I made Guacamole...Oh and there's that Protest Thing

I'm going to try my best here to help you understand what it feels like to be in Jordan right now. Because you aren't here and I am! HA!

Well first of all, here's an article from the BBC:

They are indeed throwing stones, and breaking memory cards (information I got from my little brother who awesomely went to the protests in the circle that is quite close to my neighborhood). So close in fact that today when returning from a cafe in another part of town Biff and I had to walk the rest of the way because the roads were closed and the cab wouldn't take us further.

Here's the part that's hard to explain. Though protests have indeed sped up and gotten more fervent, everything is still wonderful and calm. to put this into perspective, or at least try to. Upon walking back from the cafe Biff and I noted how humorous it was that we no longer have to turn on the TV and watch Al-Jazeera to hear the protesters laments because we can literally hear them screaming from our rooftop and on our walk home. However, tonight I made guacamole. It tasted like home and wonderfulness and my family enjoyed (so they say, I'm going to take their word for it because I make a pretty mean guacamole, courtesy of sophomore year and Sarah Telaneus who gave me the real secret ingredient). I'm also apparently going to a wedding tonight (it ended up that just my parents went, nevertheless someone had a wedding tonight). Because even though this is the Middle East and even though the news back home I'm sure makes it seem like everything's insane, people still get married and make guacamole.
Other than my daily commute facing a few mushkilahs, really everything's great, especially because it's just my little brother's memory card that got broken.

Last night, Biff's family took us on a drive and we got to go around the circle (before they closed it off today) to see what was going on, here's a pretty epic photo from the night.

Now that explaining that is over with, on to my planned blog post of the night. Be prepared, it's literally a copy of the same blog posts I've had over and over again. I'm still going to talk about it, I make no apologies.

 --> Intermission: I have been fed by a total of four people in this country. Megan, Cassie (some of our funnier moments), Sarah Dawn, and my brother Sa'ad (last night I found out that when you have jaaj and roz, apparently it's bad luck not to finish the roz so he literally did the old school 'air plane flying'/feeding a baby and fed me even though i was totally halas-ing that the whole time, bahaha). Also, "being a pessimistic person" when there's a language barrier turns into have a little sad baby in your heart. What?

Along with that, tonight we went up to the roof to observe the police and people everywhere and I am determined to learn how to whistle loudly like my brothers can. you know, the way they do it in the movies when they hail a cab. Watch out America, I'm honing this skill within the next week.
--> finis


So in between the time I began this post and now when I've come back to it to finish it up and actually post it, apparently someone died in the protests at the duwwar. Honestly, who knows what will happen tomorrow. According to my brothers and sister, all of the protesters left because people who are for the king (and think the protesters are calling for the king to step down when really what they're protesting is change in election law and the abolition of appointments in the government) started throwing stones that were actually inflicting bodily damage. So, will they come back tomorrow? No one knows, I think they will. Biff brought this up tonight but, the fact that the protests starting in the rain yesterday was significant, along with the setting up of tents. They mean business, but there's a lot more going on I think than anyone can know, especially and outsider (which is me, if anyone forgot). So who knows, I shall report back of course. What else would I be doing? Oh, studying...woops!


Anyway, BACK to the book that blew my mind. If you've been reading, you'll recall the title well, Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The Limits of Post Modern Analysis. Alas, as most anthropology books do (and I should have expected it, honestly) this book posed a lot of questions and offered very few hard and fast answers. But then what kind of anthropology book would it be if it gave actual answers? Granted, it would have been far more satisfying, but would have been far less anthropological. Here are two of  my most thought provoking quotations I pulled from the final chapters of the book:


-The author was discussing the ways in which anthropological work surrounding the tracking of Iranian women in the workplace has been bereft of any serious criticism of Iran (becasue the numbers are so low and losing ground instead of gaining) and in fact sometimes has been prone to a sort of apologetic stance where anthropologists will attempt to justify why the numbers are so low when she wrote, "In all this the question we come down to is why is it that the stagnation (or regression) in women's access to employment and education is not taken as a serious blow to women's status in a non-western context such as Iran, as they would be had the authors been dealing with women's status in the West? Can this attitude be understood in any way other than as reflecting the low expectations of cultural relativists when it comes to the rights of women in non-Western societies?" I added the emphasis becasue it was that question that got me. Is cultural relativism a limiting factor when it comes to women's rights? Are we (as researchers) so afraid of stepping on toes and offending (because of mistakes of the past in social sciences as well as the need to be hyper politically correct so as to not lose legitimacy in the field) so much that it is now impossible to condemn things we see as problems? Or it this hyper sensitivity a necessary evil in order to avoid going back in time to the sort-of ugly past of the social sciences? It would be so much easier if we were dealing with hard and fast facts and could make judgments and say something is either wrong or right. Alas, complaining gets us nowhere. But then again, is cultural relativism also getting us nowhere? Outside of the well-developed framework of the book it sounds terrible to even think about some of these things but are we too bound by being politically correct and by the idea that we can never judge another cultural practice?

 -Along the same lines as the above question, the author, near the end, once again asks the question of limitation, "Should intellectuals continue to blur their own views-apologize for their secularism, even turn to religion- because religion has been presented to the masses as the only genuine, home-grown vehicle for national liberation, and thus avoid asserting their own identities?"
This one is tricky. Mostly because I've been thinking about religion here a lot this past week. In America, I would pretty much be comfortable saying to most people that I dislike religion because I think it muddies the water and is just generally a nuisance.  I openly criticize Christianity, Catholicism, Mormonism, Scientology, etc, etc. And i would have added Islam to that list except I can't bring myself to. Not after having been here. Because something I have realized through discussion with other SITers and contemplation is that the reason I find it difficult to latch onto Islam and criticize it in the same manner I do religions at home is that Islam here is intertwined with the culture in nuanced and confusing ways. It's difficult to separate here what is Islam, what is government, what is culture, etc. And becasue I have established in the framework of cultural relativism a non-judging attitude towards culture, I can't bring myself to be as openly mean towards Islam. So whereas this author says that giving Islam more berth when it comes to being judgmental is a flaw, I would contend that if you look at Islam in the way it is expressed here it becomes more difficult to be as harsh as she promotes. However, she brings up a very good point still that hearkens back to the discussion I had about the previous quotation. Are we being too nice? Are we being too careful? Is there such a thing as being too careful when it comes to the lives of others?

I just don't know.


Like I said before, it would be so nice to have finished the book and have it tidily tie up all loose-ends like a good piece of fluff-fiction should. Instead this book opened up avenues of thought that I hadn't even considered until now (I mean, who honestly contemplates whether they're being too PC...well i guess a lot of people recently). But I hadn't! It has been a steadfast goal of mine for so long to be as PC as possible, becasue I didn't understand why someone would not want to (and still when it comes to just being PC, aside from cultural relativism, I don't understand why you wouldn't err on the side of 'oh hey let's just be nice')! And now here I am, wondering if anthropology has stagnated itself in being the "science of nice-ness" that it can't actually do anything or condemn things that anthropologists feel are wrong. Gah, here I go again. Seriously, circles, CIRCLES.


Anyhow, it's been a splendid day and a wonderful night full of fun (including mock protests staged on my kitchen floor by my siblings and myself during dinner) and I'm off to bed because tomorrow I have plans for pancakes. And even if my mind is in unrest with so many issues being rummaged around and dust being kicked up in my mind's eye from documents in my file cabinets under the label "Things I'm pretty Certain About" being strewn about and reconsidered, and the whole of Jordan is waking up to more protests tonight, I have plans for pancakes dammit. So I'm going to attempt to quell the thinking and embrace the shouting and chanting and (every so often) police sirens as some nice background noise and wake up tomorrow to try and find some blueberries. Goodnight wonderful readers, endless love and here's to hoping you have an amazing breakfast as well (best meal of the day!)!

I don't know if my readers are *ready* for this post...

So of late I’ve been thinking more about some quite heavy and really irresolvable topics like the extent of tolerance, cultural relativism (as usual), the concept of “the other” and why it’s so easy to label them as a threat, the discourse surrounding the “revolutions” in the Middle East right now and how in retrospect it will be interesting to see how what they were called and how they were described shaped what happened, what it means to say people don’t “understand” something or aren’t “ready” for something and how it seems to imply some sort of moral superiority or a feeling of “I know better than you do about how you should lead your life” that just feels wrong and icky. 

I could blog about these things but I feel like I haven’t had a blog post in a while that wasn’t riddled with anthropological questions/issues of personal development. I also just feel like I should maybe scale it back a bit and keep it light and happy for once… maybe.

Of course, upon typing that and going through the rolodex of events that have happened since my last blog post, I can’t think of anything extraordinary enough to recount and somehow make funny. I should have known I can’t control how my blog posts go, so I’m just going to talk about whatever I want.

Yet another over share, but I was particularly excited about this so I feel like I should note it here, even though it’s probably something that no one who reads this needs to know: I succeeded in sleeping in my short shorts (as opposed to pants) and a shirt last night. After I turned off the lights I thought to myself, “screw it I can’t do this pants all the time thing anymore!” and changed. 

Moving on, in a totally random and not very well transitioned way, this thing about people not being “ready” for something. A couple of weeks ago we had a lecturer here who said, “Jordanians are not ready for democracy”. At the time, everyone pretty much agreed with this statement (I sat stewing, bothered by it and not saying anything because I hadn’t quite figured out why). 

Later on I came to the conclusion that it bothered me because to say something like that just sort of implies that you (whoever you are saying it):
1) are somehow smarter than the population being spoken of (or at least think you are),
2) that you should have control of what they are and are not exposed to,
3) and that you know what is best for them better than they themselves do. 

Maybe it’s the lingering rebellious teenager in me but all of those things just sound so wrong. Speaking particularly on the subjects brought up by number two, it sort of seems reminiscent of discussions I’ve had before about the way in which tourism in certain areas of the world romanticizes and idealizes cultures or groups of people such that those cultures or groups of people are then incentivized to stay “tribal” or “indigenous” (whatever those terms mean) to cater to the tourism industry and what it wants to see and will pay money for. This conversation came up a lot in one of my classes last semester about the Maya and how tourism there and the ways in which “The west” comes to know the Maya as a people culturally stagnates them because tourism incentivizes the Maya representing themselves in ways that may not even be Maya in origin and definitely are not reminiscent of life for the modern Maya. I remember reading in this ethnography Mayas in the Marketplace something about a family giving tours of their home and covering up all of their modern appliances with blankets before people came through. Now that I’m talking it through, this is only vaguely related to number two above. Nevertheless, it’s something worth thinking about too. 

Well, I’ve sort of lost my train of thought here, oh well. It’s scattered several places at the moment anyway, mish mushkilah. 

I suppose something of note is the adjustment of my ISP topic! I actually got very excited about this because I had been annoyed with my topic for a bit because it felt just like a “survey” of ideas concerning how Jordanians think about dating and relationships. But here’s the new and improved direction explained in a rather convoluted, unnecessarily long fashion:

            Not only have the ways in which Jordanian young adults think about dating and relationships shifted significantly from the views of their parents but, technology (specifically Facebook) has fundamentally altered the ways in which Jordanian youth form and navigate relationships.

                  I would like to focus in on how Facebook has played an elemental role in the evolution of the younger generations ideas about relationships and dating, how it helps begin relationships (in the sense that it allows a space for young adults to be flirtatious free of their parents watchful gaze), how it legitimates relationships in the eyes of peers, how it potentially leads to the early demise of relationships (by creating a false sense of intimate knowledge of one’s boyfriend or girlfriend), and (once back in America) I would like to expand this into a comparative study (looking at similar aspects of Facebook and the relationship world of young adults in the U.S.).

                  The evolution of my topic came about from contemplating how I would utilize the research upon returning to my home institution. Something I have recently become interested in is how Facebook back home in the U.S. has changed the way people publicly acknowledge their relationships and privately navigate their relationships. There seems to be a discourse popping up of being “Facebook official” and while some actively choose to express their relationship status on Facebook (even the newer and rather odd “divorced from” option) others actively do not participate in this practice and I’m curious to look into how people perceive this affects their relationships as well as what other think of their relationships. And it would be even more interesting to look at this phenomenon in Jordan where much of the relationship building (because of social constraints, I’m finding out) happens through technology (cell phones, internet cafes, and Facebook).

I’m pretty excited about where this is going because it actually is something I’m interested in looking at. I don’t know, does anyone out there have anything to say about this? Comments? Questions? Help at all in formation of topic? Or just general love? I don’t know, I feel like blog commenting isn’t yet a practice that has caught on. That or no one deems my blog interesting enough to comment on, oh well, I suppose talking it out with myself is just as nice.

           

Alas, I’m out of new information for tonight and am signing out for the day. Thanks for reading, once again. Love to you all. I hope your next cup of coffee is delightfully amazing.

Don't Read this if you've got more Important Things to Do

I'm currently procrastinating by writing this post. But this is stuff that has been on my mind now for a bit so I suppose it's not totally procrastinating because maybe writing (typing) it out will let me stop think about it for a while. Plus, I'm not keeping a journal in the country (time constraints permit this from being a feasible possibility) so you blog readers I have a feeling should maybe just skip this post, or read it and get a lot more than you bargained for when it comes to how personal blogs should be. Especially blogs that have been trying to be funny. Because I have a feeling this post isn't going to funny places. But maybe I'll try anyway to keep it hilarious (if anything I've written thus far could even come close to hilarious anyway). And with that my friends, yalla...

Thinking about the bathroom
This one came to me just now as I went to the bathroom to change from my good ol' everyday wear jeans into my pajamas (one of the more awesome parts of any day, I would say). I know I've discussed previously in a very complain-y annoying way that the bathroom is literally the only time I have to myself. This still holds true. But today I think I realized how much I need to go to the bathroom  (not in that whole "I have to pee" way, more in the "to preserve my sanity" way). Today I caught myself doing something that I realized I do in the bathroom literally every time I go in without thinking about it. I take about 3-5 deep breaths and just sort of stare at myself in the mirror before I go back out into the real world. I'm not normally assessing how I look even. I'm just sort of staring into space really. Though I have to admit, every once in a while I do find that my hair has just decided to be especially crazy or something and try (failing every time) to tame it (why I still try, I do not know. That's a lie, I do know, I like it crazy. It's like a physical manifestation of my crazy.).
Anyway, I adore the bathroom. I love it. It's like a crutch. When things get overwhelming or I just need a moment's break to slip back into the comfortable skin of utter independence and non-Jordan Sarah, go pee! Plus before I left the states, I read an NPR article on the psychological calming effects (or affects? I'm so bad about knowing that difference) of washing hands. So I take my sweet time being hygienic. This sort of leads me into my next section so in order to maintain post prettiness I'll go ahead and start the new header...

Wanting Home
Of late, I have been feeling very guilty for missing home. I don't miss home in the "homesick" way really, I'm just sort of ready to be back. Today, as I was running in prep for the Dead Sea half marathon, I sorted through why I felt guilty, what I was actually feeling and how I should think about that. Here's where it went.
First off, I don't really miss home. What I found was that instead, I miss independence. Because when I stopped to examine the emotion, I realized if I had an apartment here in Jordan to go home to, I could stay for another 6 months and be happy. I love it here, I do. (Even with the annoying amounts of smoking, which I abhor). I also love my homestay family to death. I can't even imagine how little I would have learned here had it not been for living with them (what a terribly constructed sentence). Seriously though, they've taught me so much and made me laugh more than I thought possible and fed me very well (apparently my dad's goal is to send me back to america fat so that "they know we didn't starve you here"). Anyway, all of those concessions out of the way, I miss my privacy. I miss waking up and when the mood strikes painting for a bit and reading over breakfast and not feeling watched or rushed or bothered. This all sounds so terrible, and it's difficult for me not to feel guilty about feeling this way but that's what I decided at the gym along with all of this thinking. I will not feel guilty about this. I know I love my host fam and they know I love them and I'm fairly certain it's okay to want to be alone.
Along with this though I've also had to sort through some guilt of being ready to go back because there are some folks who are staying on after the program ends to work here over the summer and I know there's tons of people who would die to be in my shoes now and be able to be here, studying abroad, etc. I don't know where I was going with this.

 ;lakdjfblvakhjbviajfgv;ioauwre

I don't know- I think more than anything, I don't miss home, I just miss my lifestyle and being able to choose how to lead my life in a lot more ways than I can while I'm here.
One of the SIT Oman staff members said it best in a car ride around Oman one day when we were talking about SIT in general. She said that she is always really impressed with the kind of people who sign up for SIT because you're literally volunteering to live in someone else's shoes for four months and give up how you would normally do things if you were to do any other program and just chill in a country but not stay with a host fam.
Maybe I'm complaining too much, maybe I need to spend more time in the bathroom and just get over it. Maybe I'm not using this blog at all what I thought it would be for and instead I should talk about the ceasefire in Libya or the stuff going on in Bahrain...

While we're at it: On guilt, inadequacy, overthinking everything, and anything else I think of that I didn't put here because I couldn't anticipate in this title where my mind would go
Guilt. I hate it. But it's very necessary to my life. Here I feel very guilty becasue there's a large part of me that looks around at everyone else on the program and constantly thinks to myself "omg, why oh why am I not taking full advantage of this program like they all seem to be" Except I'm fairly certain I am. And I'm fairly certain I need desperately to stop comparing myself to people. In every way. (Comparisons: that should have gone in the title). Nevertheless, i feel guilty for not being so politically minded and aware and not being as excited about everything that's going on here. But then again, I think I get excited about other things. Okay, well this is stopping now. It's just silly. 
Overthinking everything. This one is sort of self explanatory as the theme of this post is that I just need to calm the hell down and stop thinking so much about everything. I was skyping with my dear mother yesterday and she reiterated how true this one was as I went on some sort of anthropological rant about something or other (can't even remember what now) and she told me something along the lines of:

"Sarah, you just need to stop thinking so much about everything and you won't be so tired all the time".
To which I always reply, "well yes, if I could turn my brain off for a couple of hours everyday, I would. And I have a feeling be a little calmer of a human being."

I, however, have not mastered my brain and there's no button for me to press to accomplish said task so instead I'm forced to just think and think and think and think and think. And normally end up right where I was to begin with, not knowing how I feel about it, or not being able to give a definitive conclusion or opinion on anything becasue let's face it, with most things, you can't. And then I think about why I'm thinking about it, or think about how I'm thinking about it, or think about thinking about it.
Do you empathize at all with this? Isn't your brain hurting just the tiniest bit yet?
Anyway, this post is really me, trying tow rite all of this down so I can, maybe, hopefully, Insh'allah, stop THINKING about it!
And now time for inadequacy. My favorite because it bundles up all of the above (thinking too much, comparing too much, and feeling guilty too much). At SIT Oman, this feeling was in the spotlight for most of the day when we discussed the US response and the response of the EU to the protests and stuff that are going on over here. Someone brought up changing the immigration quota and letting more Libyans come to the US. Maybe I'm more of an idealist than I think so I don't even look into these sorts of things becasue i just don't think they should exist, but I immediately responded "What, we have immigration quotas?!" To which everyone looked at me as if I was some sort of alien. And then on top of that, we're not willing to change the numbers to let more Libyans come over when they're leader is literally having them killed right and left?!

I find this disgusting.

And the SIT Oman students (and I'm sure some Amman ones) found my lack of knowledge disgusting. And then the thought occurred to me that all this time, maybe I've been excused for my lack of knowledge in many areas because of the good ol' Texas "they don't know anything" stereotype. Or maybe I've been excused for this lack of knowledge about so much becasue even I don't take myself too seriously. All too often I'm very willing to look like the idiot in the room and ask very simple, stupid questions. This is normally never a problem. But then every so often, people do indeed laugh at me. At which point I want to die. It takes a lot to air out how utterly stupid you are about certain topics by asking what to others is common knowledge already. And then to have people confirm your stupidity by laughing is nearly impossible to handle. I think up until SIT Oman, I had been fine with being stupid. It's a good place to be when you think about it because it means that you can only ever learn more and ask more questions. But my breaking point was that room. And now I'm still thinking about how completely terrible it was. I wanted the slightly scuffed tile floor to eat me up so I could disappear.
And that's enough of that. If I think about it too much again I'm going to feel like a complete dunce again and that just won't do because I know I'm not. Maybe...

There's a very large part of me that feels that I royally screw myself over at every turn. For instance, languages and majors. I took french for 6 years, then quit to take chinese because I was bored and wanted to try something new, hated chinese and then couldn't go back to french becasue I'd forgotten too much so I'll take arabic instead right?! GENUIS!
And then majors: Major in chinese because I think it will be the end-all, be-all of my college career, then switch to geology for lack of any other ideas when chinese falls through then switch anthropology when I find out I could care less about rocks. So now I'm left knowing nothing about china or chinese, very very little about rocks, and am just beginning to learn things about anthropology (and am still focus-less to both my and my advisor's dismay).

Well.Done.Me.

So now I know nothing about anything and all I've ever wanted to do is know EVERYTHING. fail.
But then again, that's a very unattainable goal anyway. I suppose my real goal was to know everything about a certain something. To be like a master of micropaleontology or something and be like the only consultant for that that NatGeo would ever think of putting on TV because I simply am the leader in my field. You know what I mean?
And because I"ve jumped around so much I feel like that's never going to happen.

Ugh, this is just the most terrible blog post ever. I sincerely hope you're not reading this.

Closing Thoughts

I can't think of any more to say about anything today. I suppose I could tell you about my day but other than a quick mansaf dinner to mabrook my cousin (i think) who graduated from dentistry school in Pakistan, I can't think of anything that happened that's noteworthy enough to make it into the blog. Other than to remind whoever was insane enough to read all of this whining that despite this momentary allowance of negativity, I really do love Amman and have fun everyday. I'm just being a temporary negative nancy/neglectful blogger becasue I'm not actually transmitting any cultural notes or political commentary in this post. As usual, apologies and love. Until next time, enjoy this photo of Anne, whose delightfullness I wish i could emulate more often.

Spring Break '11: Oman

            My Spring Breaks in general tend to be a tad more subdued than the rest of the world’s Spring Breaks. I don’t go out and party like I’m a n00b and rarely do I go to exotic places (for general lack of funds/worry about future lack of fund when the world market dies). Normally my break consists of copious amounts of sleep (that is much needed, apologies brain for the deprivation), lots of tea, and reading a book that will not be discussed in a classroom until any enjoyment that could have been gotten out of it is killed swiftly by the small, but powerful word ‘grade’.

            Needless to say, while all of you were vacationing in Cancun and sipping on margaritas (infinitely jealous), I was in Muscat, Oman. Clarification for those who didn’t read the banner of this blog/were confused about the difference just like I was when I decided to meander around the idea of studying abroad. I am in Amman (city) for my program. I took a short spring break visit to Oman (country). Okay.

            We had originally intended to go to Egypt but the whole military state thing didn’t seem to fly with my life insurance plan so we rerouted. Plus, there was the added bonus that SIT runs another program in Muscat so we would get to me up with other SIT kids. At this moment in time, I would like to take a brief intermission to explain to you blog friends that the staff at SIT from the first moment we got here made a point to appropriate the tribal culture of Jordan and tell us SIT students that we should emulate that awesome tribal love and take care of one another. I didn’t think I had latched onto this idea too heartily until we interacted with the other SITers (to be discussed).

            I’m going to go through this chronologically because otherwise I just know I’ll leave something out. But then again, I’ll probably do that any way I go about this, let’s try anyway!

Day One

            We get to Hotel Naseem in Muscat after an expected flight of sleep and music time. Oh, Hotel Naseem. For the record, Megan, the girl in most of the photos attached was my spring break roommate. We had a good time. I know you’d be jealous if you knew of all the fun we had. Just try and imagine. Keeping in mind that we brought 2 bottles of wine with us and I had been a sober sally up until then for oh 2 months now I think?

           Also- this hotel had a framed photo of one star at the front desk. One might wonder why you would advertise one star, as I did. But then, maybe it’s better not to wonder, and just better to think that Oman works on a two or three star scale instead of the normative five. This is how I rationalized the one star. I think I got a slight placebo effect from this choice. 

            Plus there was an English channel on the TV (which was so close to Megan’s bed that at night I’m sure it felt almost like spooning for her).

            Who could complain?

Day Two

            This morning after a breakfast of fried eggs and white toast (at which I once again lamented at the utter lack of vegetables, most importantly spinach, from my life) we checked out of the hotel because for that night we were staying in what had been described as a hut at a turtle reserve.

            Before going out, Megan and I pack our ‘turtle bags’ to prepare for our ‘turtle hut’ fun. Being the planner that I am (and knowing myself) I only packed one outfit in my Oman bag (I mean, jeans don’t count as dirty unless vomited upon and in some cases oil gets on them. Maybe butter too…and after working at Marble slab, ice cream too…okay dairy products in general. And if a shirt is white and you intend on swimming as a cleaning method then it’s as good as clean!) Judge all you will…Megan never once complained of me smelling and was totally jealous of my small bag (I saw it in her eyes). Needless to say, for these reasons my turtle bag was even sparser than Oman bag. Which basically meant nothing.

            A lecture was to be had before leaving for said turtles on Oman in general by the academic director of the other SIT program. At said lecture I felt like the regular Middle East idiot that I was the first week of Amman. Purrrrrfect (said exactly as spelled and with the face you would imagine on a disgruntled cat). Of course, if you know nothing, you can learn so much, right? ….Right?

            So after a morning of schooling, off to turtles.

            I would sound more excited but I wasn’t. There’s something in me that cringes about watching a turtle lay eggs/generally interfering with said crucial portion of turtle lifecycle. It was late at night and there were lots of people/flashlights/voices involved and all I could do was sit there and feel really…really sorry for the turtles. If there is a hell, my own personal version will be all of the animals I’ve ever eaten or disturbed personally getting to annoy me as much as they want, pencil tapping and all. Alas, after some good fresh ocean air, turtle disturbance, and star gazing, we head to the turtle hut!

            Now I’ve had my fair share of huts. I even built one with some other people down in Dominica this one summer. This was far above my ‘hut standards’. And far below everyone else’s (I think). However I got no sleep this night as the creators of said turtle hut thought that we who do not live in huts would like a fan, a noisy, cold, fan. BUT AT BREAKFAST THERE WAS BEANS. And there was FRUIT. And more than egg and wonder bread!

            I am happy.

Day Three

            After said awesome breakfast, we go to see this place where they make boats. This is where I sort of spaced out. I’m not a boat fan really (except when there’s the prospect of pirating something/wearing an awesome pirate outfit) and these were way out of my price range/visa restrictions. Plus the sweltering heat of Oman has this drugging effect (it’s no wonder protests there are farther and few between, and appear quite languid). So I checked out.

            Then to hiking in Wadi Shab to go to one of the more beautiful places I will ever be in my life. I jumped into an oasis of gorgeousness, climbed into and up caves with friends, got a piggy back ride from Megan across a river, ate the best lentils I’ve ever had, threw rocks at Megan from top of said cave, and just generally had an amazing time. You know those moment sin your life where you look around, take a second, and decide this is amazing, you’re completely aware that you’re actually aware, and you can take full advantage of the situation, calm the hell down for a second, and just enjoy the moment? This was not one of those moments. Unfortunately I was too wound up in climbing and jumping and silliness to slow down and try to live it Eat, Pray, Love style (of course, who can do that but Julia Roberts and someone who’s very good at crafting esoteric “life changing” montage clips anyway?). Alas, it was an amazing day despite the shui-fail.

 

The walk to the oasis of awesome (wading river, pre-hike)

Day Four

            A wholesome breakfast of fried egg and wonder bread toast left us all energized and ready for our museum time…

            Megan, Andy, and I went to an Omani historical museum that was in a house that had been converted to a museum by the owner. I found it wonderfully (taste that sarcasm) segregated by gender, the front foyer being devoted to males and “male endeavors” and the second (back) foyer being devoted to women and “womanly endeavors”. Let’s play a little game. There were four mirroring painted large posters in the foyers. Here are the male paintings:

And here are the female paintings:

Painful, no?

            Though perhaps I’m being too harsh. Post museum we all went to the SIT Oman school to meet the students and discuss our experiences. Upon discussion, we came up with the topic of museums here reinforcing a nationalist pride and attitude that is craftily tied to historical records and archaeology as well as reinforcing a cultural status quo (patriarchy, modesty, politeness). Here’s the thing. Apparently Oman is sort of the new guy next door. His majesty, Sultan Qaboos came to power and basically built the Oman infrastructure up (roads, buildings, Internet, and anything you could think of to put in a desert where nothing had been before, or practically nothing). So in 41 years Oman came from literally next to nil to what it is today. Impressive sultan, impressive. So we discussed how the discourse of Omani museum would inevitably attempt to reinforce what is still a growing sense of national identity, blah blah blah. I could bore you with our whole discussion but that just wouldn’t be nice now would it. Needless to say, even with the discourse of necessary promotion of national culture and identity and the fact that Oman is far more conservative than the already conservative Jordan, I, Sarah, am still going to judge the museum for its gender segregation. I’d like to not care or notice. But I do, and I did.

            Speaking of meeting the other SIT students: Sit Amman is a tribe. As is SIT Oman.  Perhaps it was the preconceived ideas, perhaps the fact that I judged everything on the baseline of ‘omg, I almost did this program because I really didn’t know anything about the Middle East to preference a program”, whatever it was, I’m sure they’re all wonderful people. But I like my tribe.

Day Five

            Egg and wonder bread. And I’m still trying to think it’s one out of three stars.

            I’m also getting tired of how long this post is. And I’m sure you are too. Because this is just a litany. I’m not even being funny or anthropologically awake. I blame the long plane flight. Anyway, short and sweet.

            We go to Nizwa and visit the university, tour around, go to Jabreen castle, pretty cool, walk around. Back to Naseem ‘one-star-home-sweet-home’ where Megan and I crash from sun and exhaustion.

Day Six

            Egg and wonder bread. Throw on a hijab to be appropriate and we head out to the Grand Mosque. It’s impressive, no lie, and I’m on board with the whole no shoes thing. Sarah Dawn and I discuss religious tourism along with the beautiful walk we had through an old village that’s specially been opened and built up for tourism as a weird sort of living museum. Were I more able to give you an anthropological discussion on these topics I would, but sleep is calling and you should be creative enough by now dear readers to think of the ethical quandaries of these things now, yes?

            We both just sort of discussed wondering how okay it was to do these things, really. I mean on the one hand, religious tourism from Sarah’s point of view (as I understood it) was that religion was a very serious thing for a lot of people and thousands of tourists rummaging around in your church/mosque/whatever cheapens it and insults it depending on how you feel about it. When it comes to the old village, I suppose it’s a similar feeling of ‘these are people, living their lives and we’re walking around in their city as tourists on a trial made just for us’. I mean, these people had to put no camera signs and do not enter on their doors because apparently there were some people in the past who didn’t know it wasn’t capiche to just walk into someone’s house. And yes, they receive money from the tourism and that makes it feel okay for us and for them (sort of). But the thing is, the money is sort of an external coercive factor in my eyes that makes it easy to rationalize that you’re walking around in someone’s village treating it as if it’s a living museum but at the end of the day doesn’t really make that act okay. I might be over thinking this a bit but this just felt icky. It was like the turtles but times 12 because they’re human beings. And after writing that I feel like a tad anthrocentric (is that the right word there? Help me out here latin people). Animals are just as important as human beings. I AM AN ANIMAL. But then what about bacteria and viruses and bugs. Oh god, it’s DEFINTELY too late for this sort of philosophical (anthropological?) quandary. Halas.

At said "living museum" listening to land before time and hiking a cliff in very dangerous but fun fashion with Anne.

            Megan and I hit a sweet Indian restaurant with some gals and then Souk it up to spend some Rial! We have a ball of a time. Highlights of the night?

-A splendidly lovely Arab man told me I was “his vanilla”.

-I got a free scarf from an Arab man with a good wink (total free tally: cab ride, belly dancing skirt, scarf)

-Megan, Laura and I got an invite to lunch on a boat with several Omanis (unfortunately we were leaving tomorrow)

-so much more that’s just not blog appropriate/I’m also surprised this blog even has limits.

Moral of this story

            Well, I have learned to stop blogging late at night for one, and you, dear reader, have probably learned to skip the first 8 or 10 paragraphs.

            Really though, I have a few more things to tack onto this post at a later date that are more general thoughts rather than Omani bound anyway but that’s the basic fun of the trip. I promise you it was more ridiculous, hilarious, tiring, and memorable than I’ve expressed above. I’m sleepy. And Nick Drake is not helping the tiredness (but is helping the musical wonderfulness of tonight).

            The longer I’m here, the harder and harder it is to convey how ridiculous entire days can feel sometimes because everything makes you laugh and transliterations fail and Arabs in general are just so happy and willing to joke with you/be awesome with you. You just have to come here to really get it, you know?

            Until next post everyone, keep Libya, Bahrain, and Japan in your thoughts (and everyone really). I don’t do prayers, but if that’s what works for you, you go for it. I’ve heard it’s pretty fun and exceedingly helpful. I wonder if the thing that hears all the prayers (if there is one) gets really annoyed of the person who’s lazy/practical/applicable to life now and just prayers for everyone and everything. Come to think of it, why would you ever not pray for everything, or at least wrap up with a quick “everybody else too”? I feel like we all could use it these days. Well that was certainly tangential. Anyway, love you all, apologies for the failblog. 

My favorite shot of the trip. I'm lovin' the graffiti. 

Oman.  Gotta love it.

Also-I do indeed realize the font in this post is infuriatingly not the same size as normal posts. It's killing me inside believe me. But it's one in the morning and I'm lacking in some serious sleep. Forgive me this once?

           

           

A Tired Frustrated Happy

Going abroad is exhausting. No one warned me about this. In fact, I was suffering under the incorrect assumption for a while that I would actually have more free time when I left the country to come the Jordan. This has proven not the case. I am exhausted on all fronts. But a good kind of exhausted. Let's count the ways:

Emotionally, Intellectually, Physically, Creatively and a few more -ally words that I can't think about right now becasue of the sheer effort it would take to pry those words from the recesses of my mind and put them in this box of a blog post. So just imagine that it happened.

 Emotionally
This one is pretty easy for everyone to imagine. But live it and then get back to me. Not only am I being tested on so many fronts here with just general cultural interaction (as I am finding more and more I'm just inherently incompatible with the Middle East...) but I'm also just making so many friends and keeping up with the ones back home, and my parents, and everyone in between while fostering relationships here is exhausting. I'm having to span my socialization between thousands of miles and donating proper attention to each, it's crazy.

On another note, today, during our classes trip to get group falafel deliciousness, I was told near the end of the lunch by a lovely professor who only meant well, "Sarah, cultural note..." at which point I interrupted her, knowing the inevitable and said, "too loud?". She nodded and I realized that maybe I should laugh a little less, or at least control it in public spheres. But that just sounds so sad. Besides, I love laughing. I refuse. Controlling how loudly I laugh just seems inherently against the very act of laughing itself. Sorry Jordanians sitting near me in advance.


Intellectually
Never did I think I would struggle so much in wrapping my head around things here. But I am. First off let me say, I love my advisor at home. Who else would help me work my way through anthropological issues like she does? No one, my friends, no one. She's awesome, be jealous.

So what exactly are we musing over in our discussions? Basically how my entire way of viewing culture and 'the other' has been completely thrown by this book I'm reading at the moment (Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The Limits of Postmodern Analysis). Referring back to what I had previously written here in this blog about the hijab in the context of this book I truly want to just scrap everything I said and start over...maybe. I haven't finished the book yet, or made up my mind yet. Will I ever? Doubtful. Is there an easy solution? I thought so, not anymore. I'll give you a snippet of stuff I've been chewing over for a while and struggling with so maybe you can get on this confusing train with me and maybe give opinions and/or comments, I'd be interested to know how you guys look at this. Read below for some mind killing anthropological fun:
 
Quotation from Book: "It is also politically problematic to use postmodernism's fragmented conceptual framework to select the countries for which individual liberties and rights to self-determination, national identity, and cultural authenticity are deemed appropriate. Such and approach quickly leads breeds indifference towards poor countries and peoples outside the West. It suggests that suffering from poverty, repression, and violence is somehow endemic and 'natural', and need not be a cause for worries in the West. Eventually, people in thee societies will solve their problems at 'their own pace and rhythm', and we owe them the respect of letting this occur. Besides, the meaning of 'suffering' and 'poverty' are themselves subjects of debate, and have to be culturally defined, locally, before any global response can legitimately be offered. It should be clear that this convoluted understanding of cultural difference is incompatible with a commitment to the defense of human rights. Whatever their intent, arguments which assert the right of different cultures to establish, define, and exercise their own standards, meanings, and principles play directly into the hands of political and economic elites, religious leaders and authoritarian regimes, and above all, fundamentalists, who argue, for their own purposes, that the notion of human rights if 'culture-bound' and Western, that international measures for human rights are imperialist ploys."



Me, thinking about above Quotation: I see where she's coming from I think and am frightened a bit by how familiar it sounds to something I would have said if pressured on the topic of why it was okay for certain things to be okay in the Middle East but not in the US. However, when she says that arguments that allow cultures to define and establish their own rules are inherently incompatible with calling for the rights of humans she seems to be doing something very similar to what she warned against a sentence earlier. Because how can she define exactly what human rights are anyway? And even aside from that, that whole last sentence, while it makes a lot of sense with what she just says, seems so terrible! Not allowing different cultures to have different rules...What is the other option if that isn't it? Forcing every culture to be the same in the way that she thinks protects human rights adequately? Dr. Moghissi (the author), up at a school in Toronto telling cultures what rules are okay and which ones are just too much of an infringement. Do you see what I mean? It's so difficult to understand what she's writing sometimes and even harder to talk about it in any cohesive way. I'm just left annoyed a bit and confused because she bashed my only easy way of being nice but then didn't give me another option except (from as far as I can read into what she's writing) to call for cultures to be the same so we can ensure they're all being held accountable for human rights. And just thinking about that feels...icky, sticky, I don't know. Something's so wrong about saying it. But then she made so much sense 3 sentences or so up. I just don't know.



Anyway, that's just a little taste of how upside down my world feels intellectually. Do you see the source of exhaustion now? Also, we keep having these speakers at SIT that stir up thinking about women's issues here and abroad. It's crazy. And good, but in an annoying, "god why can't I just go back to the simplicity I had!" way.



Addendum: We just had a beautiful lecture by an amazing woman, Dr. Rula Quawas, a feminist who made me love her in one lecture. Afterward we SIT children had some awesome discussion time that has only added to all of the things I've been pondering lately. I've recorded it all for myself to listen to again and ponder over, it's too much to go through here and after the lecture and discussion I'm simply too brain-dead to write about it more or digest it even for that matter. Needless to say, there are some amazingly smart students here who, along with my own self and this book are forcing me to think even more about these things and it's great. But, back tot he theme of this post? Exhausting. Haha.



Physically
Well a group of us are attempting to train for the Dead Sea half marathon. This is actually a good thing. The serotonin from running a lot is probably keeping me sane. It's nice. Still, by the time I finish everything I had planned to do for the day (except not at all because I really need to start doing some serious ISP stuff) it's like one o' clock in the morning and I'm consistently probably not getting enough sleep at all. Must change!



Creatively

In order to stave off insanity and give myself some time to let my brain unwind a bit (which is funny to say because brains look pretty wind-y in general, haha), I decided I needed to adopt a form of artistic escape here that I often indulge in in the states. Note to others, if coming to the Middle East and you like acrylics, bring them with you. Nearly impossible to find. But I have oil pastels and a small calligraphy set (that I'm currently loving to death) that I'm using some nights when I can afford to stay up a little later or just can't focus on homework anymore that is providing a much needed escape. It's a tad counter intuitive because it's a scheduled escape, which just feels wrong, but an escape nonetheless. And I love it. Though in retaking up writing sporadically and art, I'm further stressed in trying to try new stuff and not rest of whatever artistic laurels I can claim to have as a non-artist artist.


In short, all of these things are positive stresses. But that does not stop them from being tiring. In similar fashion to Richard Bach's beautiful quotation from a favorite book, "not being known doesn't stop the truth from being true."


Anyway, just an update to keep everyone in the loop of what's going on (this time, less what's going on in Amman and more what's going on in my mind).


Until next time wonderful friends and family, here's to good cups of tea and restful sleep. Enjoy the sunset form the dead sea and some photos from our SIT visit below. Love you all.

A Day in the Life

I'm going to tell you all a story today about how ridiculous my day became.

It started off as per usual, grabbing a cab with Mink and Biff at our 8:15 meeting time. In said cab ride we begin to discuss plans for the summer. I should have known right then and there this would not be my day.
Biff and Mink relay their "I have my shit together" plans for the summer that actually relate to oh you know, what they want to do for the rest of their lives (good job guys) and I begin to silently dwell upon my utter lack of plans.
At SIT I quickly forget about said disturbances by pushing them to the back of my mind with some good ol' Arabic courses in the morn. Lunch comes and it's the usual falafel sandwich for 1/2 JD and then off to grab some communal SIT coffee for optimal student caffeine buzz.
Then comes field study seminar where we sit and talk about interviews and things that I generally have heard already form my anthropology classes back home and in more depth than we talk about here. This is dangerous. It gave me time to meander again about my lack of life plans.

In true 'Megan' fashion (thanks for the tip), I decide I will make a list, get some stuff off my chest and be done with it. So I make a list of everything that's stressing me out (and am surprised by both its length and consistency to what stressed me out years ago) as well as a list/think map of job options for the future or summer or life plans in general. I can almost say for certain that should you look at an entry in (brace yourselves) my diaries (what a tragic word) about 7-10 years ago they say the EXACT same thing. I'm talking like, I still have not figured out at all what I want to do with my life. at all. To give you a little insight here is a smattering of things I have contemplated doing for forever:

-having a job that would somehow gain me access to a level four biohazard zone (I had a Hot Zone obsession for a bit)
-being a baker. small business failure percentages does not factor into this dream. nor does my lack of any technical skill whatsoever. or my hatred for recipes.
-majoring in Chinese and working for the UN, or as a translator for some huge business that would pay me oh-so-well
-being a geologist and doing something of importance that would probably have had something to do with oil because let's face it, I'm from Texas.
-being a professional archaeologist...what do you mean they don't make money??
-police force
-peace corps
-more recently, the military
-president (don't laugh, for a while, and still sometimes these days, I think i could do a better job than most people).

And that's only like 12% of all of the options that have run through my mind in a "seirously considered but not fully planned out" way.

So class ends, school's out. Cue to my future freak out whereupon my good ol' SIT tribe buddies try to reassure me (helping a bit) and I consume the weirdest stress meal of a cup or two of uncooked oatmeal with za3tar and olive oil and salt. I don't know why. The kitchen at school is oddly stocked.

I skype mother in Texas and proceed to dump some of my stress onto her while simultaneously insulting her letting her know I do not want ot wear the veil she's been saving for em at my wedding (which will probably never happen). I have no idea how this came up in our conversation now. But there it is.
How to fix this problem? SEROTONIN! I go for a run, take a long shower, stretch forever, listen to some Switchfoot (judge away, but I know you secretly like them too) and then come home.
I join Biff downstairs to make some cornbread for our families. And it all just goes downhill/to a funnier place from here.

-The oven breaks a bit/won't close all the way after we open it to find out it doesn't work (or rather, we're too afraid to even try to make it work) solution: Duct Tape!
-We google making corn bread in a skillet and find out it can indeed be done and that it works a lot like pancakes, PERFECT
-I hate the stove here, hate it. I burn every single attempt because I used a wonky pan and the flames were trying to make my life more difficult.
-There's smoke everywhere, we crack a window. Laughing at our failure, I reach to turn the stove off and the knob breaks and the gas is still on, flame burning. Solution: put a pot of water on and pretend we were making tea until someone gets home who can help!
-Biff's family returns with lots of fenangling and 'no problems' being said. Biff and I bury our faces in our hands.
-Sitting down to recover and say we're sorry as many times as possible we watch TV for a bit and Biff's family asks me to sing. Somehow they saw the video of me in the amphitheatre on facebook (thanks zuckerburg) and want me to sing. After about 10 minutes of protesting and saying I'm sick and hoarse from laughing too much, her sister drags me into another room and the first thing that pops into my head was my senior solo in choir at highschool. At least I can remember the Latin to this one, not so with Ave Maria. I sound terrible, they lie and tell me it was great. I go home, hoping to disappear into the floor.
-My older brother comes home from work, sits down and asks me to have breakfast in the morning (after our conversation yesterday about how important and awesome breakfast is and why everyone, including him, should eat it no matter how busy you are). I have tomorrow off from school so I tell him I won't be awake and after while and much protest that he doesn't wake me up "at seven and half", he tells me I can just make him a sandwich to-go then for the morning. He literally says, "go amke me a sandwich and put it in the microwave, I eat it in the morning".
-At this point I laugh hysterically and he stares at me confused. I try to explain about the "woman go make me a sandwich" joke in America and then point to the book I'm currently reading titled Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism and point to myself and say "Fem-in-ist!" I don't think I did a very good job translating the joke because I am the only one laughing as he tells me again to make him a sandwich to-go. I retreat to room.

This day has been so long in such very odd ways. And substantially uneventful at the same time. I suppose it was more of less one of those days you have to actively participate in to understand the hilarity and tragic-ness of it all, which is unfortunate for you readers. Alas, this blog is partially for my poor memory skills so maybe this post is just for me really (sorry!).

Anyway, I'm going to try to convince myself to stop googling for jobs and internships in Texas that vaguely relate to the rest of the randomness of my resume and go to sleep now and pretend that I've got my shit as together as most of the people here.

Until next time amigos, stay sane, I know I'll be trying.