From a developing city to the Paris of the Middle East and Somewhere in between

---

I am sorry that I have not kept yall updated in a while. Getting internet for more than a few minutes has been a challenge but right now it is a nice reprieve from the extensive traveling I have been doing. Lets see where to start. Last...Monday, yes I think it was Monday there was a shooting at the University of Jordan between two bedoiun tribes, Al Anwans, (the agressors or agressives) and the Bini Shaher (Sons of the Rock) best match up ever. Anyway the details have not exactly been released even by my professor Dr Najah who is a meber of the Anwan tribe but this is what I heard, besides shots from my class room that I thought were fireworks. Apparently there was a dispute about territory, ie two females claimed a spot on campus and others claimed that you couldnt claim seats. The females brough cousins and there was a big fight outside the main gate on Wednesday or Thursday. the dispute was not settled however. Some of the cousins met up for round two at about 10 am on Sunday and fired shots into the air. Two of my professors claimed that these were just noise guns but I am not convinced. Also Dr. Najah refuses to tell me if his tribe is winning or not. I will keep you all updated as new information comes in. This created a panic amoung the students near by who rushed the administration building for cover. However the administration building would not let them in and began to throw rocks at it, breaking the gass. It is either here tat someone got their hand cut or orgionally someone was shot in the hand, I have heard it both ways several times. Anway we were all hearded up and take to the CIEE office across the street and told that classes were cancelled and we would have class there all week with free transportation to and from. I would I have shot his other hand if we had had one more week. Anyway the week ended uneventfully with finals and that led to a barbeque middle east stly at one of the staff person's house and after that there were sad goodbyes to most of my comrades who I had see everyday for 7 weeks straight never to see again. I guess I am playing that down a little bit, it actually was a very wierd feeling to go from seeing people everyday to aknowledging that you really like eachother and you hope to keep in touch but the reality is that was probably it.
But to ease my loneliness my wonderful roommate and I jumped ship and headed for Lebanon. We had been planning to go through Syria for some time and now have second passports to hide or previous trip to Israel. Here is a friendly top to everyone. DO NOT GO TO ISRAEL..it is just kind of cool compared to all of the trouble it causes. Also I am going to assume that no one is going to want to pick me up at the air port in the States when I come home because I have at that point A) Been in the Middle East for over a year B) Have two passports C) Been to atleast 3 countries with state department travle advsiories...basically I can predict to be in customs for 3-4 hours. However US customs has NOTHING on the Syrian border. Leaving Jordan they had forgotten to transfer our extended visa into our new passports so we had to pay about $25 in fines for "overstaying our visas." Not to mention to find that out we had to follow an offier behind a broken down building where I asumed on the other side there was either another building which I could not see or a firing squad which I would hopefully not see before the deed was finished. I am not sure if it is fortunate or unfortunate that the prior was true considering the hefty fine I had to pay to fund new and more furstrating future beaurocratic measures. But let me assure you, the Jordanian boarder is the easy one, well Lebanon was the best but we are not to that point in the story yet. Once we crossed into no mans land that is where the real fun began. This is where our taxi driver knew better than to agree to waiting for Americans at the Syria boarder and bid us Masalama. We walked into the customs office where we stood in a couple of different lines to just try out how they felt before settling in the diplomatic line, well line is a bit of a forigen concept, we joined the group of people in front of the diplomatic window and elbowed our way to the front where we were told we needed a blue paper which was on the wrong side of another large group of people as well as an ear thermometer that was possibly cleaned between uses. After tackling that particular disgusting exerience that I will now bury into my subconcious forever we were sent on an epic quest to the next building for a photo copy of our passport which could never quite be handled in the next building because for about three buildings were we turned away and told to go to the next building until we just about corssed the Syrian boarder on foot. 30 minutes later we were finally able to submit our request merely to travel through Syria to get to Lebanon. This actually probably was completed in record time which we made up for on the way back. Well unfortunatly my trusting traveling companion is getting anxious to keep moving even though I could honestly fall asleep in this air conditioning. I will continue this story later Inshaallah. Masalama Bishofkum (Good bye, see you all later) Sorry for the typos but I am going to save Rebekah the distress and not take the time to read back over this.

---

Comments

[belinda]

wow
I want to hear the rest of the story! But here I sit in air conditioning, with wireless internet, waiting American style - impatiently......

[Ashley W.]

I can't wait to hear more. I feel like I've been tunning in to a gripping TV show, and now there's a cliffhanger. Oh well, I'll wait :) Take care of yourself. Love.