Summer Living (Video and Pictures)

On the occasion of first day of fall, I wanted to share a video and some pictures of the places that I have been this past summer.  Firstly, the interior of my house has gone through several changes since the last video of my house.  The primary impetus for these changes has been the fact that the room that I was living in has a nice sun window which is great for warming the room.  Having a warm room is wonderful in the winter, but in the summer in Jordan you want to keep things as cool as possible.  So, as you'll see in the video, I bought a ceiling fan and transformed an interior room without windows into my primary living and sleeping room for the summer time.  I do imagine, nonetheless, that I'll move back into my winter room sometime within the next couple of months.

The mattress you see on the floor in the video, however, is not the only place that I have slept in the last few months as I have taken several vacations throughout the summer.  My first vacation was across the River Jordan to visit my good friends Zach and Lindsay and other friends from my time in Charlotte.

At the beach with Old Jaffa in the background

While I hadn't seen Zach or Lindsay since their wedding a year ago, it was really great to reconnect to with these friends with whom I spent two years in Charlotte.

Dome of the Rock Mosque, Mount of Olives, the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, Al-Aqsa Mosque, City of David

Staying across the river, I then met up with some Peace Corps friends in Jerusalem.  I've been to some pretty spectacular places in my lifetime, but I  must say that there is no other place on Earth quite like Jerusalem.

At the site of Jesus' Crucifixion, inside
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Regardless of your feelings on the veracity of any or all of the three monotheistic religions, one cannot deny the historical significance and the holiness of Jerusalem.  Never have I have been to place where so much history and so many cultures have been built right next to and right on top of each other like in Jerusalem.  The world's third holiest site for Muslims, Al-Aqsa Mosque where Mohammed ascended to Heaven, is literally built on top of the world's holiest site for Jews: the Western Wall of the Temple Mount.  Not to mention the fact that the northern border of the Temple Mount is the Via Dolorosa: the road on which Jesus Christ carried his cross from the Garden of Gethsemane to the site of his Crucifixion and Resurrection.  Built on top of this site now is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which is the world's holiest site for Christians.

Dome of the Rock Mosque

What's amazing is that many of these holy historical events happened centuries apart in the exact same place and the different cultures and religions continue to intermingle and confront one another to this day.

Pictures from both these cities can be seen here.

Returning to the East Bank of the River Jordan, I immediately headed south towards Petra and Aqaba where I worked a one-day and a three-day English camp.  Information on these camps can be found at this link.  This post, however, is not about work, but rather about vacation and I definitely took advantage of my work in the South to take some vacation.  Petra is an absolutely spectacular place that I would definitely recommend to anyone.  I spent two full days hiking through the grounds; thirteen hours on day one and nine hours on day two, and I still couldn't get enough of it.  A recurring thought throughout my two days at Petra was how it is not quite as cool as the Grand Canyon in Arizona and not quite as cool as Machu Picchu in Peru.  What's shocking, however, is that I never would have thought to compare the Grand Canyon to Machu Picchu and that this place is almost as cool as both just makes it unbelievable.

To give you a taste of just how awesome it is, here are a few pictures:

The first glimpse of the Treasury from the Siq

The Treasury

Petra City Center

The Monastery

The Monastery and the End of the World

The Palace Tomb and the Corinthian Tomb

If you enjoyed those, more from Petra can be seen by clicking here.

While in Aqaba, I went SCUBA diving for the first time.

I stood on a sunken ship 11 meters below the surface

My next trip took me out of the Middle East for the first time since October of last year.  One of my best friends, Mark Hand, was living in Mumbai, India and I decided to go visit him and travel around India for a few days.  Unfortunately, by the time I got there, Mark was no longer there so I had to travel around on my own.  Nevertheless, I had a fabulous time on my own visiting the cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Agra, and Udaipur.

From Mumbai:

City Bus

Gandhi

From Delhi:

Red Fort

Tomb of Humayun

From Agra (Taj Mahal):

From Udaipur:

Saheliyon-ki-Bari Garden

Lake Fatehsagra and Udaipur City

Since returning from India, I haven't left Jordan again, but I have traveled within country a couple more times, including an amazing hike through the Wadi Dana Nature Reserve with a couple Peace Corps buddies.

Wadi Guweir

Wadi Hamra

Finally, I visited a Peace Corps friend at his site near the city of Madaba and took in some of the churches and spectacular Byzantine and Roman mosaics that has made Madaba famous.

The oldest surviving map of Jerusalem

Same mosaic map with the River Jordan, Jericho, and the Dead Sea

Help me get a t-shirt

My friends at Manna Project International - Guatemala are trying to build a four-classroom edition to their school out of plastic bottles stuffed with trash.  Not only will this project significantly reduce the amount of unsightly trash in their community, but it will also provide space to educate up to 200 more students.

To raise funds for this project, they are selling t-shirts at $25 each ($17 of which goes directly to the Bottle School Project).  Unfortunately, however, their partner organization is requiring that they sell at least 200 shirts before printing any shirts or receiving any funds.  So far, they have sold 47 shirts, including one that I reserved, and have to sell the remaining 153 shirts in the next THREE DAYS.

Here is what the shirt looks like:

If they are unable to sell 153 more shirts by Friday then they won't receive any money from this fund-raiser and I won't get my shirt.  So please, help me get my shirt by ordering one for yourself:

http://teespring.com/mpigbottleschool

Reading in Jordan

After reading this article on the 14th Annual Amman International Book Fair, I got to thinking about reading in Jordan: both the reading that I do and the reading that I observe around me.  I've come to the realization that I have never once seen a Jordanian read for pleasure.  In my 11 months in Jordan I have only ever seen Jordanians read three things: The Holy Qur'an, textbooks, and the occasional newspaper (though I must admit that I see newspapers used more often as tablecloths than as reading material).

While my personal experience in conservative and rural Jordan may not be fully accurate, there is no denying this quote from The Economist:

The Middle East has a bad reputation when it comes to books; nowhere else do so few people read them.

Why could this be?

This Israeli study claims that the minute differences that exist between several groups of letters in written Arabic cause extra strain on the left brain, thereby inhibiting the right brain from becoming involved in the act of reading.  Though one cannot discount that there is very likely an obvious bias against all things Arab by the researchers, in my personal experience reading Arabic is incredibly difficult.  Though I can now speak and listen about familiar topics fairly fluently in Arabic, my reading and writing skills are still quite low.  I would even venture to say that, after being immersed in Arab culture for 11 months and studying Arabic for 15 months, I can write in Arabic more quickly than I can read even my own writing.

Is this why Arabs don't read for pleasure, because reading is "hard for the brain" and disengages the right brain?  If the script were different would the right brain be more activated and Arabs would find more pleasure in reading?

That may well be a factor, but another factor which I cannot seem to find anyone talking about is the fact that the languages spoken by native Arabic speakers and the language of written Arabic are not the same languages.  Written Arabic has changed very little in the 1500 years that have passed since Allah revealed the Qur'an through Archangel Gabriel to Prophet Mohammed in Arabic.  Between the years 610 CE and 632 CE Allah revealed the Qur'an to Mohammed in Arabic.  This remains today one of the things that Arabs take the greatest pride in:  The fact that Allah speaks Arabic.

Throughout the Arab world there continues to this day to be a strong force to keep alive the 7th Century Arabic of Allah; however, there does not exist a language on Earth that has not undergone changes in the past 1500 years.  Arabic is no exception.  In Jordan alone, a country of only 7 million, there are at least seven distinct accents or dialects of Arabic.  When you consider the fact that there are 22 Arab countries and approximately 300 million Arabic speakers you can imagine how many different dialects of Arabic have evolved over the last millennium and a half.  Many of these "dialects" are mutually incomprehensible, i.e. Jordanian Arabs cannot understand when a Moroccan Arab or a Tunisian Arab speaks his or her native language.

To give you some context, Beowulf was written in English not long after the Qur'an was revealed.  I don't know about you, but when I was asked to read Beowulf I barely understood the story and certainly took no pleasure from the experience.  If I continually tried to read things like Beowulf, I too would lose interest in reading.  Nevertheless, all Arab countries insist upon 7th Century Qur'anic written Arabic to maintain their ties to each other and to Allah, despite the fact that almost no young Arab can fluently and accurately speak, let alone read, Qur'anic Arabic.

The insistence among Arabs to maintain Qur'anic Arabic has resulted in an educational system where literature has no place.  While American students read novels and poetry and the like in "English" class, when the boys at my school go to "Arabic" class, they are in effect learning a foreign language, and the class is taught as foreign languages have traditionally been taught.  Students focus primarily on grammar, secondly on vocabulary (as a large percentage of "Standard Arabic" vocabulary is not used in my students' home language), and finally on pronunciation:  One of the beauties of the Qur'an is that, in 7th Century Arabic, it is incredibly lyrical.  One of the only culturally acceptable forms of music are a cappella recitations of Qur'anic scripture. However, if someone were to recite the Qur'an in any one of the Arabic dialects of today, not only would it be blasphemous, but it would lose all of its musical and poetic qualities.

My hypothesis, therefore, is that reading in Arabic is not "hard for the brain" primarily because the letters look alike, but rather because reading in Arabic, for Arabs, is akin to reading in a foreign language.

As long as written Arabic and the dialects of spoken Arabic continue to grow further and further apart, I see little hope for encouraging reading for pleasure among Arabs.

I, on the other hand, like my buddy Mark McCann in China, have done a significant amount of reading in the year plus that has passed since I accepted my invitation to join Peace Corps Jordan.  The remainder of this post may very well be of no interest to many of you, but all this talk about reading has inspired me to compile a list of the reading that I have done in, and in preparation, for Jordan.  If you're curious what a 29-year-old Peace Corps English Teacher Volunteer reads in Jordan, then scroll down and take a look:

• I'll start with non-fiction books about Arab history and culture:

 

T.E. Lawrence - The Seven Pillars of Wisdom

King Abdullah II - Our Last Best Chance

Margaret K. Nydell - Understanding Arabs:  A Guide for Modern Times

Philip Robins - A History of Jordan

Raphael Patai - The Arab Mind

Milton Viorst - Sandcastles:  The Arabs in Search of the Modern World

Albert Hourani - A History of the Arab Peoples

• Next, I'll move to novels:

Jack London - White Fang

Jack London - The Call of the Wild

Alexandre Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo

Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice

• Here we have three, quite different, non-fiction pieces:

Warren St. John - Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer

David Sedaris - Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

Karl Marx - Communist Manifesto

• Here are two books that I tried to read and couldn't finish (I'm sure you'll understand why):

 James Joyce - Ulysses

Alfred Lord Tennyson - Idylls of the King

• Next, these are the guidebooks and Arabic language books that I am still making my way through:

Kristen Brustad, Mahmoud Al-Batal, Abbas Al-Tonsi - Al-Kitaab

Jack Smart and Frances Altorfer - Complete Arabic

Jenny Walker and Matthew D Firestone - Lonely Planet Jordan

Di Taylor and Tony Howard - Jordan: Walks, Treks, Caves, Climbs & Canyons

• Finally, here are the three books that I am reading right now:

Sir Richard Burton (Translator) - Arabian Nights: The Book of A Thousand Nights and A Night

Mark Allen - Arabs

Dante Alighieri - Divine Comedy: Inferno

• In addition to these books I regularly read The Jordan Times and The Economist's Middle East and Africa page, read Time Magazine and National Geographic when I have the opportunity, have completed 132 lessons and mastered 591 vocabulary words on ArabicPod101.com, and have taken the following online courses:

The Economics of Energy and the Environment

(completed)

Elixir:  A History of Water and Humans

(completed)

Introduction to Conflict Analysis

(completed)

Brazil for Beginners

(in progress)

Introduction to Sustainability

(in progress)