Nothing Better than a Snow Day

...except for two snow days! Dan here again, enjoying an unexpected holiday from visa interviews. Snowfall in Jordan is usually nothing to blog home about. However, a steady flurry began Tuesday night and kept going all through the day Wednesday, leaving 18 inches of snow on the ground. Work was closed, except for "essential" employees. Everyone with a visa interview scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday will need to come back another day. Nevertheless, it was a welcome break.

Our patio furniture bearing quite a load

Out for a walk amongst the SUVs

There are no snow plows in Jordan, but a number of front loaders were deployed to clear roads. Even our sleepy residential street was plowed within the first day - that would be speedy in DC! Despite the road clearing, it would be foolish to drive today in anything but a 4 x 4. Amman is a hilly town, with roads at a steeper grade than is permitted in the US. Add to that the carelessness of pedestrians walking in the street (a dangerous practice even in warm weather) and you have a recipe for a deadly commute.

Super Bowl Sadness

Dan here. Yes, the Super Bowl is coming. Armed Forces Network is airing the game live for the real fans. We are going to a Monday night tape-delayed viewing party where all attendees are sworn to avoid any spoilers during the day on Monday.

So what am I complaining about?

The commercials are missing! Yes, AFN airs network TV programming, but without the commercials. In lieu of commercials, AFN inserts back-to-back public service announcements. These run the gamut from useful (deadlines for absentee voting) to preachy ("Never shake your baby!") to indecipherable ("On or off the battlefield, practice composite risk management every day!").

Rest assured, taxpayers, these messages are all very low budget. Our favorite ads feature Squeakers, spokesmouse for OpSec (operational security: loose lips sink ships). Check out his latest message here.

It is exciting that the game will be played in west Phoenix. But to be honest, in previous years the commercials were the bigger draw. This better be a really good football game this year.

A Day in the Life

I haven’t come up with a very good way to describe my job. I usually say I spend half my time on visits and half my time learning about the Jordanian economy by talking to Jordanian business owners (who are almost all Palestinians) and government officials who work on economic issues (who are almost all Jordanians).

I thought I’d explain my day a little in hopes that it sheds some light on what I do (or don’t do) all day. For the record, my job is WAY easier than Dan’s.

8:20 Arrive at office without Starbucks coffee because we are running late. Check email (both work and Hotmail). Write a very quick (and middling quality) draft cable about the Jordanian budget just passing the lower house of parliament for my boss who meant to write it but then got tied up with an upcoming visit (50% of her job too) and now the head of the embassy is asking why no cable was written about the budget. A cable is just a State Department way of saying a “memo” but harkens back to the good ol’ days when these memos were sent via telegraph (or something involving a cable) . They still use a very unattractive courier font and tend to get messed up if you use anything fancy like underlining or a “$” sign.

10:00 Attend a presentation of “Jordan’s National Investment Strategy” at the Four Seasons hotel. There are probably 300 people there and attendees are segregated by government officials, press, business men and the diplomatic corps. I sat in the second row of the diplomatic corps with the other non-Ambassadors. I met a nice man from the Italian equivalent of USAID. Unfortunately, my real-time translation headset wasn’t working and so I was grateful for the speakers who read from their PowerPoint but the speeches sounded like this to me “Jordanian investment ??? ??? ??? strategic plans for ??? ??? ???. Saudi Arabia ??? ???. In this World Bank Report, you can see ??? ???” Clearly I have more studying to do – or this emphasizes the difference between my class where we focus on Jordanian dialect phrases for “please fill the gas tank with unleaded” “please weigh these grapes for me” rather than the words that no doubt fill the new proposed taxation legislation that will help investors (I know the words for “taxes” and “investor” but not “proposed” or “legislation”). Thankfully, this was an event where I was there mostly to show that the Americans support Jordan’s investment strategy and my lack of useful notes is okay and I can just call the people who gave the talks and ask them to send me the strategy and someone here can help with translation.

12:30 Go to a lunch for 20 American business women who want to meet Jordanian business women. Give a few words of welcome. Eat delicious Lebanese food. Get a gift of Ghiradelli chocolate. Helpfully explain to the Americans that the literally 20 dishes on the table are the “appetizers” and that a main course of “mixed grill” and dessert is coming. The dessert is the national dessert of Jordan – Kanafa – it is not my favorite but this one is better than average because it has more of the crunchy shredded-wheat like topping and less of the creamy-cheese filling.

2:30 Lunch ends. Drive back to Embassy.

3:00 Review a report for the military that is basically “So, You Want to Learn about Jordan.” I add statistics for 2007’s GDP growth and inflation rate. Edit the aforementioned cable about the budget. Send it up to the Ambassador’s office for approval. Wait. Receive edits that are mostly additional commas. Add business cards that I received today to my big binder of business cards which are organized by industry.

6:30 Remind Dan that we have a dinner to go to and he should stop working.

7:00 Arrive at US Rice Federation dinner which is an awards ceremony for a rice recipe cooking contest. One of the Embassy’s responsibilities is to promote American products (like rice) but we won’t support one American company over another – this boils down to the Embassy believes strongly that Boeing airplanes are vastly superior to AirBus airplanes but cannot tell the difference between the excellent Dell computers and excellent IBM computers. Regret that I have eaten too much Lebanese food at lunch and not this vastly superior American rice.

A very delayed office holiday party

During December, one of my office mates was on leave, another was doing reserve duty and the rest of us were busy with Congressional visits (since Congressmen can only travel when Congress is out of session. So finally the holidays were celebrated this weekend by my department with Lebanese food (all "Arabic" food is really Lebanese food).

Here you can see pictures of the table, the Oud player in the background of Dan and the Agriculture guy Mohammed and Duffy and her boss Natalie.

Some scattered thoughts...

It snowed this morning. This just four days after we swam outside at a Dead Sea resort. Now admittedly, we only swam outside in a heated pool for about 10 minutes before I was able to convince Dan that we should swim at the inside pool – which had both heated water and heated air.

Amman is up in the hills and we have discovered multiple times that the weather can be cold (okay cold by Jordanian standards) and gray but it can at the same time be sunny and warm in the Jordan valley (where the Dead Sea is) – just 45 minutes away. I think this is most akin to the microclimates that Californians describe around San Francisco and the phenomenon that you can drive out of cold, gray San Francisco and end up somewhere sunny and warm pretty fast.

Several times this cold week (meaning high 50 degrees in Amman), Jordanians have apologized about the weather to me. It seems like their sense of hospitality extends to the weather. All conversations here are about either (1) the cold, which no one likes and (2) the rising price of everything. Inflation is hitting average Jordanians pretty hard because of rising world food and oil prices combined with Jordan’s currency being pegged to the falling US Dollar.

Unrelated, Jordan’s restaurants – the fanciest and the cheapest were featured in the New York Times last week.

The American who Crushes our Dreams and Hearts

Dan here, savoring my last day of expat anonymity.

Up to now, I have been responsible for serving Americans: whether they need a new passport, get themselves arrested, or just want to vote absentee. Tomorrow I start my new job of adjudicating visas for non-Americans who want to travel to the United States. I will interview 70 people per day, and before too long, I will be a quasi-celebrity on the street.

Some countries’ citizens do not need visas to enter the US. France, Germany and Japan, for example. But visas are required for citizens of countries with characteristics such as higher unemployment, such as Jordan.

It is a completely different job, and I am excited for the change.

I will be using more Arabic than ever. First, I need to determine why you want to visit the US. Second, if you entered the US, what would keep you from over-staying? As a result, young singles get refused a lot.

During visa training, I realized how seldom I ever said “No” to Americans. Maybe I said “come back with more documents” or “bring your wife here with you”, but almost never a flat-out “No”.

Not so with visas. Actually, saying “No” isn’t so difficult. The harder task is making a quick decision, yes or no. (Duffy can confirm this, I’m certain) Apparently my judging muscles need a good workout. The assembly line is no place for navel-gazing. Once I’ve made the decision, saying “No” isn’t so bad. Jordanians are so polite that many say “Thank you” after being refused. Of course, some break down and cry, but this only reinforces our confidence in our decisions to refuse.

And those decisions are final. No appeals. Of course, you can always write an angry letter to the Ambassador (the title of this entry is a reference to my colleague, quoted from one such letter). And you can always apply again. Maybe another officer will see your case differently.

Many refused applicants say they want to travel to the US to visit a relative, but the airfare alone will cost them several months’ salary. Later, after they are refused, the reaction is sometimes so emotional that it casts doubt upon the applicant’s story: would you cry if you couldn’t visit your cousin? No offense to my cousins, of course!

Last week I completed a farewell tour of the kingdom’s jails to visit our incarcerated Americans one last time. It was my second time to see them. One inmate remembered me and literally turned his back to me when I entered (a very insulting gesture here). “You have done nothing with my complaints since you last visited! Why should I even talk to you?!” He would say nothing more until I left. He deserves a change. So do I.

Tel Aviv for the Weekend

Last Thursday was Islamic New Years so we had another day off. This week we actually have a five-day week but then next weekend is a three-day weekend for MLK and one of the days this week I am going down to Petra which while still work is still easier than a day in the office.

This weekend we traveled with a colleague to Tel Aviv. She had not yet been to Israel and we know how much we appreciated having a colleague take us across the border the first time - just to know which window to go to and which steps diplomats do and do not have to do. It is also helpful to Israel on a 3-day weekend because so much of the country shuts-down for the Sabbath - so it was nice having Thursday when things were open.

We spent most of Thursday in Jaffa - which is sort of Old Town Tel Aviv.

Minaret in Jaffa

In Jaffa, which I think is the site of Simon the Tailor from the Bible, the government has been building up a park and it is the most touristy area of Tel Aviv but it is also a beautiful park with views of Tel Aviv's sky line. Here I am on the "wishing bridge" where you make a wish on your zodiac sign.

In Jaffa we also saw busloads of participants in Birthright the program that brought Rachel and Joel to Israel.

Same skyline. Same Mediterranean sea which really was this blue

Friday, we toured a crafts market and a produce market before going to the movies. We saw Dan in Real Life which was sweet and we really liked. We also saw Michael Clayton which I think got great reviews but which none of us adored. Maybe we were tired from 2 days of walking - but the movie didn't seem to go anywhere except to point out that when companies poison people it is bad (which it is) and that companies shouldn't have people assassinated (which they shouldn't.) It was not clear to us that these were disputed points.

Another Month in Pictures

I imagine this would be easier to read if the pictures and prose went together but some how the times that we think to hook up the camera is not the same time that we are feeling witty or writer-ly. So here are pictures but no wit...

On Christmas Day, we went to Kerak which is the best preserved of the Crusader castles in Jordan. The castle is in the middle of a regular town on a hill, that is otherwise covered with small shops selling falafel or doing car repairs. In Amman too the ruins are right in the middle of downtown.

This first picture is actually of Kerak taken from the helicopter trip but it isnt very clear - but enough to see that it is a real city.

Here is Dan on the top level of the fort.

We seemed to be visiting on school-trip day and the ruins were full of college students who were all much braver than we are. Here they are climbing on the south wall of the castle which is on a cliff.
Here's me on the first underground level (but the roof has caved in so there is some sunlight. Next time we go we will bring a flashlight so we can make it further in.
More brave youth climbing on walls atop cliffs.

Our latest houseguest

Our Jordan apartment is nearly double the size of our DC house – every room is bigger than what we have at home (except no whirlpool tub here) and we have three bedrooms. This has meant we are able to have houseguests a lot more easily. We’ve been told that foreign service officers stationed in Paris have houseguests quite literally every single weekend of their two-year tours - since everyone they know decides to visit. Here in Amman, we’ve had both sets of parents, are expecting some foreign service officers taking a break from Damascus (Amman has multiplexes and Starbucks) and this weekend we hosted my second cousin, Rachel’s boyfriend, Joel. If we were in Paris, this relationship might be too distant for us to say “sure come on over” – but here in Amman with almost no one “just in the neighborhood” we were delighted to play host.

Rachel and Joel were both in Israel participating in a program called Birthright which if I understand it is a joint government/non-profit program to introduce American Jews to the idea of living in Israel. Rachel had to get back to school, but Joel who is studying Arabic wanted to see more of the Middle East than just Israel. He was here for a few nights, we took him to our favorite restaurants, toured Roman ruins in the rain and sent him on a bus to Petra. We really liked Joel – he was curious about the region and our work; joined a brunch party at our house; and we could share stories about Maha and Khalid the two stars of the DVD that comes with the Arabic text book we all use.

Another First!

Not only did January 1 mark my first time in a helicopter it was also the first time I could be seen on Jordanian television. The nightly news covered the Senator's visit to meet the Prime Minister and I can be seen in the background taking notes. I am wearing a blue blazer and khaki pants - the answer to the question - "What outfit do you wear to meet the Prime Minsiter and then go hiking in a national park?"

My first helicopter ride

Yesterday, I went on my first helicopter ride and I expected it to be terrifying but it surprisingly was not. Taking off and landing both felt weird – it felt like the engine was straining to work and that it really didn’t want to go up and the sensation didn’t feel like being in an airplane at all. I had a similar experience getting on a camel which you think will be like riding a horse but then it stands up and lurches in an entirely unnatural way.

Unfortunately, my helicopter ride was interrupted by work emergencies – how to change a 4 hour visit to Petra into a 2 ½ hour visit because the helicopter pilot was nervous about bad weather. Thankfully, I also learned quickly how to communicate while riding a helicopter – the answer: text messages. I have to admit that in the U.S. I NEVER sent text messages because 1) the phone company charges you for them and 2) I just didn’t spend that much time using my cell phone which was invariable in the bottom of my briefcase and turned off.

Here is Jordan, however, I am never separated from the cell phone (nor is any Jordanian). In fact there are more cell phones than Jordanians and nearly every household, regardless of income (and this is a poor country) has one. Some people have more than one because it is expensive to call friends who don’t use your cell phone company – this would be like having a Nextel and a Verizon phone and you’d use your Nextel phone to call your friends with Nextel phones and your Verizon phones to call your friends with Verizon. You can tell what phone service people have because the phone numbers differ – we use Zain.

On a helicopter, my Blackberry and its email capabilities only worked when we were pretty low to the ground and near a town – but the flight to Petra is mostly over the desert so the email was typically not working. Additionally, even when the cellphone part was working it is too noisy on a helicopter for the person on the other end to hear you. Thankfully text messages worked during the entire flight. I was able to send messages to my colleagues who had driven ahead to Petra that looked like:

Pilot sez we mst leave by 330. mst chg schedule. Pls cancel lunch reserve. Order 13 sandwiches for 1:20. thx!!!

Although the actual message probably had more typos. My colleagues on the ground totally saved my congressional visit. The senator and congressmen with whom I was traveling (the helicopter was not just for me) got lunch AND got to see Petra. And I got to see the park from the air – which was indeed very cool. I will post some not very good pictures tonight.