Dan meets a customer in real life

For the first time (and certainly not the last) Dan met a visa customer in real life. Thankfully, it was someone to whom he had given a visa but given how many people he turns down that too may be inevitable.

The national dish of Jordan is mansaf. When you go out for Arabic food in the Middle East (or in Washington DC for that matter) what you are actually eating is Lebanese food - all those little mezze appetizers and then grilled meats is Lebanese food. But the entire Arab world realized that for the most part Lebanese food is the tastiest middle eastern food and so when you have "Arabic food" it is most typically humus, baba ghanouj, tabbouleh salad, etc. But Jordan also has one dish from its Bedouin past - mansaf.

Mansaf is served mostly at special occasions. This week, I had visitors (why is this week like every other week?) who were invited to have dinner at the home of the head of Jordan's flight school. The director also invited me and Dan to join them. Dan doesn't normally come to my evening work events (and honestly I don't try to go to too many of them) but Dan hadn't tried mansaf yet and this was his chance. Mansaf is a rice dish with lamb and reconstituted yoghurt. Imagine you are a bedouin - you do not want to carry your heavy, wet, spoiling yoghurt with you - so you dry your yoghurt (I don't know how this is done) and then it is reconstituted as needed. Anyway, the mansaf was delicious.

Back to the visa...

Dan and I arrive at the director's home and we are introduced to his wife, his daughter and his son who right away says to Dan "we met at the Embassy. I am a pilot for RJ. We talked about movies." Dan then remembers the conversation and is visible relieved as he realizes that this is someone to whom he issued a visa.

More of me and Senators McCain, Lieberman and Graham

I just received quite literally 300 photos back from the palace photographer assigned to Senator McCain's visit last month. Naturally, I am not the intended subject of any of these shots but thanks to my bright pink jacket (which Kiki helped me pick out when she visited DC last spring) you can see me in the background alternately looking annoyed...


























Or in some of them I am staring at my Blackberry trying to confirm that the airplane is ready to take them to their next stop....


















Finally, a shot where I look less stressed. I believe this is right before they leave.

Iraqi Art Tupperware Party

Girlfriends and I have had a long-running agreement that no one will start hosting “parties” that involve sales (a la Pampered Chef, Tupperware). This weekend, however, we went to Jordan’s equivalent. We were invited to the home of Jordanian artist Eyad Al-Masri. We were welcomed into his living room which is filled with his art and given a chance to walk around. Then we were fed among the most delicious meals we have had in Jordan – nothing fancy but everything was really, really delicious - Chicken with lentils, parsley salad, stuffed grape leaves, fried kibbee, and my favorite dish which may have been boiled kibbee. I don’t normally think of boiling as a cooking technique that makes food yummier than deep frying but this had a really nice texture – sort of like a thick noodle on the outside – but really probably the same bulghar wheat coating that is on all kibbee. But now that I think about it – for a lot of dim sum I like the boiled options more than the fried. Clearly I should boil more of my food.

After lunch, Eyad started bring out more and more of his art. Click here to see what it looks like. Dan and I agreed that while we think the art is cool – especially his use of historical symbols from so many cultures - Egyptian, Persian, Babylonian – it wasn’t actually art that we wanted in our own home. But then, he says – “oh, I also represent some Iraqi artists” and he pulled out a 2 foot high pile of canvases. He then started flipping through the canvases and while some were atrocious pieces of horses running, I loved one abstract with faces and beautiful orange and red colors. It is at the frame shop now.

Shopping in Damascus

Finally pictures to match our shopping stories from Damascus.

Here is the main marketplace in Damascus. It was decorated with banners in honor of the Prophet's birthday (which was the reason that we had a long weekend.)

One of our stops was a furniture workshop. Damascene furniture is particularly known for its inlaid wood and mother-of-pearl. This entire tabletop was going to be covered in mother-of-pearl and was being made for someone rich in the Emirates. The approach seemed similar to making a stained glass window. The pattern was on the tabletop and one guy cut pieces which the second guy put into place. We ordered a much simpler chest - we will send pictures once it has been made.

This is a picture of the Street that is called Straight which is one of the few (the only?) streets named in the bible. The street is being dug up but I loved this decaying bay window which had beautiful wooden columns.

Here is Dan, me and our hostess Stephanie outside the rug store (very close to the above photo).

Here is me inside the rug store in the first room. We sat and had tea. The storeowner Elias (you can tell he is Christian because he has a french-sounding first name) would have his assistant unfold some rugs - we'd say "we like red" "we like pile more than kilims" "we don't like that one at all" and then he'd unfold some more rugs. Then when the floor was covered with 4 rugs that we loved he said "I have more rugs upstairs." And then we went upstairs and indeed there were more rugs. And then he said "I have another room downstairs."

Here you can see Dan carrying our rug. I mostly liked the mosque in the background.

Here is the same rug hung up on our wall. It is a 1930s rug from Persian (Iran) that had been hanging in a Syrian living so it already had helpful loops. In the background you can also see an oil paintint that Mom bought me when we were in Jerash. It is a beautiful modern urban landscape.

Pix from Cairo

Last month, I was in Cairo for 48 hours for a conference. So many people had talked about how crazy Cairo was that I was expecting chaos - but our arrival at the airport was easy - there was no traffic to the hotel and the hotel was lovely. The second night after a day of presentations on "Your Career with the State Department" we went on a sailboat cruise on the Nile. Here is me and Joan who was in my same orientation class in DC and is now serving in Jerusalem. I took pictures of the skyline while we are sailing but none of them turned out - you see a big black square and then a few neon signs reading "Hitachi" or "Hilton" but nothing that screams Cairo or even the Middle East.


Here is a picture from my hotel room of the Nile. You can see that there really is air pollution - which you could see but I couldn't tell as I was breathing. Friends working in Cairo say that air pollution means it takes longer to recover from colds and the flu and people with asthma really shouldn't come.

Baby Lions

As (nearly) always, the headline of today's Jordan Times was the answer to the question "What did the king do yesterday?"

"King, Mubarak urge boost to Arab joint action"

Fortunately, the front page also featured the birth of baby lions at Raghdan Zoo outside of Amman. Aren't they cute? When the panda baby was born in DC, it got a tremendous amount of media coverage - we'll see if Jordanians are more restrained about these cubs.