taxi rides has held out this far so what was one more sketchy driver?

Once he discovered I was Canadian he couldn't help his curiousity and asked me all about my home country.

"Is that where your husband and children are?" (This one was a given)

"Do you like all the ice?"

"Can you drive cars on the ice?"

"So there's no swimming because of the ice?"

"What time do people go to sleep there?"

"Do you like your president?"

"How much does a man pay for a woman?"

... I'll admit, despite the odd variety of questions that last one caught me off guard. I assumed (correctly) that he meant how big are the dowries for marriage and not what's the going rate for a girl off the street. I tried to explain that the cultures are different and besides the rings and helping to pay for the wedding, a man doesn't pay for a woman per se.

Unless of course you're talking about emotional and pscyhological taxes of being married to her for years on end -- well, that's just different.

The song I can't get out of my head

Turns out the song that the gas truck plays every day IS called Lambada. I don't recall ever seeing this video, but I do remember the song playing on the radio a lot in the 80s.

Gotta love the zebra-thong bathing suit and the white tennis sneakers. The abusive bartender and dirty-dancing children is a little disturbing though...

A writer who can't write

"Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent
place for it." - Russell Lynes

One day I want to write a book. A fiction novel.

I've been dreaming of writing a book since early high school when I would go home after school and spend my free time typing 50-page beginnings of novels that I never got around to finishing. Starting the book always used to be the easy part. I had hundreds of ideas. I couldn't keep up with them.

Mind you, I never considered structure or plot sketches. I didn't think ahead. I always figured it'd sort itself out as I went. That's probably why around page 49 my interest in the thing would start to dwindle.

It's been years since I've tried my hand at fiction. I suppose I got busy. Plus, once I hit the upper years of high school and then university all the writing assignments we were given were so devoid of creativity I think it sucked the imagination right out of me.

Now that I find myself with some time to think about my future ambitions, the novel idea is back - front and centre in my mind. But now there's a problem. I can't START.


I've been to several book readings and literary festivals where I've heard authors talk of their experience writing their own novels. For some, it took years and years (10 plus!). For some, they had immense amounts of research to do. For some, writing involved very complicated plot lines, dozens of brainstorming steps and design phases. And for a lucky few, an idea just popped into their head and the writing took on a life of its own. Lucky buggers.

When I was younger, writing fiction was an easy thing. You just did it. The blank Word document on your computer screen did not inspire fear. Having been out of practise for so long and having become so used to the flat, simple language of newspapers and university papers I think I've stuck myself in a rut.

And yet when I pick up some novels (like one of the trashy romance ones I'm currently borrowing from a friend out of desperation for something to read) I think "I could SO do this. In fact I could do better!"

Sitting down and doing it is a whole other issue though. There's always the idea problem. Do I write something I want to write, or something people will want to read? Should I try to do something that hasn't been done? How well developed does my idea have to be before I start writing? Should I do research first, or as I go? How do you commit to one idea when there are so many floating around in my head? Will I have enough time to do this?

I think I've developed a fiction writing phobia. Who ever heard of writing posing such a daunting challenge for someone who writes so much everyday?

If it wasn't so entirely pathetic, I'd probably find it pretty amusing.

Article: Ajloun Goodwill campaign

Published in The Jordan Times, August 25, 2006

Goodwill campaign arrives in Ajloun suburbs

Unemployment in the area stands at 18 per cent, while 19 per cent of the population are living below the poverty line

By Grace Peacock

AMMAN — Disadvantaged children, women and the disabled were the focus of HRH Princess Basma’s visit Wednesday to the suburbs of Ajloun where she distributed scholarships, schoolbags and wheelchairs as part of her ongoing National Goodwill Campaign.

One unemployed widow and her seven children received the gift of a house from the Royal Court under the directives of His Majesty King Abdullah, along with enough food hampers to last several months, two jobs for her daughters, promised hearing aids for her disabled children and a few goats and sheep to help generate income.

“We are still only at the beginning. Our country and our people need much more and it is our responsibility as Jordanians to help care for each and every member of our communities,” Princess Basma told the crowd gathered at the Princess Basma Community Development Centre in Wahadneh.

“This campaign is the means through which these kind of people can be helped.”

Princess Basma founded the National Goodwill Campaign through the Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development (JOHUD) in 1991. She is now chairperson of the higher committee of the campaign and since its launch the initiative has helped families below the poverty line access medical services, university scholarships, essential food items and clothing. As well, programmes have been developed to help needy families start their own income-generating projects and encourage self-sustainability.

Along with her daughter, Farah Daghestani, who is also the JOHUD executive director, and members of the JOHUD Higher Committee, Princess Basma toured the community centre and distributed 34 income-generating project certificates, 31 scholarships and held meetings with women from local cooperatives and a youth group.

“This centre is one of 50 in the country where we work directly with people in the community to respond to their real needs,” said Eman Nimri, JOHUD deputy executive director.

“The goodwill campaign targets the poorest of the poor and these centres help build bridges of trust to identify who is in need of support and to help people break the cycle of poverty.”

In this community, 19 per cent of the population is impoverished, 18 per cent are unemployed and 51 per cent are youth. Nimri says it’s crucial to show the rest of Jordan what life is like here so that the initiative can receive more support.


“We want to bring the field to them and show people the reality of this community. We want to enhance the social integration of the rich and poor and help these people stand on their own feet. It isn’t enough to just provide food and short-term solutions. This does not combat poverty,” she said.

Princess Basma visited two schools where she helped distribute over 200 schoolbags donated by MobileCom. She also discussed with women from the local community about the difficulty in marketing their handmade goods and crafts.

“These women have no location from which to sell their products. They have no packaging programme. They can’t distribute but they want to sell their goods to outsiders. It’s very hard for them,” said Samar Shahwan, head of the centre’s women and children’s programme.

“We’re hoping to find solutions for them, but it’s a slow process because the economic situation in Ajloun is the poorest in the country,” she said.

Crazy going slowly am I

Some days when I'm trying to do my job I feel like a kid with one of those learn-your-shapes toys, trying to jam a square block into a circle hole. You try and try and accomplish nothing. Or like a hamster running in his wheel. So much effort and you get nowhere!

The sense of frustration is overwhelming.

For quite a few days I've been trying to get a hold of someone in a particular government ministry. I tried the minister's office directly but once his secretary consulted him on my request he advised I speak to the ministry spokesperson. So I tried him. He was in meetings constantly it seemed and when I finally did get him he asked me to send along some background information on the request so he could do the required research to properly respond to my questions.

But then he sent me an email saying it'd be best to speak to the secretary general about this matter. Pass the buck again, shall we?

I tried him and despite his secretary's promises that he'd call me back he never did. I finally called her up today, threatened to write terrible things in the newspaper about the ministry's horrible lack of cooperation and miracle of miracles the guy finally called me back.

When dealing with government officials it takes me days to track people down. Luckily my stories have had a longer shelf life, so it's not the end of the world if I need to wait a bit before I finish writing. But this would never suffice in a Canadian newsroom.

Now I'm having the same kind of trouble trying to research illegal drug use in Jordan. There are several places I know exist that could potentially help, but do you think I can find a phone number for any of them? Or do you think I can find an operator who speaks English?

The ministry of health operator didn't speak English. Rather than deal with me or find someone who DID speak English, I think he decided the better solution was to stick me on hold forever, hoping I'd just get tired and hang up... because that's what ended up happening after I tired of listening to crappy elevator music for 5 minutes.

I called back again and this time he forwent the hold button formalities and just hung up on me straight away.

This happens all too often for my liking. My colleagues try their best to ignore me when I yell out, "Oh you did NOT just hang up on me!" while staring incredulously at the receiver.

I've tried hospitals and I get the same treatment. There's a national centre for rehabilitation but the number I have for them just rings and rings. I don't even bother with websites because even if they do exist, they're usually in Arabic or full of broken links with no accurate contact information. I was excited to find one website had a "contact us" link and my heart sank when the page loaded up completely blank.

How does anyone get anything done around here???

So what am I supposed to do? I've spent the majority of my morning on a wild goose chase, running into one dead end after another. No one here in the newsroom knows where I can get the numbers either and I think I am slowly going insane.

I have nightmares where a haunting voice tells me to "press zero for operator assistance."

Please, anything but that.

So much to do, so little time to do it

I have about four months left in Jordan. Here's my list of what I've accomplished and what I still have left to do. Hopefully I'll be able to fit most of it in...

DONE

- Visit these places in Jordan: Aqaba, Wadi Rum, Kan Zeman, the Dead Sea, Mount Nebo, Madaba, Salt and Jerash.

- Camp overnight in a Bedouin tent in Wadi Rum.

- Ride a camel (though, my ride was so short I'm not sure if it counts!)

- See Amman's Citadel and Roman Amphitheatre.

- Drink sweet Arabic tea.

- Smoke argileh.

- Eat traditional Arabic food.

- Take Arabic language lessons.

TO DO

- Visit these places in Jordan: Petra, Wadi Mujib, Dana Nature Reserve, Jordan Valley.

- Visit these places outside of Jordan: Jerusalem, Damascus, Beirut (not sure if I'll get there now).

- Go back to Jerash for a proper visit to the Roman ruins.

- Go back to Wadi Rum for another camping and horseback riding trip.

- Go back to the Dead Sea, swim and try the Dead Sea mud.

- Visit a mosque (the centuries-old one I saw at the archaeology dig in Jerash doesn't count).

- Go to a traditional Arabic restaurant and sample the main dishes.

- Get a Henna tattoo.

- Explore the souq (market) in the old downtown.

Hi Grandma!

I'm very proud to announce the addition of a very important visitor to this site: my 93-year-old grandmother Violet Peacock.

She just moved into a new residence this past weekend and my father showed her how to access my site on the computers there, how to use a mouse etc. The staff members are going to help her browse the site and print some of my posts for her.

How fun is that?

Grandma, I hope you enjoy reading about my travels! I miss you - take care, and I hope you enjoy your new home! I'll see you at Christmas!

Love, Grace

The name game

As a reporter it is crucial to get people's correct job titles and the spelling of their names. THIS has become ten times more challenging since I started working in Jordan.

This is a typical scenario.

Me: Could you please tell me your full name?

Interviewee spits out something long, complicated and involving more strange sounds than I know how to translate to paper. I clear my mind, concentrate on the sounds and write out phonetically what I hear, knowing full well I'm completely off the mark.

EE-CRAM EL-JOUR-NA-DI. I squint at what I've written, doubting very much that her name looks anything like that.

Me: Uh, perhaps you could spell that for me?

Looking annoyed, the interviewee spells out the name in a thick Arabic accent. "E" she says and watches on the paper as I write "E".... "No, no - I said E" she reiterates and I look at my "E" on the paper and then to her confused. Lady, that's clearly an "E".

Then I remember people sometimes say their letters funny here. OH, she means "I" but is saying "E".... okay. I write an "I" and she nods.

By the time we get to the "J" which she says is prounounced "G" even though she means "J" I finally give up, hand her the paper and pen and let her write her own name. She gives me an exasperated huff as if to say, Why didn't you let me write it in the first place you silly English reporter.

It turns out to be IKRAM AL-JUNAIDI. (*Note, I have not used her real name)

I had a similar experience on the phone today. I needed to know the names of several Public Security Department officials. I asked the man on the phone to tell me.

Him: The director is Ko-lin-al Ass-aym. And the secretary general is Ko-lin-al Ta-yel.

Interesting, I thought as I wrote the names down phonetically. They both have the same first name? What are the chances of that? I didn't bother with the spelling, knowing I only had to call them up to make interview appointments. Having it written phonetically meant less chance of me screwing up when I tried to say it.

It wasn't until I asked the man his own name that I realized what had happened. Major Samer. Clearly a rank and his first name. A rank? They have ranks? I wondered, before it clued in that the Public Security Department was in fact a branch of the military.

So then "Ko-lin-al" was really Colonel! Only when he said it, the sound of the word was a far cry from our Western KER-NAL pronounciation.

Who knew reporting in Jordan could be so complicated? Even the littlest of things can trip you up...

A modern day fairytale

Today I was out touring the countryside with a princess.

While this sounds like the beginning of a colourful fable, I'm afraid what follows may disappoint. There were no enchanted forests, unicorns, hobbit villages, castles, horse-drawn carriages or Sound of Music enspired music.

Ajloun castle was key to the defeat of the Crusaders eight centuries ago.

(Because that's what comes to mind when I think of hanging out with a princess. Yes, all those important elements you'd find in the descriptions on the back of sci-fi fantasy paperbacks...)

Though what I saw comes close to comparison. Our large entourage of journalists, government and private sector officials and the Royal bodyguards travelled north of Amman in a convoy of SUVs and vans, winding our way through the hills and valleys around Jerash to the mountain city of Ajloun.

Princess Basma talks to students.

There, surrounded by forests of Aleppo pines and evergreen oak and under the watchful gaze of the hill top castle Qalaat er-Rabad we met with the impoverished, but tremendously hospitable, people of Ajloun's suburb community.

There was even music and singing when the princess made her entrance.

Too bad I didn't actually get to speak a single word to the lady -- I was too busy hanging off the sidelines taking photos and trying desperately hard to write as fast as my personal translator (aka PR girl) was speaking.

I was invited to tag along for the day as HRH Princess Basma Bint Talel visited the local community development centre as part of her National Goodwill Campaign where she gave out food, scholarships, school bags, met with a women's group, a youth group and posed for photo opportunities.

Coffee pots await use among sheepskin carpets.

It was fascinating to see a Royal at work. Smile a lot, shake hands a lot, run around a lot and try not to look disconcerted when people hang off you. I was exhausted just from watching! It didn't help that the temperature was a stifling 40 degrees and people were barely able to keep themselves from passing out in the heat.

Tissue boxes were passed around so people could wipe their sweat away. Groups of people huddled, trying to squish onto little patches of shade. It was totally unbearable.

Making embroidered dresses give local women a much needed source of income.

When the PR girl read me the day's itinerary I thought for sure we'd be out there until 5 p.m. Imagine my surprise when she said we should be done in 2 hours! Of course it ended up taking a lot longer than that, but I was still amazed all the meeting and greeting that they fit in.

After we were finished at the community centre, the convoy pulled out and we travelled to a boys' school. Out we went, school bags were distributed, photos taken and then back into the cars. Off to a girls' school where the exact same thing took place. Back in the cars.

Then we visited a family of eight currently supported by the Goodwill campaign. My God I felt so sorry for these people. Nevermind the fact that the 55-year-old widow had to somehow support her entire family that included three mute and mentally disabled children. I felt horrible because all of the journalists, the officials and some of the bodyguards crammed into their little house and stood around them like they were circus animals on display. Photographers pushed and shoved to get their good angles and one woman stood like a tourist guide, talking about the family's troubles and how they need the campaign's support as if the entire family was on display behind glass and couldn't hear what was being said.

I couldn't take my eyes off the girls. They kept their own eyes on the floor and looked so forlorn. Embarassed. I wanted to get the hell out of the house. I wanted everyone to get out. Can't we just leave these people alone?

But how would the people in rich and privledged Amman know about the plight of these people? Someone asked me later.

This little girl gave flowers to the princess.

I'm sure there are other ways of capturing their story than shamelessly putting them on display.

Turns out two of the girls were offered jobs in Ajloun by a business man that was there, they were given enough food hampers to last them several months, they were promised hearing aids for the mute children, they were given several goats and sheep and the Royal Court will give them a house for free.

So I suppose the charade was worth it in the end? A moment's embarassment and poof! Your fairy god-mother shows up, waves her wand and you've suddenly got a new house.

Making flat bread on a hot stone.

The group of journalists I was travelling with decided on the way back that they needed a meal so we stopped for a very traditional late-lunch (I promise to take food pictures one day). I was personally glad for the rest as the hot sun and driving on the winding roads (with no air conditioning!!) had made me feel ill.

It was a fascinating experience to tour around with a Royal, but I hope I don't have to do that again for a long while. It was much too exhausting and made me feel too much like a puppet for my own liking.

Article: Jordanian feature film

Published in The Jordan Times, August 22, 2006

Jordanian feature film to challenge negative Hollywood stereotyping of Arabs

By Grace Peacock

AMMAN — The director of Jordan’s first feature film “Captain Abu Raed” hopes his movie will launch the country’s filmmaking sector onto the international stage and counter the negative image of Arabs dominating Hollywood’s silver screen.

Amin Matalqa, 30, has spent the past two months scouting the country for film locations and casting roles for his first full-length feature film, which is due to start production in spring 2007.

“There’s never been a feature film directed by a Jordanian that has played in cinemas abroad. We’re hoping this film will crack that and really land with a bang,” said Matalqa, who lives in Los Angeles where he is a student at the American Film Institute.

The story follows the life of an elderly airport janitor, Abu Raed, who is struggling to come to terms with the death of his wife when he befriends a group of poor neighbourhood children who believe he’s a pilot.

He begins to tell them fictional stories of his adventures around the world and through this process finds the courage to change not only his own life, but also those around him.

Matalqa says the script took him a year to finalise and had humble beginnings.

“Abu Raed, this poor janitor, was born on a napkin at the Cheesecake Factory in Beverly Hills,” he laughs. “And then my dog ate half the napkin, so now I only have one half of it left.”

It’s a tale with universal themes about overcoming loss, finding strength and courage in friendship and turning dreams into reality. Matalqa says it’s rare to find a film featuring Arabs that is apolitical.

“This could be a movie that makes a difference. I really think there’s a need to see Arabs in a different light. I want to make a film that leaves an impression and shows Arabs as humans and not as terrorists,” he said.

The film’s production crew includes producers David Pritchard (The Simpsons), Ken Kokin (The Usual Suspects), and cinematographer Reinhart Peschke (JFK, Born on the Fourth of July), and Jordanian editor Laith Majali.

“We are excited to translate the touching story of Abu Raed into moving pictures to show the world that unconditional love is one of the characteristics of the Arab people,” said Peschke.

“I believe this film will be a stepping stone for Jordan to establish itself as a cultural centre for filmmaking in the Middle East,” he added.

Jordan Pioneers, headed by Khalid Haddad, will provide production services for “Captain Abu Raed.” The movie will be filmed in various locations in east and west Amman, Salt and at the Citadel.

No longer the sordid suspect

Update: I spoke to my roommate's boyfriend about the case of mistaken identity and he's assured me everything is fine. He said the super and the tenant know it was the American girl but the mix-up part is that they think SHE is the one who lives in my apartment.

So they know the girl to see her, but they're just confused as to where she lives. Hence the reason why they approached my roommate's boyfriend to give the girl a message.

This super has got to get his act together and figure out where his tenants live! Seriously.

Article: Mosque discovery

Published in The Jordan Times, August 21, 2006

Discovery of Umayyad Mosque sheds new light on Jerash history

By Grace Peacock

AMMAN — The discovery of a centuries-old mosque in the heart of the Roman ruins of Jerash is shedding new light on the city’s history and the early relations between Muslims and Christians following the 7th century Islamic conquest.

“This mosque has given us a very different picture of the arrival of Islam,” said Alan Walmsley, the archaeologist heading up the Islamic Jerash Project — a joint venture between the University of Copenhagen and the Department of Antiquities in Jordan.


The site of the mosque in Jerash

“We always think of thundering hordes coming out of Arabia and destroying Christian civilisation, chopping off the heads of people who aren’t Muslim. But it turns out it’s nothing like that at all,” he said.

Instead, this discovery of the mosque which culminated after years of detective work following clues from Jerash’s previous 70 years of excavations has led him to believe that the city, and others, continued to thrive after the arrival of Islam. What’s more, Muslims and Christians lived side by side in relative harmony, each free to practise their own religion in a society that adapted to accommodate both faiths.

“The problem with archaeology is there are a few popular works that talk about the Arab conquest and the destruction of Christian communities. This has become so entrenched in literature and in people’s minds that it’s very difficult to prove this is not the case,” said Walmsley.

Most history books describe the Persian invasion of 614CE as the beginning of the end of Jerash, followed by the Muslim conquest of 635CE and ensuing decline of the city. Yet, several factors suggest the urban community continued to function well into the early 8th century. The first factor being the listing of Jerash as an administrative centre in the 9th century geographical works and the second, the discovery of Greek and Arabic coins minted in Jerash during the early Islamic period.

“Everyone always associates the city with its Roman history. When excavations started here all people were interested in discovering the greatness of European civilisation and its influence on Jerash,” Walmsley said. “Jerash has been denied part of its Islamic history.”

He knew the presence of a mint operation meant that there had to be an administrative centre and if it existed after the rise of Islam, then those officials would have needed a public building to pray in; they would have needed a mosque — but where was it located ?

Walmsley found his clue in an old aerial photograph of the Roman ruins. He noticed the north wall of a building protruded from the ground at an odd angle to the well-established Roman grid.

“I saw that it was twisted and I thought, who in their right mind would deliberately build off the grid unless it was done for a specific reason?” he said.

When he checked his compass and discovered the wall faced the direction of Mecca, he knew he had his excavation site.

Walmsley stands on the crooked wall that led him to discover the mosque.

Over the past four years the Islamic Jerash team have uncovered a 45- by 50-metre congregational mosque dating back to the Umayyad period (661-750CE), built on top of a Byzantine bathhouse and modelled after the Grand Mosque of Damascus. They have identified many significant features, like the qibla wall, a main mihrab and possible second mihrab, a courtyard and a semi-circular staircase entryway.

They also found a line of shops alongside the mosque’s eastern wall built in a way that hides the mosque’s crooked wall from the main thoroughfare.

Walmsley says the mosque’s existence is indicative of social continuity in Jerash and possibly other areas in the Levant during the late Antique and early Islamic periods.

“You can see from the construction they tried very hard to make it fit into the urban plan. And because we know churches continued to function as churches, there were obviously Muslims and Christians living side by side,” he said.

The biggest change after the Persian invasion, he said, was a new ruling elite. The bishops negotiated the terms of surrender that ensured some basic rights for the Christian population, including the right to keep their churches and continue to practise their religion.

“Suddenly we have a very different idea of what happened in the past. People believe it was a violent and physical conquest, but really it was more of a social expansion and peaceful submission,” Walmsley said.

His team has yet to determine how long the mosque was used for but in 2005 the discovery of early Mamluk pottery at the site suggests the continued use of the mosque into the 12th to 13th century CE, or its restoration around that time period.

Since the construction of a mosque usually signals urban growth, Walmsley believes Jerash saw a period of expansion after its takeover and before its ultimate demise. But, he asks, if the Muslim conquest wasn’t responsible for the city’s downfall, then what was?

“Now we have to revisit the theories behind Jerash’s abandonment. The massive earthquake [in 746CE] probably had something to do with it, but now we don’t know for sure.”

The excavation of the mosque and surrounding areas will continue next year when the team plans to begin restoration of the site and will install information panels for tourist use.

Walmsley believes this is just the beginning of Jerash’s Islamic history.

“It’s so far only one mosque but it’s such a small piece of what I’m sure is a much larger picture,” he said.

Toilet talk

I have something else I need to rant about. Please excuse all the negative energy.

The washrooms at work are the epitomy of filth. Twice a day I watch the janitors go in for their routine cleaning shifts and when they come out I want to stop them in their tracks, shake them by the shoulders (with gloves on perhaps) and ask them what the hell they do in there for those entire 5 minutes???

Because the washrooms sure aren't any cleaner than when they go in!!

Today I saw two cockroaches. Thankfully I noticed them as soon as I entered, as opposed to some of their other badly-timed appearances. I'm normally quite calm around bugs and can deal with their presence as long as they don't catch me unawares and they don't touch me. And they're not in my bedroom. All hell breaks loose otherwise.

When I first started working I was informed that the first washroom in the hallway was for the ladies, even though there's no sign on the door and no distinguishing features between the two rooms. I think though that someone forgot to tell all the men in the newsroom that this was the case because the seat is always up and the condition of the place equals that of a trucker toilet on the desert highway.

There's also never any handsoap. I've taken to bringing hand sanitizer with me everywhere to remedy the situation. There's also no paper towels.

Nor is there ever any toilet paper. I want to scream everytime I go in there and there's no TP! I asked a guy once if he could order some, but unfortunately he didn't speak English, misunderstood my request and plunked a big pack of printer paper on my desk instead.

So now I carry little packets of tissue with me in case of such emergencies. I'm thinking this Japanese lady (at left) had my same problem and got inventive.

I used to warn people at work that there was no toilet paper in the washroom, but no one seemed to care one way or the other, so I gave up. Now I watch these people head down the hallway and I wonder what do they do? Why isn't everyone else as pissed off about this as I am? Yuck.

I should explain though that there is an apparent alternative to toilet paper in many of the washrooms here that comes in the form of a hose and water contraption usually hooked up beside the toilet. I've been told you use it to wash yourself clean.

Well that's all fine and dandy if you don't mind spraying water all over the g-damn place and then dripping around wet cause you've got no TP or towels to dry yourself off with! How's that supposed to work??

My little piece of allergy hell

I've got no time today to continue my Saturday exploration series. I had hoped to perhaps tour around the old downtown or visit a museum, but I have deadlines coming out the wazoo and too many articles to write.

So instead I'm spending a glorious Saturday sweating it out with my laptop in my sauna of an apartment. How thrilling.

Knowing this was what the day's excitement held, I woke up pretty grumpy. It didn't help that I also woke up with bloodshot, itchy eyes. I'm sure you've all noticed, I've been wearing my glasses these past few weeks because I was recently diagnosed with allergic conjuntivitis - a kind of eye infection or irritation.

I've been prescribed drops, but I swear they're not doing anything or otherwise they're working really slowly. So out of desperation I've been trying to determine what might be the cause of this allergy? Perhaps I can attack this at the source. There are several possibilities:

Smoking. I've never hated it so much. No smoking zones are rare, and the few that do exist are completely ignored. I've had people light up beside me in conferences, during interviews, in my office, in bars, restaurants, in taxi cabs and in my apartment.

On the way back from Jerash this past week my driver mercifully cranked the A/C for us after we had been melting under the hot sun interviewing the archaeologists. But then he decided to have a cigarette and proceeded to light up and smoke it with all the windows rolled up. I asked him if he could put his window down but all the passengers protested, not wanting to waste the precious A/C. The polite thing to do would have been to extinguish his cigarette and wait the 20 minutes until we arrived at our destination, but noooo. Let's slowly suffocate the passengers to death with second hand smoke. I felt like throwing up.

Oh and my roommate smokes too. When she wakes up in the morning before me I can always tell. Not by the noise she makes moving around, but by the smell of her smoking. It actually wakes me up out of sleep.

There's just no escape. I can't describe how much I miss our no-smoking bylaws back home.

The second possible source of allergy? My horrible apartment. The place came furnished with sofas and chairs whose origin and history are a complete mystery. And because they're ugly they're covered up with colourful sheets that probably haven't been washed in decades. I avoid sitting on them as much as I can.

And our carpets are disgusting. We don't have a vacuum and they probably haven't been cleaned since they were first installed. And they're the kind of carpets that everything sticks to. Like velcro, I swear. At my insistance, we borrowed a vacuum cleaner soon after I arrived. I refused to live in filth. Unfortunately the thing had no suction whatsoever and was completely useless. I wanted to throw it down the stairs.

I've grudgingly gotten used to living in a hole though I may still hire a cleaning service one day. I keep telling myself it's only for X more months... hang in there... but I think I may snap well before then.

And the third possible cause for my infliction - all the freaking dust around here. It only takes a few days for my window ledge and all the surfaces in my room to be covered in a layer of the stuff. I cleaned my fan the other day and the water ran black. Every day I go into work to find my keyboard and mouse covered in dust from the window behind my desk.

So really, I guess I'm screwed. I can't stop people from smoking, I try my best to keep the house clean without benefit of a vacuum and there's no way I can shelter myself from all the dust blowing around. This is the desert, after all.

Hopefully I'll get better soon. Otherwise I think I'll start living in a bubble.

Digging for clues to the past

I think it's remarkable the amount of history that lays undiscovered beneath the soil and sand of the Middle East.

An archaeologist once told me if you walk 10 metres anywhere in Jordan and dig down deep enough, you'll find something every time. Ruins of ancient buildings, pottery, coins, bones -- all clues to further unravelling the mysteries of the past. Even the simplest item, like a fragment of a Nabatean dish, can tell a story about how people used to live.

This week I travelled to Jerash, a city north of Amman and the site of some of the best preserved Greco-Roman ruins in the region. I was there to interview an archaeologist and view his latest excavation project, so while I was right in the middle of the main archaeology site, I hardly had any opportunity to go explore the rest of the ruins.

I managed to snap some photos of the area, but I think I need to go back another day and do a proper tourist visit.

Anyway, I was fascinated by the stories he was telling me about the people who lived in Jerash in the 7th and 8th Century around the time of the rise of Islam and the Muslim conquest. I was even more impressed that all this information was taken from evidence provided in the materials and items they found under the dirt.

He said houses always yeild the best clues to past ways of life - which is unfortunate because investors see nothing glamourous about digging up a boring house and therefore never give funding for such projects. Everyone always wants to see the grand structures: amphitheatres, columns, temples, churches and mosques.

But really, if you think of it, what kind of items do we leave at these places that would tell someone about how we lived? He said if the Yankee Stadium were buried underground and discovered several hundred years later, what would people find? Plastic bottles, beer cans, baseball souvenirs, maybe some coins and dollar bills... but nothing overly significant.

Then that got me thinking.

I wonder if there will ever come a time when it's our cities and buildings that people are discovering? So many civilizations have come and gone, flourished and fallen, consumed by the earth.

Why not ours?

God forbid anything terrible should happen of course, but can you imagine? Archeaologists of the future digging down and finding the golden arches of McDonalds? Or strange technological devices like our mobiles? Our cars? Our computers?

What discoveries will they revere? And more importantly, what kind of stories will our possessions tell them about the kind of people we were?

Article: Orphans and animals

Published in The Jordan Times, August 18, 2006

SPANA project targets orphaned children

By Grace Peacock

AMMAN — Previously neglected animals and orphaned children have teamed up in a mutually beneficial volunteer programme at a local animal rescue centre, bringing much needed care to the animals and teaching the children valuable lessons about compassion and responsibility.

The Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA) hosted children from the SOS Children’s Village of Amman yesterday where they helped with the daily chores of the centre, feeding, grooming and cleaning the animals’ living spaces.

Ala'a, Salim and Mohammed from SOS Children's Village in Amman groom a donkey at the SPANA educational centre

“It’s very important to have the kids come here and work with their hands, as opposed to us talking to them about the way we should treat animals,” said SPANA Director Mustafa Ghazi.
“The programme affects their attitudes in a positive way. It teaches them how to interact with animals when they go back to their own community and it helps the animals here because they enjoy having human company,” he said.

A group of SOS children visit the educational animal centre once a week and Amr Khalil, the assistant director of the SOS village in Amman, says the programme not only allows them to have fun playing with the animals, but it teaches them how to care for another living creature.

“They need to see how animals depend on us and the best way for them to learn that is to come here and take care of these animals themselves. They need to experience life outside of the [SOS] village. It’s good for them to come,” Khalil said.

In addition to the education centre, the nonprofit organisation has two mobile clinics in Wadi Seer and the Jordan Valley.

The education centre is home to numerous rabbits, guinea pigs, chickens, cats, goats, sheep, birds, bees, a dog, a peacock and a donkey. Many of them have been rescued from abuse or adopted by SPANA after being abandoned. Ghazi says the organisation has rescued animals from a variety of terrible situations: A donkey that had lost an eye after being stoned by children; pelicans that had accidentally landed in the Dead Sea and were unable to fly due to the salt sticking to their feathers; and a donkey who was trapped in a Dead Sea sinkhole for a week.

“In the cases of abuse that we hear of, often it is plain ignorance at fault,” he explained. “Some people think if you throw hot water on a donkey it will get rid of its colic. Others believe chopping the ear of a donkey will cure it if it has been poisoned. These are terrible old ideas that some people still believe today,” he said.

SPANA is attempting to correct these misunderstandings and encourage the humane treatment of animals through education programmes such as the SOS volunteering project and school visits.

A recent survey conducted by SPANA of children at the centre determined that their perceptions of donkeys were significantly more positive after they visited and interacted with the animals than they were before.

“Children need to be taught these things, they are our next generation. They change so much after they see for themselves that these animals are gentle and clean and enjoy the attention,” said Ghazi.

Article: Marshland exhibit

Published in The Jordan Times, August 17, 2006

Water brings life back to Iraqi marshlands

By Grace Peacock

AMMAN — After years of systematic destruction by the previous regime, Iraq’s southern marshlands are slowly coming back to life as celebrated in a photography exhibition currently taking place at the Wild Jordan Centre.

At the opening night reception this week, Minister of Environment Khalid Irani offered his support to his Iraqi counterpart and praised the work of Nature Iraq — the environmental organisation heading up the marshland restoration.

“This project is not only important for Iraq, but for the whole region. And this isn’t only about ecological rehabilitation but also social and economic rehabilitation for the people living there,” he said.

This photo by Mudhafar Salim is one of many featured in the exhibit.

Azzam Al Wash, chief executive officer of Nature Iraq, hopes the photo exhibition will shed some light on the situation facing Iraq’s unique ecosystems.

“We want to try to remind the world that there is this pearl, this world heritage site that has been destroyed. Though the project has resembled the country’s security situation with lots of stops and starts, the story of the marshes is the story of Iraq — a kind of rebirth from the ashes,” Wash said.

The marshland region, a 20,000-square-kilometre area situated in southeastern Iraq at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, was once the largest wetlands ecosystem in the Middle East.

It is also the site of some of the country’s richest oil deposits.

The repression against the marsh Arabs began in 1988 and was motivated by a combination of factors, not least because the remoteness of the terrain provided sanctuary for political opponents of the former regime.

In 1991, the marsh Arabs themselves took part in a rebellion, which was countered with a campaign of repression and forced displacement, including the construction of extensive drainage works to deprive the marshes of the waters of the Tigris, the Euphrates and their tributaries.

As a result of this policy, 90 per cent of the wetlands were destroyed, ruining the livelihoods of the local population, whose numbers dwindled from 250,000 to fewer than 40,000.

The destruction was described by the United Nations as one of the world’s greatest environmental disasters.

The photos featured in the exhibition were taken in 2005 by Iraqi survey teams recording some of the returning wildlife, restored landscape, the people and their unique way of life.

“Soon after the fall of the regime, the people there broke the dykes on their own and 45 per cent of the marshes were restored without real management,” said Narmin Othman, Iraq’s minister of environment. “Now we’re seeing a reverse migration. People are coming back.”

Since the fall of the previous regime in 2003, the marshlands have been the focus of international programmes by the Italian and Canadian governments to restore their ecological and social-cultural heritage.

Othman described the marshlands as the “the lungs of Iraq” and said much more still needs to be done. People there are in great need of drinkable water, electricity, homes, effective government structures, improved education and healthcare and proper sewage collection and treatment facilities.

The photo exhibition will continue at the Wild Jordan Centre until Sept. 30. The show is part of a world tour that includes stops in Canada, Uganda, the UK and Greece.

Me and my hatta

The Grace of Arabia transformation would not be complete without one of these: the traditional Jordanian hatta, or keffiyeh, a cotton Arab headdress.

I've seen lots of men wearing them around the city and occasionally women too. They can be folded and wrapped about the head in a variety of ways or worn about the shoulders and come in great use while in the desert where it protects from sun exposure and blowing dust and sand.

Since I plan to go back to Wadi Rum, as well as visit Petra and other sun-exposed locations I thought it'd be a smart purchase. Plus it's a fun little souvenir!

According to the great Wikipedia, the hatta is almost always made from white cotton cloth. Those that are plain white are normally seen in the Gulf states. Black and white checkered patterns are typically worn in the Levant and have become a symbol of Palestinian nationalism (and was the trademark symbol of Yasser Arafat). And the red-and-white hatta is most strongly associated with Jordan.

This whole silly-westerners-outfitting-themselves-like-they're-native-Arab fascination probably started with Lawrence of Arabia when he donned his own plain white hatta, with an agal (the band that holds it on) as an effort to "go native" during his involvement in the Arab Revolt during WWI. And Rudolph Valentino had his own headdress when he played an Arab heart-throb in the silent film The Sheik.

It's fun to play dress up, but I think I'll save my hatta for the desert. I'm not quite brave enough to wear it around town. Plus, I'd have too much trouble finding shoes and a purse to match...

Some friends I made

I went to the outskirts of Amman this morning to check out the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA) for a story on a local volunteer program for kids. I think I had more fun visiting the animals than the kids did!

Here are some of the friends I made. Aren't they cute? Well, the kitten is at least. I had several other engagements afterwards and had to keep apologizing for smelling like a barnyard...

Enjoying my lap while I was trying to do my interview...

This guy just wouldn't keep his mouth shut until he has his photo taken...

Why do donkeys always seem so sad?...

This kitten was Mr. Photo Opportunity...

Concert in the Amphitheatre

Tonight I had the pleasure of attending a benefit concert by the Palestine Youth Orchestra at the Roman Amphitheatre in downtown Amman. The event was raising money for humanitarian aid in Lebanon and Palestine.

I went to the concert for my own purposes. I wasn't covering it for the paper but thought it'd be a nice opportunity to take in a little music and culture and practise my hand at night photography (still need lots more practise... you can see all of my photos here).

I showed up at the entrance with a tripod on my shoulder and a camera hanging from my neck and was immediately identified as press and ushered off to the special press area. I briefly considered correcting them and telling them I was just a regular audience member, but then thought what the heck - I've got a press pass, I should make use of it.

I was introduced to the PR lady who gave me some background material - regretfully all in Arabic - and then said I can go anywhere I like to take photographs.

THIS is why I love being a journalist. And why I love having a press pass.

So I knocked elbows with the various television crews and other photographers taking pictures of the concert and flashed my press pass to get in behind roped-off areas.

Unfortunately I ended up leaving before the last performer, a Jordanian soprano called Dima Bawab, came on stage. I wanted to beat the mad rush to find a cab and didn't want to linger too long downtown at night by myself. It was a shame too - the downtown area at night was bustling with people and all the shops were lit up. I would have loved to spend more time there taking photographs and exploring.

Perhaps another time...

Article: Iraqi music school

Published in The Jordan Times, August 13, 2006

Iraqi children seek solace through music

By Grace Peacock

AMMAN — A group of talented Iraqi children have been given a temporary respite from the dangers of everyday life in their war-torn country to participate in a music and ballet summer school here in Amman.

The programme, entitled ‘Healing Through Music,’ has not only helped them develop new talents in a safe environment, but, as the school’s director says, it’s given them a glimpse of a ‘normal’ life and helped them make new friends with their Jordanian neighbours.

“We bring them from such a troubled area that when they arrive here they’re amazed to see things like petrol stations without any queues and to not hear bomb explosions. They get to have a bit of a normal life,” said Agnes Bashir, summer school director and president of the Arab Alliance of Women in Music — one of the project’s founding organisations.

“It’s wonderful to see Iraqi children and Jordanian children side by side, playing games and playing Mozart. Children don’t know anything about politics. They just want to have fun,” she added.

The group of 15 children range in age from six to 18 and most are students of the Music and Ballet School in Baghdad, a place where students were able to receive both general education in sciences and education in the art of music and ballet.

In 2003 during the US-led invasion of Iraq, the school was destroyed and looted. Bashir recalls the aftermath.

“I saw with my own eyes how much the school was ruined. I was crying to know such beautiful instruments were taken. Even our Steinway pianos were stolen. It was very sad,” she said.

Thanks to the help of several NGOs the school was rebuilt and instruments donated. But an instructor at the school says the current problem is getting teachers to come to Baghdad and dealing with people who feel a school for the arts is a waste of time.

“We have the school there, but only in name. It’s very dangerous there now and teachers don’t feel safe. We even fight with some of the conservative-minded locals who don’t agree with teaching music and ballet to our students,” said Majed Hussein Azzawi, an instructor and former student.

His daughter is now enrolled at the school and is taking part in the Amman summer school.
Bashir and her husband helped create the Baghdad school in 1968. She reiterated the present difficulty in recruiting teachers.

“The situation in Iraq is not secure at all. If high security officials get kidnapped everyday, what chance does a bunch of music teachers have in staying safe?” she asked.

The solution was to take classes elsewhere. Under the sponsorship of UNICEF, UNESCO and MCT ATHEER, the children were brought to Amman for several weeks of intensive music and ballet training at the Performing Arts Centre. Their training will culminate in a free ‘Concert for Peace’ at the Royal Cultural Centre on Aug. 16 at 8:00pm.

Bashir hopes the conflict in Iraq will be resolved soon, but says if need be she may try to hold the summer school again next year.

“Children are not responsible for the mistakes of adults. They need attention; they are our future and should not be lost,” she said.

Exploring the Citadel

If I'm not regularly taking photographs I start to get antsy. Same goes for exploring the city and the country. I've got a mental tourist-in-Jordan "to-do" list going and if I'm not making a concerted effort to accomplish these things then I feel like I'm wasting time.

So I decided that every Saturday will be my day to explore. When I arrived I negotiated with the paper that I'd have this day off to work on my freelance assignments. But the work I do certainly doesn't take up a full day and since all my friends are busy at their own places of work, I figured I should head out into the city every Saturday, on my own, armed with my camera and make a proper effort to document this trip of mine.

The first stop? Amman's hill of the Citadel.

I grabbed a taxi early in the afternoon to head out to Jebel al-Qala'a, the city's highest hill where the ruins are situated. As I've learned to be prepared for anything when you get into a cab, it didn't phase me to discover my driver appeared to be about 14 years old. He didn't speak English but seemed to understand where I wanted to go, though I suspect he took the long way around and did so with his right blinker on the whole time.

After I arrived, bought my entrance ticket for 2JD and started walking up the hill to the site I was immediately bombarded on all sides by locals offering to give me a guided tour for several dinars. I laughed, noticing that some of them could hardly put an English sentence together to tell me they were a guide - how the hell did they think they'd manage an entire tour in English?

A great view from Jebel al-Qala'a.

I fought my way past, giving polite excuses and waving my Lonely Planet guide at them as a way to explain I can do this by myself, thank you.

I was happy to discover the place was practically empty. I hate visiting tourist sites and always having strangers walking into your photographs and being forced to move with crowds, ruining any chance you may have for quiet reflection and contemplation of what it is you're looking at.

The downside to this was that I had no one to take photos of ME. One photograph I had taken by a guy passing by, but the rest I had to manage with my camera's timer function. It's a bit tricky - there aren't always rocks high enough and half the time you have no idea if you're centred or if the picture is in focus.

Trying to look natural in a doorway.

I was glad no one was there to see this silly girl setting her camera up on a rock and running into position before the shutter closed, trying to look casual for the shot.

Now for a bit of history.

The Citadel dates back to Roman and Byzantine times and some artifacts unearthed there are thought to be from Bronze Age (3500 BC to 1200 BC). The site is surrounded by 1700m-long walls and the hill was used as a fortress for thousands of years.

I was a bit dismayed to discover the site that day was being prepared for an upcoming wedding. Tents were being erected, a stage had been built, tables put out -- all right on top of the ancient stonework.

*I've heard from archaeologists here that there's a real problem with historical site management and protection in Jordan, which is a shame... but I'll save my thoughts on that for another post, another day.

The Citadel is also home to the Temple of Hercules which is said to have been constructed under the Roman empirical ruler Marcus Aurelius who reigned from AD 161-180.

What the Temple looks like today.

It's thought that this temple was larger than any classical temple in Rome. I've seen a model of the entire structure at an American archaeology centre here in the city. Pretty impressive to imagine that standing before you.

The rest of the site is dominated by ruins of buildings belonging to the Qasr or Umayyad Palace (the Umayyad time period from 661 to 750 AD marked the beginning of the Islamic period in Jordan).

Before the temple fell apart.

The palace was once an extensive complex of royal and residential buildings before it was destroyed by an earthquake in 749 AD.

The audience hall is the most prominent and intact of all the structures. Spanish archaeologists rebuilt its ceiling dome and restructuring work continues to this day.

The audience hall and new roof.

I found a fabulous lookout point with a great view of el Balad, as well as one the other direction where the giant Jordanian flag is featured prominently on the horizon.

I also visited a little archaeological museum and was amazed by the Dead Sea Scrolls on display there. I can't fathom how something so delicate can survive, be discovered (by a bunch of Bedouin goat-herders, no less!) be pieced together and translated after so many centuries.

All in all, a good start to my Saturday exploration series!

Article: Sufi Hadra concert

Published in JO Magazine, August 2006

A Different Drum

By Grace Peacock

Among the ancient columns of the sixth century Byzantine church at Darat Al Funun, more than 200 people gathered this June to take in the mystical song and dance of a Sufi Hadhra, brought to Amman by well-known Tunisian musician Fadhel Jaziri.

“Hadhra is a collection of Sufi songs, ritual songs about youth, memory and the saints,” Jaziri said. “Some are very old – from the end of the 12th Century – and many speak of love and life.”

Twelve performers, including one woman, danced and chanted words of praise to the animated melody of vibrant drums, an electric piano and saxophone.

“Usually we perform with a huge orchestra and hundreds of singers and musicians, but this time we are creating a minimalist piece of art,” explained Jaziri, who conducted the show inconspicuously from the back of the audience. “You try to find the spirit of the place and to have some fun.”

Occasionally some of the singers would break into dance, getting up off their cushioned seats and twisting and spinning to the music while their companions rocked back and forth to their own rhythms.

“Always, dancing is involved,” said Jaziri. “When you are in a good mood, you have to move your body and be free.”

Hadhra in Arabic means “presence,” and is the name given to a traditional Sufi ceremony that melds dkihr – the remembrance or awareness of God as a devotional act involving the repetition of divine names, prayers and sayings from hadith literature and sections of the Qur’an – with poetry, song and dance.

The director of the art centre, Laura Srouji, said the Hadhra was a tribute to Khalid Shoman, the patron of Darat Al Funun who passed away in 2001.

This performance was the last one for the year for Jaziri. Now he plans to focus on directing a film about Tunisia in the 1930s during the end of colonization and its struggle for independence and national unity. He is finalizing a script and expects filming to begin next year and the film to be finished in 2007.

Birthday wishes for my mom

Happy Birthday Mom!

Sending birthday wishes around the world to the best mom and best friend a daughter could have! Hope you have an amazing day; you deserve it :)

Miss you!

Me and my imaginary boyfriend

There have been a few occasions where strange men have grilled me on my marital status and today it finally came to the point that I resorted to outright lies just to keep the guy's interest at bay.

And we're not talking regular Joes in the bar - where you'd expect that kind of interrogation. No, these are taxi drivers (mostly), men in shops and guys on the street. You'd think I'd be happy to receive this kind of attention, but sadly this is not the case as my attraction to these particular men pretty much equals my attraction to fly-covered camel dung. No thank you!

Thanks but no thanks - I'll pass.

In most cases they start by asking if I'm married or if I have a husband. In a few instances though they jump right to "Do you have children?" which never ceases to leave me astonished at the remark, as if something about my appearance has led them to believe I've got my own brood at home!

Today was my latest marital inquisition. I was at the Performing Arts Centre where I was to interview a music teacher. Unfortunately I arrived early and as she was still teaching a lesson, she stuck me in the front office to wait where some admin guy was working.

He was probably in his 30s, about two thirds my height and had a bit of a scary look about him. We made a bit of polite conversation - or at least as much as we could manage as he didn't speak a whole lot of English and nor I Arabic. Once the conversation died out and reached the awkward point I immediately started writing nonsense in my notebook and he pretended to get back to work.

But I could see out of the corner of my eye that he kept looking up at me. Please don't be interested I thought. And then, predictably, came the personal questions.

Him: You are how old?
Me: Sitteh ou eisrine (twenty-six).

He laughs at my attempt to respond in Arabic and tells me he is much older than me.

Him: You have husband in Canada?
Me: Oh no.
Him: He is here with you in Jordan?
Me: Sorry, no I meant I don't have a husband.

The door opens for him, he leans forward - suddenly very interested.

Him: No husband? This is surprise - a beautiful girl needs a husband, yes?
Me: No not really. I'm a busy person, I'm busy with my job. Working a lot. I don't have time.
Him: Me, I don't have wife. But I am looking for one.

Eeeee, ok I can't take it anymore. Lie, lie, lie.

Me: Oh, well sorry I should have said - I don't have a husband but I do have a boyfriend back home in Canada.

His face falls and he leans back. The door slams in his face. There's a brief silent moment and I think that maybe the conversation is over, but no he pushes on.

Him: Your boyfriend let you come so far all alone?
Me: Yep! He travels a lot too. We both like to travel. I'll see him soon in four months.
Him: Do you think you will marry?
Me: Inshallah (God willling).
Him: What work does your boyfriend do?

Why is this guy asking so many questions? Work? His job. Quick, think! And I see a plaque on the wall from the University of Jordan.

Me: He's a professor. At a university. The University of Toronto.

The guy raises a brow and I smile, thinking how nice it is to have an intellectual boyfriend who enjoys travelling as much as I do.

Him: What does he teach?
Me: Uh... (I see a poster of Petra on the wall) ... archaeology?

The guy looks impressed and I choke back laughter when it occurs to me who I've just described.

I am dating Indiana freaking Jones.

The guy shrugs and says my boyfriend is a lucky man and he goes back to work without another word.

I sit back and stare at the Petra poster thinking I should put this imaginary boyfriend tale to more use.

Perhaps get a cheap gold ring for my left hand to help ward off the beasties as well!

*And if anyone knows any secret tricks to making my little tale come true, I'm ALL EARS...

A different movie experience

I saw Miami Vice last night with Colin Farrell and Jamie Fox at a local cinema. I recalled hearing radio spots for the film where a critic said it was going to be without doubt the best film of the year. After seeing the movie I now realise the commercial was false advertising at its best. (Or worst?)


Colin is normally a reliable piece of eye-candy but his trailerpark hair and 'stash were just too distracting.

But nevermind the movie - what interested me more was the difference in the movie experience compared to back home.

Here, at least at this one cinema, you get to choose your seats. When you buy your ticket you can pick out what seats you want from a digital map of the theatre. How civilized is that? No mad rush to get to the theatre to stake out the good seats. This way you buy your ticket, relax in the lobby, have dinner or a coffee and stroll in just as the movie is starting assured that your seats will still be available when you go to sit down.

And for longer movies, they have intermission! This is probably a ploy to get you to buy more food from the concession stand, but I'm sure the people with small bladders are appreciative that they can make an escape without fearing they'll miss any of the movie!

One downfall of trying to appease all the varying ethnicities is that every movie comes with subtitles. Our movie last night had both Arabic and French subtitles taking up a good quarter of the screen. You get used to it, but it's totally distracting for the first ten minutes.

And I was a bit annoyed to discover all the sex scenes had been cut short throughout the whole movie. I understand it's an effort to be sensitive to people's tastes, but come on - isn't that what the ratings system is for? They should be prepared for what they're gonna get!

That's irony for you

I just realised the juxtaposition of the two previous posts couldn't be more ironic.

In one, I'm verbally assaulting a nasty cab driver, wishing ill upon him and his family and complaining about having to walk 50 minutes home, and in the next I'm writing about cancer patients finding joy through laughter therapy and discovering a new appreciation for life.

I'm horrible! I should pay more attention to the content I churn out every day and maybe take a lesson or two.

Article: Laughter therapy

Published in JO Magazine, August 2006

The Power of Laughter

Inspired by a friend she lost to cancer and her own encounter with depression, Najwa Zahher is bringing smiles to the faces of patients at the King Hussein Cancer Centre.

By Grace Peacock

Visiting the outdoor stage at the King Hussein Cancer Centre it’s difficult to tell that the children laughing, singing and dancing are sick. There are signs: some are very thin, some have lost their hair to chemotherapy treatments and still others must sit out of a few activities to catch their breath. But to any casual passerby, they’re regular kids enjoying a day at summer camp where serious issues like illness are far from their minds.

The source of their distraction has a name: Najwa Zahhar. She sits in the middle of the group, laughing with her mouth open wide and clapping along as a young boy nearby plays his tabla drum.

Najwa is a laughing therapist who volunteers at the hospital with children at the cancer hospital, encouraging them to find happiness and forget their grief and pain.

She is already a grandmother but retains the youthfulness and energy of the children around her. Her eyes twinkle and her mouth is continuously curved upward in a smile. The children mimic the actions of each laughing activity – first breathing slowly in and out, then clapping, stretching and doing vocal exercises that finish with a hardy laugh.

Laughter therapy may seem like a funny idea, but Najwa takes it very seriously. It isn’t about making people laugh with humour or jokes, she says, but rather about using games and simple relaxation exercises to help them find their own natural, inhibited laughter and sense of personal joy.

“People sometimes look at me like I’m a crazy woman,” Najwa says. “But I’m not a clown. We need to live our lives aware of every moment and if we stop to do this, to know ourselves deep inside, then we will be happy.”

She says her interest in laughter therapy goes back to two years ago, when she was going to the hospital for a different reason: to visit an old friend who was terminally ill with cancer.

“She was my close friend, my sister, my soulmate and I spent many days with her in the hospital,” Najwa says. “It was there that I saw what pressure they were under – the doctors, nurses and patients.”

It was her friend’s passing, she says, that led Najwa to start her classes, to bring laughter to the rest of the patients. A flicker of a shadow passes over her face when she talks about her loss, but as quickly as it appears, it is gone and once again Najwa is glowing.

But, she says, she has had her own experiences with deep depression, which have helped her empathize with the patients she works with. About 15 years ago, she says, family problems drove her into a deep slump, which she now says she is lucky to have survived:

“I went through a deep, deep depression. For three months I stayed in the house, crying and wanting to die. Every time I remember [that time] I think of how lucky I am to have overcome it. Now I appreciate everything in life. In the morning when I wake up I open my eyes and thank God I can see, I can smell, I am alive.”

It was in Dubai where she was first introduced to laughter therapy, through a session taught by Dr. Madan Kataria, a physician from Mumbai, India, who started the first laughter therapy club in Bombay Park in 1995 and helped launch countless others all over the world.

According to Dr. Kataria’s research, laughing can be an effective antidote for depression, anxiety and psychosomatic disorders and can reduce the risk of high blood pressure and heart disease by reducing stress. Other benefits include boosting the immune system and imroving stamina by increasing oxygen supply. Laughing, he claims, alleviates pain through the release of endorphins and boosts the production of serotonin, a natural anti-depressant.

Dr. Jamal Khalib, the director of the psycho-social oncology program at the King Hussein Cancer Center, has seen for himself the results in patients after attending one of Najwa’s sessions.

“They go from having a sense of depression, anxiety, feeling sad and desperate to realizing there is still joy to be had and learning to live a better quality of life. Rather than laughing to make people happy, Najwa’s therapy is based on the concept of making people happy first, so then they laugh,” he explains.

Najwa hopes one day to help a wider audience forget their troubles, discover their inner self and be happy. Her goal? To hold a “day of joy” for city residents in a local park where they can gather, free of charge, and participate in the laughter therapy sessions.

Impossible in Jordan? The country stereotypically known for its frowning citizens?

Najwa is hopeful.

“Too many people live their lives like they are stuck at a traffic light. Always looking outward, impatient and not happy to be sitting still. All of the world will change if we only stop to look inside ourselves. It’s very simple,” she says.

Finally lost it

I have had it with the taxi drivers in this city. With the exception of a very small minority, they are a rude, arrogant and inconsiderate bunch of jackasses.

I had an interview today at a place near the 4th circle - about a 10 minute drive from my house. It's not too far by car, but is a fair hike on foot. After the interview I tried to grab a taxi. One pulled up to the curb and the driver asked where I wanted to go. I told him first circle. He shook his head and peeled away.

No problem, I thought - this has happened before. I just have to be patient.

A second taxi pulled up. Same thing. Guy drives off. Other empty taxis are driving by just completely ignoring me, I feel like jumping out in front of them into the street to get them to stop. I end up standing there for nearly 10 minutes, sweating in the hot sun before another one stops. Again the guy yells out his window asking where I'm going. As I'm taking my time answering I'm walking to the back door and am about to pull it open, thinking if only I can get inside then he'll have to take me! But just as I put my hand on the handle he yells no, no and takes off, nearly running over my foot.

And that's when I lost it. I screamed a bad A-word after him at the top of my lungs, much to the shock of people standing nearby. Steaming mad, I pointed myself in the general direction of my home and walked - with a nasty scowl on my face.

Are there other places where taxi drivers are rude enough to tell a stranded girl they can't take her cause they won't make enough money off the fare??? Does this happen in many cities? I mean, come on. I am going to give you MONEY to drive me home. You are supposed to be providing me a service. This is your JOB. Is this so much to ask???

On the 50 minute walk home I tried not to be bitter. I thought, I need the exercise anyway. I thought, be happy you CAN walk and are healthy enough to be outside walking - unlike so many people in this world. I thought, be grateful you have the money to be able to take a taxi. This isn't an option for many people in the city.

I started to feel a bit better - despite the sweating and the pain in my feet from my not-so-sensible walking shoes. But then taxi after taxi would drive by me, honking to catch my attention.

I wanted to throw rocks at them, thinking don't you DARE honk at me cause you'll stop only to find out I'm going a short distance and you'll leave me standing in a cloud of your filthy exhaust. So bugger off!

Needless to say it was very difficult trying not to be bitter. I'll try harder next time. It's horrible that I know there WILL be a next time.

Two months in Jordan

To commemorate the two-month anniversary of my arrival in Jordan, I thought I’d compile a list of all the things I miss about my native land. Four months and 16 days to go! (Not that I’m counting…)

I miss my family and friends. And my dog. Ok those are obvious.

I miss thunderstorms and rain in general. I love sitting comfortably in our home, with a hot cup of tea, maybe a good book and no where to go - watching the fat rain drops fall against the window, the lightning flash across the sky and feeling the house shake from the force of thunder. It was always an extra bonus if the power went out, then the family would do the candle and flashlight search and sit watching the rain, talking to one another (because no TV or internet!) in the glow of candlelight. So cozy!

I miss my car. Oh God do I miss my car. It’s like my arm or leg has been taken away from me. So painful! It's a huge adjustment having to get someone to drive you places all the time (either taxis or friends) . No more hopping in the car to drive to the store when I want. Or driving to the movies. Or driving to see friends. Or driving just to cruise around for the hell of it. Or taking road trips. *This is a message to my brother who is now ‘taking care’ of my baby for me: you better be treating her well!

I miss English. People keep telling me “Oh you should have no trouble here, everyone speaks English.” Not true. I still have to call friends to translate to taxi drivers and I even have government officials avoiding me because their English is poor and they’d just not bother dealing with me at all!

I miss crickets. (The insect, not the sport) I used to love going to sleep at night with my window open listening to the soothing hum of crickets singing out in the garden. Here? I get guns, firecrackers, honking horns and howling cats.

I miss the colour green. Too bad it’s going to be winter when I return (what am I talking about, I’m going to love it, no more HEAT)… but if it was going to be summer when I got back one of the first things I would do is grab a blanket and sit down in my backyard on the grass. Maybe I’ll roll around a little bit in it. I miss grass that much. And TREES. Green trees. Lots of them. I keep saying next summer I am definitely taking a camping trip to Algonquin or Killarney so I can bask in the glory of the Canadian wilderness.

I miss my parents’ washing machine and dryer. Here I have no clothes dryer so everything hangs dry and because I don’t use fabric softener my clothes end up stiff as a board and smelling of whatever is cooked in the kitchen while it’s drying (as kitchen is the only space big enough for the drying rack). The washing machine sucks too – my roommate and I aren’t even sure we’re using it right thanks to the weird dials and buttons on the ancient machine. It’s also very tiny and leaks water all over the floor when it’s on. Lovely.

I miss our microwave and oven. My kitchen has no microwave and our oven is broken. If you want something cooked, it’s the stove-top burners or nothing at all.

I miss Tim Hortons. It’s true – although all I ever got there was usually a large tea and a bagel. Nothing fancy. Still, it’s nice to have a place where you know what’s on the menu and you know you’ll like what you’re getting. Here they’ve got Starbucks but it’s not the same and half the stuff we have on the menu at home isn’t offered here (no Chai Tea Lattes!).

I miss being able to drink tap water. Drink it here and you’ll end up in the hospital.

I miss the calm, logical and law-abiding way people drive in Canada. I think my only bad driving habit is speeding and really, that’s all anyone does back home. Perhaps there's some tail-gating. There's the odd guy who cuts you off. Most of the time it’s smooth, calm and polite driving. No running over pedestrians at zebra-crossings, or driving on the dotted line, or sideswiping your fellow driver. In Canada you can get where you need to go without honking, headaches and ripping out your hair.

I miss being able to go places by myself at night. Not such a smart thing for a girl to do here. Or so I've been told. Not about to try it.

I miss summer weekends at the cottage. Either with family or friends – it’s such a relaxing place to laze away summer days in the sun, going to the beach, taking trips into town for groceries, for dinner or to drive around reminiscing about the good ol’ days with the Caledon Girls and Cottage Guys!

I miss being able to wear whatever I want wherever I want. Not that I have too much trouble with my typical wardrobe - but it'd be nice not to have to think, "Ok, now who am I going to be seeing today, what part of town am I going to be travelling in and how can I minimize the number of stares I'm going to get today?"

I miss two day weekends. Most people have only Friday off and it’s usually spent with family – which really does me no good considering my family is on the other side of the planet and all of my friends here are usually preoccupied with their own family affairs. If everyone had two days, at least it'd give them more time to see everyone and plenty more time for precious R&R.

I miss recycling. It pains me everytime I have to throw a plastic bottle or newspaper into the garbage. I’ve heard there are recycling centres somewhere in the city, but fat chance of me transporting all my recyclables there without my own car and without knowing where it is!

So that's my little homesickness rant. Life's really not that bad - I've just had all that building up inside me for two months and felt it about time for a little self-expression. Onwards...

Bass: this one's for you

Hala and I pass by this place all the time and have been wondering if you've got a business over here you're not telling us about?

What I need is a Babel fish

For those sci-fi nuts like me who have seen A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or have read the book you may know the creature I speak of. The Guide explains the fish as such:

"The Babel fish is small, yellow and leechlike, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish."

Though the idea of having a leechlike fish in my ear gives me the willies, how handy it would have been to have during the numerous conferences and seminars I've had to attend where 90 per cent of the presenters have spoken in Arabic!

I'd just plop Mr. Fishy into my ear and thanks to his language converting abilities I wouldn't have to sit there staring at the ceiling counting tiles feeling like an entirely useless reporter not being able to quote anything being said!

Ah, but sadly the Babel fish is not so readily available here on earth - instead we've got regular translation services and I have only had the chance to attend one seminar where they have been employed.

It was quite fun actually, to sit at the table with a set of headphones on watching the speaker talk in one language and have the words come out the headset in a completely different one. That day I believe they had both English and French translators working in the little booths at the back of the room. I felt like I was at the U.N.!

The silly thing is that the press releases we receive for the events are always in English, so automatically my editors pass them on to me thinking I'll be able to cover it. Then I arrive only to discover everything's in Arabic - even the background material they're handing out - and I'm forced to run around during the breaks, asking the speakers like an idiot, "Excuse me I don't speak Arabic so I didn't understand a word of your 30 minute presentation - could you perhaps go over the key points again in English?"

Fortunately I've always managed to write the story - it just requires that I run around and do 100 per cent more work than any of the Arabic reporters there!

Oh Babel fish, you'd make my life so much more easier...

Birthday wishes for my little bro

Happy 23rd birthday to my little (but tall) brother Gavin!

He's the one on the right, with me and my other little bro Adam at the Standing Ovation concert in Stratford, Ontario last year. They're really not so 'little' anymore. Where's the time gone? I swear it was just yesterday I was 23...

Anyway - have a good one Gav! Miss you guys! :)

Column: Canadians sheltered from war

Published in the Caledon Enterprise, August 2, 2006

Canadians sheltered from Mid-East war

By Grace Peacock - Special to The Enterprise

Having been brought up in Canada, whose soil has not seen a war in almost 200 years, it's unfathomable trying to imagine what it's like for people who have never known peace. Jordan has been relatively lucky to avoid recent conflict, but the suffering of neighbouring states weighs heavily on all those living in the Middle East.

It seems everyone has an uncle, cousin or friend living in Lebanon, Israel or Iraq. No one is unaffected. Every day the newspapers in Jordan bring grim news of more death and destruction. Summer festivals and concerts have been cancelled around the region because the Arab people feel it impossible and inappropriate to be celebrating at a time when their brothers and sisters are being killed.

As a Canadian, I don't know what to make of the mess the Middle East finds itself in. How do you dig yourself out of a hole that's been created from decades of war? How do you find solutions to century-old religious, ethnic and tribal conflicts? How do you convince nations to lay down their guns and fight diplomatically for peace?

It seems the entire world is grappling with these very questions. And yet from what I see around me here in Amman, Jordan, people are tired of war. They're angry, of course, but they are more concerned that the fighting stops. So why does it continue unabated?

I struggle to understand how easy it is for some people to pick up a gun, and yet terribly difficult for them to sit down and converse with their adversary. Diplomacy, mediation, peace-building and peacekeeping have been synonymous with the Canadian way of life. We're not a perfect people, but war does not come naturally to our citizens. Not that it comes naturally to the people here - but the normalcy of war frightens me.

What's worse is that it's taken this trip to the Middle East, only a couple of hundred kilometres away from the shelling attacks in Lebanon, to fully understand how desperate the situation here has become. The majority of Canadians, myself included, go through life sheltered from the atrocities happening around the world, governed by a fence-sitting government and fed information through media organizations that continue to close their international bureaus and cut their foreign budgets.

A lasting solution to the Middle East crisis may be far off, but educating people who have the means to make a difference would be a start. People should not be allowed to turn a blind eye - instead they should make the most of their democratic rights and pressure their leaders to get involved and help find that illusive peace. These countries cannot do it alone. It's the least we can do while we sit comfortably and safely in our homes, where we should be grateful for what we have and hopeful for those less fortunate.

Grace Peacock is a former Caledon Enterprise reporter currently living in Amman, Jordan where she is completing a six-month internship with the Jordan Times - an English daily newspaper based in the capital city.

Is this safe??

I couldn't take being attacked every night by a barrage of blood-thirsty mosquitos so I went out and bought THIS. It's supposed to heat up little chemically-soaked 'mats' and emit some kind of invisible vapour that kills the little buggers.

It's EPA approved in the States, but I can't help but feel a little suspicious about chemicals floating around my room - strong enough to kill some life forms but not bad enough to affect me?

All I'm saying is if one day I have kids and they come out with tails or a third eye, I'm getting a lawyer.

And this photo is for all you who voiced doubt that my shower wall was being held up with packing tape. Voila! It's a fun little game to get in there and wonder if today will be the day that the tiles will come loose and crash down on my head.

Bad time to be a dog in Yunnan

So you're out walking your dog one morning in the Chinese province of Yunnan when out of nowhere some guy grabs Fido and beats him to death in front of your very eyes.

The same guy and his buddies enter villages at night, making lots of noise to get pet dogs barking so they can find them inside homes and beat them to death too.

This has been the fate of 50,000 dogs in Yunnan - a brutal government-backed massacre to combat a rabies outbreak.

I'd like to know why killing something is the first reaction to solving problems for so many people around the world. Really. Can we not at least CONSIDER some other solutions? Weigh the options? Put down the club, the gun, the missile launcher. Or do you like the feel of blood on your hands?

I am no longer just referring to the poor dogs in China...

So many lives could be saved - human or canine - if we just stopped to think!

A day in the life of a mood swinger

My mood has been swinging wildly from one extreme to another these past few days and it’s physically exhausting me – nevermind probably annoying whomever is unfortunate enough to be around me to suffer the consequences.

In a matter of a few hours I’ll go from being thrilled with the world, to wanting to kick something in anger, to wanting to sob on the phone to my mother to being thrilled with the world again.

What’s the deal? Today, for example, all these little things triggered a switch in temperment and despite their triviality I'll share my day-in-the-life:

I wake up grumpy after a horrible night’s sleep thanks to a) my former favourite fan that is slowly falling apart and now sounds like an airplane engine when it’s on – and I need to have it on during the night otherwise I will sweat to death in my sleep; b) the damn invisible mosquitos that love to buzz sweet nothings in my ear before sucking my blood like little merciless vampires; c) all the screaming and yelling of kids as they run about in the alleyways during all hours of the night (where are their parents?!); and d) the howls and hisses of cats scrapping it out beneath my window.

I can hear this even with earplugs in.

All this is made worse when I turn on my computer to check the latest headlines: more death and destruction and killing of innocent civilians only a few hundred kilometres from where I stand. Lovely. Now I am angry and sad.

But wait! I’ve received emails from my loving friends and family back home. Ok, happy again!

Then I go down to the kitchen and discover there’s no food for breakfast because I haven’t gone grocery shopping and a new colony of ants has taken up residence on my kitchen counter and have invaded my jar of honey. Am now grumpy.

A trip to the gym quickly brings my spirits back up and lucky me, the place is empty and all the cardio machines are mine for the taking. Sweet! But after sweating it out for a while I discover I’m not sweating so much because of the workout but because there’s no air coming from the A/C. The guy swears it’s on, and points to the little ribbon hanging from the vent. It’s limp. Suddenly there’s a tiny little movement and he grins and says “See? It’s on!”

Bullsh*%. Do you know how miserable it is to work out in a hot gym?? Am angry again.

But then I take a nice shower in their facilities where, unlike my bathroom, the wall is not being held up with packing tape and you do not have to turn a water heater on an hour ahead of time. Things are looking up!

After I’m ready I venture into the streets of Shmeisani to find a cab to take to work. I walk up and down the streets and notice that there are at least five people waiting for cabs ahead of me. So I walk to another area. Still more people waiting. It takes 30 minutes before I find a cab and by then I’m late for work and am not a happy camper.

But then I have an interview with some people for an article I’m writing and it goes very well. The people are so happy to be talking with me and are thrilled that I’m interested in their organization and it reminds me why I like doing what I do.

My bubble is burst when colleagues at work ask me why I haven’t been writing stories lately. Having trouble finding stories, they ask? in a mocking tone. No, actually if you asked anyone you would have known I’ve been on vacation and have been busy freelancing for OTHER publications. Thank-you-very-much-now-get-your-nose-out-of-my-business.

I am then invited to a luncheon by the Canadian Embassy and I receive an email from a source who says they loved my story. All is good with the world.

But when I leave work I end up waiting by the curb for 10 minutes before an empty cab comes by only to have the guy drive a block and decide he can’t take me to my destination and he kicks me out. *This has been happening a lot lately, mostly because the place I ask them to go isn’t very far and isn’t a good fare for them so they refuse to take me. Bunch of jerks. Why are people so mean??

By the time I get back to my neighbourhood I’m in a foul mood and completely sick and tired of taxis. I think of my lovely little Civic back home and want to cry.

But then I step into a bakery to buy some pita bread and the three young boys minding the shop eagerly wait on me hand and foot, giving me samples of their fresh breads and pasteries to try. They laugh at my clumsy attempts to speak Arabic and giggle when they try to return the conversation in English. I buy my bread and they wave me goodbye with big grins on their faces. Ok, there ARE nice people in the world. All hope is not lost.

I get home to a sauna of a house (absolutely no air flow whatsoever in my building) and my roommates the ants and an empty cupboard. Right – forgot groceries. Grumpy again.

I walk a few blocks to the best market in my neighbourhood, buy a bunch of groceries and walk back home, hands full with plastic bags. Halfway home, one breaks and the contents go spilling out all over the dirty ground. Grrrr.

I drop this stuff off at the apartment then head across the street to another shop to buy bottles of water. The shopkeeper’s young son (we’re talking 10 years or so) takes my heavy bottles of water without asking and carries them back across the street for me to my apartment. How nice! I’m so pleased I give him half a dinar – not knowing if this is what I’m supposed to do or not, but not really caring otherwise. He’s thrilled and tells me shukran ktir before scampering off.

And so here I am, happy with my belly full of dinner, responding to the emails sent by family and friends and typing this horribly long post that I’m sure no one will take the time to sit and read through. But that’s all fine… cause I’m in a good mood and I could care less.

Oh wait… some kids outside are shooting fireworks again and my heart has jumped up in my throat. It's so loud! You know THIS is why we have an minimum age requirement for fireworks purchase back home. So kids aren't scaring the living daylights out of their nervous neighbours every night and shooting the fireworks off between buildings!

And so the pendulum swings… I'll end this post here before I start to get nasty.