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.