Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Glühwein

A man comes home at two in the morning. He closes the door and first turns on the little desk lamp, then the electric ventilation heater. The flat is empty and tidy, as he had left it two days ago.
He takes off his coat and checks the door: locked, walks into the kitchen and puts down the black plastic bag with three bottles of cheap Palestinian red wine. From his briefcase he takes a laptop, sets it on a chair with a pair of speakers and turns on a recorded radio show.
He picks the biggest pot from the sideboard, places it on the hob and checks the curtains: drawn. He opens all three wine bottles and pours them into the pot, grabs a handful of cloves and two cinnamon sticks from the shelf above the hob, breaks up the cinnamon sticks and adds it all to the pot. From a small plastic bag he takes half a dozen cardamom pods, crushes them with the bottom of a glass, stops for a minute while he smells the bottom of the glass with closed eyes – Aaaaah! , then throws the crushed pods into the pot, too.
He takes a bottle of finest Scottish Single Malt Whiskey (single cask strength, 52.8%) and carefully pours about 6cl into the mixture while stirring with a spoon. He then covers the pot with a lid and sits down.
While listening to the radio, he laughs out loud a few times and shakes his head. It is two thirty in the morning. Merry Christmas!

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Carrot juice

I pour the last drop of coffee into my tiny cup, in preparation for a night of major academic endeavours, while outside it gets dark and cold. Marc's electric heater is again doing its best in the futile fight against the large, thin windows and I take comfort in the idea that someone might read this and create a mental connection between our lives that otherwise run parallel without touching.

[A small, but significant correction to the last entry: my tent-dwelling neighbours are not Bedouin, but Gypsies, which, although it makes little difference to me, is quite something else: I don't think Gypsies are seen with much respect anywhere in the world, but here, they constitute a class far below that of the Bedu... in fact, near the very bottom of society, maybe even below the Philippine housemaids.]

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

The Consul, the tent and the prayer

A little afternoon trip around my neighbourhood, in three acts


Khaled, my landlord, was sitting in his car with the engine running when I left the house. I said hi and we shook hands through the window.
“Where are you going?” I asked him.
“Nowhere. I’m just sitting here.”
He smiled.

I walked down the road, took out my phone and dialled the number of the Israeli embassy. The man on the other side was very friendly and helpful, as he had been when I first met him about two months back. Our conversation was jovial, almost amicable and so very in opposition to my feelings for his country’s government; or to be more precise: its Interior Ministry. With my back leaning against a low brick wall down the road from my house in the late afternoon, I reminded him of who I was (he immediately remembered) and told him the story of what had happened last week. It was a short story – much less spectacular than the one I had told him and his boss (the Consul) in the embassy in September, but he was equally keen to listen and to express both his astonishment of and his apologies for the actions of his government. He advised me to directly contact the German Foreign Ministry since my own embassies both in Jordan and in Israel had not been able to help me. In the end he repeated – to my satisfaction – that neither he nor the Consul had ever encountered a case like mine before and that I should let him know of any news. I thanked him for his support and hung up.

- - - -

The wall I was leaning against, which hardly reached to my waist, marked the end of someone’s property and the beginning of one of those many “no-man’s land” areas, as I call them – empty, bulldozed-over, maybe an abandoned building project or a future housing site, filled with occasional piles of rubble, dirt and trash; car-tracks in the dust, a left shoe lying among sparsely growing shrubs, a bottle, a crushed cigarette pack and a few plastic bags passing through or held down by a stone or a piece of tile from someone’s former bathroom, rustling in the cold December breeze. These areas can stretch from anything like a dozen meters between two houses (like this one) to hundreds of metres, covering long slopes on the many hills of Amman, between two residential areas for example, like the one on the way from my house to the internet café in Tabarboor. During Ramadan I sometimes stopped there, in the middle of it, where a lonely, low olive tree stood in the abandoned emptiness and enjoyed the view over the surrounding areas as the sun was setting and the mosques began calling the fasting Moslems to prayer and to the end of their fast.
These areas have sadly come to symbolise Amman for me, or maybe even the whole of the Middle East. It was in July, when I first came here, and I was walking through one of these no-man’s lands on top of a hill near the university dormitory that it suddenly hit me and I really felt I was back in the Middle East.

Looking up towards the street I noticed in the distance – where the street meets a T-junction – the national flag. There are many Jordanian flags all around the country, but this one is something else – it is said to be the biggest flag in the world and stands on the grounds of King Abdallah’s palace, between the area where I live and the centre of town. Because of its magnificent size, it doesn’t flicker in the wind the way small flags do; it moves majestically, winding around the wind like in slow motion. The sun had already set and the sky behind the flag was beginning to turn orange, though it was still bright.
Behind the T-junction lies another one of these empty spaces, only this one isn’t exactly empty: a village of Bedouin tents is spread out over these few hectares of land between the newly built-up areas that seemed to be closing in on the Bedu settlement. Since I hadn’t planned to go anywhere specific, my tracks had taken me straight towards the flag and I ended up on a pile of large concrete pipes overlooking the tents. I got out my camera and attempted to remain unnoticed as I took a few shots of the tents in the foreground with a group of young men standing around a bonfire and the vastness of Amman spreading out behind them. But of course a blond boy in a beige corduroy jacket and a blue scarf standing on a pile of pipes will not go unnoticed for long and soon enough there was whistling and shouting and an older man came towards me. As he approached I was trying to figure out what to say if he asked me what I had been taking photos of (“the piles of old bread drying next to your tent look great in the evening light” or “I like your red pick-up truck”?).



I greeted him “Salaamu ‘aleikum” and he returned the greeting “wa ‘aleikum as-Salaam wa rahmatollahi wa barakaato”.
No questions.
In fact, he didn’t really know what to say after that.
“How are things” I asked, also short of anything to say.
“Al-hamdu lillah” he said, which means as much as “thanks be to God” and is all you will ever hear from a Muslim as an answer to this question, no matter how bad a state he is in.
“How long have you been living here?”
“Thirty years. And none of what you see now was around back then” he said, pointing at all the houses around.
“Aren’t you cold?” he asked.
“No, I’m fine, thank you. Don’t you get cold in your tents?”
“Not at all. We have a stove. Look there!”
He pointed at the nearby tent, which seemed to be his. Through the open entrance I could see an unveiled woman sitting next to a small cast iron woodstove.
“That’s my woman” he said. “Come and have some tea with us.”
I refused three times and then accepted.

My eyes had to adjust to the near-total darkness inside the tent. Slowly the many simple rugs covering the floor and the mattresses stacked against the back ‘wall’ appeared, as well as the boxes with the family’s belongings and next to the stove: his wife, fixing her veil as she was preparing the tea.
After the usual question about what I was doing, where I was living and who with, whether I was a Muslim etc., they told me that another foreigner had been there about a year ago – a journalist – and taken photos, too, which seemed to make it completely ok and normal, that I was doing the same. A few men came in and started talking to the owner of the tent. I was glad that the conversation moved on to something not involving me and I could just observe.
Through the open entrance one could see Sobhy’s pick-up truck, a few other tents and behind them in the distance under the darkening sky the hundreds and hundreds of houses of the settled population.
Sobhy, the host, was an elderly man with a grey stubble beard and a white embroidered cap covering his hair. He wore a small, dirty jacket over his long, grey Jalabeya and was running the prayer beads through one hand, while the other was holding a small boy in his lap. His wife was wearing black, so all I could make out in the dim light were the hard, but gentle features of her face. She had a strong voice and was fully engaged in the loud conversation, which revolved around various money-related issues of how much someone had paid somebody else for some sheep or dried bread or a mobile phone that didn’t work. The discussion became increasingly heated and a man sitting on a water canister next to the entrance was REGELRECHT shouting at Sobhy’s wife over a story involving 20 Dinar worth of diesel. She shouted back (my presence seemed forgotten by this point or at any rate irrelevant), then she handed the guest a cup of tea. He thanked her in a low voice, only to resume shouting at her and the others a mere second later.
‘Funny’, I thought to myself and finished my glass.



Someone brought in bread and eggs.
“Stay for dinner” Sobhy offered.
I kindly refused and didn’t have to repeat my refusal this time – a clear sign that it was time to go.
“If you need anything” Sobhy’s wife said to me as I was leaving, “just come back. Since your mother is so far away, consider me as your mother or your sister here.”
I thanked them all, shook the men’s hands, picked up my shoes and left.

I had hardly turned around the corner (it was already quite dark outside), when I heard the loud guest saying “and the 400 Dinar I lent him for his wedding? Where are they?”

With a smile on my face I turned my back to the flag and walked home. I was happy. Ever since I had moved to this area of Amman three months ago, I had wanted to meet those Bedu, who lived not even a mile away from my street, and now the door was open.

- - - -

In a little shop on the side of the busy main road on my way home I bought some “100% veggie” Broccoli juice (!) made in Thailand (!), some Halloumi cheese, corn flakes and toilet paper. When I left the store, I noticed an old man on the ground on the other side of the road. His boots were standing next to him in the dust and there was some kind of carriage – the kind a trash-searcher collects his treasures in.
I crossed the road and in the flashing light of passing cars I saw him standing up – a slim man of remarkable height for his age, with noble features and the beard, dress and head-gear of a sheikh. It wasn’t till I saw the little carpet he was standing on, that I noticed he was praying. Right there only a few metres from the cars whizzing past, he prostrated and is forehead touched the ground, facing south-south-west to Mecca.

In the light from the street lamp I could see Khaled – still sitting in his car. The engine was off. I just sneaked through the gate and didn’t go to say hi.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Flat impressions

The wonderful wall-paper in my kitchen



My 'lounge' area

Amira

“My mom has just talked 2 me, for the 1st time since 2 years she cried… A neighbor came 2 her and said that people r talkin about us, they’re talkin shit about me. She felt that she screwed up & altho im not convinced of wht they think, i feel awful now cuz of the feelin i caused 4 mom. We’re accused with liberality, mom said. […] mom is now scared that i’ll never get married. What a world…”


Text message form my friend Amira, a 2nd year university student in Computer Science. Very bright and beautiful girl from a moderate Jordanian family, living in a conservative area. She lost her father seven and a half years ago. Lately, she has been spending a lot of time with a German fellow student of mine.

Friday, December 07, 2007

Water Economics

Marc and I are studying for our Water Economics exam, the day after tomorrow.
It's 2 am... our noses are cold, the electric made-in-china heater is pretending to pump hot air into the room, but it never reaches us, although we're only 2 meters away from it, under the blanket on his bed.
The empty plastic containers from our Chinese take-away are still on the table, while papers, notes and lecture hand-outs are spread all around us on the bed.

It's been over a year and a half since I wrote my last exam in university. I remember celebrating afterwards... and being soaked in cold water by friends... "Last exam EVER!"

Pah!

Thursday, December 06, 2007

The M.Sc. IWRM

The course I'm studying here in Amman is entitled "Master of Science in Integrated Water Resource Management", or short: IWRM. It's the new thing in Water Management these days, and if you want money from international donors for any water-related project, it better have these four magic words written all over it. Unfortunately, though, nobody really knows what they actually mean. Although a lot of the concepts that today fall under the wider theme of IWRM have been stipulated and even partially applied since the 60s and 70s, only in the last 5-10 years has it really gained attention and reached a great level of popularity. This popularity, however, is not only to its advantage – the need for IWRM to be part of any funding proposal for water projects means that a lot of projects that have nothing to do with IWRM at all, are suddenly sailing under its flag – with a bag of gold onboard. And this, of course, waters down its original meaning and damages its reputation. So in some cases it is not taken quite as serious as maybe it should be. This becomes particularly apparent in conversations with people working in the development sector: when I roll out the title of my Master programme together with other hip and hype words in development such as ‘sustainable’, ‘participatory’, ‘community-based’ or even ‘holistic’ to explain what IWRM means – I often get that certain smile under raised eyebrows in return, which is pretending to mean “how very impressive”, but actually means “yeah, yeah, yeah, ok, just cut the crap now!”.

The main reason behind this ambiguity about the term “Integrated Water Resource Management”, is maybe that there has been no international agreement on it, nor has it been part of any major environmental treaty or regime and is hence singularly lacking a clear definition.
Still, one could argue that this is not necessary or even not possible: any decision made on water management depends on such a multitude of different factors and actors that it would be impossible to find ONE definition or guideline on how to manage water resources in an integrated and sustainable manner, while ensuring social and economic development. In the end, everybody has an idea of what IWRM means... it is kind of an ideal case, in which everybody affected by or involved in the existence, functioning and use of a given water resource, is basically happy, including, or especially: the environment, the resource itself and its current AND future users.

Well, so that's the topic.

The course title then continues: “for German and Arab young professionals”. In practical terms this means that a group of 15 students, of which 6 are from Germany, 3 from Jordan, 2 from the Yemen, 2 from Syria, 1 from Iraq and 1 from Egypt, spend five days a week, 9-4 in a shabby, darkened room with bulky and noisy wheely-chairs in Jordan University's Water Centre, their eyes fixed on a lecturer or on slides thrown onto the wall by the ‘data-show’, learning about the different aspects and elements of water: water supply, water demand, water use, water re-use, water treatment, water management, water allocation, water pricing, salinisation, desalination, water harvesting, water conveyance, water storage, water economics, groundwater, grey water and so on.
The 15 of us studying in this post-graduate programme aren't only all from different countries; we're also from very different and varying backgrounds – in fact, the differences could hardly be much greater: The age range is from 24 (ME!) to 45; the marital status varies from single-and-never-kissed-a-girl to married-with-two-children; some have worked in the water sector on ministry level for years, while others haven't had much to do with water at all (me again!); some are easy-to-deal-with, engaged and enthusiastic, others non-cooperative, stubborn and minimum-effort; one colleague lived through three Iraq wars, while others have enjoyed the safety and comfort of a central European upbringing; another colleague writes “in the name of Allah” at the top of each page when he’s eagerly taking notes of a lecture, while another one doesn’t take any notes at all, but turns to me saying “My God, this is boring!”; two of us have only just graduated from their first degree last year, others more than 15 years ago; last but not least: some even hope to become the future Minister of Water in their respective home country, while others haven't got a clue what to do after this Master programme or are planning to quit water altogether.

You can imagine the challenges on the one hand and the opportunities on the other hand arising from this variety. In the end, there are at least two things that unite us: a strong interest and concern for the fragile and endangered resource water and a fascination and love for the Arab world.

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