Uprooting Washingtonians

Okay – last week was a good week for me work wise. Presumably because I wasn’t the duty officer (not until October) but also because I got to do some cool stuff. I got a tour from an archaeologist at the American Center for Oriental Research at their Amman headquarters. Before I left my cousins Tine and Wyman gave us a DVD of Petra and it included some of ACOR’s research including scrolls from 400 a.d. that I got to see (kept in a cardboard box). I also then traveled with visitors and palace officials. In Petra, we received guided walking tours by the Park’s director AND we got to drive the route back. Normally Petra is an in and out trail – but we got to walk in (downhill) and then drive out (as the weather got hotter) because we were traveling with palace officials. If you ever have the chance to travel with palace officials I recommend it because they are very nice AND things seem to happen successfully around them.

For those of you following the chicken shawarma ban here in Jordan – the newspaper reports that “certain restaurants” will be allowed to open in one week after passing a health inspection. In other news, the city is working on tearing up trees that have been planted in the sidewalks rendering the sidewalks useless. The worst of the trees are known as Washingtonians. I do not know why but have my suspicions– they are enormous, fat ugly evergreens.

My Week with the Duty Phone

“This is Police Lt. Hassan. I am sorry to wake you, but please sir, this American, she is disturbed. We need you to come and take her away.”

This is my first taste of Duty Week. Every week, one officer is designated the Duty Officer, and has to answer the Duty Officer Phone after hours, no matter what time it is (editor’s note: isn’t that what “after-hours” means?) After-hours emergencies almost always involve American citizens in peril. As the person chiefly responsible for helping US citizens as his day job, I was an especially effective Duty Officer. “Effective”, meaning I could cut right to the chase and explain the serious limits on what the Consular section could do for Americans in foreign countries.

As you dear readers already know, Consular officers do not call the police and order them to release wrongfully arrested Americans. Amazingly, every American who is arrested and calls the Duty Officer is wrongfully arrested. Every male American assault victim was “jumped by a bunch of guys” or “attacked by the restaurant valet”. Reviewing this summer’s Duty Log is a case study in denial, or to put it charitably, “positive spin”. I am waiting – in vain, so far – for a caller to claim responsibility for his predicament. “I was an idiot. I had too many drinks at the restaurant. I was annoying the other customers and they asked me leave. Then I punched a guy!” I don’t know what I’ll do when this happens. I might just order the police to release him.

“Lt. Hassan wants to know when you are coming. The American refuses to eat or drink until you come here.”

For the American Citizen Services (ACS) officer, reading the Duty Log is like paging through your old High School Yearbook: all of these now-familiar names, way back when they were just coming to our attention. “Hey, I remember Fatima! I saw her in jail!”

According to many colleagues, it would make more sense for the ACS officer to be the permanent Duty Officer, as the bulk of calls falls into my portfolio. I see their point, but I am a firm believer in sharing the burden. Besides, studies have proven that non-Consular officers get their best cocktail party anecdotes during their Duty week.

Carrying the Phone means you can only make tentative plans. One call came in while we were at the movies (sorry, audience members!). Another came in the middle of a dinner out (sorry Jim & Sharon!). Furthermore, only one in ten calls is a true emergency that needs to be brought to my immediate attention: a death, an arrest, a missing person. The other nine (lost passports, visa delays, etc.) can wait until business hours, and are filtered out by the Duty Officer. At some consulates, the Duty Officer is forbidden from calling the ACS officer after hours. Otherwise, their work day would never end. Fortunately, we’re not that busy here.

Thank heavens, Duty Week for me ended yesterday, and someone else has the Phone now.

“Sir, this is Lt. Hassan again. The American woman, now she is naked! Please come now sir!”

Ordinary weekend - mall, coffee, groceries

We are in the second week of the shawarma ban. Chicken producers are complaining loudly but health officials point to the fact that people have died. In other death news, the talk of the office is a pet camel killing its owner.

This week, I am heading to Petra again for work. This time I will actually get to visit the park - twice! On the second time, I'll be leading a big group so the first time is for me to be able to say knowledgeably "this is the Treasury." The bad news is that we had to postpone our first party until Saturday because I will be out of town. I think Dan know believes that we unpacked for nothing.

We spent this weekend enjoying our car. We drove around trying to get our bearings with a lot of "I've never been on this road but I know we live west of here." We drove to Jordan's biggest mall and drank Starbucks coffee and went to the movies. I successfully purchased a watchband with only knowing the word for "watch." I think the fact that my watchband was falling apart made it easy for the storekeeper to understand my meaning.

We also went to the grocery store where we debated how much of a premium is one willing to pay for beef from "New Zealand" over beef from "China." We also bought really delicious mixed nuts that I keep eating and which may not last until the party - especially now that the party is on Saturday.

Comparing Headlines

The headline of the Washington Post today is "Karl Rove to Resign." The headline of the newspapers in Jordan today? "Government Bans Shawarma." And to be honest the shawarma ban will have a much bigger impact on our lives. Shawarma is Jordan's top-selling and yummiest fast food - its like a gyro with thinner meat (either lamb or chicken) and bread rolled up tightly. They are delicious and before I arrived in Jordan, Dan told me that he has found dinner for a $1.50. His $1.50 dinner is shawarma. Apparantly 200 people got sick from eating chicken shawarma at a refugee camp. I was first surprised that shawarma was available at refugee camps and secondly surprised that the government's response is to close ALL of the shawarma restaurants in the country temporarily.

Our adventures in cabs

Our car isn’t here yet. Every day this bugs us because we live in a somewhat pedestrian unfriendly neighborhood and we aren’t supposed to walk to work. IF we were to walk to work it would take 15 minutes but sidewalks aren’t always available; there are often trees in the middle of the sidewalk; and cars aren’t looking for pedestrians. I think this is actually one of the down-sides to living in a posh neighborhood – it is not designed for walking around.

I like this website Walk Score which evaluates addresses based on how pedestrian-friendly they are. Naturally our Dupont Circle house which shares a back yard with a gym, bar and restaurant scores well; Megan’s Arlington house scores pretty well – but my parents house at the beach scores surprisingly low. I think this is because while there are some things on the island (coffee shops, book store, restaurants) some things are quite far away. I think our Jordan apartment would get an Arlington-like score (or maybe a little less) – we are very close to small grocers, a few restaurants and two English language bookstores. There actually is even a movie theatre within ¾ of a mile but it only shows Arabic movies – so we have to take a cab to get to the movies.

Cabs are really cheap here and plentiful. We dread them mostly because we don’t want to talk politics with the cab drivers. I would say ¾ of our trips in cabs have this bi-lingual dialogue (Arabic in red)
We: Good morning. How are you?
Cab driver: Good morning. Thanks be to God.
We: Our house is near the Housing Bank. Please go straight and then make a left at the circle. (Have we mentioned that they don’t really use street addresses here so everything is a description?)
Cab driver: Your Arabic is good.
We: No it isn’t but thank you.
Cab driver: Welcome to Jordan. Where are you from? (This sentence is sometimes in Arabic sometimes in English)
We: America but we really like Jordan.

Here there are two possible conversations:
#1
Cab driver: I like Americans. I don’t like George Bush. I like America. I am Palestinian. Why doesn’t America like Palestine?
We. (Awkward silence.) We really like Jordan – everyone is so nice here. (Continued awkward silence on our part for rest of trip. Optional monologue by cabdriver.)

#2
Cab driver: You work in the embassy? (We have either hailed a cab from outside the embassy or have asked to be taken there)
We: Yes.
Cab driver: More than anything I want to go to America. Can you get me a visa? (Sometimes they instead ask for work inside embassy.)
We: Have you tried applying? Have you visited the website – it explains what you need.
Cab driver: But you know people. I really want to go. I have 4 children and a wife.
We: How old are your children (hoping this description of family will last rest of cab trip.)

Three Deaths and a Funeral

It's been a morbid week in the Consular section. A single death of an American citizen overseas is difficult enough. This week we dealt with three American deaths, each one wrenching in its own way.

Swift burial is the custom here. A typical Jordanian opens his newspaper to the obituaries each morning, because the death announcements include same-day funeral details. Unless you are in the immediate family, you may not even learn someone has died until you read his death announcement in the newspaper. Then you cancel your appointments and go to the funeral (if you are male). Every day here, people are attending funerals for folks who died mere hours ago.

My first case involved a burial that was too swift. The widow called me from the US to inquire about her husband who had died last week here. Her husband's family had just informed her that a) her husband had died; b) the death occured a few days prior; and c) he was already buried near the family's home in Jordan. She is the next of kin and not Jordanian, yet no one inquired about her wishes. She wants him buried in the US. We are now looking into disinterment options...

In another case, a woman had died in a horrific car accident. Her husband was driving and survived miraculously. The family of the deceased wanted her to be buried in the US, while the husband and his Jordanian family preferred to bury her in Jordan. After a day of heated words and little sleep, the families agreed to have the burial here. But in a very bizarre twist, the morgue decided to hold the body until the Embassy gave its blessing to bury her. Members of both families were calling me just 2 hours before the scheduled burial (announced in that morning's paper), imploring me to "release" the body. Perhaps setting an unwanted precedent, but desperately wanting to avoid derailing a funeral, I wrote an improvised "Letter of Release", signed it, and faxed it to the morgue. The family wished me well and set off for the funeral.

The family of the third American agreed to send her body back to the US for burial. She was an older woman - widowed - visiting nieces and nephews in Jordan when she fell suddenly gravely ill. The Embassy plays a bigger role in these cases. When arrangements were finalized regarding casket and flights, I was called to the morgue to certify that a) this is the same person whose photo appears in this passport, and b) this casket contains nothing but her remains. After everything is in place, we actually affix an official seal in wax. The morgue was not nearly as bad as I feared. Some of the woman's family were there too. As we passed the time watching the workers seal the liner, the family inquired about what a grim job I have. Thinking fast, I responded, "but I am helping reunite your aunt with her family in the US". This was not the time to compare cases, I felt.

On top of all this, my office was visited by sudden grave news, in true Jordanian style. As my colleagues were reading the local newspaper and drinking their morning coffee, just casually browsing the obituaries, we learned that one of our colleagues died. The Jordanian man who sat at the desk next to mine, just barely thirty years old, not yet married, had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and we will never really know if it was accidental or not. Just moments after learning of his death, there I found myself - on the chartered embassy bus, bound for the males-only funeral.

Ali-wood

Last week, Dan and I literally had plans every night and on some evenings two things. This week looks much, much easier but perhaps I am just deluding myself because a number of Congressman are arriving on Friday (a weekend day).

Thursday night we went to a party with the lesser cast and the crew of Hurt Locker – a movie being filmed here in Jordan about a bomb de-fusing team in Iraq. Ralph Fiennes and Guy Pearce stayed in their hotel rooms. Just like the Vietnam War sparked a bunch of Vietnam themed movies – the Iraq war is doing the same. Apparently Jordan competes with Morocco and Spain for Iraq desert shots. Spain has more amenities for celebrities but Jordan’s army will lend you their tanks and army at a really good price. Dan charmed the crew telling stories about his field trip to the morgue. I just smiled a lot and expressed interest in the upcoming Harold and Kumar 2 (which several crew members had previously worked on.)

This weekend we also bought a local television. Jordan uses European-system television and DVDs so our own TV is really just a Netflix-player. Our local TV still needs to be hooked up to a satellite up on the roof so it is less useful than our American-system TV but has more potential.