On Friday I had the opportunity to visit the ancient cities of Jerash and Um Qais. I looked at my thermometer/compass at 11am and it read 110 degrees. The day was "hot" in both a historical and temperature sense.
Jerash is considered one of the largest and most well-preserved sites of Roman architecture in the world outside Italy. To this day, its colonnaded streets, baths, theaters, plazas and arches remain in exceptional condition. Within the remaining city walls, archaeologists have found the ruins of settlements dating back to the Neolithic Age, indicating human occupation at this location for more than 6500 years. This is not surprising, as the area is ideally suited for human habitation. Jerash is fed year-round with water and it has a relatively moderate climate.
When you first enter the ancient city of Jerash you are confronted with Hadrian's Arch (below). This 11m high, triple arched gateway was built in honer of the visit of the Roman emperor Hadrian to Jerash in 129-130 AD. Walking past the Hippodrome (which was used for chariot races) you enter the amazing Oval Plaza (below). This plaza comprises a large central paved area enclosed by two curving colonnades. From here you can see the Temple of Zeus to the north (not pictured) and the Cardo to the south.
Next comes the South Theater which is perhaps the most impressive of all of Jerash's monuments. This 3000 seat theater, which is still used today, rivals the acoustics of even the most modern performance center. I stood at the center of the stage and spoke in an "inside voice" and I was heard by my friends perched in the top row.
The most important edifice in the ancient city was the Temple of Artemis. If you lean against the pillars, or insert a stick between their joints, you can cause them to sway. This brilliant piece of Roman engineering allowed the huge temple to remain standing even after multiple earthquakes.
Here is the blogger on the Jerash Cardo:
Here are Ottoman ruins (formerly shops) in Um Qais:
Located in a narrow alley in the oldest part of Amman is Hashem - an outdoor diner that was founded by Hashem al-Turk in 1920. There are only three dishes to choose from: falafel, hummus, and fuul. (For those of you who read Arabic you can see the menu on the picture below)
There are three kinds of fuul that are available. The first, Jordanian-style pictured below, contains a dollop of chili. But if you ask for fuul Egyptian-style, you will get it minus the chili but with a lump of tahini. There is also fuul Jerusalem-style, which is fuul with a blob of hummus in it. Everything is freshly made and its costs only pennies. It is brought to your table within seconds of ordering. A full meal ranges between 1-2 Jordanian Dinars, that is around 2$ US.
Pita, chopped onion, hot sauce, salt, and fresh mint are free. I learned from my travel book that the restaurant goes through 50 kg of onions a day.
This restaurant feeds the royal family and is where the King enjoys the best hummus (arguably) in town. The smile on the King and his father's face that adorn the pictures on the wall say it all. I plan on enjoying Hashem's food several more times before I depart.
There are many newspapers published in Jordan. I became interested in learning more about their publishers after I noticed that most of the papers ran the same pictures and stories at the same time on the same day. It was also 100 degrees in Amman today, therefore a good day to sit inside and think about something serious.
The following information (below) comes from the Freedom House. First take a look at Jordan's "Freedom of the Press Score" compared to that of the United States. (The lower the number the better)
Jordan Status: Not Free Legal Environment: 21 Political Environment: 24 Economic Environment: 18 Total Score: 63
United States Status: Free Legal Environment: 5 Political Environment: 8 Economic Environment: 4 Total Score: 17
Jordan’s media suffers from oppressive media legislation, informal pressure from the intelligence services, and cautious advertisers and printers afraid of running afoul of the government. In addition to constitutional guarantees of the right to freedom of expression and of the press, the Parliament approved a new Press and Publications Law on March 21 that explicitly prohibits “detention as a result of the enunciation of an opinion in speech, writing, or through other means.” Nevertheless, the new law drastically increased fines to up to 28,000 dinars (USD$40,000) for speech that offends religious beliefs, offends the prophets, or slanders the government. Journalists may also still be prosecuted under the penal code that allows for imprisonment up to three years for defaming the king or royal family. Although, in practice, limited criticism of the government and its allies is often tolerated, as is speech in favor of Islamist movements. Journalists must be members of the Jordan Press Association (JPA) to work legally. In the past, critical journalists have been excluded from the JPA and prevented from practicing their profession.
Intelligence agencies watch journalists closely, and the government of former Prime Minister Ma’ruf al-Bakhit, whom Nadir al-Dahabi replaced on November 25, gave free rein to intelligence officials, the police, and prosecutors to clamp down on legitimate speech. As a result of government threats of fines or prosecution, many journalists practiced self-censorship. Editors and journalists claim to have received official warnings to refrain from publishing certain articles and avoid certain topics, and security officials have pressured printers to delay publications until editors agree to remove sensitive stories. On April 18, security officers confiscated videotapes from an Al-Jazeera journalist containing an interview with former Crown Prince Hassan bin Talal in which he criticized Saudi and U.S. policies in the Middle East.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), security agents banned the April 30 edition of the weekly Al-Majd because of a front-page story about a “secret American plan” to topple the Hamas government in the occupied Palestinian territories with the connivance of “unnamed Arab parties.” Fahd al-Rimawi, the paper’s editor, told CPJ he reached an agreement with the security services whereby he ran the story in the paper’s next edition, but off the front page. In both cases of censorship, the government claimed to be acting out of fear of harming relations with neighboring countries.
The media was also subject to physical violence and harassment at the hands of state security officials. In January, Khaled al-Khawaja, a journalist with the pro-government daily al-Ra’i, filed a criminal complaint against a public security officer alleging that the officer assaulted him while he was trying to cover the disbursement of government meat rations. The officer responded by filing a counter-complaint, and in February, Khawaja was arrested and charged with assaulting a public security officer. State security officers also assaulted a journalist and a cameraman from the Al-Ghad TV station, Aubaida Dammur and Fady Ramhy, in April as they attempted to cover a bus strike in Amman.
The government owns substantial shares in Jordan’s two leading daily newspapers, and all publications must obtain licenses from the state. There are high taxes on the media industry and tariffs on paper, and the government has been criticized for advertising primarily in newspapers in which it owns a stake. In 2003, the government officially gave up its monopoly on domestic television and radio broadcasting by creating the Audiovisual Licensing Authority, which in 2004 began to license and regulate private radio and television outlets. While the first privately-owned television station ATV was licensed two years ago, it is still in its pilot stage and has not been allowed to start broadcasting. The country’s state-run Jordan Television and Radio serves mostly as a mouthpiece for the government. The new Press and Publications Law requires the licensing of publications and provides the courts with the right to withhold publication of any printed material, as well as the power to withdraw licenses. However, the new law does limit the government’s ability to shut down printing presses. No restrictions are placed on satellite broadcasts, and satellite dishes continue to proliferate.
The Jordanian government is actively seeking to promote access to the Internet and claims to place no restrictions on the roughly 13 percent of the population who access it. However, online publications became subject to press law on September 25, and on October 9, former MP and head of the Jordan National Movement, Ahmad Oweidi Abbadi, was sentenced to two years in prison by a state security court for posting material on his party’s website. Abbadi had been detained in May on charges of “slandering a public official” and spreading false news abroad that “would impair the prestige of the state,” based on a complaint from the interior minister who took offense to a letter Abbadi openly posted on the Internet to U.S. Senator Harry Reid accusing the minister and other government officials of corruption.
Before departing for Jordan, I mailed my passport to the Jordanian Embassy in Washington, DC, in order to obtain a 6-month multiple entry visa. This cost me about $40 and a lot of time at the post office. I did this in order to not come across any visa problems during my stay in the Hashemite Kingdom.
When I arrived at Queen Alia Airport, I confidently handed my passport to the border patrol agent with the page open that contained my beautiful visa. This border patrol agent looked at my picture, and my nationality, quietly reached into a drawer below his desk, and swiftly stamped my passport in purple ink with a stamp that reads: "CONTACT THE NEAREST POLICE STATION WITHIN ONE MONTH". (Thank you, can I have my $40 back now please?)
Apparently, the University knows that this is often a problem, so they explained during our orientation how to renew our visa at the police station. Doing this is important so I took notes. I clearly remember the program director saying, "First you need proof of enrollment at the University. Go to the building where you payed your tuition, go to the second floor, and go to office number 3." So, with two friends, I went to said building.
The first problem that I encountered was that building floors in Jordan are labeled differently then in the United States. The ground floor is 0, the second floor 1, etc. After getting lost on the wrong floor (everything is labeled in Arabic) we were kindly directed to the correct floor where we found a nice man who was willing to help us. He invited us to sit down. This is when I found out that he was the director of the engineering program. We had been told to go to the wrong building. This kind man then advised us that we needed to visit the administration building near the main gate where human resources is located. I snapped a photo of that building:
After climbing up to the "2nd" floor, we found human resources. A woman in the hallway asked us, in Arabic, if we needed help. Quickly realizing that we couldn't easily understand her, she asked in broken English, "Where are you from? Spain? Turkey?" (I'm constantly asked if I'm Spanish or Turkish. It must be my lovely desert suntan.) I never say that I am from America, because then I'm immediately associated with President Bush, so I told her that I'm from Chicago. This softens the blow. The woman continued, "Oh, you are from America (rolling her eyes). Hamburger!" Well, I'd much rather be known as the guy from the "Hamburger" country than the guy from the 'we started the Iraq War' country so I smiled and said, "Yes." She then told us that we were in the wrong building (again) and directed us to the Deanship of Student Affairs building across campus. There I took another picture:
We climbed up to the "2nd" floor again and managed to find a kind man who spoke enough English to understand what we were looking for. He asked around his office to find out if we were in the right place. We were not. He then told us to go the the Registration Building.
Fortunately, this building was next door so we quickly made it to the next "2nd" floor. We even found office number 3. Upon entering the room, the woman who was working at the desk made eye contact with us and quickly looked back down at the stack of papers in front of her. We stepped in closer and explained that we were looking for our proof of registration. She said, "give me your I.D.'s and come back in 10 minutes. " We looked at each other and handed over our I.D.'s to the woman. Not knowing if this woman meant 10 minutes in real time or Jordanian time, we waited for 25 minutes outside and then went back. The woman handed us our I.D.'s and a piece of paper and told us to go to room 1 to get a stamp. We walked down the hall, past a gaggle of Jordanian students and into room 1. We pushed through the crowd of maybe 25 people in the small office and approached the desk to ask for our piece of paper to be stamped. The woman there said that we were in the wrong office. We needed to go down the hall and find the OTHER office number 1. I snapped a photo outside of that office, I wish I could have shown you the scene inside:
Down the hall we found the other office number 1 and asked for a stamp. Surprise! This too was the wrong office, but we were in luck, this WAS the office where we needed to get a signature on the back of our registration paper before getting THE stamp. Good thing we found our way there by accident because I didn't know a signature was required. The man laughed at us, put down his cigarette for a minute, and signed the back of our forms. Better yet, he actually pointed in the direction of the correct office where we could get our stamp. More than an hour after we started, our mission was accomplished. I can't wait to go to the police station. Something tells me I'll have something else to report about.
On the way out from campus after my stamp adventure I snapped a quick picture of some students who were graduating from the university:
In order not to be rude I covertly attempted to take this interesting picture (you may need to enlarge it to see why its interesting to me as a Westerner):
Finally, to follow up on my last post, I took one more picture of 2 of the restaurants across the street from the main campus gate:
I consider my first day of class a success. My professor, Doctor Muthanna, seems experienced and enthusiastic. For now, I have a class size of ten, which is perfect. There are four Americans (including myself), a Scotsman, Italian, Aussie, a woman from France and a gentleman from Taiwan. There is also a woman who looks like she has 10 cats at home and I'm uncertain of her nationality.
English is allowed to be spoken, very sparingly, only for the first two weeks. I'm pleased about that because I'm not going to learn this language unless I'm speaking it constantly. Our textbook contains no English. The first class was simply an introduction and we will begin moving through the book tomorrow.
In addition to learning Arabic a major goal of mine this summer is to be immersed in Arab culture. I want to eat what they eat, live where they live, dress how they dress, etc.. This will allow me to make more informed policy decisions in the future. However, its hard to be 100% immersed in Arab culture when in every neighborhood in Amman there is a McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, Subway, and Pizza Hut. I promised myself that I would do all that I could to avoid American influences.
However, today I couldn't help myself, and I slipped. After class I had to return to ACOR where I had been staying before moving into my apartment in order to pay my bill and say thank you and goodbye. On the way back to my apartment I made a quick stop...
Love that chicken. (My roommate assures me that I don't look this red in person)
I was reminded of a bit that a Palestinian-American comedian did during the "Axis of Evil Comedy Tour" when he tells a story about visiting a cousin in Amman and listening to his Jordanian relative rant about America's world dominance. "United States, you think you are so big and strong and powerful!" (mimicking his cousin's thick accent). "You are a paper tiger! You will fold!" Without missing a beat, his cousin asks: "You hungry? We got Burger King, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Appleby's. . . . You look tired. You want coffee? We got Starbuckus! You like Starbuckus?"
I think the view of America from the Arab world can be summed up like this: "America: Hate Your Politics, Love Your Fried Chicken."
Things work differently in Jordan's academic institutions than they do in the United States. For example, during today's orientation, they read everyone's placement test score results out-loud to the entire group of incoming students. I'm very proud of my advanced-beginner placement thank you very much!
Later I'll post some pictures that show what the University of Jordan campus looks like. But today I would just like to share the details concerning my new apartment.
My new landlord, Abu Anas, is a Palestinian who grew up in Tulkarm. His wife's family currently resides in East Jerusalem. He is a dual US/Jordanian citizen and he lived in the U.S. for 15 years as the head of Saudi Arabian Airlines' business office in Manhattan. He is now retired and he splits his time between Amman and New York. He owns the building that he lives in, and rents out the other eight apartments predominantly to students who attend the university.
The apartment is located just off the north west corner of the university campus near the university mosque. It is a two-bedroom with a kitchen, bathroom, living room and patio. Our water is delivered by the city on Sundays, so that is when we can do our laundry. Sometimes the water runs out during the week. But when that happens, Abu Anas can pump water into our tank from his auxiliary tank that feeds his personal apartment. The other tenets said that it wasn't a problem. For now I trust them. We also have internet! This consists of a ethernet cable that runs from Abu Anas' apartment, out of his window, and into our apartment through another window. He said that whenever the internet isn't working we should call him, and he will reset the router in his office. The other tenets said that this too wasn't a problem. I hope they are not all on his payroll.
Let's go on a tour:
The building. To the left of the pole in the center of the photo.
The building. The front gate. Living room view #1. Living room view #2. (I get all the Arabic satellite channels for free!)
Bedroom #1 Bathroom Bedroom #2 Kitchen (roaches not pictured)
Porch View down the hill. University mosque. The blogger - red like his camera. (I found out the hard way that you must wear sunscreen all day.)
There is no Craig's List in Amman. Nor is there a city paper. Apartment hunting in Amman consists of word-of-mouth advice and walking into any shop that is open and asking the employees if they know of any available rooms. It turns out, there aren't ANY available apartments in the better parts of the city. (Except for one in a so-so neighborhood near the university that we may settle on tomorrow. Check back for updates.)
Right now, Amman is flush with Iraqi refugees, wealthy tourists from the Gulf, and Jordanians that have come home from abroad for the summer. Me and my future roommate, Holli, as well as my new friend Tobias (who comes from a small town outside of Munich Germany where Audi's headquarters are located), visited three neighborhoods today and hit the pavement. We asked for apartment leads in nearly 20 shops, from people on the street, from cab drivers and from friends of friends of friends. We also wondered around looking for postings that people have taped to their walls, or nailed to their trees. Everything had been filled, or was targeted to the tourists from Dubai who can afford to pay $2000 a month in rent. However, all of this searching was not a waste of time as we got to see new parts of Amman.
The first neighborhood that we visited, Shmeisani, is an upper middle class neighborhood that is home to Amman's business community. It was beautiful and not for us. The only available accommodation we could find in the area was a 3 bedroom villa with gardens that was going for nearly 50 thousand dollars for the year. It was out of our price range. But we did get to wonder in to Shmeisani's mall (to sit in the air conditioning for 10 minutes) where I snapped this picture:
I have eaten street pigeon in Cairo, freshly killed lamb with the Bedouin in Sinai, all kinds of goat products in Israel and the West Bank... but I'm not going to eat at the Schwerma Wok.
The next neighborhood we visited, while far from the University, is where I would like to live for the summer. However, that is not looking like it is going to happen. It is called "Jebel Amman" which means Amman Hill. It is quiet and beautiful. The people in that neighborhood were very nice to us and went out of their way to try to find a vacant apartment. The only one we could find was unfurnished, and it didn't have a shower or a kitchen. Other than that it was perfect.
Here are some photos from the neighborhood (none of which are great and I apologize):
At least I now know where I can go for all of my dental and oral surgery needs in the city.
I think I'm going to call it quits on this post for today. I'm jet-lagged and dehydrated. I think its time for some bottled water and a falafel.
More on the apartment search tomorrow, and on the University of Jordan orientation that takes place at 10am in this building:
[See see my correction re: world's tallest flagpole HERE.]
While (very unsuccessfully) searching for apartments today, I witnessed a number of very interesting things. I'll share two of them with you.
First, let me present to you, the world's tallest flagpole. (Click on the photo to enlarge)
Do you see it there on the left-hand side skyline next to the tv antenna?
My Lonely Plant book describes it as such: "From most places in the city you can spot the huge Jordanian flag of the Raghadan palace compound, which at 127m high is said to be the world's largest free-standing flag pole. (A smaller but similarly impressive flag flies in Aqaba.) The award for the tallest flag pole in the world actually goes to those crazy North Koreans on the border with South Korea but that one is supported by cables, which as everyone knows is cheating."
Second, I was able to sneak a great photo of "East-Meets-West"...
For some reason I found this hip-looking Jordanian man, who was working on his Dell laptop, drinking a strawberry milkshake and smoking a hookah (nargila), extremely interesting.
While I remain without a permanent residence in Jordan, I am now officially registered at the University. I take my placement test at 9am tomorrow. Insha'allah I will be placed in the right class!
This week I will be staying at the American Center for Oriental Research (ACOR) which is conveniently located about three blocks from the main gate of the University of Jordan. ACOR is "a private, non-profit academic institution dedicated to promoting research and publication in the fields of archeology, anthropology, history, languages, biblical studies, Arabic, Islamic studies and other aspects of Near Eastern Studies." ACOR was kind enough to rent me a room for the week while I search for an apartment.
Here is a picture of ACOR that I borrowed from the internet (because I arrived in the dark):
Even though I have been in Amman for less than 4 hours, I have accomplished the following things:
1. I ate my first Jordanian schwarma at a schwarma stand at the 7th circle. Delicious! 2. I visited my first Jordanian cafe where I had a Turkish coffee. Also Delicious! 3. I have obtained my Jordanian cell phone, a Nokia, that has its letters written in Arabic. How appropriate!
I am happy to be here and I'm ready for the real adventure of registering for school, finding an apartment, and finding my way around the city that begins tomorrow. Until then - ma'asalaama.
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Walking past the Hippodrome (which was used for chariot races) you enter the amazing Oval Plaza (below). This plaza comprises a large central paved area enclosed by two curving colonnades. From here you can see the Temple of Zeus to the north (not pictured) and the Cardo to the south.
Next comes the South Theater which is perhaps the most impressive of all of Jerash's monuments. This 3000 seat theater, which is still used today, rivals the acoustics of even the most modern performance center. I stood at the center of the stage and spoke in an "inside voice" and I was heard by my friends perched in the top row.
The most important edifice in the ancient city was the Temple of Artemis. If you lean against the pillars, or insert a stick between their joints, you can cause them to sway. This brilliant piece of Roman engineering allowed the huge temple to remain standing even after multiple earthquakes.
Here is the blogger on the Jerash Cardo:
