Monday, January 26, 2009

Commentary on the recent Gaza event...

Here’s a blog I forgot I had started to write and never posted regarding the situation with Gaza. Since it’s been almost a week since the fighting has halted, at least temporarily, and since I started my internship and have been briefly looking into a few aspects about Gaza I figure it’s worth updating and sharing.

For the last two days my boss had me look into psychosocial work in Gaza. It’s been quite depressing to come across a lot of the information about the casualties and how everyone else suffered, especially the kids. Psychosocial work addresses the trauma faced by living in a war zone. As a result of witnessing one or even all of their family members being beaten or killed, or their house- which should be a symbol of safety and security- being demolished by foreign forces, a large percentage of children have displayed signs of post traumatic stress syndrome and/or depression. I came across some pictures drawn by children in Gaza, when asked to draw by therapists, which displayed military aircraft or soldiers gunning/bombing people. I can’t even imagine the additional signs that the psychosocial workers find in the children.

On the January 20 World Health Organization Cluster Bulletin, it was estimated that 1300 people were killed, with around 5300 injured during the Israeli operation (lasting from December 27, 2008 – January 18, 2009). The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that up to 100,000 people were displaced. Also, as of January 14 approximately 500,000 people had no access to running water, and the rest of the population only had access for a few hours each week. The destruction was far worse, as the already infrastructure, already weakened by the blockade that was set up, was damaged even more.

While I was always safe here, especially with Jordan’s strong security, the situation with Gaza was pretty sad and had a lot of negative reactions. To share some perspective, here is a brief description of what I experienced here related to the situation in Gaza. People are really upset and the mood is down and hopeless. Since the initial air strikes there were several organized peaceful demonstrations throughout Amman. New Years parties were cancelled throughout the Amman (as well as other cities, such as Dubai) and the overall mood during the holiday season was rather solemn. I've had Jordanians here tell me they don't support Hamas and would not mind seeing them destroyed/disappear. But with the amount of collateral damage and the number of innocent deaths, people find this act as horrifically brutal, unjustifiable and often come to believe that Israel does not want peace at all with the Palestinians. I have had numerous graphically disturbing emails sent to me with pictures of some of the innocent casualties, among them babies, youth and women. When the argument that Israeli is defending itself against the rocket attacks of Hamas, people will often respond how ineffective the rockets have been. Compared to damages, the rockets have really done nothing compared to what this recent bombing of Israel has done to the entire Gaza population, which is estimated to be 1.5 million. Others have expressed that the desperate situation in Gaza leaves nothing else for the Palestinians to do. Since Israel left Gaza for the Palestinians, they put up a blockade where they were severely restricting what goes in and out of Gaza (including supplies and people). During the ceasefires, which I have been told rockets were still being fired, albeit in much less frequency, no progress was made to ease the blockade and allow for an improvement of life within the walls around Gaza. In my opinion I feel the rockets are still wrong and only hurt the Palestinian cause, but I also see the response of Israel was far too strong and in the end very destructive to the path to peace.

Overall the people here feel helpless and don't feel they can really do anything for their 'fellow brothers'. The Arab culture is unique in that the identity of being Arab exceeds national borders. There are so many cultural similarities between those all throughout the various Arab countries which I have witnessed in Egypt and Lebanon and among those from other Arab countries that I meet here. Since the Palestinians are part of the Arab culture, hurting them affects the rest of the Arabs in one way or another. For the more liberal Arab countries, Jordan specifically, a situation like this puts the government in a really tough spot where they must weigh their choice of actions carefully in siding with the West for the continued, essential economic support, and with the cries of the people for some type of action to help their fellow Arab brothers in dire need.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Internship and touring Jordan

As of last Sunday I have an internship! I will be an intern for People In Need, which is a Czech NGO. People In Need works in crisis areas around the world in relief and development. It works in over 40 countries. The office in Amman remotely works on projects in Southern Iraq- in the Basra, Misan and Thi-Qar provinces, which are the poorest in Iraq. Since a westerner can't go walking around the area there, and since there are a lot of Iraqi refugees in Jordan, the office hires Iraqis to do the implementation and training needed. One project manager has been waiting his resettlement approval; for the last 2 or 3 months he has been told "any day now". A Rotarian, Assil Bakki, knew the head of mission, Megan King, and put me in touch with her. I worked one day so far and will be really starting to work more starting this week.

Another Rotary Ambassadorial scholar that I met back in my scholarship orientation last March, Annelise Cohon (http://guesswhereiamtoday.blogspot.com/), came to visit with her friend. I hosted them at my place and showed them around. I was filled with a renewed feeling of excitement for being here, since life had become a rather dull routine. I reminisce back on the first several weeks in Jordan and how new and different somethings seemed. While every now and then there are new encounters that I haven't yet experienced, it is certainly less frequent. We went bowling in Amman, we toured the Jerash ruins, we saw the Desert Castles which was new for me as well as Mount Nebo (the site where Moses looked onto the promised land before dying) and then we took them down to meet up with a friend of mine in the Peace Corps, who they had met on the bus coming from Israel. They then went down to Petra and Wadi Rum before going back home. It was a nice and reassuring feeling to translate and communicate with the shop owners/tour guides/servers when they were here.

The desert castles were pretty interesting. They were mostly from the Umayyid era (7th-8th centuries). Many are beleived to have been made for recreational retreats. One was believed to be used as a shelter for some wanted to go hunting. Another was believed to be one of the first hotels in the area. One of the last castles we visited had a bedouin tent where we were all invited for a nice cup of tea and relaxing. The bedouin, Hakim I believe, was very friendly and shared some of the traditions with us, particularly with the meanings of the different ways to wear the kufiyeh. When a man wears it with the corners pulled up/wrapped up on top of his head, it means he is single and looking for a wife. If a married man wears it simply hanging on his head, with the black band holding it in place, it would mean he is happy with his wife. If he pulls it up to cover his face, it would mean he is unhappy with her. He told us if he takes it off he is probably going crazy by his kids or wife, wanting to rip his hair out! Now it is become a lot more of a fashion trend, so the reasons/moods of the person wearing it different ways may not be as it had once been. It was quite enjoyable and another highly recommended experience for those visiting Jordan. Below are some pictures of our trips:

Some goats on the way to the Dead Sea.
View that moses saw of the promised land before dying.
Mount Nebo,
Downtown Amman produce market.
Downtown Amman.
Desert castle/believed to be old hotel.
Hakim at his bedouin tent.
Well at a desert castle.
Desert Castle.
Desert castle.
Me, Annelise and Lindsay.
Me at a desert castle and the beautiful site.
Jerash view from apitheater.
Old Temple at Jerash.
Me at Jerash

Monday, January 12, 2009

Winter Break

Yesterday I had my last final. I feel really good about all of them. We had a speaking final where we had to just talk for a few minutes about the positives/negatives of Jordan so far; since it was such an open topic it wasn't too hard. Speaking has been my weakest point though, but it was the best speaking presentation in Arabic I've done so far. Other classmates even said I did a good job! Then I had a listening test where we listened to a story/paragraph from our book for 10 minutes or so on the Language Center's state-of-the-art tape players, and then answer questions. We had a small reading test for pronunciation and then finally, the hardest of all, the written. The written final, like the midterm, was a hit-or-miss since we learned countless words throughout the entire semester. Anyway, I put a lot of studying in for all of them and it definitely paid off. I'll get my grades in a few days. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do for the break now that school is out.

I went to the Bethany on the Jordan (the Baptism site) last Friday. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem was there, along with the Vatican Ambassador to Jordan as well as other major religious figures. There was a service followed by a procession to the river itself. At first it was closed to everyone but the Patriarch and some higher ups/alter boys who processed there; they came back with water from it and anointed everyone with branches dipped in the water. Omar and I waited and then they finally opened it up and we went down to it. It was a really nice place and amazing to think Jesus was baptized there so long ago. Here are some pictures: