Booted from Petra

We weren’t sure of the path.  The hiking guidebook we were using provided gems such as, “At the big rock, go around.” Or something similar.  We followed the stairs, which appeared to be new but styled to look ancient.  We passed our yoga studio, dipped into a valley, and climbed the side of the mountain once again.  We came to a huge shelf of sorts overlooking endless valleys below and for as far as we could see.

Who's comin' up around the bend?

The ancient Bedouin didn’t so much appear to us.  He was just, well, there.  “Would you like some tea? Maybe a hand-made necklace?”  I can’t decide if his business plan is genius or slightly insane.  Of course we had tea.  We hardly refuse it. I call this moment, “The Tea Sipped at the Top of the World.”  The sweet, sage-infused tea shared among friends grounded us atop this mountain.  We might not be following the guide book anymore, but it didn’t matter.  We had a Bedouin guide confirm we were on the right track.  He also knew where we had camped, that we had a fire late into the night, that we were American, and where we had hiked from.  News travels fast, and we weren’t exactly quiet.  After charging us one JD ($1.41) for each cup of tea, I noticed other hikers far behind us on the same route, and decided this old man’s business plan was genius.

penultimate eid

Deep valleys and steep mountains lay before and behind us – and we zoom around the curves, gripping the sides of the bed of the truck for dear life. I find it difficult to light my cigarette in this wind, but I prevail with a little help from my friends. Mohammed, an army officer and friend of our driver joins us in the back. I keep staring at the door of the bed, wondering how tightly secured it is, and how long Mohammed would tumble down the mountainside before coming to his final resting place. Thankfully this leg of the trip was without incident, save for Mohammed’s questioning as to why I’d allow my wife to so bluntly engage in conversation with such a strange man like himself. “She’s very independent. She has her freedom.”

The camel of modernity

We went to a castle, and it was really old. I feel jaded. I’m saddened to say that the sense of wonder that once welled up inside my chest upon facing an ancient site no longer wells, but remains placid and deep inside me. So, the castle was old. I hardly took any pictures of the site itself, but instead tried (failingly) to capture the magnificent view from atop the mountain. I positioned myself in a watchtower and tried to imagine defending the castle as invaders scrambled up the hill, but even this musing failed to stoke my passion. Instead the thoughts of violence intensified the suns rays upon my frail face, and I was ready to get back into the truck.

Eid trip — still…

Operation: speed through the rest of the trip. First of all, it feels like years ago. I hardly even remember anything. It’s as though I heard a story of someone else’s awesome trip and I’m just giving a second-hand retelling. Second, I’ve done some awesome stuff I want to eventually get to on this blog. For example, I went to Jerusalem, Ramallah and Tel Aviv last weekend. I’m going to Egypt this upcoming week. So, with that, let’s try to conclude my eid trip as quickly as possible.

The next day we walked up a valley. It took us all day. It was beautiful – there was water in this valley, and hence lush vegetation everywhere. It was surreal walking from an arid desert into a valley oasis, replete with swimming holes for children, palm trees, fresh springs (I drank the water trickling out of a spigot – a whole 3 liters of it, and I live to tell the story). Often we hiked shin-deep in water.

Lushy lush

Eid Trip #2

We rose a little after the sun to a new Islamic month: Not Ramadan.  I forget which comes after.  And I’m so late in writing this we’re probably another whole month or two later.  But it’s a moon calendar, so it’s not like a USA month.  True to form, those are bigger.

Ramadan having ended, and eid officially begun, we were served a huge spread of a breakfast.  I bet these breakfasts were served even throughout Ramadan, considering this place caters largely to a foreign clientele.  I don’t know to which fast our English word “breakfast” refers, but the etymology is the same idea: you don’t eat for a long time, and then you do.  Maybe it’s the fast of sleep.  I ate a lot, probably too much.  But isn’t it always that way at all-you-can-eat spreads?  Gotta get your money’s worth.

The hike started atop Wadi Dana from the Ottoman-era village, the one since abandoned for the newer village next to the cement factory.  Here we are all, at the start of our first day of real hiking.  We took a lot of these “Here we all are” pictures, bear with me.

The gang before descending to Feinan

first freelance gig

I’m pleased to announced I’ve been published in the monthly magazine Yemen Today!

The assignment was to write a Love Note to Yemen.  Check it out here.  The pictures are also mine, edited by YT staff.

I was paid for my efforts, a strange experience considering all of the things I paid my professors to read throughout my time in college.

The Yemen-Today website can be found here.

When I connect my laptop to the ‘net I will copy the text for easier reading.

eid trip #1 – we are indiana jones, we are macgyver, we are in search of Adventure and we’re on the right track

Wow, this life is exhausting.

First I had a three week vacation to Yemen. I spent my time chatting and smoking shisha and drinking tea and going to coffee & chocolate shop grand openings and magazine launch parties and cultural debates and wandering around and taking pictures of rainbows and sleeping away the Ramadan daytime. It’s not a pretty life, but somebody’s gotta do it.

Then I was compelled to sit through a grueling week-long orientation in Amman. I was forced to listen to presentations on security & safety, foreign travel, insurance plans, research clearances, how to get paid, establishing residency visas, renting apartments, signing up for classes, and other such nonsense. For four hours a day! How was I supposed to feel rested for nights on the town if I had to wake up at 7am every day?

Then I had a whole week of classes. I was pretty sure I’d be fluent by the end of it, but it turns out I have a lot of work to do. They placed me in an advanced level where the textbook answer key I brought with me from home no longer applies. We only read the newspaper and short stories, but thank God for Google translate.

Just as I thought I’d be crushed by the weight of all these responsibilities, the holy month of Ramadan ended and eid al-fitr began. Without nine days off, I don’t think I’d have made it this far in the whole “immersion abroad” thing.

To maximize cultural exchange, myself and eight other Americans grouped up for Travel ™! You should have seen us, all gussied up for Nature. Our titanium-alloy-spined backpacks were stuffed with GORP and our Kleen Kanteens swung lazily as we departed.

My friend’s sister joined us for the trip. Meet Sarah, a five-foot two-inch ball of intensity. I gave her slow instructions on how to get from the airport to the mall near my house, including such gems as, “If you ask nicely, someone will probably let you use their phone, or you can find an “ItiSilAt, which means “connections” or “communications” – a phone place, get it?!” Her flight arrived at 9am, and I started to wonder about her come noon. She calls. “Did you make it? Did you find a bus?” No, she’s waiting for me at the mall already. I walk up and she steps out of a Mercedes, smiles big and hugs me. “If we want to go to the Dead Sea or to Aqaba or Syria, Mohammed here says he’ll take us. I met his mom, she made me some great snacks. Thanks Mohammed!” Mohammed doesn’t speak English.

Sarah never takes the elevator, is a Northwestern triathlete, and gently comments upon your lifestyle: “Oh nice! I haven’t listened to English music since coming to the Middle East, let alone country western!”

She’s been in Egypt since June, and speaks better Arabic than I do.

The following day we show up at the bus station for the beginning of my much-needed recess. I don’t know why the price is suddenly double what it should have been, and I never found out why, because Sarah took care of it before I could even inquire.

A couple hours later, we’re at the outskirts of Dana, the largest nature preserve in Jordan, which is run by the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN). Citrus and olive trees join 600 other species of plants alongside 45 species of mammals, 25 of which are endangered. The beautiful stone village of Dana, dating back to the 1400s, is largely uninhabited now, because this generation a cement factory was built. The residents left the historic village on the cliffs for a new one closer to the factory. Six-thousand year-old copper mines are dotted along the reserve; they were the largest metal smelting operations in the area and are even mentioned in the Bible. (Anyone who has read Lonely Planet: Jordan will see that I am borrowing heavily here.) There are a 100 different archaeological sites in the preserve, many of which have yet to be excavated or explored. Man, without this guidebook, for me Dana would have remained just something stunning to look at and walk through.

Even though we were planning on walking five days all the way to Petra, when the bus driver asked us if we wanted to be dropped off at our camp site or if we wanted to walk there, we of course wanted to walk. We stepped lightly despite our heavy bags, fueled by the self-righteousness in knowing that our $55 spent to sleep on a mattress on the floor in a stylized Bedouin tent was going to support the Conservation of Nature (TM).

Here we are, start of the trip, fresh off the bus.
(Left to right: Alex, Ali, Judith, Allison, Caroline, Regina, Me, Sarah.  David, not shown, took the photo.)

This was not about finding an authentic experience. Had we wanted to experience Dana like many Ammanis with disposable income, we would have rolled up in a BMW 4×4, seen the provided tents, noticed the fact that the entire place (including their hot water) was powered by solar panels, gotten back in our SUV, cranked up the AC and some bumpin’ Arab pop music, and sped directly to the Dead Sea Ritz Carlton for a night of all you can eat buffets served next to three swimming pools, followed by his and her facials given by Thai massage therapists. So, in this sense, thankfully for this trip we marched to the beat of our American drum. We are Indiana Jones, we are MacGyver, we are in search of Adventure and we’re on the right track.

It was the last day of the holy month of Ramadan, wherein Muslims fast and nothing passes lips from sunup to sundown. Fasting is a reminder of the plight of the poor and hungry, an emptying exercise widening one’s communication channel with God. Sprinkled throughout the month are devotional prayer sessions, and plenty of time for reflection and renewal. For non-Muslim foreigners, Ramadan is marked by dragging hard and fast on cigarettes behind buildings, enjoying secret lunches seasoned with guilt, and thoughts of, “Man, this would be so much better if I just fasted too.” Not wanting to appear inconsiderate during this last high holy day, we strayed off the path as we neared the campground to have a hidden lunch. The camp manager eventually pulled up in his truck and asked why the heck we felt the need to hide. He was waiting to orient us with the site.

A cluster of permanent sleeping tents hug the cliffside, and large open shade structures border the area. Using the phrase shade structure makes me think of Burning Man, but there were no flame-throwing three-story elephants marching through this desert. Shame.

(Photo Courtesy of Sarah?)

Still amped up from our first week of class and still fresh from only a bus ride, we flipped flash cards and drilled each other on new vocab as we relaxed through the hottest part of the day. A few hours before  sunset we hiked up a trail to check out stunning views from the valleys below.

(Thanks Sarah.  Daoud?)

(Thanks Daoud)

That night they served us an awesome dinner, and shared stories and sage-infused tea over a campfire. Apparently Jordanians never smile, an Egyptian will try to convince you the empty bottle of Coke is actually full before selling it to you, and Syrians speak excruciatingly slowly. We learned of a honey thief and and lies and secret passwords, and how neighbors solve problems without violence or angry confrontation. Why take things to the courts when cunning and guile get your honey back?

I sleep early and hard, and thus ends day one of my backpacking trip.

For a compilation of photos from the trip, click here. But check back, because people still have to upload their photos (Guilty.).

wherein an elderly jordanian thrift shop owner reads my numbers

The shop is so stuffed you can hardly walk through it. The only light filters in from the sunny street, dust covers every piece of clothing, and those thick plastic bags you might buy cement in spill all over one another. I arrive with my neighbor and his friend, two graphic design students in search of the cheap wares to augment their ‘vintage style’.

Upon the first step in the store, we simultaneously shift our sunglasses to our heads, and the horses are off. I want plain, long-sleeved shirts to wear to class. It’s quickly apparent that maybe what I’m looking for is under a pile somewhere, otherwise it’s a typical thrift store affair: dingy clothes loved then discarded alongside the loud, shimmery exaggerations of ’style’ from bygone eras. I mean, there were items here to make any Synergy party-goer drool, the exact awful sequined jumpsuit with pockets and a hood that we all sought at Savers before every Thanksharing.

I browse about five minutes before leaving for a cup of coffee, coming back to Khalid trying on a knee-length bright red jacket, “Just what I need for the conceptual photo shoot I’m working on for class.”

The shop owner has to be seventy. Surprising that with such an eclectic mass of clothes, for today he has chosen leather sandals, khakis, and a faded collared shirt. He had been following the boys around stating the obvious, “Men’s pants. A bag of belts. That is a quality pair of corduroy overalls.” Upon my return he turns to me. “Coffee or Nescafe?” I tell him I’m drinking Arab coffee, with a little sugar, and milk. “Good, that manufactured stuff is bad for your health. Me, I only drink tea. But a cup of real coffee a day is good for your heart.” “I drink about five,” I tell him.

“Five! That’s dangerous! And you’re smoking! You’ll give yourself a heart attack.” I tell him I’m going to quit soon.

“What is your birthday?” Khaled had told me on the ride over that Ibrahim believes he is some sort of numerologist, able to read people by their dates of birth. When Khaled had told me this in the car, I was confused, and he clarified, “No, not your sign. Not your stars. Your numbers.” Oh. Same shit, right?

“If you tell me your birthday, I will be able to tell you if you will quit smoking cigarettes this year or not.” Hoping for good news and wishing to kill time while Nour checked himself out in leather jackets, I gave it to him: month twelve, day twenty-six, year one thousand, nine hundred and eighty-five.

He does a few calculations and shakes his head, does the “click” of the tongue that means “No, not at all” in Arabic, and explains, “You will not quit smoking cigarettes this year. You have tried to quit many times and you have failed, and you will try again soon and you will fail.” He looks at me sadly. “Do you drink alcohol?” Not in a while. “Good, if you drink even just a little bit, you will become addicted. You will drink even if you are a little bit sad or upset, and you will drink if you are happy. Thanks be to God! Do not drink, okay?” Uh okay. I shift my weight nervously from foot to foot, cross and uncross my arms.

“You know what your problem is? You have too much power in everything you do. People think you are here learning Arabic and learning about the Arabs to prepare you for something like the CIA or FBI, but you have too much power and do not do well with constraints. You will need to work for yourself or in a job that gives you lots of independence.” Up until this point I was getting along fine in Arabic, but I was finding my understanding of his explanations strange, so I started asking, “What do you mean by ‘powerful’….” Now he’s kind enough to provide his rough translation after reading my personality in Arabic. At this point Khalid is also standing in rapt attention, and translating when Ibrahim and I can’t reach a common understanding. “Do you think you will work for a group like this?” No, I tell him, I always speak my opinion and the CIA probably doesn’t like opinionated people.

“Yes, that’s in your numbers. You always speak the truth. Your mother gave birth to you on this day [he taps the paper with his pen], you were birthed from her kind, strong heart, and from then on she always instructed you to tell the truth, and to have great manners. She raised you to be strong and independent. You do things on your own that others your age cannot, because your mother loved but did not baby you.” He scribbled more on his page, performing some clairvoyant calculus. “Yes, you always speak the truth, but you are also an amazing talker. ‘Great, great, great talker’” (this last sentence in English). “You can sit in a cafe and if a friend of yours is being quiet, or is mad or sad, you can excite them into talking. You can talk to new people with ease. Your tongue is very powerful, maybe too powerful. You can convince people to do things, you can change their minds. You are blessed with talk. But this power you have with people is limited to when they are around. When you go home and are alone in your apartment (you live alone, right?), you get nervous fast. ‘Quick to nervous.’ Yes, when you are alone, you worry. You have trouble going to sleep. If you are tired and lay down, you sleep, but if you are tired and try to do something else first, you cannot fall asleep for a while, and toss from right to left, right to left.” My jaw drops and I just nod. As I tossed in bed last night I had this exact thought about my sleep patterns. Why did I pick up the book even though I was so tired?

“Yes, but you also have bad luck. You are not lucky! You lose things.” I am on maybe my eighth phone in five years. “When walking, make sure to look around you! Maybe someone will throw something off a roof, watch out! When crossing the street, be very careful.” Now I’m getting scared. “You are not lucky, no, you’re not. You try lots of things and do not succeed.” “This isn’t good news!” I tell him. “No, but you keep trying. You do not succeed for a while, but you do not give up. This is part of what makes you powerful. Maybe you study, then fail, then resume, then succeed strongly.” I think of the time I left Stanford for a while.

I wonder if this is the sort of reading where one can believe anything the seer says, pulling one instance out of an ocean of experience to match his description, but am also dumbfounded at how specific (and accurate) he has been on some points.  Yet, I think I talk too much.  Little of my hot air is powerful.  But we all love a good ego-stroking, and I begin to wonder if a leather jacket would look good with the head he’s inflating.  I ask him to continue.

“You get very lucky every ten years. 2006 was your last year. You will maybe not quit smoking until 2016.” God I hope not. 2006 – two quarters of sophomore year and first quarter of junior year. Worked at Argonne in the summer. Got probably my worst grades. I remember this year as unremarkable, so when he tells me, “No, you are unlucky, you will never win the lottery. Nour here, he might, but you never will,” I am suddenly bitter towards his calculations. I’ll show you. I’m going to go buy a ticket right after this.

Oh, wait. Dad, considering gambling is ‘haram’ or against the Muslim religious code, will you buy me a lottery ticket next time you get a chance? Play something with my birthday. Tell me what happens.

“Can I use your pen, and do you have a piece of paper? I want to write this down for later.” “You don’t need a pen or paper. You are very smart. You will remember everything I say. You will write it down later. I’m right about everything, no? It’s all in your numbers.” I just wear my shit-eating grin and shake my head in disbelief. “You also drink lots of water. Me? I sip it once in a while, but you, you like it and drink it all the time. Good.” My shoulder bag is in the car, containing nothing but the two-liter bottle that was too awkward to carry.

Nour and Khalid buy their new clothes. “I have no new bags for you guys. Ha! But nothing is new here. Reuse these bags, or else they fly away into the sky, like dirty birds. Too much pollution.”

“Happy opportunity,” I tell him, and shake his hand. “I’m, um, I’m going to come back. I’d like to talk some more with you.”

“I’ll see you then. God willing.”

Coming soon: details on a five day camping trip ending in getting escorted to the police station in Petra.  Bedouin mountaintop apparitions, sunset yoga (above), near-death scorpion and goat attacks, and more!  Tune in at the totally unscheduled time!

how do i smell bacon? there’s no bacon in jordan.

I always love when cops follow me.  I am either a threat or something worth preserving, which in either case means I’m at the very least interesting.

“Peace and the grace of God and his blessings upon you,” I respond.  This is one of the possible responses to hello (“Peace be upon you”), and I choose this more formal one because I figure it might buy me some insurance.  I’m worth preserving, but my past encounters with cops usually weren’t for my own good.

He bumbles out a few words in English, and I say, “It’s okay, I speak Arabic.”  I speak too soon.  I’m already saying I don’t understand, but he just keeps repeating that same word, making no attempt to circumlocute.  My patience with cops being about twenty seconds, I quickly blurt, “Sorry, what do you want?”

Okay, but why do you want my ID?  Why are you with the servees driver that just dropped me off four minutes ago? Are you guys cousins about to offer me a ride to my house, only to rob me or force me into marriage with a sister for the sake of US residency?  How much is this going to cost me?

I pat my ass, sigh, and smile.  He was saying

محفظة

….

Wallet.  My wallet is in his hand.

I give him my passport, and he spends what felt like an unnecessary amount of time trying to find my names.  “Just wait a minute,” he tells me.  “These pictures…”  “This is when I was sixteen, this was  this year.”  I have black curly hair, all sorts of piercings, and a dirty, hippy shirt on in my California driver’s license, and I’m baby-cheeked and zitty in my passport.  In these pictures I’m smiling, but both is a far cry from the respectable form I wear here in Jordan.

“A thousand thank yous!” as he hands over my wallet.  I pull out 5JD ($7.07) and the cop immediately says, “No!  Welcome to our country.”  I look at the driver and he gives a “screw him, I’ll take it!” smirk, and I gladly hand it over.

I asked the guy on the bus next time how much he would have paid in this situation.  “Nothing!”  he said.  I hate making generalizations, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say almost every Arab I’ve met has been nothing but welcoming, hospitable, generous, and honest.  Even this guy on the bus insisted I come to his house to have tea and talk about our studies and life in America, where he just returned from a month-long trip.

My first two posts were about money.  This makes the third.  Sorry, I promise to try to write about more interesting things from hereon out.  And now, not two days after writing said posts, a divine intervention to remind me of what I strive to believe: sometimes you have it, sometimes you don’t, but in the end, it’s still just fucking money.

on the defensive

My American friends here in Jordan read my last post.  Today I heard a number of, “Yeah, but it’s really expensive…” comments.  And “Let ME pay for the cab!”  “Do you want these leftovers?”  “Can I pay you for a cigarette?”  I have built myself up as the cheap bastard, and now I will ever try to live it down.  That, or I will collect all the money I save and fill a bathtub with it.  I will kick up my legs and feed myself grapes.

I will have it be known that today I hung out in two different coffee shops and ordered whatever I wanted without thinking twice.  Coffees, shishas, iced mint lemonades, teas.  I took a friend out for brunch.  I paid for three months of electricity [under forty bucks, which my neighbors said is expensive.  I blame them.. we, as a floor in the apartment complex, split it ... They have lots of lights and blare their stereos every waking minute.]  I bought a book (but, it was copied… only $2.50).

Okay, but I did go out for cheap lunch ($2).  Purportedly the best shawarma in the city.  I would have splurged on expensive lunch for the sake of railing against my previous post, but apparently Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie ate there last night.  I am cooler by the transitive property of you’ve-been-where-celebrities-go.  I bet this illustrious couple came to Jordan to collect an Arab baby for their growing collection.  They’re building a rainbow family.

I don’t imagine a child in my near future.  Babies are expensive.

Here I am on a rooftop terrace of Books@Cafe, with their amazing view overlooking a mountain of Amman:

a little honey in my tea

Dear friends, family, and those who stalk me on the internet,

So I figured this whole “go somewhere, write about it” gig may be happening pretty regularly now, so I decided to consolidate. From now on, you can find my ramblings here. If you would like to re-live the thrills of before, don’t worry! They’re not lost.

My old blogs are still:

lemondeestgrand.livejournal.com

[19 years old and digging up whatever trouble he could find in Turkey, and then Spain & France.]

yementia.wordpress.com

[Wherein I stopped out of Stanford and fled to Yemen for an anticipated year with maybe a thousand dollars to my name. No, really, it was a good idea.]

So listen up class, the new session has started. I am honor bound to Congress to inform you about my scholarship and my new country of residence, so for a bit, let’s play School. I have to be the teacher, sorry, but this will be a participatory discussion. Leave comments. We’ll start with a little history lesson, because my experience in Jordan so far has been little more than airports, orientations, and figuring out the washing machine in my bathroom.

I have been selected for a Fulbright Fellowship for the 2009-2010 year. The Fulbright Fellowship is named after J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, an accomplished statesman, and, considering the amount of money in my bank account, dare I say visionary?

Fulbright was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1942. In September of 1943 the House adopted the Fulbright Resolution, supporting an international peacekeeping plan and participation in what became the United Nations at the end of WWII. The spotlight was on this consensus-building young statesman. In 1944 Fulbright became a Senator, and from 1959-74 he served as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

I appreciate his independent thought. In 1954 he was the only Senator to vote against an appropriation for the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Senator Joseph McCarthy – think Red Scare, The American Prime Time of propaganda, proxy cold-war battles, and decidedly undemocratic smear campaigns against those exercising their First Amendment Rights.

He served the US beyond his engagement in the rough and tumble politics of his tenure. He supported the creation of a national center for the arts, and his initial legislation led to the founding of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

The Fellowship I’m currently taking part in was established in 1946 under legislation by the Senator of the same name. In his own words, he explains, “Fostering these – leadership, learning, and empathy between cultures – was and remains the purpose of the international scholarship program… It is a modest program with an immodest aim – the achievement in international affairs of a regime more civilized, rational and humane than the empty system of power of the past…” 1946 – Think devastating World Wars, atomic bombs, the creation of international governing mechanisms, a new world order. The US’s days of declared isolationism were now over, and thus began the expansion of the military and the Cold War – the US got its hands dirty directing the affairs of states across the globe either by proxy or by direct intervention. The world was bifurcated into First and Second (Us vs the Commies), with the outliers branded the Third World (originally these were the non-aligned states, but now this term has come to generally mean “impoverished and undeveloped,” neglected in either development or interventionist efforts by the two former world powers).

Today, the bifurcation of the world and the fear-mongering inspiration for continued warfare has been replaced by The War on Terror (TM, Bush Administration 2001), a quite effective one considering terrorist are everywhere, so we just may have to intervene anywhere. But I digress, big time. My point being that this scholarship, I believe, was an attempt by Senator Fulbright to wage a different sort of war, one of compassion and mutual understanding in a time where two world powers duked it out for world domination. The US won, but the scholarship lives on, but unfortunately, so do wars. This is partly why I’m in Jordan, but more on this later.

In the government’s own words: “The Fulbright Program, the U.S. Government’s flagship international exchange program, is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The Fulbright Program provides participants – chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential – with the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.” It’s a two-way street connecting over 155 countries. I’m in Jordan today, and there are Jordanians in America with the same scholarship. Fulbrighters have won 39 Nobel and 65 Pulitzer prizes. Mom, mine are in the mail, look out for them.

So, essentially I am being paid for 15 months to be a cultural ambassador of the United States to Jordan to become active and involved in promoting mutual understanding and respect. My duties are explicitly outlined in the hundreds of pages I’ve received since being granted this award, and include: “Meet as many people as possible in all walks of life by speaking and writing about their countries to interested groups” (check. See blog: bradleyheinz.wordpress.com).

But I am warned! According to Memo: “Fulbright: A message about blogs, Facebok, and other Internet-based media” I am required to declare that

This is not an official Department of State Website, and the views and information presented are my own and do not represent the Fulbright Program or the Department of State.

Further, I will ignore the contradictions inherent in being simultaneously guaranteed my First Amendment rights while being told I am subject to termination of my grant if I in any way post anything “inappropriate or offensive” in relation to the Fulbright Grant, and just say that wow, the Fulbright Grant is amazing and can do no wrong and will bring world peace and is nothing but sunshine and puppydogs.

No, but really, this grant has been nothing but awesome so far. Sure, I don’t like being told, “Yes, say whatever you want, you are an American and it is your right. Oh, but don’t say that. You can’t say that. We’ll fire you if you say that”, I can swallow the pill for now. I am “thanked for my understanding” at the end of the memo.

But, I am counting my blessings, and I feel very honored to be taking part in this program. Thank you, Bi-national Fulbright Commission of Jordan, a panel comprised of high officials of the Jordanian and American governmental, educational, and cultural spheres for picking me. By extension, I would also like to thank the people of the United States of America, which is probably some of you, readers. Because your tax dollars are funding me. Thank you.

On the way to my apartment from the Queen Alia International Airport of Amman, my driver told me that Jordan is a great country. You can do anything here! You can club, you can drink, you can fraternize, you can see ancient history. But you can’t do three things. No sir, do not do these three things. First of all, do not threaten the security of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Jordan’s main export, in a manner of speaking, is it’s stability. It is a safe haven for people in the region, a state of refugees seeking calm, and now a tourism powerhouse, drawing people from all over the world. Without its security, Jordan is toast. I’m not sure how I could personally threaten Jordan’s security, but I’ll try not to step in that puddle. Second of all, don’t traffic drugs. Just don’t do it. Drugs are a serious, serious crime. Thirdly, do not insult the royal family.

So before I say anything else about Jordan, let me begin by introducing King Abdullah, the great, beloved leader of his Hashemite Kingdom, a visionary, benevolent ruler, and a descendent of the Prophet (peace be upon him) to boot. His wife, Queen Rania, in addition to being an international social justice activist pushing for education for the children of the world, human rights, and more opportunities for women, manages her own YouTube channel promoting understanding of Islam and the Arab World, is raising her children (one the king-to-be), and, well, is one of the most beautiful women gracing the face of the earth. Mere mention of her name usually elicits praises of her beauty, but I’m personally more impressed by her engagement with the international community. But that’s just me. So, from what I’ve heard, I don’t think I could say anything bad about the royal family even if I wanted to. Which is good, because if I wanted to, I couldn’t. So everything’s gravy, baby.

With that introduction and all housekeeping aside, let me get to that narcissistic blog thing where young twenty-somethings think aloud on the internets while hoping someone, anyone out there is listening. This post is already too long for anyone to read it but my parents, but considering this blog is largely for my family anyway, whatever. Deal.

Being not-broke while traveling is really weird. All my old survival mechanisms are still very much at the surface. The Fulbright gives us enough money to live. Not to get by, but live comfortably, but I still guard the bills in my pocket like they’re my last, forgetting that this country has tons of ATMs and I have a ton of money in my account.

When I was sixteen I went backpacking with Brock for three weeks. Mom and dad paid my ticket, and I paid the rest of the way. I am a living cliché: my backpacking trip to Europe changed me in ways I didn’t know it would. I wrote about it for my college application essays. Whatever, it worked. I’m grateful to have extensively traveled sooner than later. [Brock, I owe you. Come to Jordan.] Prior to my trip that summer I worked as a full-time lifeguard, a part-time dining room server, and the random-job-doing lawn cutter. I picked up private lifeguarding gigs. Every three Euro cup of coffee tasted like an hour in the guard chair, every 25 Euro stinky mattress I slept on felt like two dining-room seatings followed by a floor mop. I was thrilled to spend the money, to be sure, but with each purchase I was keenly aware of how a summer’s worth of savings was being translated into a three-week spree abroad.

I went to Turkey my first summer of college on a grant from my department to work at an archaeological dig site in the middle of nowhere. I learned that archaeology is fun, but mainly occurs in an academic bubble that rarely engages the real world, and hence is not for me (except for you, Rachel King, you somehow managed to save the world and dig up its bones at the same time). Academic money is also pretty flexible; I was able to take a week-long layover in Paris on both legs of my trip, and in total spend about a month traveling around on Stanford’s money. I saw lots of Turkey, Paris, and Barcelona, but I had to stretch my resources. I lived out of one backpack, and rationed my time, money, and space such that I only allotted myself something like seven cigarettes a day (a pack is like a dollar..), at one point tossed out a pair of running shoes to fit a hookah in my bag, and twos nights passed the time by sleeping in a train station or next to a boat on the Seine. “This Turkish beach is a dollar to get in. If I drink these liters of water, eat this apple and smoke cigarettes for lunch, I can tide myself over until the dinner included with my purchase of a place to pitch my tent. I will eat three plates and take bread for breakfast and an apple for tomorrow. Seven dollars for the day.” For me, these “sacrifices” paled in comparison to cutting my trip a week or two short.

Fast forward to 21. Burning out from being overcommitted at Stanford and wishing to add an “employable” skill to my beloved “Cultural and Social Anthropology” major, I decided I needed to live in the Middle East to bolster the Arabic skills I had been working on for two years. I had planned everything out just so, which included a lucrative summer job in mountain paradise in Northern California. But it turns out the job and I didn’t jive well at all, so I quit and bummed around San Francisco instead, ending up earning only enough for my one-way ticket and a couple hundred dollars extra. My parents tossed some money my way (thanks guys!), and I arrived in Yemen for an anticipated year with less than a grand and an unpaid internship to my name. I ate beans and rice, and turned down a lot of travel opportunities. Buying a new $4 pair of jeans was a haggling experience. “What do you want for Christmas?” my family asked. “Chap stick and money.” Thus I was able to extend my livelihood a little further and save my flaky lips. I took a second job at a newspaper, editing all their English as a Second Language (ESL) articles at hundred bucks a month, doing way more work than it was worth. As this money ran out, another employee left from my primary job, and I took over. I painfully argued with my boss for over an hour as to why I should receive the same pay and the same benefits. I thought for a lot of this discussion he was going to just fire me, but I didn’t relent. For me, it wasn’t really about principles, it was self-sufficiency or bust. I worked for a month in this new position and didn’t see the pay, because after some embassy bombing induced fear, some homesickness, and some discussions with home, I decided it was time to leave the Yemeni experiment behind. With housing, lunch 5x a week, and classes paid for, I stretched my funds as far as they could go while in Yemen. “Do I want the chicken, or should I save the $.50 for a weekend beer?” I almost always saved.

And here we are today. I got $5k just to “move in”. This covers my roundtrip ticket, hotel allowances until I found a suitable apartment, money for new linens, decorations, stereo systems, ergonomic desk chairs, work-clothes, and whatever other frivolities I could imagine. My instincts at the most primal level urge me to keep my apartment bare-bones. Most Fulbrighters are living in downtown, modern apartments, surrounded by local organic delicatessens and coffee shops with French names, whereas I am in a box of a room on the outskirts of town. I’ll spend an hour on busses to save a dollar or two instead of zipping to my destination in a cab. [But don't get me wrong, I love my apartment and my neighbors. I inherited a friendship group by taking this apartment over from a friend.]

I still only cook beans and rice and cheap vegetable salads. At (one dollar) lunch I ask my friends, “Are you going to eat that?” If not, I stick it in my bag and take it home. Partly I can’t stand seeing food go to waste, but partly I’m in survival mode still. This mode is comfortable to me. It has served me well over the years. Living in a garage this last year of college allowed me to avoid taking out more loans. Now, I still use the desk lamp when others might turn on the overheads. I shower in two minutes because water is scarce here, but also because I see every drop going down the drain as something I’m paying for. I wear the same seven shirts and four pairs of pants in a weekly rotation. I write my homework on the backside of old printouts, and the maps hanging on my wall stick there with the same tack I’ve used since freshman year of college. I have been raised to loathe waste, and I’ve come to my own conclusions regarding the value of frugality.

When I was shopping to stock my cabinets, I stared confusedly at the shelf of honey. “I already have sugar, and it’s fine in tea. But… I kind of want some honey.” I’ve had similar dilemmas repeatedly since I got here. I kind of want this thing, but my immediate impulse is to refuse and move on. A good cup of coffee would be great, but wouldn’t paying for a spot in the back of truck to the Syrian border be better? The flip side of valuing frugality is the odd sense of future loss that accompanies a present indulgence. What could these resources be used for later on? My brain hasn’t yet registered that the government considers me a Fellow, whatever that means, and is paying me handsomely to be so.

Fulbright has given me a lot. I don’t want to squander anything. I’m incredibly grateful for all I have been given to run with for the next year or so, and for all the experiences, support and mentors that have made this possible. Yes, this cup of tea next to my laptop has honey in it, but the Jasmine Green teabag is being brewed for the second time. Old habits die hard…