Journey to Jordan

Sunday is the first day of the working week over here, which means that they’re just like Mondays in the states.  Once you’re through with work/school, you really don’t have much motivation to get out and do anything.  It’s back to the grindstone, and you’re having withdrawals from whatever you were doing on the weekend.

I was ready to go back home and do nothing for the rest of the day.  However, there was one little problem.  We have these language learning journals that we’re supposed to fill out daily, and one of the requirements for these journals is that you get in two hours of speaking time.  Crap.

So I came out of the language center, and I saw this mixed group of Arabs, Europeans, and Americans out on the steps, just hanging out and talking.  I noticed a few of my Arab friends that I haven’t hung out with in a while, and so I thought “hey, here’s an opportunity to at least get in half an hour before I head back.”

These Arab friends are pretty cool.  They like to hang out in the language center because they’re all learning different languages, and most of them speak English fairly well–but not so well that they don’t need help.  It’s a perfect tradeoff: we help them with their English, and they help us with our Arabic.  They’re generally always around, which means that it’s really easy to just walk up and say hi.

So there I was, hanging out with these Arab kids, speaking a mix of English and Arabic, when one of them says “Hey, there’s a book fair going on down by the jusr iz-zara’!  Let’s go check it out!”

If you know anything about me, you know that I LOVE books.  Pound by pound, I think I own as many books as I own anything else.  Bookstores are like black holes that suck me in and never let me out.  since I didn’t have anywhere else that I needed to be, I was all for checking it out.

To put this all in context, you’ve got to understand that different kinds of specialties attract different kinds of people.  Once you’ve chosen a major and become embedded in it, you start to notice that you have a LOT in common with all the other people who’ve made the same choice as you.  For that reason, you tend to understand these people more than people who are doing other things in their lives.  I’m not an Arab, and there are all kinds of things about Arab culture that I don’t understand, but I do understand the kind of personality type that tends to be attracted to language studies.  For that reason, it was REALLY easy for me to hang out with these Arab kids from the language center.  There was this connection that we had that made it easy to understand each other, even though we come from completely different cultures and backgrounds.  Honestly, I felt just like I was hanging out with my friends back home, the connection was that good.

On the way down, we got onto the subject of terrorism, and I found out that this one girl is from Zarqa and knows the family of Al-Zarqawi fairly well (remember Al-Zarqawi?  He was the second in command of Al-Qaeda–before a US missile killed him in Iraq.  I’m not going to lie: that was a happy day.)

She started talking about how she doesn’t think that Al-Qaeda is all that we make it out to be, that the Zarqawi’s are good people and she thinks that the US government is just making up a bunch of stuff up to make people look like terrorists who really aren’t.  All the people in the media are just liars and the Jews have got their fingers in everyone’s pie.

The thing that made this so funny was that this was NOT some backwards girl who was totally alien to me.  In fact, of all the people in this group, I felt that I could read her better than any of the others.  She’s way friendly, too, and loves to talk about all kinds of stuff.  She’s a lot like my sister Kate, in fact.

I could tell that we had some serious differences and weren’t going to agree on anything, so I diffused things by talking in vague generalities and changing the subject in subtle ways.  It worked, but not before we had an interesting talk about how you should never make an argument without having the logic to back it up.

From there, I got to talking with Uthman, this European student from Turkey who’s out here studying Arabic.  He’s actually attending a university in Virginia, and we got on a very interesting discussion about Israel (the modern state of Israel) and the Bible.  This got on to an even more interesting discussion about freedom of speech in American universities, and how ideologically restrictive the academic atmosphere is back in the states.  We were exactly on the same page.  Use the word “Palestine” instead of “Israel” and you’re slammed as an anti-semite, even if you’re describing the occupied territories that legally belong to the future Palestinian state.  Disagree ideologically with your professors and speak what you really believe, and these east coast institutions will find all sorts of creative ways to punish and silence you.  This, of course, gave me the perfect opportunity to talk about how that’s TOTALLY not the case at BYU–that you can speak your mind, criticize Israel, disagree with your professors, and your opinions will be heard and valued, even when people disagree with them.  It’s true, too–BYU is probably one of the most moderate universities in the United States, even though (ironically) it’s located in the middle of the reddest state on the map.  That tells you something about how “open minded” the self-proclaimed liberals are, doesn’t it?  But I’m getting sidetracked.  Needless to say, it was a VERY enjoyable little discussion.

We climbed up the hill to this book fair, and the first girl I was talking with started acting all melodramatic about how far away this place was, how difficult it was to walk there, etc.  This, of course, opened up the perfect opportunity to tease her about how “baykha” she was, but I think she was asking for it.  So we had this speedwalking race and had a fun time just joking around all the way up to the top of the hill.

The book fair was AWESOME.  I’m DEFINITELY going back tomorrow.  There were representatives from all sorts of Arab publishers, including some Saudi foundation that was giving out copies of the Qur’an with the English and Arabic text side by side.  High quality stuff, too–I’ve seen copies this good going for eleven and twelve JD in town.  They were giving them out for FREE.  Besides that, I got a copy of Khalil Jibran’s The Prophet, with the English and Arabic texts side by side (ahhhh!  I’m in heaven!).  There was TONS of other stuff, too.  It was REALLY cool just to wander around and check it all out!

I was browsing around with this girl from Zarqa, and I learned that she’s really well read.  We passed a stack of Danielle Steele novels, and she asked me all about the romance genre back in the states.  I told her that it’s really popular, even though some of the stuff can be really trashy, and started pointing out some Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte as the higher quality stuff.  Turns out, she’s already read almost everything that those two authors wrote!  We stumbled upon a bunch of literary books in English, and she was all over them (”ooh, it’s Chekhov!  I love Chekhov!”), and as we passed the tables full of literary books by Arab writers, she would pull out different ones and say “this is SUCH a good writer!” or “I read this one, but I HATED it!”

One of the books that she pulled out that she really liked was actually a translation from Spanish into Arabic.  The title is “the motorcycle diaries” or something like that, and it’s basically the autobiography of Che Guevara.  I asked about it a little further, and found out that Che Guevara is one of her heroes.  Che Guevara–that communist Cuban who’s picture is so fashionable among rebellious American teenagers who have no clue who he is or what he did.

I don’t know why, but Che Guevara is AMAZINGLY popular out here in the Middle East.  His picture is everywhere.  Even when I was walking around in Kerak, we passed a bookstore with his picture up on the window.  Practically every hat shop in the open air markets of Egypt has a cap with his picture on the front of it.  Imagine as popular as he is in the states and multiply that by five, and that’s the Middle East.  It’s actually kind of funny.

A little while later, we saw a book with a swastika on it, and she pointed to it and said, “ooh, that’s bad.” Naturally, I agreed, but I wanted to draw her out so I asked about it.  She said “yeah, the nazis were really evil–but I don’t think Hitler himself was all that bad.  His autobiography, Mein Kempf, was REALLY good.  He was a man who really struggled to make his way and be his own man.”

Mein Kempf?  The book that launched Hitler and the Nazi party to power???  Holy cow!

This reminded me that I recently saw a copy of Mein Kempf translated in Arabic.  Guess where I found it?  Safeway.  That’s right–safeway, the American grocery store.  It was so surprising that I actually took a picture and put it up on my photoblog.

I told her how Hitler is considered as evil as Satan himself back in the states, which she found really surprising.  This attracted the attention of on of the other language center girls, who jumped into the conversation and said that she had read Mein Kempf as well–and that she really liked it too.  They both felt that Hitler was grossly misunderstood, and that he wasn’t nearly as bad as we make him out to be.

CRAZY.

It was quite an interesting hanging out with these Arab kids, discussing politics and literature and getting a feel for the way they see the world.  We all had a really good time hanging out together and ended on a really good note, so don’t worry–there were no fights, no arguments.  It was really fun, and I always felt completely comfortable around them, despite our differences.  However, it was incredibly fascinating to see how WILDLY different their ideas about the world were from my own.  What kind of a person has Che Guevara as a hero?  What kind of a person feels that Hitler was misunderstood?  I think I can count on the fingers of one hand how many friends I have back in the states who see things that way!

The thing that made it really fascinating, however, was how well we got along even though we had these tremendous political differences.  Honestly, I felt like I was hanging out with some of my longtime friends.  I felt like we all understood and connected with each other really well the whole time.  Surprisingly well, in fact.  I wasn’t expecting someone I understood so well to hold to a point of view that I hardly understand at all.  It was just wild.

At the same time, it’s kind of comforting to know that we could get along so well.  It shows that politics and political ideology, while it’s important, isn’t everything.  You can still be friends with people who have wildly different opinions from yourself.  In the end, that’s really good to know.

[I had some free time before class, so I sat down at one of the computers to write a post for my writing blog, which I haven’t updated for some time. I was really surprised, though, because when I sat down to write the post, something completely different started coming out. About three paragraphs in, I decided that this post would better belong on this blog.]

I’m having a great time out here in the Middle East, but I have to admit that I’m starting to feel a little bit tired and ready to come home. In that context, writing fiction is kind of hard, because it can quickly turn into a drug that keeps you from having to face the daily challenges and frustrations that come when you study abroad. Writing is a very solitary activity, and if you want to get away from everything, writing is one way to do it.

That said, I do think that balance is possible. I have goals here in Jordan, things that I’m working on. I’m putting myself out there and going to new places all the time. I’ve also merged my creative writing with my study abroad experience in such a way that the two can really support and build off of each other. Instead of focusing on science fiction story ideas, I’ve focused a lot on my travel blog, and I think that’s helped a lot.

At the same time, writing fiction is something that I do–it’s a part of who I am and what I want to be. I don’t want to completely drop that while I’m here in Jordan, so I have some projects that I’m working on.

In 2009, the World Fantasy Convention is going to be held in San Jose, where I served my mission, and I plan on attending. The convention is known as one of the premier places to meet publishers, agents, editors, and people who are willing to look at (and possibly buy) manuscripts of sci fi / fantasy novels. My goal is to have three published novels with me when I arrive, and a list of editors and agents who have recently bought similar stories. Here are the three projects that will probably turn into the novels I’ll take with me:

The Lost Colony

The first one, which has the working title The Lost Colony (I know, I need to change it–sounds too much like Scalzi’s The Last Colony) is the sci fi novel that I finished this April. It’s the first complete novel that I’ve written, which means that it’s more of a practice novel than anything else. Too many aspiring writers have a pet project that they work and rework to the exclusion of everything else, and that is NOT what I want to do. That said, even though the rough draft is pretty rough and needs a lot of polishing, I really do believe in this story. It’s going to require a lot of work, but I think I can rewrite the second draft before January and get it to the point where I feel comfortable sending it out.

For the past three months I’ve been letting it sit on my hard drive without really touching it. The idea was that by spending some time away from it, I’ll be able to approach it with a fresh perspective after the summer is over. I’ve realized, however, that a lot of the work that I need to do has to do with worldbuilding, which takes a lot of time. Because of that, I’ve decided to reread the rough draft–all 168,000 words of it–while I’m here in Jordan. There will be NO editing whatsoever–the goal is just to reread it so that the story is fresh in my mind.

I have to admit, it’s hard to resist the urge to edit! I can see that there is a LOT of stuff that I need to change. At the same time, I can also see what’s good and what works. I’m a discovery writer, which means that I tend to figure out the story as I write it, so I’m going to have to cut a lot of unnecessary descriptions out of this text, but overall I think that it is very possible to polish this up and make it work.

So, instead of rewriting the story as I read it, I’m keeping a to do list in a separate file, so that when I see something big that needs changing, I can put down a note to myself to do that. In this way, I’m focusing more on the overall story and how I think about it than on the particulars of any given part of the narrative. Inshallah, when the fall starts, I’ll be in a good position to jump right into the second draft.

Genesis Earth

This is the project that I’d set out to do at the beginning of the summer. It’s the one that I was doing for English 318 in winter 2008, and the one that was on the back burner while I finished The Lost Colony. My plan was (and still is) to finish the rough draft before the fall semester begins in fall of 2008.

This is the one that I’m worried will distract me from the study abroad.  So far, I’ve either been focusing so much on learning Arabic that I haven’t written much in this one, or I’ve been spending so much time writing this one that I haven’t been getting out enough.  My goal right now is to average about 2,500 words a week until I get home in August (and can raise that goal up to 10,000 or 12,000), but there are a couple of challenges with that.

First of all, 2,500 words is not that hard for me.  This past weekend, I took a break from touring and spent Saturday completely engrossed on my writing: in my journal, for this blog, and for my novel Genesis Earth.  I worked at a relaxing pace for about three hours on the novel and got down about 2,500 words.  Back in the winter, when I was writing The Lost Colony, I would regularly write about 1,500 words a day.  Getting to 2,500 words a week is not the problem: the problem is limiting myself to 2,500 words a week.

A further challenge to this is the fact that writing gets harder every day that you put it off.  If you’re making progress each day in the story that you’re writing, you build up momentum which makes it easier to sit down and write the next day.  If you take two or three days off and don’t work on your story in that time, you lose that momentum and it’s really hard to pick it back up again.  I discovered this on Saturday when I picked up Genesis Earth again–I hadn’t written much in it for a few weeks, and it was really hard to get the story moving again.

I think the key here is to set aside a couple of days each week and do my writing then.  I won’t have the same momentum I had for The Lost Colony (where I was writing almost 1,000 words daily), but I’ll have enough that I can keep things going.  If I confine my writing to two or three sessions weekly, I’ll keep myself from withdrawing too much from the language experience, which is also good.  It’s hard to find the right balance and stay there, but with three weeks left in the program I think I can do it.

And honestly, this whole balancing act is REALLY good practice for real life.  I want to keep writing after I graduate, but not for a full time job (not at first, at least).  That means balancing work, church, and family with my writing.  At this point in my life, I’ve only got church and school to balance, so it’s easier to dedicate more time to my writing and do it daily.  If things are only going to get busier, however, that means that I’m going to have to learn to reign myself in.  This study abroad has been an excellent experience for practicing that.

Untitled

I call the last project “untitled” because I haven’t started writing it and I don’t yet have a title that sounds quite right.  The closest I’ve come to giving it a title was Exodus to the Stars (which may become the working title just by default), but it doesn’t sound quite right.

This project is in the planning stage right now, which means (since I’m not a very structured writer) that it’s just a bunch of ideas floating around in my head that will hopefully congeal at some point into something solid.  This is one of the funnest parts of writing: all the daydreaming and coming up with new ideas before you actually set anything down on paper.

This story started to come to me back in the winter, but so far it’s been just a collection of scenes, ideas, and worldbuilding details.  I have an idea for a main character and the main conflict, but so far neither of those really stand out to me.  I’ve got most of the ideas that I think I need, so right now I’m waiting for something to ignite a spark that gets me to start writing.

Coming out here to the Middle East has been really helpful because it’s given me lots of additional ideas that I can work with.  For example, when we were touring Petra and learning about the Nabateans, how their civilization rose and fell, I thought to myself: “What would a Nabatean-ish culture look like in space?” and that gelled together a few other ideas that I’ve had.

I haven’t really been mining my experiences here in Jordan for story ideas–not yet, at least–but I’m sure that it will influence and show through in my writing.  That’s why I think it’s a good thing to have the beginnings of a story floating around in my head while I’m out here: it’s something that this experience can more directly influence.

Because this story is still just floating around in my head, I can’t really describe it in a way that makes much sense.  Anyone who knows me know that my natural, unfiltered thought process is impossible to follow–even I admit as much. While it hasn’t come together in a really definite way yet, I think it’s starting to get there.  Hopefully, after nanowrimo 2008, I’ll be in a position to pick it up and run with it.

So that’s what I’m working on right now, when it comes to creative writing.  Honestly, even though it’s been difficult to balance between the study abroad and my writing, I do think that I’ve hit something of a balance.  I’ve been having an amazing and memorable learning experience out here in Jordan, while at the same time making progress in my writing.  While on a daily and weekly basis it sometimes feels like I’m off balance, I can see that I’m still at a point where my goals in both areas are still compatible and reachable.  I haven’t been focused on one at the expense of the other, and I think that when the summer ends and fall begins, I’ll be satisfied with the progress I made.  What’s better, I’ll be able to keep moving forward in both areas of my life, and that’s the most important thing.

A little while ago, I realized something scary: I have no idea where the last six months of my life before this study abroad have gone.

It’s not like I didn’t accomplish anything in that time.  I completed a lot of schoolwork, took some really difficult classes, had some really good times with my friends, wrote the rough draft of a 168,000 word novel, faithfully updated my photoblog every day, held a leadership position in Quark, BYU’s sci fi / fantasy club, and did a whole lot of other stuff.

When I look back at it all, however, it just feels like the last couple of semesters are a void in my memory.
For every other semester, I could point to some sort of landmark experience and say “that was that time in my life”–but for the last two semesters, my mind just draws a blank.  It feels almost as if I was coasting during all that time–things happened and I just kept on the same path, stuck in the same ruts without really growing much.

I think it’s really significant that I realized this while I was here in Jordan.  There are a LOT of things about study abroad programs that set them apart from real life.  For one thing, they take you away from the world you know and drop you in an entirely different place with an entirely different culture.  You’re separated from family and some of your closest friends, so you have to put yourself out there and meet new people.  Every day is full of challenges and frustrations, as well as some really cool and memorable experiences.  You see and learn things that you never would have been exposed to, had you stayed behind.  Unless you try really hard to avoid it, study abroad experiences can really change your life.

I came to Jordan expecting to learn a lot about the language and culture of the Middle East.  That certainly has happened, but some of the most meaningful things I’ve taken the most from the program have very little to do with any of that.  I’ve found that this study abroad experience has really helped me to take a long, introspective look at myself as a person, especially the areas of my life that I’ve been needing to work on for some time.

I won’t spend a lot of time talking about my personal flaws here on this blog.  I’ve already written about them at some length in my personal journal, and I don’t think it would really help me to air all of that out here in a public space.  We all have flaws, and even though we all might have different kinds, we all know what it’s like to deal with them, to struggle with overcoming them to become better people.  I’ll be the first one to admit my own–at least, I hope so.  I really do try.

Before coming out to Jordan, I had fallen into a comfort zone of sorts.  I already had some really good friends; I didn’t particularly need to make new ones.  I got along well enough with other people, and when I didn’t, I could just run away from the problems and hang out with my friends.  My academic plans were already set, for the most part; all I had to do was take the classes and get the grades.  Over time, I fell into a routine, and that routine was like a drug that kept me from realizing that all this time was passing by.  I recognized that I had some things that I needed to change, but it was a lot easier just to ignore them.

If there’s anything that a study abroad experience does, however, it takes you out of your comfort zone and puts you in a completely unfamiliar and scary environment.  The only thing that really compares is serving a mission.  All is not well, and you can’t fall into the trap of telling yourself that.  Since you’re stuck in an environment where you already have enough things to deal with, your personal flaws really start to stand out as an extra burden that you just don’t want to carry anymore.  You start to form really close ties with the people in your program, in order to support and strengthen each other, and some of these friendships become so close that people become willing to point out your flaws and give you the advice and support that you need to overcome them.

That’s what’s been happening to me, at least.  And because of this, I’m really, really happy that I came out here.  The personal growth I’ve been experiencing has alone made this trip worth it, because it came at a time when I think I really needed it.

I started noticing all of this when I had a long conversation a couple months ago with one of my very good friends from this program.  If I had any pride keeping me from being honest with myself about what I needed to change (and, let’s face it, I did), it was completely shattered in the first ten minutes of this conversation.  About an hour later, I came away with my perspective completely changed.  It took me a few weeks to get over the desire to repeatedly flagellate myself for being such an idiot for all this time, but when I did, I started picking up the pieces and putting myself together again.  It was then that I started to realize just where I am in my life.

Here in Jordan, in this study abroad program, I feel like I’m standing on top of a mountain, where I can see everywhere that I’ve been and the country that I’ll be stepping back into when I come down and resume my normal life.  I can’t necessarily see everywhere where the path will lead me, but I can see the big picture in a way that I couldn’t see when I was in the middle of all the trees.  All of this sounds really cliche, I know, but I really do feel this way.

I don’t know what things are going to be like when I get back, but here’s what I want to change:

I want to work really hard on being more sensitive to other people, on being a good listener, on genuinely caring about others, and on putting myself out there to make new friends and be a friend to people that I don’t know as well.  This is not something I can do by my own efforts alone; I’m going to have to constantly ask for God’s help, that he will grant me the charity and patience that right now I just don’t have.  I want to study my scriptures on a daily basis in order to have that grace and that spirit with me, to serve God better through going to the temple often (once a week, once I get back in Provo) and working hard to serve others.

When I come back to the FLSR, I want to work hard to create a positive environment in the Arabic house, to help everyone there with the new skills in Arabic that I’ve gained from this study abroad, and to really put myself out there to become friends with all the other people in the FLSR.  I want to come to the apartment socials, go to my FHE meetings, and otherwise just hang out and get to know people.

As far as dating is concerned, I want to push myself to get out there more and take the initiative.  I’ve written about this before on this blog.  If marriage and family is something very important to me, why shouldn’t dating be also?  It’s not like I’m going to set a deadline to be married–everything will happen in its right time–but I need to put myself out there to make it happen.  I just need to get out there and date people–and do it consistently.

These are the areas of my life that, because of this study abroad program, I can see that I need to work on.  I can see it quite clearly, and more importantly, I am motivated to do it.  A lot of these things I can–and have–started working on already.  I’m working hard to be a better friend, a better listener, a more genuinely caring person.  I’m reading my scriptures more often, and getting into the habit of reading them daily.  And what I can’t change now, I’m making plans for so that when I get back, I can hit the ground running.

This past weekend was the baptism of Samir, a Christian Arab who has been coming to church for the past two years.  It was a really awesome experience!

Convert baptisms to the LDS church are actually pretty rare in this part of the world.  Religion is a very important part of the local culture, and there are all kinds of sensitivities associated with proselyting that do not exist in the United States.  Unlike many evangelical / born again churches, the LDS church tries to respect these sensitivies and does not engage in any illegal or illegitimate missionary activity.  The strategy, from the church’s point of view, is that it’s better in the long term to make friends in the government and wait for them to open the doors to us than it is to steal in illegally and close any doors that the government might have willingly opened.

For these reasons, the church does not openly proselyte anywhere in the Middle East.  There are missionaries out here, but they are all humanitarian missionaries who only teach the gospel to people who come, of their own will, to the church and ask to be taught.  While Jordan has more freedom of religion than other countries in the Middle East, it does not officially recognize the LDS church, and government authorities sometimes go out of their way to make life difficult for those who do join.  The army tends to be very suspicious of the church, and some of our converts in the army have had to stop coming to church for a while in order to keep their jobs.  Another member of our branch found it very difficult to hold onto a job after he married his Mormon American wife, and we suspect that that had to do with people in the government who don’t like the church.

A lot of this probably has more to do with Mormon-Christian relations in the country than Mormon-Muslim relations.  Muslims generally don’t understand all the intricacies of the different Christian churches and sects, and we Mormons have so much in common with Muslims, just in the way that we live our lives, that they tend to be really comfortable around us.

The Christians in Jordan, however, are an embedded minority–only 2% of the population is Christian–and they tend to see us Mormons as “competition.” It doesn’t help this perception that the LDS church has one of the most successful and far-reaching missionary programs: they see us and think “holy cow, these Mormons are going to try and steal our entire congregation unless we do something to stop them!”

Because of that, it tends to be the Christians in the government that keep us from getting recognized officially as a church.  In the meantime, we’re organized officially as a cultural institution.  Our missionaries and church leaders are doing everything they can to make friends in high places, and they’re very optimistic that things are slowly changing for the better.  Despite the political sensitivities, we tend to have very good relations with the government.

Samir was a Christian before he joined the church, which meant that the missionaries could actually teach him about the gospel.  If he were Muslim, they would have had to get special permission and probably would have turned him down the first time he asked.  The LDS church is EXTREMELY sensitive about teaching Muslims in this part of the world, mostly because of the local culture that so harshly punishes those who convert out of Islam.  Honor killings are still a very big problem, and the church is not going to engage in proselyting activity if it endangers the lives of the convert and those involved in the missionary process.

Samir had been investigating several different churches before he started investigating the LDs church.  He found out about us by walking past our church building  (really, just an old embassy building between the 3rd and 4th circles) and seeing the sign.  He didn’t know anything about the church, but he had the feeling that he should walk in and ask about us.

He was shy, however, and so he didn’t go up that time.  Instead, he walked past the church several times the next couple of days, trying to build up the courage to step in and introduce himself.  One day, President Cook (one of the missionaries who lives in the building) was outside and saw him.  Samir stepped up to talk with him, and at the end of the conversation, Samir decided to start coming to church.

One of the things that stood out to Samir the strongest was the way that we as church members behave.  He says that he was really impressed with our sincerity and our honesty, and our high values.  We didn’t just speak about morality, we actually lived our lives that way, and that was very impressive.  As he learned about the doctrines of the church, his testimony grew that this was the right place for him to be.

His conversion was gradual, and the missionaries didn’t rush him to be baptized.  He came for two years, having regularly missionary lessons all that time, before he was baptized.  When I first met him, I was really surprised to learn that he wasn’t yet a member of the church.  He participated in all the church classes and attended all the meetings faithfully.

The baptism was really great.  Samir’s wife and baby girl were there–they haven’t been as involved in the church, but hopefully they’ll eventually follow Samir and decide to join him in the church.  Samir was beaming.  The services were very simple: two talks, both in Arabic, about baptism and the holy ghost, then we all went outside to a jaccuzzi in the back where Samir was baptized.

I thought it was funny that the water was too hot, and that we had to cool it down a bit before Brother Samir and President Cook could go down into it.  Usually, in the states, we have exactly the opposite problem: someone forgot to turn on the hot water and the water is too cold.  But this is the Middle East, where cold water is a luxury–even at a baptism!

Some of the talks were really awesome.  Brother Rimon, an Armenian from Jerusalem and longtime member of the Amman branch, spoke about the holy ghost, and said some powerful things in his talk.  He said that one of the surest ways you can know you’re on the right path in your life, after you’ve been baptized and recieved the gift of the holy ghost, is to feel the companionship of the holy spirit with you.  He also said that the most important thing, once you’ve been baptized, is to bring other people into the church as well.  Those are both very true points that really stood out to me from his talk.

After the performance of the baptism, Brother Parker, an American from Kentucky who is the second counsellor in the branch presidency, welcomed Samir into the ward.  Brother Parker spoke about his own conversion to the church.  He said something that really struck me: that all of this life is just happenings, and that the important thing is to realize that we are on a path to return to our heavenly home.  That’s a really different way of looking at life that I think we sometimes lose sight of–but it’s very true.

The baptism ended with Samir’s own testimony, which was really emotional and really awesome.  After that, the closing refreshments were hummous, foul, and pita bread, with some kunafeh for dessert.  A really awesome evening!  It’s not every week (or every month) that someone joins the church out here in the Middle East, and I was really glad that I could come and witness Samir’s baptism.  May God keep you, my Brother!

Back when I asked if anyone had any requests for a post on a specific subject, Micah asked:

May I ask you what the feel is there in Jordan with the situation in regards to Iran and the test firing of missiles? Evidently Jordan works very hard to be the “switzerland” of the middle east yet I have constantly reflected and pondered on the temperment of those living in Jordan. Is this having an affect on Jordanians?

This is a very interesting question. To be honest, even though I’ve been reading the newspaper every day, I didn’t know that Iran had tested any new missiles (though I have known, for some time, that Washington and Tehran have escalated their saber rattling to new levels). I looked it up on the New York Times’ website, and I can imagine the response back in the states. I remember being really scared as a little boy back in ‘91 when we heard that Saddam had a new arsenal of missiles.

To understand the political state of mind of the people here, you have to understand that they’ve been living in a state of conflict for a very long time, and to some degree I think it’s become the norm. Before 1967, Jerusalem and the West Bank belonged to Jordan. There is still an image of the Dome of the Rock on the 20 JD issue of currency. When Israel took over those territories, it only annexed East Jerusalem–the West Bank itself has been in a state of limbo, administered by Israel but not a part of Israel. On either side of the border, there are huge military zones–to get to the Dead Sea from Amman (and anywhere in the Jordan Valley) you have to pass a number of military checkpoints. One of my Arab friends lives next to a SAM site in north Amman. Both sides are squared off, ready for an attack at any moment.

Most of the people in Jordan are actually Palestinian refugees, and there are large permanent refugee camps all over Amman. They look just like any other place in the city, except they are usually much poorer and run down. Back in the late seventies, the Palestinians actually tried to overthrow the Hashemite government and install Yasir Arafat as the new leader of the country. It’s called Black September, and ever since then, things have been tense between the longtime natives and the Palestinians.

Jordan didn’t fully give up its claim on the occupied territories until the PA and the PLO were recognized internationally as the official entity representing the Palestinians. Even since then, Jordan has been very involved in the politics of the region, so it’s not quite accurate to say that Jordan is the “Switzerland of the Middle East.” Just because of the geography and the history of things, it’s impossible for the country not to be intimately involved.

However, Jordan HAS been opening up quite a bit to the West–arguably more than any other Middle Eastern country. Jordan is currently considered to be part of the “developing” world, and King Abdullah desperately wants to push his country into the club of “developed” nations. This has been no small task, but King Abdullah and Queen Rania have been working very, very hard to make it happen.

One of the most controversial political issues in the country right now is the sale of government lands and properties to foreign investors, particularly the King Hussein hospital in Amman and the Aqaba port facility. A lot of the older, more traditionally minded people feel that any sale of government lands threatens Jordan’s sovereignty and “heritage.” Just recently, a coalition of Bedouin tribes, most prominently the Beni Hussan tribe, gathered in a conference and sharply criticized what they call a “shadow government” of “liberals” that is trying to undermine King Abdullah and the Jordanian people.

A lot of this is unfounded, however. King Abdullah himself knows that without foreign investment, Jordan will never join the developed world. In particular, he wants to attract investment from the gulf countries, which are practically swimming in oil money right now. There’s also the problem of national debt, which he wants to pay off quickly so that Jordan doesn’t have to pay interest on the loans for the next several generations. All of this involves sale of government properties.

Just recently, he had the Jordan Times interview him so that he could directly address the most controversial accusations against him and the government’s decisions to privatize. The Jordan Times is arguably a puppet newspaper for the government, but he was very direct and open in addressing these pressing concerns. He also criticized the newspapers for spreading rumors and set up a special fund for the training of journalists in all the Jordanian newspapers.

Will these government sales go down, despite the opposition from Beni Hussan and other Bedouin tribes? Will Jordan attract the foreign investment it needs to become part of the developed world? These are some of the issues that are closest to the people, and it’s really fascinating the way things are playing out. Jordan IS starting to attract some very serious foreign investment, and when you’re in west Amman you really don’t feel like you’re in a third world country at all. But when you cross over into east Amman, or get out into the countryside, it’s almost like you’re in a different country.

By far, though, the most pressing news on everyone’s mind is the problem of rising prices. It’s all over the political cartoons and the newspapers, and people are always complaining about it. While I’ve been here, the starting rate for taxis has gone up ten qirsh, and the fare for the micro has also gone up.

Jordan is not a country rich in natural resources, and unlike many of the neighboring Arab countries it has no significant oil reserves. Gas prices here are the same as they are in the United States (in fact, gas might even be a little more expensive–and I know that gas has already gone up to $4 a gallon in the US).

Rising gas prices affect EVERYTHING, including food prices, and that is perhaps the most alarming thing of all. A lot of people with families need to work two jobs just to have enough money to put food on the table. I don’t think it’s hurting the middle class as much as it is in places like Syria, but everyone but the richest of the rich is starting to feel the pinch. Many middle class fathers and husbands need to work two jobs in order to make ends meet, and in a place with +15% unemployment, that can be really difficult.

Foreign policy issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the saber-rattling between Washington and Tehran matters to the people here, of course, but not in the same way as it does to us. I suspect it has to do with the mentality that comes from living on the edge of war for so long. Nobody has any great love for Iran, but people don’t seem to be as worried about the escalation as we are in the US–not in terms of missiles and troop movements, at least. People ARE worried that Tehran will cut off the straights of Hormuz and cause oil prices to skyrocket, and they’re probably also worried that Washington will move more troops into the region and stick its finger in everyone’s pie, but Jordan itself isn’t much of a target (though Jerusalem is–and Jerusalem is maybe forty or fifty miles from Amman).

The thing that surprises me the most about Jordan is the fact that the society hasn’t collapsed. If you think about it, this is really significant. The majority of people here are refugees, rising prices and unemployment are putting a big strain on everyone, the region in general is very unstable, there is a lot of desparity between east and west Amman, Amman itself is a city that grew from a few thousand to two million in less than sixty years, and to top it all off, western cultural influences are challenging traditional values and turning society upside down, particularly in the cities.

What is it that holds this country together? Honestly, I think it has to do with a couple of things: the Mukhabarat and the fresh new sense of Jordanian nationalism.

Everywhere you go, you either see pictures of King Abdullah. The King is like the father of the country, the one that everyone looks up to as the one at the helm. Nobody really levels any direct criticism at the royal family because of the mukhabarat–the secret police. It’s not necessarily visible but EVERYONE knows that it’s there. It’s one of those things that you don’t talk about. Honestly, though, even though I hate something as undemocratic as secret police, I have to admit that they probably have done a lot to secure Jordan from those who would try and overthrow the government.

The other thing that you’ll notice everywhere is this sense of Jordanian nationalism. Jordan is an artificial country, with borders drawn up from everything that was left over after the colonial powers divied up what they wanted. Despite this, there is a very strong sense of national unity everywhere. It’s not only present in government propaganda, such as posters with slogans like “Jordan First,” it’s present in people’s minds as well. They’re starting to consider themselves as Jordanians–at least, those who don’t consider themselves Palestinians. This sense of shared national identity has IMO done a lot to hold society together, even though that sense of national identity didn’t exist sixty or seventy years ago.

Jordan is a fascinating place, and the complexities of Jordanian society are particularly interesting. Like most places in the world, the average person probably cares more about what’s going on locally than what’s going on in the outside world. In Jordan, there is no shortage of socio-political twists and turns before you reach the border, and those are the things that affect the political mindset of the people more than anything else. But overall, I get the sense that people are optimistic about the future. Jordan is moving forward at an amazing rate, paying back its debts and attracting a lot of foreign investment. Even though there aren’t a lot of political freedoms in the country right now, I can definitely see that changing in the near future as Jordan leaves the developing world and becomes more integrated with the rest of the global community.