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The Veil
August 7
I’m not sure why it always takes me by surprise the first time I see
a colleague who is normally “hijabed” (veiled) at the office, without the veil in her home. They always look younger and prettier without the scarf, and I think they really carry themselves differently
when they don’t have it on.
The Nanny has gone back to Amman to return to the American family, as was originally
planned. I felt I needed to stay in Aqaba a few more days for a couple key meetings,
and besides, its easier to work here since its quieter. So the office manager,
who has 2 young daughters, ages 6 and 8, offered my son to stay at her house with her kids and her nanny. On Saturday, we went over to their house so Omar could meet the kids and be familiar with the place before
I went into work on Sunday. Sure enough, my colleague answered the door in a
small, tight t-shirt and cropped jean pants, with her dark brown hair flowing down her back – completely different from
the veiled, button-ed up woman I kow from the office. In the office, I was estimating
her age to be late 30s, now I think she can’t be older than myself.
This weekend was some of the hottest weather we’ve had in Aqaba –
106-108 degrees. Yesterday the power went out from an overload on the power station. The heat really tires me out quickly.
Meetings
August 2nd
I’m seeing a man. I see
him several times a day. He stares at me with his piercing blue eyes, he’s
always smiling. He is a King. The
pictures of King Abdullah that hang as protocal in all government offices make me feel so familiar with this man, after 8
weeks of continous meetings in all sorts of government bureaucratic offices. Does
it sound like I’m bored sitting in these meetings? Sometimes I am, sometimes
I’m not. It depends how long it takes to draw people out and whether they
have a mantra they want to repeat on their vision of the world which is based solely on pre-judgements and not whether they
have closely analyzed the truth of it.
Diana is the CFO on the Iraq team, she’s the colleague
who shares my birthday. Diana and I have a lot in common, even though there’s
a 20 year age difference between us. One of my colleagues told her that I called
him a “monster”. Diana said to him, “Monster? Are you sure she used that word? I would expect her to call
you an asshole, not a monster!” She knows me well.
Anyway, I filled Diana in on my saga with my Jordanian colleague who spent
the weekend shouting and screaming at me and made me really doubt my abilities. Diana
knows this woman better than I do, or, let me say, she knows Jordanian women better than I do (all of her assistants in the
finance department are pretty unreliable, young Jordanian women). I told Diana
how desperate I was for any break, how I would really like to take 30 minutes and go have a pedicure. When I told Diana how my colleague treated me, she said, “Just go, take off of work, and get
your pedicure! Do you know that in Jordan I’ve discovered that Thursday
is the day to prepare for the weekend, and your colleague takes every Thursday off to go have her nails done?!” She told me she knew this as a fact.
Today I was in a meeting and was sick of staring at King Abdullah smiling down
on me from the wall, so my eyes wandered to my colleague’s hands and feet. They
were perfectly manicured. I’ve been working 10 hour days. I look and feel completely scrappy, all the way down to my toes.
A Drive 7/28/06
We had a beautiful drive back to Amman yesterday – it was relaxed, the company was
good, and the scenery was beautiful. We took the Dead Sea Road, which I’ve discovered is much nicer than the Desert Road. Driving is therapeutic in someway. I can get lost in the beauty of the sites around me and I find my mind wandering to
curious places. I think about whether my presence in this beautiful place is
pre-determined. I think about it what it would be like to live 500 KM north of here in the midst of a very unjust conflict. I wonder what’s happened to friends, old and new. I wonder if I’ll retrace these steps sometime in my future, with no work agenda, and what my life
will look like then.
Sulafa is a Sudenese woman who is working with me – she is becoming very
passionate about the work, and it really warms my heart to have somebody like that to share this with. She is also of the same mind as me in terms of preferring Aqaba over Amman. She lived in Yemen
for sometime, and also has the same appreciation for it as I do. She is also
very well knowledged in Islam, and I like having conversations with her about religion.
When I arrived in Amman,
Kimberly was eager to chat. She told me about her frightening time in Lebanon and how difficult it was for her. We talked about how since we are now mothers, these kind of events we always look at through the lens of
what it is like for children.
I really scared about all the work I have to finish in the next 2 weeks. I’m trying to not let that fear paralyze me.
Rough Week
7/23/06
It's really been a rough past 4 days. I developed a splitting migraine yesterday afternoon. No wonder, after
spending 3 days being screamed at by colleauges, partners, and my son.
The CHF rep from Amman came down to Aqaba - she always enters like a tornado. I call her "Queen Rana" (the Queen
of Jordan is Queen Rania) because she acts like she has some god-given right to demand everybody's uptmost respct even
though she has no ability to dish out respect herself. I wouldn't mind somebody screaming at me necessarily if they
actually got work done, but Rana doesn't - she doesn't work. I've never seen her put "pen to paper", she is completely
disorganized and spends so much of her energy letting everybody know that she's "in charge" that she has no time left over
to actually do anything about being "in charge". My strategy is to just ride out the storm for the 4-5 days she's in
town, let her act like she's in charge and the Queen, and then get back in the saddle myself once she leaves town.
This is the tough period. There always is one. There's a hump to get over. If there wasn't, it wouldn't
be work. I don't have my normal resources around me to help me unwind and re-energize my body and brain. The oppressive
heat locks me indoors all day. And when I am outside, I'm so covered up that all I do is sweat. It can feel pretty
lonely sometimes when the biggest battle is actually the one in my head.
My son tells me he loves me, and it seems to make everything OK again, for a moment.
Tea Time 7/21/06
My office in Aqaba is in the basement of a “house transformed into office
space”. I don’t mind being in the basement, it’s quiet and through the basement window I can even see the
sea. The office is right next to the kitchen.
There’s a guy who makes coffee and tea in the office and delivers it on a tray to each employee in the office,
that’s kind of the norm in developing countries. It’s very unskilled,
cheap labor. Back at HQ, a colleague and I were joking about how nice it would be to have a “tea boy” delivering
us tea to our offices. It’s an image that makes me laugh when I try
to compare norms that are so different in parts of the world.
I read in a book recently that the British expats in Africa believed that drinking tea
in hot climates helped prevent dehydration. They drank tea all day long (when
they weren’t drinking gin and tonics to prevent Malaria) and children were brought up on it. Tea (pronounced “sha'i”
in Arabic) is offered to guests, and based on the number of meetings I am conducting each day, I drink probably 5-7 cups.
But the poor “tea boy” at the office has a hard time figuring me
out in the mornings – sometimes its tea, sometimes its “American” coffee, other times Turkish coffee, but
always with a glass of water.
Yesterday, I slipped on the basement stairs and later in the day the “tea
boy” came up to me with a piece of black rubber and said, “Please give me your shoe and I will repair.” He had taken my $60 computer bag the day before and gotten it repaired for 50 cents
at a shoe maker, so I was more than happy to handover the shoe!
This morning he comes in to bring me my tea and he hands me a small, white
flower and says “for you, a beautiful smell.” I recognize the flower,
take a whiff, and it is the beautiful smell of jasmine. (reference – October 2005 blog).
I smile and tears come to my eyes. The partner who is sitting at another
desk in the office says, “See, Donna, there is hope for us Jordanians.”
An hour earlier we had been discussing how Jordanians rarely smile and seem like unhappy, unfriendly people. It’s true of all people, you have to get to know them to like them.
Breaking Point
7/18/06
I guess I reached my breaking point today.
After I got Omar’s breakfast ready, which consisted of cereal and a few
drops of milk shaken out of a near empty milk carton, I made a mental note, “buy milk.” A few minutes later the Nanny (Angel) comes to tell me, “We are out of milk and you knew so since
yesterday.” Was that an accusation?!
I told her, “I didn’t know we were out of milk yesterday, if you told me, and I knew, I would have bought
some yesterday.” She says, “Well, you heard Omar whining that he
wanted milk yesterday.” I wanted to scream!!! My kid whines about everything,
80% of it I block out. If per chance he was whining about milk and I heard him,
I must have assumed she was going to give him some and it was the end of the story.
And I make the assumption that since there is a milk carton in the fridge, there is milk, and we do not need any. At times like these I am so thankful I am no longer married.
Today I had an all out argument with one of the partners who’s been holding
back on signing their contract, has no deliverables yet for me, and asked me for an extension on their contract. I told them, “No extension until you give me the deliverables I asked for that are due on Thursday.”
He feigned misunderstanding of the contract, put the blame for the lack of signature on the contract on my lap (it’s
been with him for signature for 10 days), and threatened to walk away immediately while claiming “this is not about
the money.” I shot back at him, “One thing life has taught me is that as soon as somebody says “its not
about the money” it IS about the money.” I was a little too honest
for the good of this culture, and that was when I overstepped my boundaries. To
my credit, the other partner who was sitting in the room and witnessing this at the time told me later that he thought I handled
it all pretty well. They just have no clue what to do with an angry woman.
At the end of the work day, I really felt the need to “vent” to
somebody. I chose one of the colleagues who works with the organization that
has contracted CHF for this work. I’ve known the guy three weeks and for
the first two, I couldn’t “figure him out” – usually I’m pretty good at figuring out people
and what makes them tick, its how I get my work done in this line of business.
All I know now is I should have listened to my gut which says “if you can’t figure somebody out, don’t
trust them.” So, I go to him and tell him sincerely that I just need a
friendly ear to listen to me (I have nobody else!). He spent 90% of our 30 minute
conversation talking and pursuing his own agenda and not listening to me. His
opening statement is, “I should be transparent with you, I went to my director and told him I had a concern because
I didn’t see the team lead (meaning ME) engaging in constant communication with her team partners like I think she should
be doing.” I nearly blew my stack!!! But I just kept a smile on my face
while strings of profanities ran through my head.
I will say it again, I am an introvert.
Which means, I do not engage in “unnecessary” conversation. I
meet at least twice a day, every day with each partner – 9am and 4:30 pm where we go over workplans and deliverables
for the day. It is a maximum 20 minute conversation. I send at least a half dozen
email communications to these partners every day. I am not going to be sitting holding their hands, talking constantly over a cup of coffee. I’ve got too much work to do. Now, this guy isn’t
even in his office at 9am. I told him that I am communicating quite frequently,
if he would like I could include him in all of it, and, if I may be so bold, “If I were him, I’d spend more time
concentrating on the quality of the deliverable than worrying about how the work is getting done,” as that is my job
that we were contracted to do. (What I wish I would have also said is, “Why did you go to your boss instead of come
to me first to express this?” ) He said he was “just being loyal” to his employer by making sure they get
what they’re paying for. Loyal? This
is the same guy who the second day I had known him handed me his resume and told me he was looking for a new job. If I really had the time and energy to be ill-willed, I would have gone to the Director asking him why one
of his staff members is approaching ME for a job?
The background is that the Director asked us all to do a presentation for him
and the staff this week on what we have accomplished thus far, I’m really happy to do this because until now I haven’t
received enough feedback from him, and it will also enable me to push the partners to deliver on time. This guy was telling me that he wanted me to know that the impetus for the meeting was the comments he
made to the Director.
At the end I was definitely more frustrated then when I had walked into his
office. I totally think he is trying to undermine my work and sow the seeds of
doubt in me. He has me figured out, I’ll give him that much credit. I haven’t figured out why yet, maybe it’s
just a basic insecurity he feels, but I learned my lesson and am now staying away from him. The truth is I have no desire
to please him, but am concerned about keeping the Director happy, not only because I want CHF to walk away from this with
a good reputation, but also because the Director is an extremely bright, kind, reasonable individual and really cares about
the community of Aqaba. I haven’t worked for somebody like that in a long
time.
The Way of the World
7/16/06
I'm still pre-occupied by what's happening in the region. I try not to watch too much TV (yes, finally found CNN
on the satellite system). I'm not a TV junkie by nature, but to go from having no cable TV in the States (where
I never have time to watch anyway) to a full 600+ channels of mostly Arabic stations, I could become a BBC/CNN addict quickly!
At least there are a lot of other diversions here, such as the beach - Omar and I spent most of the weekend in the water.
Kimberly is still in Beirut, but they're trying to get her out.
Omar sees me watching TV, he hears me talking about the daily events and asks what is happening.
A friend with a son the same age as Omar writes to tell me she is planning to soon launch a sexual education program
with her son (given some questions he's been asking recently) and she's not looking forward to starting this at
such a young age. I'm trying to figure out how to delicately explain the reality of world politics to my son who is
asking a lot of questions about what and why things are happening. I don't want to lie (I could tell him everything
is fine but then he would wonder why I have that worried look on my face, he's too smart these days to believe a lie),
I don't want to say anything that will form prejudices in his mind, I want him to know the facts but I don't want him to be
scared. When I tell him I'm worried because Quinn's mommy is stuck in Lebanon because people are fighting, he says he's
worried that Quinn won't get his Mommy back. He devises a plan to go get Quinn's mommy - flying in a hot air baloon
to remove her from the "cage". I suggest we ask the people to stop fighting and start talking.
Omar is Muslim, or will be brought up so by his father - whatever time or intention his father wants to give to
that cause is still in question. Through my family Omar will be exposed to Catholicism. As both an American and
the son of a mother who travels internationally, Omar will be exposed to the whole gammit of religions - Judiasm, Hinduism,
Islam (sunni and shia'),etc.. More worrisome, he will be exposed to lots of opinions, prejudices and judgements. I want
him to be capable of thinking for himself, analyzing the facts, and coming up with his own opinion.
The Nanny tells me that "all this" is pre-determined - "It is written in the Bible that there will never be peace in
Israel." I tell her maybe it was written because God wants us to try to do some good by trying to bring peace to the
region. She looks puzzled and shuts up.
I cringed when I heard the news last week that Shia'a militas in Baghdad were pulling over people and executing those
with a Sunni surname. Omar is a Sunni surname - a fact I didn't actually learn until quite recently. People of
all faiths have told me how much they love the name Omar, I can't believe how much I hesitated giving him that name when he
was born, now I love it too.
Regional Issues Again
7/14/06
He picked up the phone, didn’t even say “hi” and the first
words out of his mouth before I could speak were, “She’s fine, don’t worry.” I chuckled, how was it that he knew me for such a short time, and through thousands of miles away he could
tell exactly the reason why I was calling? I admitted that it was one of my “meddling”
calls that I couldn’t help. In fact, I knew she was fine, I had just spoken with her, I just wanted to touch base with
HQ on what was happening with our personnel in Lebanon.
The events in the region in the past few days make me sick to my stomach. I was in Lebanon, specifically
southern Lebanon in 1999 when daily bombings by Israel were still the norm. One of
my best friends in the world is a Lebanese woman from Bekka, I had visited her home and her family in Bekka in 1999. A year ago we met in Beirut, a new revitalized, beautiful,
thriving Beirut, and spoke about how far Lebanon
had come in its 6 years of peace. Out of personal interest, I’m well read
in the history of the Lebanese civil war, in both the historical and personal accounts of what happened before, during and
after. It worries me to think what could happen to that country again.
I couldn’t reach Kimberly by phone this afternoon, I felt like just talking
to her about all the craziness that was happening because she worked there last year, she has Lebanese colleagues that work
on her program, and a few of her Iraqi staff were in Beirut for training this week.
When I was unable to get through to her, I text message-d her. She called
me back immediately and the first thing she says to me is, “Thank God I didn’t bring Quinn (her 9 month old son)
with me!” I gasped – “WHAT?!
Are you in Lebanon?! What the heck are you doing in Lebanon
and where is Quinn?!” She had tried last weekend to go to Lebanon for 2 days to meet with her staff face to face, but
couldn’t book a flight. Her son’s father is in Amman this week, so
she decided yesterday morning to leave her son with him, and take a 24 hour trip to Lebanon (its 30 minutes by flight, and
easy to go back and forth from Amman in a day). Well, her 24 hour trip has now
become a bit of an exile, hopefully short-termed. I can’t imagine being
stuck in a country and unable to get to my son.
Only a few of my colleagues at HQ know how much I care for my colleagues on
the Iraq team – Kimberly, Diana, Rana, Nael, Ahmad, Abeer, Janet. Its nice
to be removed from the day to day operations of those programs, but I still care for their well-being tremendously.
It’s the small things 7/11/06
Not those small things that I get pleasure out of, those small things that
drive me nuts. I bumped my head on the car frame 4 times this morning getting
Omar and myself in and out of the car…what, did I grow 2 inches overnight or something?
It’s the Koranic music the neighbor plays loudly at 5am…is that really necessary, does God hear worse at
5am that necessitates the music to be played so loudly. It’s having to
stop at each of the only 2 traffic lights in Aqaba in the morning when bringing Omar to the beach…why can’t they
synch those two lights? It’s stalling the manual shift car three times
this morning on my way to work.
I’m one of the few Americans I know of my generation who can drive stick. I was telling Omar’s Nanny this and she asks me, “Oh, Do you own a Mercedes
in the States?” I thought
she was making a sarcastic dig, but then I realized she was dead serious…she really thinks I drive a Mercedes! I drive a 96 Toyota Corolla that is only good for my 10 mile circuitous
and very local daily commute. I’ve been fantasizing about replacing the
car for the past 6 months, but I can’t afford it. Just proves the point
again that pervasiveness of the global image that “all Americans are rich”. What
would they think if they met Americans who were really far worse off than myself?
Anyway, I know when I get annoyed by all those small, stupid things, that it
is the red light going off to indicate I have an “empty fuel tank”. I’ve been going at a frantic pace for a good long while. I have had no break from it. And the demands on my time and
the demands for me to be completely “on” for work, my son, etc. are just draining my supply. I have no “me” time, no “down” time (ok, my 7 hours of sleep each night when I
dream about work?). This morning as I was waking up in the darkness, I had a
moment when I had no clue where I was – Amman, Aqaba, a hotel room in west Africa, home, which home?– why is the
A/C buzzing I thought? What is that god-awful music I hear in the background?!
Shifting Sands
7/9/06
Arrived back in Aqaba last night after a stressful three and a half hour drive. Omar did pretty well, but the traffic
was a bit of a nightmare - a 2 lane highway with speedbumps, no shoulders, and lots of truck traffic. The scenery
is beautiful though (see Aqaba photos). I was stopped once by the traffice cops (they line the entire highway),
I knew I wasn't speeding when he stopped me. He took a look at my American passport, and just waved me on. At
times like that, I pretend I don't speak a word of English, that helps. If I start to speak Arabic than they get suspicious
that I'm half Arab-half American and start pestering me...so has been my experience. And I purposefully never show them
Omar's passport unless they ask for it -when they see his name it also raises all kinds of questions (who's his father, is
he Jordanian, where's your husband?).
I'm happy to be back in Aqaba, though. It feels a little more like home than Amman now and I need to feel that
I'm some place like home. I'm going through major feelings of self-doubt at the moment. Maybe its normal, being
so far away from my real home where I have a good base of supportive people around me. Maybe its the fear I feel in
face of this important task that lies at my feet. I feel its too much responsibility for me, and I day dream about being
back home with no responsibility. Or, maybe its Omar's periods of defiance recently that make me feel like a wholly
crappy mother who does not enjoy her own child.
It's always difficult for me to just accept these periods as only shifting sands of feelings that will change as quickly.
I get scared of getting caught and lost in these dark periods of self-doubt. I fear more will be required of me than
is mentally possible in moments like this. I fear I will never regain my focus and positive energy.
Back in Amman
7/6/06
Now that I have lived in another place in Jordan, I can objectively say that I do not like Amman. Let me also say again,
I do not like Amman especially in the summer. The best and only good thing about Amman in the summer is the weather
- never too hot, never too cold. Other than that it is loud, crowded and impolite. Please, take me back to civilized
Aqaba!
Last night, I arrived within Amman's city boundaries at 7:30 PM. It took me 20 minutes to go the 4km from a central
intersection to Omar's Nanny home. The trip from there to a small neighborhood grocery store took another 20 minutes,
and was punctuated by continual car horns, people cutting me off, and several accident scenes. When I finally arrived
to the house, I felt like kicking my shoes off and just thanking the heavens for arriving into a haven of peace. But
those thoughts were pounded out of my head by the continual explosions of fireworks that are launched nightly for weddings.
And I'm not talking about pyrotechnics that are launched at a safe distance, I'm talking about large, thunderous displays
that are ignited 1 block from the house. I couldn't believe Omar slept through it.
I crawled in bed about 11pm only to be awoken less than 30 minutes later by the banter of young children (yes, young
as in under the age of 10) outside my window -one child was continuously yelling something, and the other was engaging in
the most annoying whistling. Finally, well after midnight, a male neighbor (maybe their father?) came out of his house
yelling at the kids. The kids continued to yell at the old man and taunt him. Then I heard the old man yell, "Allah
Akbar (god is great!)" and that was followed by a series of thuds, a few subdued yells, and then the streets were silent.
I'm convinced the old man engaged in some form of corporal punishment, but I was thankful for the silence.
Happy Fourth of July
7/4/06
It's not a holiday for me, I wish it was. I wish I didn't have to work. But I only have 20 days to finish
the critical part of this assignment until we move to the slower, writing part of the work.
I woke up this morning thinking about how lucky I was with this assignment. There are basically no money, no cultural,
no institutional and no political barries to what I propose - this is what its like to work with the private sector?! I love
it! I really expected to walk into something that would have barriers up at every turn and I'd be working hard at putting
a strategy together that fit into somebody else's well defined box...it is not the case, not the case at all. And this
makes me very happy.
What I can say in Arabic
7/3/06
When people ask me how good my Arabic is, I always hesitate when I answer. I can understand about 75-80% of a conversation
and I can speak a lot more than just basic greetings. But although I learned all the different verb forms, I never even
attempt to use them properly (there's over 10). These are some phrases I have used recently:
"I have the number for the house that your mother asked for yesterday"
(talking to my neighbors daughter because my neighbor has decided she wants to move into my apartment when we leave)
"I will be at the office at 12, I am not there now, I am at the Syriah office in a meeting, but I wish you safe travels
and will see you at 12, for sure."
(talking to one of our partners who called on the cell to let me know they were on their way to Aqaba)
"Excuse me, another plate"
(out at a restuarant when they only brought one plate to the table for me, but not for Omar)
Omar's also gaining some confidence with Arabic. A few weeks ago, he translated to me what somebody was telling
me. I didn't ask him to do that, since I understood what the person was telling me, but he did it spontaneously.
Then yesterday he says to one of my Jordanian colleagues, "Do you know how to say fish in Arabic? You say "Samak". It
was pretty funny.
Single Mothers
7/1/06
There are a lot of us out there, that’s what I've discovered. Odd to imagine now that at one time I felt like the only one in the world.
A few days ago, I walked in the door from work and Angel, Omar’s nanny,
asked me if Omar could play with the girl upstairs. She told me her name was
Sara and she was around 7-9 years old. Since Omar is a kid who absolutely thrives
when he’s around other kids, no matter what their age, I said it wasn’t a problem…as long as they played
in our apartment. I didn’t want to send off my son to an apartment of people
that were complete strangers to me. The only thing Angel knew was that the family
had lived in Aqaba for 2 years, but didn’t know if they were Jordanian or not.
So Sara played with Omar a couple of days, and she always had a big smile,
and Omar was obviously enjoying her company. Then one evening, the mother was
going out with a few of the other kids, and we met at our gate and she was so friendly, spoke a little English, and smiled
a lot. I knew immediately that she couldn’t be Jordanian. But before I sent Omar up to play at her place, I wanted to know if/who there was a man in her house.
Last night, she was up all night with her kids cleaning – and no exaggeration,
all night! I heard noise until well past midnight. But when I started hearing movement upstairs again this morning, Omar and I went up and we were invited
in. Then I got the story….she’s a 31 year old widow. She’s originally from Jerusalem (aha, a Palestinian, that explains the friendliness!)
and her husband was Jordanian. They lived in Amman and her
husband was killed in a car accident 8 years ago. She has three children –
a boy (14) named Ali, a girl (13) named Heba and Sara (7). She moved to Aqaba
2 years ago because her family (parents, sisters) is all here.
I was completely stunned, as I have never met an Arab single mother living
alone with 3 kids. And here she is, doing it so cheerfully and so welcoming to
top it off!
Around 6pm, after Omar had finally calmed down from a 40 minute public tantrum,
I get a phone call from Kimberly who doesn’t sound good. I never know with
Kimberly if its work or personal related. Then she tells me that her Nanny, Karen,
who was tremendous with her son Quinn, has left her with little/no notice. And Kimberly sounds like she’s at the end
of her rope –work isn’t going well, her relationship with Quinn’s father (long distance) isn’t going
well, and “now this”. I told her I was surprised she hadn’t
run off and disappeared.
Kimberly and I were talking about, “We don’t know how we do it,
its not a choice, its just a necessity.” I sometimes hate that I have no choice
about it. This weekend left me feeling like a horrible mother.
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