So we went to a Wahdat vs. Faisaly soccer game on saturday. For those who don't know, Wahdat is a southern section of Amman that started out as a Palestinian refugee camp, and has become part of the city, albeit one of the rougher neighborhoods. Faisaly is the team supported by Jordanian Jordanians, while Wahdat is the Palestinian-Jordanian team. Before we went, it seemed that everyone we talked to was flabbergasted (yes i used flabbergasted) that we would even think of going, since apparently the games can get pretty rough in the stands. We went anyway, and it turned out to be actually quite tame, as far as soccer games go. We meant to support Faisaly, but ended up sitting in the Palestinian section, so we cheered for Wahdat, and claimed to be Canadian. We were actually quite popular, and at one point the entire palestinian section was chanting CANADA CANADA CANADA. It probably would have been different if we had told the the truth. Somehow i can't imagine them adopting AMERICA AMERICA AMERICA as one of the chants.

Last week I went and spent a few days living with the bedouin of southern Jordan. Their lifestyle is relatively modern, their values are very traditional, and their arabic was relatively easy for me to understand. The next couple posts are from my writing i did there.

So we have spent today basically identically to the first day in the Baadiya, which means we walked around meeting various members of the extended family of Abu Dannah which basically makes up the population of Bir Abu Dannah. Ahmed introduced me to his 1942 perfectly preserved German infantry rifle. I also met one of the oldest surviving members of the Abu Dannah family, who offered me half of his land (which apparently is significant) if I said the Shahada and became a Muslim. That was followed by much more drinking of that excellent sweet tea. The whole day was fascinating, but the more informative experience came later. A cousin of the Abu Fawzi family that i stayed with is a 14 year old kid named Muhamed, who has taigh himself English with the help of a textbook, TV, and a prodigious, if not photographic memory. While my Arabic was working for simple communication, Muhamed was the first chance I had to get a sense for the politics and beliefs among the bedouin themselves. TO begin with, the whole set of political assumptions and beliefs are quite different from mine. Iraq was for obvious reasons the most popular subject. Saddam Hussein is a hero to these people, for being a strong arab leader who stood up to the western powers, and the way he died certainly contributed to his martyr status. I tried to point out to Muhamed that Saddam had done some awful things to his own people, and muhamed brushed it off, saying those people tried to kill him, therefore justifying what happened to them. IT also illuminated something that had happened earlier, when i had been walking between villages with the brothers of my host family and a a friend of theirs, who holds a religious position of some sort at the mosque. Zaid has a ringtone on his phone that consists of inspirational traditional music with Saddam Hussein speaking his own poetry in a voice over. The other guest told me in arabic that that ringtone makes his heart beat faster, and I got the sense that he was expecting an argumentative responce. I didn't know at the time, however, that it was Saddam, so i didn't oblige. I have discussed it with other people, namely muhamed,who pointed out after a rather exasperated exchange that according to the rules of Islam, this disagreement should compliment, rather than diminish our friendship. There was also at least a hint of admiration in his eyes when he talked about al-Jubr, the insurgent sniper who has allegedly killed "160" US troops. Also on the subject of different assumptions, many people, even the Britain educated Dr. Fawzi, are skeptical about whether the 9/11 attacks were carried out by Arab terrorists. I often found myself taking a much more American government line in an attempt to balance out what i was hearing. It was frustrating at times, but the biggest trap would be to assume that I am any different from them, no matter how genuinely i believe personally in the accuracy of my base of political and factual assumptions.

The trip thus far has already been exciting, with the bag incident in addition to the typical experiences of getting to know a new culture and people. The bag issue has been mostly resolved, and things are pretty much back to normal. The incident did however, have a much deeper effect upon me than the inconvenience of losing my clothes and a few amenities. To give the basic story, I took a van from the airport, and upon arrival at the hotel, left it in the car after paying the driver as I ran up to check if the hotel was open, and he drove away with my bag. When the program began a couple of days later, the police became involved, and mounted quite an effort to get the bag back. Since it was unclear whether it was malicious, and apparently the way in which I was approached and offered a ride was illegal, the driver and an airport worker who helped me with my bag and procured my ride were identified on surveillance, apprehended, and jailed. At that point, things had gone much further than I intended, and after I made it clear that jail was unnecessary, the men were released into the custody of their tribes. Already I was experiencing the Jordanian sense of honor, which dictated seemingly draconian measures for my sake. In the US, the party that is deemed to be the victim is promised justice which will be carried out by the local DA office, that victim does not have the same amount of power that I had here. My words had the power either to mitigate any consequences, or to quite literally cause imprisonment and at the very least the firing of these two men. To be aware of that sort of power and responsibility was a very new experience, and especially humbling afterwards with the knowledge that a misspoken or misinterpreted word from me could have caused a lot of harm. I also emerged from the experience with a deep respect for the tribal methods of justice. Before when in idea of tribal justice was raised, what jumped to mind was honor killings or that movie “Behind the Sun,” in which the two families have been revenge killing each other for so long there is almost no one left. My experience with it in this case, and having learned more about since arriving here has convinced me of the usefulness of tribal law in solving problems in a flexible and subjective way quite different from the methods of modern law. In the end, of course, as the whole thing was almost certainly not malicious, the only option was forgiveness, and the refusal of any of the tribal tradition of compensation offered by the father of the driver. The family of the driver whom I had caused to be jailed, however briefly, was profuse in their invitations and made me promise to visit them during my stay here.

It is hard to articulate the respect I have gained for Jordanian hospitality, customs, and people already through some rather adverse experiences.

Despite the fact that we are already a couple of weeks in to the program, i think i should start at the beginning. Having through a variety of circumstances for which i was mostly to blame, i spent the first couple of days in Amman alone and without my bag, which means i had basically the clothes on my back,along with my passport and luckily my money. The experience of being entirely self reliant in an utterly new place was something very new to me. I have almost always had nearby some sort of moral and usually material support my entire life. Even in the first days of NYU, things were structured and in any case, everyone had a common language. For the first two I two days here, I was satying in the poor, downtown area of Amman, where the ambient culture and lifestyle was compltely different from anything i had experienced. That said, I cannot claim to have dealt with things completely alone. On the first day, i was wandering around looking for clothes and getting to know the district, and was immediately befriended by a couple local shop keepers. One of those was a handicrafts maker named hagop, who blows and paints small glass ornaments and souvenirs. He also speaks excellent English, and for all my talk to wanting immersion arabic, in the situation i was in, it as a relief. Hagop is one of the kindest, most sincere men you will ever met. When in a moment of weakness i tried to place all the blame on the driver for losing my bag, he politely but firmly told me it was my bag, and therefore my responsibility. That said, it also offended his sense of Jordanian hospitality that the bag wasn't e returned to my hotel after it seemed the driver would have found it. Anyway, Hagop showed me the area, taught me the basics of the bargaining ("you must be strong with these people") that is the key to getting decent prices as well as respect in the downtown souqs. When I left for the upper middle class areas of the program, I bought a beautiful little candle holder from him, and despite my triple refusal, eventually accepted a small glass ornament as a gift. Having sat and talked with him as he painstakingly painted each detail of the design for hours, I deeply appreciated the gift. I plan on visiting Hagop frequently this trip, and he said i should come and bahka al arabia so he can correct the arabic i learn in class.