He Is Risen! Yet, My Computer Thinks It Is More Grammatically Correct to Say He Is Raised – I Am Not Sure If I Trust Microsoft Word On This

Happy Easter Friends!

My Jordanian friend Salim asked yesterday how I would celebrate Easter. I told him that I would go to Mass and then eat a lot of food, and that was exactly what I did today.
The day was full of visits from my host family’s extended family, a lot of eating, and a very silly Mass experience.

First off, brief reflections on time spent with extended family:

I am pretty used to feeling out of place in Jordan. It has gotten to the point that when I find myself surrounded by people that look like me I feel a little uncomfortable. For instance about a month ago the bus I was traveling in stopped at a rest stop built for tourists and cleverly designed to disperse the economic benefits of tourism to the community by selling overpriced Western snack food and kitsch (not to mention your standard outrageously expensive dining room set) to the travelers who pass through on their way to Petra. The place was empty when we arrived but as I was purchasing expensive Cadbury chocolate, two tour buses pulled up and I found myself suddenly surrounded by about 70 white people, and not just anyway white people, rich retired white people… a group of people who I feel extremely disconnected from. I cannot fully explain this situation, Marx tells me that alienation comes from the ones relationship to the means of production, but in this case I had the same relationship to my candy bar as they to their t-shirts adorned with a camel and the phrase “the ship of the desert.” That is we were both voracious consumers… But I definitely felt out of place.

Hanging with the extended family typically induces a far less profound sense of alienation (the possible exception being the time my host cousin scored high enough on her university entrance exams to study medicine if she chooses, at which point one crazy uncle fired his gun in the air a bunch), but today there was just a WHOLE LOT of me sitting, smiling, and wishing everyone would talk a lot slower. Coincidently, I tended to spend a lot of time with my adorable two-month-old host niece, because to the best of my knowledge you can spend a family party watching, playing with, and talking about adorable baby-kinses in any culture. Cute babies are universal.

The other thing I spent a lot of time doing was eating. As my explanation of Easter to Salim foresaw, no matter how inept one is at discussing long past family histories in Arabic one can always put delicious things into one’s mouth and then comment on how zackee (delicious) the fatoosha wa jaj is (spicy Lebanese salad and chicken).

Lastly, I went to Mass at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Jabal Amman. But by went to Mass I mean that I arrived a half hour before in hopes of finding a solitary seat somewhere near the back or perhaps the universally dreaded by Catholics – front row. Instead I found that the courtyard outside of the Church was filled with somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 Southeast Asians queuing up and trying to get close enough to the church entrance to listen to the English Mass led by a Jesuit from Ohio. It was a strange experience. I spent the Mass standing in the hot sun, packed into a crowd of foreign workers who averaged half my height, straining to hear the good news. It was weird and fun, but I got Eucharist, and that was good enough for me.

Spring Break

I had the most wonderful spring break. For eight days I go to travel around Israel and the West Bank, eat new interesting things, meet new people, and see places and sights that I have heard about and read about in books for most of my life. A wise and bourgie documentary Erin and I watched once said that "the best journeys answer questions you haven't even thought to ask yet." This adventure certainly did that.

I could easily elaborate on the virtues and drawbacks of solo traveling, the deliciousness of the Iraqi dish known as a sabich, or ramble about the economic disparity between the per capita income of Israel, Jordan, and the West Bank ($27,000/$3,400/$1,400 if you are wondering) and its impact on the cost of basic services (hint stuff is more expensive in Israel)... but pictures are more fun.

So, here is a taste of my spring break in photo form.

This is the University of Jordan as seen from a fire escape on a building across the street. UJ is a pretty nice place. This angle really brings out its good side (i.e. its trees).

Me standing on a hill in the West Bank -Jordan is in the background just beyond the horizon.

The site where the angels visited the shepherds – It is a pretty interesting place with facilities for a whole gaggle of tourists to have separate Masses at the same time. Speaking of Mass I hear we win a silly new translation.

A picture from inside the synagogue on the site of Abraham’s tomb (Ibraham if your Muslim) – I think this picture is really interesting because the Muslims and Jews both share this site in Hebron with a mosque and synagogue connected to one another and a whole bunch of IDF forces in between. This part of the building’s Muslim heritage is clear from the Arabic script on the walls.

Hebrom was an extremely informative and also quite sad place to visit. This is a view from the ancient souq. The shopping district is hundreds of years old, but is effectively a ghost town today. A group of hardcore settlers moved above the busy streets and tensions between these new comers and the Palestinians have caused significant violence over the years. The metal fencing in this picture is a sad testament to this fact. The Israeli settlers who live above the souq have a habit of throwing their trash on the Arabs below. The Palestinian put up the pictured chicken wire to minimize the amount of shit landing on their heads. It was gross and upsetting.

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem

Skyline of the old city of Jerusalem (or Al Cuds fii Arabee)

The Church of the Holy Sepluchre in Jerusalem

Yad Vesham The Holocaust memorial in West Jerusalem – I spent about five of hours there and was deeply moved.

My favorite structure in Jerusalem – The Dome of the Rock. It rained very hard the morning I visited, but as we say here "mish mushcela" (not a problem)

The New City

I find these next two picture really interesting. The first shows a small portion of a wall stating donors for a very nice park I visited. If you look closely you will see that next to the names are the country of origin of the donors. Except, in the case of American citizens it lists the state of the particular person. If the monument builder had not done so every other line would say United States of America, but instead it says things like “Stanford E and Helen Eisenberg – Florida”. A whole lot of stuff in Israel is like this park. Everywhere I went I found signs in English thanking foreign citizens for paying for sidewalks, statues, and monuments to “the glorious unification of the city” in 1967 – read conquest of Arab controlled land. It is almost like Israel is a college and has the world’s largest alumni base. I had never seen anything quite like it.

The second picture is equally interesting. It is a shot of an exhibit at The Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv. The Museum chronicles the history of the Jewish Diaspora. The whole museum was absolutely fascinating. But, I particularly enjoyed this exhibit because it is an artistic representation of a hypothetical twentieth century Jewish family. The curators of the museum had free rein to present whatever history they wanted and from an art history visual culture standpoint it was a beautiful way to convey the museum’s message, which I would summarize as Jews are everywhere and have done everything, but are still the family of Israel (Not sure you believe me? A large painting of Mark Spitz hangs to the right of this picture).

Along the water in Tel Aviv looking South to Jaffa.

After going to Tel Aviv I met up with a friend and we traveled to Tiveria in the North and biked around the Sea of Galilee. This is a self-portrait after a brutal climb.

Taking a break by the Lake

We built a fire and slept on the beach. It was lovely. Then we got up and finished the ride the next morning and started our journey back to Amman.

(Sidenote: I always envisioned a pregant Mary traveling 4Ever to get to Bethlehem. In reality the North of Israel is only a 2.5 hour bus ride from Jerusalem. I am not saying it wasn't hard. I took a bus for a reason, but it is no PCT... just saying)