The River Moves On

you know it's summer in Egypt when...

2008-04-21T13:26:00.002+03:00

The policemen begin to wear white!

Also it becomes bloody hot, and you begin to see the tell tale signs of Land Rovers which means that the Gulfies are here.

Summer means late nights, sweating in front of the fan, showering multiple times a day, and cringing about the thought of standing over a hot stove.

But soon I will miss the Cairo summers. As of May 25th I am leaving my little corner of Mohandiseen to move to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. I'm sure I will miss all the traffic, the fresh juice and the people.

late nights and kitties

2008-04-14T23:28:00.002+03:00

I'm sitting in the office, listening to some Miles Davis and writing up session outlines. It's around 10 pm and I'm on my own, except for the mosquitoes who are here to keep me company.

I look up suddenly and there across the room is a cat ambling into the office. Not any cat, The Cat of dead baby kitties fame. She walks around for a bit, checks out the dirty office and then wanders back to the meeting room before climbing out the window that just won't fully shut.

Good for some late night entertainment.

kindness in cairo

2008-03-10T12:42:00.002+02:00

It's a Wednesday night and my mom, Nisrin & I had just gotten off the metro in Sayeda Zeinab and were wandering around trying to figure out which side of the metro station we should be on. We look in the information area: no one to be seen.

A man in his mid 50s with a full beard who is also getting off the metro asks us where we are trying to go and we tell him Sayeda Zeinab mosque. "come". So we follow him down the stairs, through the night market where fruit stands are lit up with naked light bulbs, and stop at a juice stand.

"Asob?" Sugar cane juice?

We shake our heads "la, shukran". no thanks. But he smiles and tells the man in arabic "four sugarcane juices" and then mutters something else I don't understand. We gulp down the thick sweet juice and smile back.

And we're on our way. As we're walking through the alleyways and side streets Nisrin says to me " do you know what he just said to the juice man? he said 'we need to show them that Egyptians are good people'".

As we get to the street that Sayeda Zeinab and the restaurant we are going to is on, the man points us in the right direction and then tells us he's an Imam at a small mosque across the street so is it alright if he leaves us to find our way from there.

AIESEC International 2008/2009

2008-03-01T13:25:00.002+02:00

I've spent the past 2 weeks in the Republic of Macedonia sitting in front of Lake Ohrid and attempting to predict the future. And now it is here.

Starting in June, I will be Director of the Middle East and North Africa for AIESEC International, based in Rotterdam and traveling all around the region supporting and building up the newest growth network in AIESEC.

The process has been an interesting one with a speech in front of 200 president's of AIESEC around the world, a question and answer session that involved spilling water on myself and laughing hysterically at times and rounding up the experience with an intensive interview.

Here is to many adventures to come.

radical changes in the rights of women in egypt

2008-01-10T18:51:00.000+02:00

newsflash:

women's rights have progressed rapidly in egypt in the past few days with the astonishing new development in Cairene infrastructure:

the women's car on the subway has been moved from the front to the middle of the train!

watch as chaos ensues when confused men step on the train and immediately receive the evil eye! watch the men run to the cars on either side!

though the supposed purpose of this move was to make sure that women run less to catch the train, for me it has had the reverse effect and has confused my metro routine. and today was actually the First time I saw a women fall while running to catch the train...

so far the only result i've seen is that the front cars formerly reserved for women are almost empty, the new women's cars are almost empty and all cars in between are packed to the brim.

genius...

Thinking of a friend

2007-09-21T11:57:00.000+03:00

Today is the three year anniversary of the death of a friend from an infection related to HIV/AIDS.

Thinking of him today.

One week later...

2007-09-20T17:13:00.000+03:00

I've been fasting for a week now. I am feeling:

Exhausted
Fulfilled
Thirsty
Calm
Stressed

I haven't quite yet figured how to stay sane and healthy during Ramadan, so it's a bit of trying to keep my former Cairo schedule of staying up until 3 am and waking up at 8 but minus that lovely dose of high quality Nescafe in the am to jump start my day. I contemplated drinking a cup of coffee at 4 am when I wake for Suhoor, but the thought of being vibrant and bouncy and then attempting a return to slumber sounds downright painful.

My biggest inspiration and motivation is the people around me who are also fasting, particularly the ones that resist the anger that often arises when you are lacking in your basic, or not so basic needs. I have seen more fights during Ramadan (four in one night) right before iftar, than ever before, but also many more people being considerate to those around them. I think fasting can bring out very different sides of a person.

Thank you to everyone who has encouraged me and broken fast with me in the last week. Looking forward to the rest of the month.

An hour and a half to iftar.

Ramadan Kareem

fasting the first day

2007-09-14T16:52:00.000+03:00

Day one of Ramadan:

My first real day of voluntary Ramadan fasting – a much different take on the Holy Month than my time in Jordan when I would stand out in the sun for hours in public, unable to eat, or drink except when scarfing down a snickers bar in the secrecy of a bathroom stall, or swigging a drop of water before leaving for work.

As I began my daily routine, I realized I had all sorts of questions about the dos and don’t of fasting. So I call up my teammate.

“Am I allowed to brush my teeth”

“Yes, but don’t swallow it”

“Make up? Am I allowed to wear make up?”

“You’re not supposed to wear make up in the first place, but it’s not something strict here, so do whatever”

“Deoderant?”

“yes, you can, but no extra perfume”

Whew. The usual 45 minutes it takes me to get ready is drastically cut down by the lack of this whole breakfast thing. Quite convenient. Off to the office I go, where I spend the day looking at my tongue trying to see if it is turning white yet, a sure sign that you are fasting and not drinking water, and reading about various rules and regulations of Ramadan. Some key ones:

The things which invalidate the fast are of two kinds. The first one requires Qada (only making up missed days), the other one not only requires Qada but also Kaffarah(a penalty).

The following are the things that require Qada only:

Eating or drinking intentionally. This includes non-nourishing items taken by mouth.
Deliberately causing oneself to throw up.
The beginning of menstruation or post-childbirth bleeding even in the last moment before sunset.
Ejaculation for reasons other than sexual intercourse.
Intending to break the fast before sunset even if one changes his mind, since intention is one of the pre-requisites of the validity of fasting.
Eating, drinking or having intercourse after dawn on the mistaken assumption that it is not dawn yet. Similarly, engaging in these acts before Maghrib on the mistaken assumption that it is already sunset.

Things that not only require Qada but also Kaffarah are the following:
1. Sexual intercourse during fasting(dawn to dusk). The penalty is to fast an additional period of 60 continuous days. If one is not able to do so then he must feed sixty poor people-one average meal each.

2. Before the days of the Prophet Muhammad(S.A.W.), slavery was a common practice in the Arab world. Islam eliminated slavery from the society in a very short period of time. A useful approach was to allow people free a slave as a charity or as a penalty for a sin. Thus during the time of the Prophet(S.A.W.), setting a slave free was the penalty one must pay as a kaffarah, if he or she had a slave. *

*from Islam for Today

Overall the fasting was not as difficult as anticipated – the most challenging moment was standing at this sweets store for 45 minutes, waiting in line as the workers furiously cut the various sweets and loaded them onto paper trays overwhelmed by the weight of sugar and honey.

It all ended with rather untraditional but entirely delcious southeast Asian iftar of khawaget, ie foreigners, complete with wonderful tom yum soup, pad thai and chicken in peanut sauce. As the first part of the call to prayer ended I munched on my dates and drank a glass of milk, happily closing my first official day of Ramadan in Cairo.

Magical Collision - Part Two

2007-09-14T15:13:00.001+03:00

And this brings me to my Ramadan experience.

Suhoor is the last meal of the night before the fast begins again until sundown the next day. Generally people wake up at 4 am before the morning prayer or stay up with friends talking, smoking sheesha and enjoying the festivities of Ramadan before returning to a state of abstention as the sun rises.

I went for suhoor at 1 am with friends to this place called El Gesh, which in Arabic means, the little donkey. Beautiful paintings that look as though a five year old decided to draw lots of dancing donkeys adorned the baby blue walls of the restaurant. During Ramadan the place overflows and there are tables all over the street, with people standing like hawks above your table to snatch it up the moment that you have finished your delicious fuul beans, eggplant and yogurt.

We brought along a large crate of little yogurts, which everyone's mother tells them quenches your thirst during your fast if it is the last thing you eat before beginning to fast again. We followed along and squeezed the yogurt out like a jello shot, sans spoons.

Plans for sheesha and juice were quickly upbraided by slumber and I fell asleep after an amazing night that started with the celebration of the year 2000 and ended with the beginning of Ramadan.

Magical Collision - Part One

2007-09-13T11:50:00.001+03:00

Two very different occasions serendipitously occurred on the same night this year and I had the chance to take part in them: the start of Ramadan and the celebration of the Ethiopian new year.

I met LemLem's sister, ie the sister of my Ethiopian family in Seattle. After meeting on a random corner in Maadi, I was whisked off to a celebration the dawning of the year 2000 in Ethiopia year with hugs and touches and mutterings of "thanks god". LemLem's sister Sefrework, though she's actually one year older, looks like a younger more vibrant version of her, wearing her hair in lovely curls and dressing in tight jeans and a cute t-shirt. I guess that's the difference that three kids and living in a refugee camp will make.

I've never seen so many gorgeous looking women -- all with their hair in curls, some wearing their hair with two small braids drawn tightly across their forehead and draped with small gold chains or cowry shells. I kick myself for not bringing a camera.

We sat watching people celebrate the new year (in their calendar, the year is now 2000...some delayed Y2K scares...) on the Ethiopian channel until it stopped broadcasting at 11 pm Ethiopian time, and then tucked in to a wonderful meal complete with injera and a variety of different spicy meaty sauces. Afterwards I showed people pictures of LemLem and the girls on my iPod and had pictures taken of me and LemLem's sister.

We hopped on a series of microbuses going from Maadi to Dokki, each time crossing a busy intersection with Sefrework holding onto my arm to protect me. Chatting with her sister, it becomes apparent that she does not know why her sister left Ethiopia in the first place – that she went to be with Tesfaye who is now her husband, that he left because he was in the military of the previous government and his life was threatened. I was telling her some things, but wondered if LemLem didn’t have her reasons for keeping some of this information secret.

We arrived at her house in Dokki and up the stairs we went to their house, "let's do some sport", she said.

She lives in a house with three other women who all clean houses in Cairo. The apartment is decked out in Jesus paraphernalia, from a life-size poster of Jesus covered in flashing Christmas lights to small framed pictures of Jesus, to black Jesus.

We sat forcing down bread after the wonderful feast we had before and then they had the brilliant idea to dress me up in the white Ethiopian Christmas/New Years/Easter wear, complete with white high heels and take turns posing with me in front of life-size Jesus as well as the pouring Ethiopian coffee. I remember vividly walking into LemLem’s apartment and finding her squatting on the living floor roasting coffee beans on a single burner, smoke everywhere, the fire alarm covered with a plastic bag.

”You want to call LemLem?”

I haven’t talked to LemLem in over a year. When I left for Jordan she was crying and upset that I was leaving and her two girls, then 4 and 7, did not understand that when I left their apartment that day, it meant I would not see them for quite some time. We went to the public library to set up a gmail account, logging in over and over again and sending emails to my account that said “hi annika. This is lemlem”. But once I got to Jordan, nothing.

I hear her voice on the phone, sounding so quiet and small. So young sounding, for a brief second I thought it was her 7 year old daughter. “Annika, I love you Annika. The girls are asking about you. It was Bathlehem’s birthday on the 4^th of July and she kept asking where you were”.

We talked for a while longer about her baby who needs heart surgery in a few months and her own health conditions which does not sound good. She had a surgery after giving birth two months ago and has not been the same since.

I sat on the couch after hanging up the phone laden with heavy knowledge. I thought about why I hadn’t tried harder to contact them while I was in Jordan or Cairo, why I hadn’t visited them when I went home for a week in February. About why I’m the worst godmother ever to Achille & Magdelene’s baby in Cameroon. I’ve been carrying this feeling of guilt around all morning.

The clock strikes midnight and I’m back to normal me. Ethiopian dress comes off, heels come off and there I go, on my way to celebrate Suhoor, the last meal before fasting begins for Ramadan…

The Ethiopians

2007-09-10T17:24:00.000+03:00

In a happy twist of fate, I am about to have a reunion of sorts.

Well, not quite a reunion.

Before I left for Jordan I was volunteering with an Ethiopian refugee family in Seattle. They'd been in Yemen for 14 years after he was exiled from his country in 1991. The wife moved into the refugee camp just to be with him. Now that is love.

So I left Seattle and came to Jordan and lost touch though my mom would periodically call them to check to make sure everything was ok in their lives and that the oppressive bureaucracy of the United States that you see when you are a recent immigrant wasn't crushing them too much.

Yesterday I got an email from my mom telling me she received a phone call from LemLem, the mom of the family I worked with. They had a baby girl!!! That is the good news. The bad news is that the baby has a congenital heart defect and they are afraid to get the surgery that would help her. Medicine in a foreign country is a frightening thing and I can completely comprehend a distrust for the shiny metal getting near my kid.

and then a bit of good news. LemLem's sister lives in Cairo! I called her today and will meet up with her this weekend. I can't wait to see the look on her face when I show her pictures of LemLem and her two daughters that I'm sure she has never seen because they were separated for so long while living just across a small bit of land mass and water.

back from turkey and sharm

2007-09-05T18:48:00.000+03:00

i'm sunburned

exhausted

rejuvenated from seeing old friends and making new ones.

a bit more cynical about youth and peace

happy to be back in the smog and life of cairo.

countdown to ramadan begins...now.

Mrs. M

2007-08-02T16:25:00.000+03:00

Today I made my debut on Egyptian television. On an elbow rubbing expedition to the Four Seasons for the launch of a conference that is happening here, I came away with two mostly unexpected results.

I've decided that wearing red and being American is definitely the way to get media coverage. Immediately after I started talking to this woman from some TV station she brought over her camera and did an interview about how I thought this conference would help bring peace and what my organization did. After couple minutes of logorrhea, ie verbal vomit, I was approached by another TV station that had seen my stunning appearance and wanted to get a piece of the action.

So if you live in the area check out Nile TV & Al Arabiya on Friday the 3rd and maybe, just maybe, you'll catch a glimpse of a girl in red wearing UN-esque translator headphones, looking falsely fascinated and squinting due to the pain inflicted from my crappy headset.

My next feat of strength occurred during intensive elbow rubbing part deux post incredibly exciting press conference. I met The Mrs. The First Lady of Egypt. I used my international appeal to get through a very small circle of people and ended up talking to her for about 1.5 minutes about AIESEC, about the conference and about the importance of youth involvement. Couldn't be much more mundane, but I did get a nice handshake and pat on the back with a "see you at the conference".

I also chatted to some of the folks at Al Jazeera who were rightly cynical about the entire shindig as they should be.

My sage wisdom of getting media coverage:

1. Wear Red
2. Look Foreign
3. Say incredibly fluffy things in an impressive way

President-hood rocks.

oh how i love the sea

2007-07-15T10:23:00.001+03:00

Night Swimming in the Mediterranean and then arriving at this beautiful place at six am. I spent the day napping, trying not to drift into the president's summer compound which was directly to the right of where we were so calmly swimming as the undertow pulled us closer and closer to certain arrest.

I feel as though the water looks like it was dyed by by easter egg coloring, it is just too blue.

wonderful relaxation, though not much sleep

2007-07-14T18:41:00.000+03:00

My kitty friends! At this time, they are trying to escape from me.

Originally they were residing on our balcony, but then their mom moved them to the windowsill.

Adorable. There are three of them and their mom absolutely hates me. Soon. Soon they will learn to love me.

the discovery of babies and pink houses

2007-07-06T11:59:00.001+03:00

searching for apartments in cairo is sometimes a fruitless task. particularly when your arabic skill is lacking and brokers see you with the tint of dollars and euros in your complexion.

but at last. at last i found a place that is just wonderful. and incredibly pink. it's as if a giant bottle of pepto bismal spilled all over the walls. except for in my room, which is approximately the color of a yellow highlighter.

it's an apartment i can see myself loving. hosting dinner parties in. studying arabic in. cooking food, doing yoga, caring about cleaning, caring about making it feel like home. spending summer nights on the balcony talking about the latest cairo daily miracle.

our rental contract prohibits "shameful behavior" a gloriously vague clause that could be anything from an orgy or drinking a bottle of wine depending on the moral stature of the landlord.

i will take pictures soon and post them, though probably after i paint my room a more acceptable color and dress it up a bit.

other slices of life:

discovering that we have three little kittens living on the back porch of the office.
sharing the road with a horse and carriage.
drinking watermelon juice
buying cleaning supplies in a hidden nook of a market
starting arabic classes.
playing scrabble every tuesday night

i'm beginning to feel that cairo is cleansing me.

Cairo -- the first days

2007-06-21T09:54:00.000+03:00

I have arrived in Cairo.

From its crumbling european style apartment buildings to the Nile running briskly through the center of town, Cairo has a charm that lures me in with its resemblance to some sort of proving ground for civilizations.

Already I've encountered a "Pharoanic staircase" -- ie a rickety spiral staircase only barely attached to its foundation, and a Little Donkey, ie the best fuul and tameeya place around according to Abdo.

Adventure, part 5 or 6, is already underway.

We were the lucky ones

2007-04-15T17:02:00.000+03:00

A calm day hiking around near the dead sea, gone wrong.

It started out on friday morning...afternoon to be more precise. Oksana, Alena and I met on the side of the road and hopped in a bullet proof mercedes driven by two Russian/Ukrainian dudes of varying degrees of sketchiness. After a brief stop at the King's Academy to pick up Natalie and inhaling half of a chicken, we set off for a lazy afternoon hike through the hills.

Our starting point was detailed as "you will pass two hills. then you should be able to find a trail". Off we went. A bit later than anticipated, but we figured that the four hours in the guide Actually meant about 3 hours for agile young individuals such as ourselves, particularly with Sasha the mountain goat Ukrainian leading us and egging us on.

Hours passed, as we frolicked in the wildflowers, escaped mass bee stinging and sprained ankles.

Ukrainian folk songs were sung, piece of mind was found. Greenery in Jordan does exist. Amazing basalt canyons rose up out of sandstone basins carved by water.

"It's so dry. I don't really understand this whole flash flood thing. How can such a dry valley fill up with water? I think they're exaggerating..."

Around 6 pm, as we passed by bedouin camps and climbed with the goats, a black wall formed to the North over the hills. Thunder clapped in the background and the sky lit up. A hilarious Ukrainian joke about whether or not we've seen the movie The Day After Tomorrow.

Come on man, it's just a bit of rain.

Too late. As we reach the road that leads down to the hotel, the drops start to hit. We walk faster. The drops grow, turn colder. Minutes later hail beats down on our bodies, nearly the size of ping pong balls and we take cover under a rock. "We have to get to the hotel." Out from the rock we bound -- a scarf wrapped around my head and my sunglasses on to protect my face from the blast of chaos.

A river forms in the middle of the road. Dark, muddy water that prevents us from seeing just how deep it goes. A deep breath in and we clasp hands and make it across, where we start running blindly down towards the hotel and towards respite from being beaten.

Until we realize that the road has been washed away. As we walk to the edge, the cement fades into mud and rocks. The only way we can go is up.

As the sun tumbles towards the horizon of the Dead Sea, we start to walk back up the hill. On the other side of the Wadi we see flashing lights winding down the road -- each of them stops short of the bottom of the hill, where there appears to be some sort of barricade. We turn our heads towards the main road and continue our ascent, laughing to avoid thinking about whether we were in any kind of serious danger.

Then we reach the river. The river has exploded. Or more accurately, what used to be a single string flowing down the hill has collected all the other strings and has formed a huge knotty braid of water pumping down the hill. Even Sasha won't cross.

So we stand. I start shivering as we huddle in a circle under a piece of cloth, each of our minds weighing the options of waiting for the rain to stop and racing against the impending darkness. "We have to keep walking. Whether it's just up and down the hill, we can't get cold".

I start pondering the bedouin camps and set that as my prize for getting out of this mess. As we walked back down the hill, I suggested that we climb Up the hill, parallel to the river so up we go. Scrambling up the near vertical rocks, I try not to think about how loose the mud is from the rain. Finally we reach what is left of the road. It's been torn apart and water spans the width of it, though it is quite shallow.

I run the last stretch of downhill road and make it to the paved road, just to see a pick up drive slowly by, wave and continue along its way.

Another set of headlights appear. Disappear. Appear. Weaving through the hills towards us. These headlights stop. "Tefaddel". Go ahead, get in. 30 minutes we drive. Lightning strikes close to the car and the driver ducks and mutters "alhamdullilah". Thanks to God.

We arrive at the car drenched to the bone, half of us chilled from sitting in the rain in the back of the truck. The house we parked the car next to opens the door at the sound of our voices "Tefaddel". Inside the boys strip down to their swimming shorts and us girls stand around a small heater and gratefully accept offerings of coffee or tea. As we leave, after having given them our last granola bar (our food rations for the trip include 6 granola bars total...) and off we go, racing just a little to fast for just surviving mini armageddon.

"Hot springs. If any girls ask me to go to hot springs ever again, I'll definitely say no"

Lentil soup and a bit of wine later and we are in a bit better spirits.

In the paper today, we found out what exactly happened on the other side of the Wadi with those flashing lights. Others weren't so lucky...

I guess there had been storm warnings, but only on the Arabic channels.

Search for missing tourist continues

By Mohammad Ghazal
AMMAN — Civil Defence Department (CDD) personnel on Saturday continued the search for a Russian tourist who went missing after a landslide in the Maeen Spa area on Friday.
Second Lieutenant Mohammad Kofahi told The Jordan Times that a landslide occurred on Friday at 6:15pm; rocks and the sand blocked the gate of the spa, increasing water levels to almost four metres high, which caused several cars to drift away.
Following the landslide, the hotel at the spa reported to the CDD that two Russian tourists, a man and a woman, were missing, Kofahi added.
“Starting at 6:00am on Saturday morning rescue teams and divers from the CDD began searching for the missing tourists. At 4:00pm yesterday, they found the body of the 37-year old female Russian tourist five kilometres away from the location of the landslide,” the CDD official said.
The body was taken to Al Nadeem Public Hospital, he added.
Three Jordanians, who were injured because of the incident, were transferred to the hospital and were in good condition, according to Kofahi.
The CDD official said two Jordanian search and rescue teams would resume looking for the missing Russian tourist as of 6:00am today.
“Two teams will comb the entire area of the spa. One team will search the area starting from Zara, close to the Dead Sea, up to Maain, while the second team will cover the Maain to Zara area,” Kofahi said.
CDD personnel started clearing the entrance to the Maeen spa and fixing the damage caused by the landslide, he added.

2007-03-15T11:24:00.000+02:00

It is snowing.

In the middle of March.

In Amman.

This is bizarre. Global Warming???

An exciting day of slushy roads and constant reports of whether the snow is starting again or what.

CRAZY.

reverse culture shock

2007-02-06T01:21:00.000+02:00

Back in the US of A for a brief sojourn. Dealing with jet lag and a bit of reverse culture shock, but other than that enjoying my time is grey seattle seeing family and friends.

For those of you who don't think you'll make it to Jordan this year, I'll be staying in the Middle East for another year as I've been elected as the President of AIESEC in Egypt. Come to Cairo before July 2008 and you'll have a personal guide, at least around the city.

I've been thinking a bit lately on my future goals, and pondering the idea of social entrepreneurship, coming up with a new model of business/non profit management. Just thoughts at the moment, but they are beginning to take shape.

I shall try to be a better blogger. I will write it on the chaulkboard 20 times to remember.

venture article

2007-01-10T11:08:00.000+02:00

Hey all,

Back from Egypt and back to work. Here is an article on AIESEC in the latest Venture Magazine.

Cheers.

Venture%20Article.pdf

world weary woman

2006-12-26T09:17:00.000+02:00

ahhh, so no blog for a long time. the reason? no time to blog. i feel as though my ability to write something interesting is hindered by my exhaustion from work.

but i'll give a brief update for those of you that still read this:

i went to bahrain. i came back.
i went to our first conference in aqaba. i came back.
i am going to egypt. i will come back.

i spent christmas reading about the 25 years of war in lebanon and then drinking a milkshake at mcdonalds with some of the aiesec student here. my first christmas in mcdonalds, i can tell you that.

thanks to all who sent christmas well wishes, it was quite nice.

back to work.

an.

Damascus

2006-11-02T15:47:00.000+02:00

Hezbollah flags are all around in Syria, as well as lovely pictures of Nasrallah with a small fighter man on a hill in the foreground. The president of Syria and Nasrallah are pals and the love for Hezbollah seems to be far stronger here than in many parts of Lebanon.

Walking around the old city is walking back in time. Old windy streets that barely fit a car, people on bicycles cruising by the Umayyad mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam.

The streets and markets were freakishly empty -- here the light is streaming through the roof of the market making an interesting display of polka dots on the empty souq floor. The streets only inhabitants were young boys dressed in the beige and orange cardigans and carrying around frighteningly realistic fake guns. bizarre.

This boy was enthusiastically cooking up a revolting concoction of chicken livers wrapped in a pita. The pride on his face is evident.

friend bananas and rain

2006-10-28T15:35:00.000+02:00

Annika goes to Jordan

I have recently eaten delicious fried bananas soaked in honey. now my stomach is asking my why i didn't stick to three tasty morsels rather than eating approximately seven of the little bastards.

i feel as though i've been lied to by the american media about the weather in the middle east.It is currently raining here in amman. i am not prepared for this. when i signed up for the middle east, i visualized blistering hot day after blistering hot day, with desert sands adhering to my eyelashes and sweet pouring down my back in bucketfuls. tis not so. As I sit in my only warm item of clothing, a gray wool sweater, i yearn for the 3 months sans rain this summer while my feet freeze. I desperately need to go shopping to equip myself for this Seattle-esque weather.

other than the cold cold weather and daylight savings time ending, not much is new. besides a trip to syria of course. and our first interns arriving. more later when i can download the pictures.

wishing you a happy fall from rainy amman.
ani

Jerash oh Jerash

2006-10-20T11:48:00.000+03:00

Here are some lovely pictures of my trip to Jerash a few weekends ago. A beautiful open plain of ruins for the Roman times. Life continues to bring wonderful times here in Jordan.