Musings on Being Connected

What does it mean to be connected?  Connected to whom?  Is it important?  How are we connected when we are thousands of miles apart? 

In the late 1980s Ed and I went off sailing for 2-1/2 years.  In the dark ages (before internet), when you were gone, you were really gone.  Sure some sailors used satellite phones, but they were unreliable and VERY expensive.  Our longest passage, from Fogo, in the Cape Verde islands to Barbados, was just under 14 days.  During that time the only sign of human life that we saw was the jet contrails from trans-Atlantic flights.  We did not see any ships as we were not in the shipping lanes.  Two days out from Bridgetown, we picked up a radio station.  As we listened, the reports of traffic congestion made us even more aware of how disconnected we were. 

At that time we were connected to the people back home primarily by postcards and letters and the very rare phone call.  We once made an $80 phone call from the Gambia in West Africa to California to order essential boat parts.  Phone calls to chat were clearly out of the question.  My sister received our mail in the US and periodically we received a packet from her, often at an American Express office.  When we arrived in Barbados on February 14^th, the packet contained our Christmas mail.  We sat on the boat, in the blazing sun, and enjoyed greetings and news from people that we had not seen for close to two years.  And we felt connected.

Today, connections are so much easier.   I want to talk to my sister in Arizona.  No problem.  For about 31 JD ($43.70) per month we have a fast internet connection in our apartment and for a nominal charge with Skype I can dial her anytime.  Well not really any time.  We are ten hours ahead of her and although I have no doubt that I am her favorite sister, she does not want me to wake her at 3AM to chat.

Jordanians are totally connected by their cell phones.  Jordanian government statistics report that 98.5% of all households have a mobile phone.  Another report indicated that there are more than 10.7 million mobile phone subscriptions, which is a penetration of 146%, indicating that many businesses have switched from landlines to cell phones.  One of the first things that we did was to get onto a phone plan here.  Without a mobile, you might as well not exist.  Although I have exchanged phone numbers with a variety of people, I am still surprised when it rings. 

Bedouin Girls and Camels

Bedouin Woman and Susan

Learning to speak a few Arabic words has also helped us to connect to my new colleagues.  After almost two months I can Insha’Allah with the best of them.  I have learned to never say “see you tomorrow” without adding Insha’Allah (God willing).  I feel very connected to my teaching partner, Dr Inaam.  From the first day we worked together to plan our qualitative research course, I felt connected.  We come from different cultures, different religions, but as nurses and educators, we have many similar ideas and attitudes.  I am confident that my connection with her will last long after I have returned to Boston.

Connections can also occur with people who only speak Arabic.  Only a few blocks from our apartment, on the route that we take when we walk to Fulbright House, a man in a traditional robe and red Jordanian kaffiyeh is always sitting near the sidewalk.  The first time we saw him, Ed had his camera.  Ed pointed to the camera and then to the man.  At first we thought that he was saying no to the picture; in fact he was getting up to pose.  Now when we see him, there are smiles all around and he shakes hands with Ed.  As is customary among Muslim men who do not shake hands with women, he bends his right elbow and places his hand palm down near his heart.  The connection is made between two nationalities, between two religions, between two (or three if you count me) people.

Man in our Neighborhood

Bedouin Man in Tent with Tea

Email is also a wonderful connection.  Because I am only on leave from Curry College, I still receive all of the general distribution emails.  I feel connected to my colleagues when I see ‘baby news’ and notices for events that I would attend if I were in Boston.  Personal correspondence by email also keeps me connected.  It ranges from the trivial things that we would say in passing to the important messages that will impact my life when I return.  Occasionally we have the fun of real time email, when two of us are on line at the same time. 

Luckily we do not have to rely on snail mail here as they do not have postal delivery to the home.  If you want to receive mail, you need a post office box.  (Fulbright House has a PO Box, but we have been told that mail can be a bit unreliable so I have not even bothered to give it to anyone.)  There are no mail boxes on the houses or mail slots in the front doors.

There are so many ways to be connected that it is virtually impossible to keep up with them all.  Some prefer Facebook or Twitter.  I prefer to write my blog and to email.  We are still connected this way with people that we met when we were sailing, long before anyone ever dreamed of the internet.

Connections to the bigger world are pretty easy as well.  Want to read the Boston Globe?  No problem, just a bit slower than flipping the paper pages.  Headlines, as defined by MSN?  No problem, right there when I log on.  We can even get Netflix by going through a secondary site.  Radio comes to us via internet.  Just as at home, we can listen to our favorite London classical music station. 

The English language version of the Jordan Times, delivered daily except Saturday, connects us to the world through the lens of the press.  We receive news of the Middle East in a way that would not be seen in the US press, not better or worse, just with a different focus. 

At times I am nostalgic for the post cards that connected us in the past.  When our parents were alive, Ed and I sent postcards from everywhere.  We saved a few stamps from most of the countries we visited when we were sailing (occasionally we forgot) and made a poster when we returned home.  One of our favorite post office purchases was 200 miles upriver from Banjul in the Gambia.  At a small table in front of a shack, the postmaster sold us stamps with Mickey Mouse on them.  We skeptically handed in our postcards, expecting that it was unlikely that they would reach our parents in Ireland and the US.  We were wrong; they did arrive.  Here we have never even seen a post office but we haven’t tried to find them.

Connections here, connections to family and friends back home.  So easy and so wonderful.  Thanks to all who have emailed.  We appreciate the time that you take to stay connected with us.

Traveling over the Holiday

“Let’s rent a car next week when you are off for Eid.”  I wanted to say “Are you nuts”, but thought better of it.  Ed is fearless when it comes to driving and he really likes road trips because he can stop whenever he sees a photo opportunity.  Some of my favorite pictures are ones that he took when he quickly stopped the car.  So instead of my initial response, I said “Fine, make the arrangements” and wondered if I had enough Ativan for a week.

Eid al-Adha is a four day Muslim holiday that celebrates the end of the hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca).  It commemorates Abraham’s (Ibrahim’s) sacrifice of a ram instead of his son.  While in some Muslim countries the animal of choice to slaughter is a goat, in Jordan it is a sheep.  The sheep are sacrificed on Saturday.  This may be done either at the home (a butcher comes to the home) or in specially designated temporary slaughter areas in Amman or at local butchers.  After the holiday the Jordan Times reported that 42,879 sheep were sacrificed just in the Greater Amman Municipality.  They further noted that “the municipality’s inspection teams destroyed 2850 kilograms of spoiled meat during their field visits throughout Eid and issued 89 warnings for health violations”.  I have not been able to find a sacrifice statistic for the entire country.

This Eid is not to be confused with Eid al-Fitr, a three day festival that occurs at the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting.  The official four days off for Eid al-Adha this year were Saturday (October 4) through Tuesday (October 7).  Like any holiday period, many people add a few days at the front or back end of it. 

 Sheep Waiting to be Sacrificed in Irbid

Looking at our Rough Guide we planned our “vacation” and before you knew it, the car was delivered to our apartment and we were off to Jerash.  GPS use is virtually nonexistent here, but we included one in our car rental.  While it was far from perfect, it did help us to find our way on numerous occasions.

Although Jerash is not more than 25 miles from Amman, we decided to spend the night there.  The tour buses give Jerash only a few hours, but we like Roman ruins and prefer a more leisurely approach.  It is one of the best preserved Roman cities in the eastern Mediterranean region.  Although the hippodrome is the smallest of any of the ones that have been discovered in ancient Roman cities, it is particularly interesting because they still use it for staged chariot races that are preceded by a display of Roman military strategies.

Hadrian's Gate in Jerash

Chariot Race in the Hippodrome in Jerash

One of our best stops the next day was in Kufranja, a town not listed in any tourist guidebook.  As we drove from Ajloun Castle, heading toward the Jordan Valley, we stopped in this bustling market town.  It was the Friday before the start of Eid, and there were large pens of sheep and goats waiting to be purchased for sacrifice on Saturday.  We parked on the main street and wandered around.  In the produce market, Ed was quickly adopted by a small boy who escorted him from vendor to vendor.  While Ed was trying to take candid shots, everyone wanted to pose holding their best radishes or cabbages.  Such a contrast to a produce market that we had visited in Siberia where Ed was told that it was not permitted to take pictures of the vendors and the produce.  We always wondered if they had top secret potatoes in Russia.

 Goat Market in Kufranja

 Vegetable Market in Kufranja

I was disappointed with the Dead Sea.  Long before I came to Jordan, I had wanted to swim in the Dead Sea.  Going to the lowest point on earth (400 meters [1320 feet] below sea level), always sounded really cool and I couldn’t imagine any water being too salty for me.  Well, I was wrong.  It was way too salty.  Just a splash into the eye felt like someone had thrown acid at you.  And you really can’t swim because you float in the brine.  The Dead Sea is about 30% salt while normal seawater is 3 to 4%.  Supposedly the Dead Sea mud has therapeutic effects, and many people availed of the large pots of warm mud, slathering it all over their bodies.  That idea didn’t do much for me, so after staying in long enough to say that I had been in the Dead Sea, we headed up to one of the three hotel pools.  I was really glad that we had decided to stay at a resort rather than just opt for a day at the trash laden public beach.  The pool was refreshing and the ambiance was so restorative.

I had wondered if Muslim women who dressed in long robes and head scarves went swimming and if so what they wore.  The question was answered here at the resort.  They wear long pants and a tunic top and a color coordinated fairly tight fitting cloth headdress.  It seemed too intrusive to take a picture of a woman swimming so this is one time we will just have to remember what the outfit looked like.  At times like this I have always wished that I was a sketch artist.

This was the second hotel room that we were in that had a small decal on the ceiling with an arrow pointing toward Mecca.  However, I think that here one had to watch the clock to know when to pray as we never heard the muezzin’s call to prayer.

Other tourist sites during the week included Mt Nebo (excellent view overlooking the Dead Sea), Uum Qais (more Roman ruins and a view of the Sea of Galilee and the Golan Heights) and Madaba, a mostly Christian town with beautiful ancient mosaics.  In Madaba we stayed at an inn run by the Greek Orthodox church.  Mt Nebo is where Moses saw the Promised Land that he had been forbidden to enter.  While we were there a group of pilgrims from India were praying as they overlooked the Promised Land.  Other sites in the area also have particular interest for those who like to see places that are mentioned in the Bible.

Mosaic in Madaba

Everywhere we went it was clear that tourism is much diminished.  Tourists from the US and Europe were virtually non-existent.  The troubles in the Middle East have certainly hurt the economy in Jordan.

So we headed back to Amman and filled the gas tank (.79 JD per liter or about $4.20 per US gallon) and the week with a rental car came to an end, without as much as a dent.  Driving outside of the cities was not a problem at all.   In the cities, now that’s another story.  But Ed is ready to do it again, so next time we rent a car we will head south to Petra and Wadi Rum.

[a technical note: if you click on the pictures, they should enlarge]