Women in Jordan

So what about the role of women in society here? Let me skip all of the questions you may have because I don't have the answers. I haven't talked to anybody, man or woman, about the topic. All I know is what I've seen on the street, which is a variety of dress ranging from skirts + t-shirt to headscarf with jeans to fully draped in black with a burqa.

(As an aside, I was curious when I saw a woman with only her eyes showing, looking through the window of a clothing store at jeans and summer tops. There are so many questions I would have loved to ask her.)

Because I don't know the first thing about traditional Jordanian culture, what women think, how they are treated, what rights they have, etc., it would be arrogant to assume anything. Things may be great, terrible, or somewhere in between.

What I can say is that from my foreign and selfish point of view, being a man in Jordan ends up tilting towards the boring end of the scale. Drinking coffee, eating at a restaurant, or smoking a nargileh, the vast majority of people you have for company are men. Think of how a typical nightclub is run. Goal #1 is get as many girls there as possible. The rest of life inside a club follows onwards from that first goal. Life here is a bit like a nightclub on opposite day.

At first glance, this may sound like a wholesome idea for daily life. But as I was walking down the street with Eero earlier today, I realised I wasn't paying attention to what he was saying because I was distracted by a mannequin in a halter top. I haven't checked with a doctor, but being accustomed to living in a different culture I imagine being around real women would be a little healthier.

Deep Water

Today, day 2 of my Advanced Open Water course, I went on a deep water dive as part of my training. My instructor took me down to 28 metres (~92 feet). As we swam down I had a dizzying feeling of slight panic at how far underwater I was. It was strangely similar to the sensation of looking down when you're high up on a ledge with a hundred foot drop opening out below you. It disappeared when we stopped for a minute, however, and it was fascinating to be completely unable to see the surface of the water. I was surrounded by blue, and the only difference in looking up was that it was a paler blue.

My course book stresses that diving below 18 metres, the generally accepted boundary for deep dives, should not be done just for the sake of thrill. You should be descending to a depth because there is something you want to explore that requires it — perhaps marine life that doesn't exist at the surface or a wreck. However, I can't deny that the enjoyment I got out of my dive was largely due to the depth. It was oddly comforting to sit on the sandy bottom in the middle of so much blue, watch the life around me, and be completely enveloped in a different world.

Diving in the Red Sea

From India / Jordan

We pulled up on a beach owned by the prince of Dubai at about 9:30 yesterday morning. It was a barren piece of sandy land in the middle of an even more barren landscape of brown scorched hills by the Red Sea. Some evidence of its previous life as a public beach was strewn about in the form of broken bottles and cracked tarmac parking areas. Some piece of presumably corrupt politics allowed the land to be taken from the public and sold to the prince, husband to the daughter of the king of Jordan, for the purposes of development. The land sat empty — probably awaiting a rise in property prices, at which point he will be able to sell it for a profit.

On this hot summer day in the desert, however, the beach's private ownership was being conveniently ignored by our group of 9 divers for the purposes of scuba exploration. As the sun made its presence felt on every inch of exposed skin, we unloaded tanks of compressed air on the hot ground and started getting our gear on. A jeep drove up with a large machine gun mounted in the rear. Being near the borders of Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, the military was checking that everything with our dive group was kosher. Maybe kosher is the wrong word. Can you say they were checking everything was halal? I don't know. You get the picture.

We divided into two groups and walked across the beach to the shore. I noticed a family had claimed an old shelter and hung up woven goat-hair blankets to block out the sun on two sides. They had two goats with them. I wondered if they were squatting there. It didn't seem like a pleasant place to live.

Stepping in the water was instant relief from the heat. It was calm and clear which made for very enjoyable diving. It was my first time in 3 years and I was surprised how quickly it all came back to me. Everything went smoothly apart from a slight hiccup with my BCD, the vest you inflate and deflate to control buoyancy, on the second dive. I tried letting a little air in it and something got stuck, causing it to blow up like a balloon. I started floating skywards like a cartoon character who has inflated himself with helium. Luckily I was only 5 metres underwater so there was no risk of decompression problems. My instructor caught hold of me and fixed the stuck inflate button as I pulled the emergency dump valve to let all the air out of my veset. From then on it was smooth sailing.

The most exciting thing I saw was a puffer fish, the type that blows up to a large size to intimidate would-be predators. Of course, it may have just been mocking me but either way it was fascinating.

Once back on dry land, it became apparent that the family under the shelter wasn't living there. They were having a picnic with the goats. Having slaughtered both of them and hung up the meat, they were in the process of grilling as we walked back to the van to take off our gear.

Assuming all goes well, by the end of 3 days Eero will be a newly certified PADI Open Water scuba diver and I'll get my Advanced Open Water qualification.

Haircut

For a couple of years I've wondered in the back of my mind what I'd look like if I shaved my head. I had it done once when I was about 7, and I expect the results to be equally as bad now. But there's only one way to confirm my suspicion. Today, far away from the anguished cries of my mother and the laughter of everyone else, I find out...

Diary Notes from Jordan

From India / Jordan

Day 3

We left Amman today to head south. Our days in Jordan's capital city are remembered through a haze of nargileh (water pipe) smoke and falafel binges (total consumed so far: 21). We visited some of the Roman ruins scattered throughout the city, as well as a huge blue-domed mosque. Also enjoyed evenings in a rooftop cafe where the western atmosphere was matched by the menu prices. Looking forward to the sites of Petra.

Day 4

Falafels consumed: 27

Eero and I set a target to eat 80 falafels by the time he leaves in under 2 weeks. Consistency is key. If we keep going at our current rate there won't be any problem.

We spent the day walking around Petra, the ruins of a city carved into the stone faces of hills 2,000 years ago. It's just as mythical as it looks in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and slightly surreal as some of the sandstone has eroded over time, making it seem as if the rock has melted. I walked around wondering how an ancient civilisation had managed to carve away such huge volumes of stone. I also wondered at the presence of a large Mövenpick resort just outside the gates. The connection between Swiss ice cream and a historical site in the middle east escapes me.

Day 5

Falafels consumed: 32

Eero is showing signs of falafel fatigue. He missed the day's goal by 1. I may have to think of a motivational remedy.

Another day spent walking around Petra. It's a surprisingly large area, and when you take things at the lazy relaxed pace we do, you could spend days covering it all.

In the afternoon we hiked through a narrow canyon full of twists and turns. It's not a hidden trail — it's even listed in the Lonely Planet — but it was virtually free of tourists. The walls were only a couple meters apart in some places and worn smooth. Absolutely stunning. Although it looks like it was formed by water, in actual fact it's due to tectonic plates ripping the rock apart. A highlight of the trip so far.

Pictures to follow once my film is finished. Update: Links to pictures added.

On the Road Again

After a 6 week pause in India I hit the tarmac this morning, touching down in Jordan. The temperature was below 25C, a very nice change from the 40+ searing heat of Delhi. I've yet to do much apart from sleep (the 6:30am flight was precisely timed to prevent me from resting more than an hour last night) but I get the sense of a very friendly peaceful atmosphere walking around the streets.

My good friend Eero is due to arrive in an hour and will be joining me for the next couple weeks. I'm looking forward to his company. For now, I'll wander around until he gets here. Sitting in this internet cafe I can hear the evening's prayer from a nearby mosque. It's a soothing sound in the clear evening air.

Last week I took a trip to Amritsar and the India-Pakistan border, where every evening the guards put on an incredible show when lowering the flag and closing the border gates. I didn't manage to write about it (and really, a video is needed to do it justice) but some pictures are online here. It has become such an event that crowds gather to watch from grandstands and there is an emcee to lead the crowd in chants of "Hindustan! Hindustan!" The guards' marching is straight out of John Cleese's hilarious turn in the "don't mention the war" episode of Faulty Towers.

There was more to the trip, like the incredible Golden Temple (pictures alone unfortunately cannot begin to give a sense of the atmosphere) and an unplanned jaunt up to Dharamsala / McLeod Ganj (abode of the Dalai Lama in exile). I hope to pick up my pen a bit more often now I'm on the move again.

Motorbiking Part 2

When Sunil, one of our guards, got married last year, he received a new motorbike as part of the dowry from his wife's family. His happiness with the bike rivaled his happiness with the marriage, and I could see how proud of it he was when he showed it to me. When he invited me for a ride I couldn't resist.

We set off from the house one night — him in front with motorbike helmet, me holding on in back. After wizzing around the area, we reached some quieter backstreets. At this point we swapped places and he let me take control of the bike. It was good fun to ride, but after cruising for a bit I made a critical mistake. As I came up to a main road I braked to check for traffic before crossing. I forgot that an intersection is not the place to slow down — it is the place to lean on your horn as you blaze across and continue on your merry way.

My pause had given the man in uniform on the corner an opportunity and he waved at us to stop. He sauntered up, looked at me driving in a borrowed bicycle helmet and undershirt, and said, "driver's license." My instinct told me it was a good time to keep my mouth shut. Sunil started arguing in Hindi with the supposed policeman. At fairly regular intervals, when the policeman had heard enough of Sunil's excuses, he turned to me anew to demand with a sour expression, "driver's license." But I wasn't foold by his charms and kept my mouth shut.

After several minutes of the same, he finally turned away and waved us on. A block down the road Sunil said to me, "In India, anything is possible," and we burst out laughing. It turned out the man wasn't a traffic policeman after all but part of the "home guard" and had no legal authority to fine motorists. I then understood the disgusted look on his face as we pulled off — he had failed to convince us to pay him a bribe, a skill all government employees in Delhi should excel at.

Household Staff

Most people, when they think of living in a place where they can employ people to serve them, picture a life of luxury. It's not easy to explain that when coming from a society which places a large emphasis on independence and the value of do-it-yourself, reality can be different than what you would assume.

Let me try to give a basic example: imagine you are the type of person that likes to be fairly inconspicuous in your day-to-day routine without causing other people too much bother. Now imagine that when you walk out of your house, you have a guard that — no matter that he's relaxing in his chair in the middle of a conversation with someone else — jumps to his feet, straightens his back, gives a salute and says, "Good morning sir!" And repeats the same performance every single time you leave or return.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. In India my parents have guards 24 hours a day (work requirement, not our choice), a driver, and a housekeeper/cook. I can't carry a bag up the stairs to our apartment without someone insisting on taking it from me. I can't lounge around the house without a shirt on for feeling lazy when the housekeeper is busy washing the floor.

It's harder for my mother, who is turned into a manager in her own home. Our needs are much more basic than the average family with young children that need to be ferried to and from school and other events. My father's work is close enough he prefers to bike many days. I tend to go out at night after the driver goes home, and now I've conquered the traffic system here¹ I can take myself. So my mother is the one worrying that without anything to do, our driver isn't getting satisfaction from his job. She also had to deal with a previous housekeeper who my parents found stealing. After being around the housekeeper for close to 2 years and helping her family, it was quite a personal blow.

But obviously it's not all rich man's misery and tears. Our current housekeeper, Asha, is wonderful. She has a great sense of humour and although she refused to go to school after the age of 5, she's very sharp. She has picked up English, language #3 after Hindi and Telugu, at an incredible rate. My friend Em and I decided to take her out to lunch one day for a break from her usual routine. We went via the Delhi metro which is a surreal experience even for me. It's not yet two years old, and to enter it is to transition from one of the dirtiest, dustiest cities anywhere to a modern world where everything is new and surfaces shine with cleanliness. It is so out of place that I expect it to collapse one day, as the city rejects it like an immune system rejects a donated organ.

Asha had never been before, and she gave a small shout upon seeing an escalator for the first time in her life. She was thrilled with the whole trip, from waiting on the platform to riding the train to coming up the escalator in a different part of the city.

As we walked around Connaught Place, she pointed at all the light-skinned, blue-eyed mannequins in the clothing store displays and named them "Em" or "Nigel", gender depending. When I protested that I had brown eyes Asha told me I needed to get coloured contact lenses.²

To make it a memorable experience we went for western instead of Indian food — TGI Friday's. I don't know if Asha understood the random pieces of Americana decorating the walls, and I struggled to explain the concept of a hippie to her although my mother helpfully pitched in with things like "long hair" and "smelly". But I was impressed with her willingness to try things. Had it been me trying Indian food for the first time, I probably would have had a spoonful and left the rest. Asha ate everything but the sour cream, which she deemed too strange.

Several weeks later we made homemade ice cream, one of the few foods that seems to bridge all cultures with its universal appeal. Once she learns to make it by herself and I can ask her to whip up a fresh batch, I won’t be able to complain about the hardships of living with household staff anymore.

1. It's simple actually — big rules over small. As we have an SUV, "conquered" is the right word. Cars, scooters, bikes, and all other lower life-forms scatter before my wheels.↩


2. Funny, but slightly unsettling as I know Asha doesn't like her dark skin. This isn't all that uncommon in a country which is disturbingly overt in promoting pale skin as beautiful — skincare products that claim to make you white are easy to find in stores.↩

Family Feud

I’m through with film. I’m switching to a digital SLR. This won’t interest most of you, but I know my siblings, at least, will give me some amount of shit and it’s easier to start the process now so I can get it over with. Despite being technophiles in many ways, certain modernities incur their wrath. (For better or worse, mobile phones are here to stay Jolin. At least the future is looking bright these days).

Let me get to the meat of the matter. Take a look at this picture:



The colours are terrible — washed out, old, boring. Any ideas why? I have a few. Maybe the film expired. Maybe I got the exposure wrong. Maybe it went through one too many x-ray machines at airports. Maybe the photo lab did a bad job developing the negatives. Maybe the scans are to blame.

I don’t have the time or resources to pinpoint exactly where the error lies. I have lost more than one film to this and other equally frustrating problems, and at the rate I take pictures that equals months of photographs. I’ve finally reached the point where I don’t care, because there is a better way. All the issues I had with digital photography a year ago have slowly been crossed off my list, to the point where this is my new object of desire:



The Canon Digital Rebel XTi. I know, that’s strike two against me since it’s not a Nikon. Digital is a new and scary world. I’d like to pair it with this:



The Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens. When pared with the smaller-than-35mm CCD in consumer digital cameras, this 17-55mm lense gives the equivalent of a 28-90mm zoom. I’m a one-lens person as it keeps the backpack light, so a lens with this range will give me a very nice break from the fixed 50mm I’m currently constrained to.

So what’s the catch? At a combined total of around US$1700, luxury doesn’t come cheap. I could travel a long time on that money. Unfortunately for me, and for those of you wanting more pictures on my blog, this may have to wait.

In the meantime, feel free to share your enragement at my abandonment of film. You’re welcome to try to convert me back. But I’ll warn you, you’ll probably end up wasting as much time as I have with film photography.

Delhi

From India Picture...

I was holding onto my seat white-knuckled as we drove from New Delhi airport, dodging the cows wandering along the road, weaving around the huge trucks sharing space with cars, scooters, auto-rickshaws, bicycles, and people just walking alongside the traffic. This is the vivid memory I have of arriving in India for the first time 3 and a half years ago. I remember the sign hand-painted on the back of every truck: Horn Please. "Horn please?" I thought, as the sound of beeping came at me from all sides. "Surely they're not asking people to make more noise."

And I recall realising, upon seeing all types of vehicles heading up roads the wrong way, that in India there are no rules, only guidelines. This idea was reinforced every time Naveen, the driver-turned-friend from my father's work, entertained my mother and me by saying, "In India, anything is possible!" before doing a U-turn into oncoming heavy traffic, or taking a shortcut down an impossibly narrow street packed with people, animals, and cycle-rickshaws.

I also remember talking to people who had visited India in the '80s, commenting to them that it must have been such a different place back then. I was initially surprised when I heard the response, "No, not really." But as I got to know the excruciating beaurocracy underpinning so many facets of the country, I began to understand.

Our driver Sukhdev, for example, is involved in a lawsuit against a previous employer who didn't pay him for his last 3 months of work. The lawsuit was first brought 18 years ago. 3 plaintiffs in the same suit have died in the interim. It is still ongoing. This is the pace of things here.

So you can imagine how fascinating it's been to notice differences on each return visit. India is starting to change. There is now a highway leading from New Delhi airport. Gone are the pedestrians and non-motorised vehicles. Gone is the traffic heading the wrong way. It's smooth sailing, at least by Indian road standards.

Large areas of Delhi are now cow-free, the result of an effort that began a couple years ago to clear the streets of bovine roadblocks. The humorous scenario involved the government placing a bounty on each cow. Freelancing cow-shepherds then drove around spotting wandering groups of the animals, bundled them into the backs of trucks, drove across the river Yamuna and outside the city limits, and then dumped their loads. Sort of what I imagine the mafia do to witnesses after intimidating them.

Many of these steps are undoubtedly required to enable India to progress, but they do take away some of its charm. I left the flat one sunny day a few years ago and walked downstairs to the car to find an elephant there, tearing off tree branches for a morning snack. Although I may have hid it because this was my home and I wanted to act like a local, my excitement was no less than the first time an elephant ambled by the flat, owner in tow. Naveen was present on that first occasion, looking on as I scrambled to get my camera to capture the event.

"This is amazing!" I was thinking at the time. "An elephant! On the street! Walking by my house! An elephant!"

Just as amazing was watching Naveen when my mother commented to him that where we come from, elephants don't wander the streets.

"Really, ma'am?" he said with a look of wonder. "Don't you have elephants in your country?"

Who knows what changes are in store for India? The idea of elephants on the streets of Delhi may seem just as hilarious to Naveen's grandchildren as the idea of elephants strolling around DC seems to me.

The Cuba Blog

It looks like the Anonymous Cuba Blogger has put up a final closing post. I wanted to mention the blog again for those that missed it the first time I linked to it — it's been updated periodically since then and is an interesting read for those curious about Cuba.

Himalayas

From Sikkim / Darj...

A few days ago I got back from an 8-day trek in the Himalayas. It involved a lot of steep climbs, fog, and freezing weather. In other words, not unlike a summer in San Francisco. What was unlike San Francisco was the style of hiking. When I was living there last year I took a trip to Yosemite National Park with Anne. Between the two of us, we carried two hiking packs with clothing, sleeping bags, tent, and supplies. This is not the way things are done in India. I was with my parents and Marlene, a friend of ours. To sustain the four of us, there was a guide, a cook, 3 ponies, a pony-carer, 4 yaks, a yak-carer, and 3 porters. I could die of altitude sickness, but I wasn't going to die of loneliness.

Speaking of altitude sickness, the hike was tempting fate a little bit — my previous two bouts with high altitudes ended with me accepting bitter defeat (one with a dramatic K.O.). But this time, in ascending from 1,700m to roughly 4,500m, we did things in proper fashion and took two rest days to acclimatise on the way up. These seemed to do the trick as I had no major problems.

We had two 4am rises to hike to lookouts by dawn, but the pain and shortness of breath from the thin air was worth it. The scenery was spectacular. We had views of Kanchenjunga, 3rd highest peak in the world after Everest and K2, as well as neighbouring peaks and glaciers at the base of the mountains.

On the last evening, the four of us stood at the small Tibetan village of Tsokha looking out. In front of us, we could see for miles down the valley, and to the side, up to sharp peaks. We watched as an immense cloud engulfed the valley below us, then slowly moved upwards. Standing above the cloud in the clear air, we could see the edge of it approach us bit by bit, until finally we were wrapped in a cold white mist so thick that trees 10 meters away disappeared.

This may have been the last big hike on my trip. If so, it was a fine way to end things. I was a little worried on the drive to the starting point when we passed an overturned car on the windy mountain road, blood-spattered windshield lying nearby. It seemed an ill omen to begin with. It's lucky I'm not superstitious or it might not have turned out so well.