Wadi Walla, Elections, and a Cultural Misunderstanding

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Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope that you all had a great holiday and spent time with those you care about. Because I was unable to go home, I ate dinner at the house of a Lt. Col. in the Air force and it was amazing. I met him at the U.S. Embassy and asked him if he could help me talk to some people who work in the State Department and yesterday I got a call inviting me to Thanksgiving at his house. I had a great time with loads of food and the company was great. I was also able to talk with someone who works in the foreign service so it was a very fulfilling evening, even if my Taboo team lost. It was nice to celebrate here, and it brought back some good memories.

I have not written in over a week and I have acquired a couple of good stories to tell you all. My only real traveling was going to Wadi Walla for a short trip in the morning. We were supposed to visit a nature reserve but it was rained out (which I didn't even imagine to be possible because up until last week I had seen about 3 clouds) so we decided to use the bus we rented and visit Wadi Walla instead. The Wadi was a creek that ran through a canyon that alternately widened and narrowed. We didn't think that we would be getting very wet so everyone was in their good hiking gear, but then we found out that in order to continue down the canyon we had to jump into a pool which could not be climbed around. We decided to go for it and began what was later termed an "amphibious adventure" by jumping into the pool fully clothed and hiking down the Wadi for about an hour alternately swimming and walking. It was an amazing and beautiful hike and if the season was not changing we all would go back and do the whole thing, possibly down to the Dead Sea itself. The best part about it is that Amman seems to be a little weather bubble and when you leave it, the temperature rises about 20 degrees and it suddenly becomes great sunny hiking weather.

I have also started meeting with a language partner 1-2 times a week to improve my Arabic which has been great both for my cultural understanding and for my language. Last time we talked about the differences in relationships between Jordan and the US and I found it really interesting so I am going to fill you in a bit on what he told me. In Jordan, there is no dating as we conceive it to be in the US. What happens is that I guy and a girl meet each other, perhaps at work or school, then talk for a while (a number of months maybe) before the man decides whether or not he wants to marry said girl and proposes to her. Before this point there is absolutely no touching, just words exchanged, and rarely do the two spend time alone before the proposal. During the engagement, which lasts anywhere from 6 months to 2 years, the couple is allows to be alone with each other and do things such as hold hands or kiss (but absolutely no sex!). This is similar to normal dating in the US and it is during this time that the two make up their minds up about whether or not they want to get married. This usually happens in the early twenties and the girl is often the junior or equal in age and level of education, rarely older or more educated. It is possible to break off the engagement if the couple really does not get along but this is hard for the girl, as many Jordanians do not want to marry a girl who has been previously engaged. If it all works out then they sign a contract, the man pays a sum of money do the woman's family, usually to the tune of 2000 Jordanian Dinars in addition to paying for a fancy and expensive wedding. If a man is not married by his late twenties then his family starts to get concerned and his mother begins the search process. She asks her neighbors if they have any available daughters or if they know any and then goes out an visits any potential candidates. If the mother and any female relative she takes with her dislike the girl, then she is taken off the list. This gives a tremendous amount of power to the females in the family because they decided which girls the bachelor can and cannot see. If they like one then the bachelor and his family make a visit and the possible couple are allowed to talk alone 1-3 times before they decide if they want to get married. It is quite a process in all and I hope that you learned something, please email me if you want some more clarification or have questions.

I think that now is a good time to tell you about my cultural misunderstanding that lead to a spa-like face cleaning. It all started after I was playing chess at a cafe and afterwards decided to get a haircut at one of the local barbers, who are open late at night. My Jordanian friend said that he knew a good guy and would take me to him which sounded like a good plan because I thought that he could get me a good price (about 2-3 JD). He took me to a little store which consisted of two chairs facing a mirror, a small area in the corner to wash hair and a couch in the back. It all started innocently enough with a glass of tea and a normal haircut (apparently Jordanians measure their haircut by the size of the razor attachment they prefer). It was a pretty good haircut if a bit short and I thought I was done when the barber informed me of something else that he was going to do. This process became the rule of the event. He said that he was going to take the hair off from my upper cheeks, the side of my face and forehead. I didn't think that I had much hair there but thought that I might as well do it because if should be pretty quick. He then got out a string and set it up in such a way that he was able to grab the hairs on my face between two strings and ripe them out of my face. Apparently this is called threading and ladies have it done all the time but it was a new and terribly painful experience for me. With my face stinging he then said something else I didn't quite understand but told me to stay there and started putting lotion on my face. Again I was not quite sure what he was doing but thought that this would be the last step and then I could head out and do my homework. It was not so. He put a thick gel on the upper half of my face (from the shaving line up) and then used a machine to "buff" it being the best word for the process. Then he got a machine from next door which started emitting steam and he placed it so that the steam was hitting that side of my face. He then moved and buffed the other side waiting for the steam to do its wondrous and slightly painful work before switching it to the other side. He then buffed that side of my face again, and started the most painful part of the whole ordeal. He tool what was a small metal circle attached to a handle and used it to scrape all of the imperfections off of my face. I cannot explain how much it hurt except to say that then he was working with the crease of my nose, I was basically crying because of the intense pain. It was the most painful thing in my recent memory and I still can't believe that I let him do it to the other side of my face. After he would scrape for a while he would show my through my teary eyes all the terrible things he was taking off my face and ask my if I ate a lot of chocolate. After he finished my whole body signed with relief that they agony had passed and I sent out a little prayer that the whole process was done and I could escape from this prison of exfoliation. Alas, the rule remained true as he took out another machine that turned out to be a small suction which he used to suck even more gross things off my face, all the while showing me to make sure I knew it was all working. After the suction he gave me hope by wiping the gel off my face but then took out another machine he called the "laser" which basically shot little sparks from a clear rod onto my already tortured skin, only making me jerk a little bit from the pain. After this I could not imagine that he could do anything else to me until he took out mud from the dead sea and lathered it on my face, pronouncing me "Rambo" and telling me to drink my tea and wait for it to dry. I got my hair washed while it dried and then was able to wash the mud off, again giving me hope for the final ending. Again my hopes were smashed as he took out yet another cream and put it all over my face, blow drying it for about 10 min. Then he pealed it off my face taking with it whatever dirt might have managed to cling on to my face (I can't imagine that there was much after the previous processes). This actually turned out to be the end of the whole face cleaning process, الحمد لله!, and he then put two different types of gel in my hair followed with a spray just to make sure it wasn't going anywhere. I left the shop dazed and confused and asked my Jordanian friend what just happened. He said "wait, that is not what happens normally at Salons in America?" To which I replied a firm negative and informed him that if not for just then, I would perhaps never have that process done, ever. He was surprised and asked my why I didn't know that was going to happen and was surprised again when I said I had only been to the barber once in 2 months. Apparently this process is normal for Jordanian men and Arabs as a whole spend a lot of time in the barber shop, drinking tea and swapping gossip. In short, my cultural misunderstanding had led to an one and a half hours of intense face cleaning and a hair cut for about 20 JD which was 17 more than I came wanting to pay. That is about 28 dollars so you ladies tell me if I got a good deal, but that is that last time I pay someone to torture me in the name of beauty.

The other interesting thing that happened here recently were the local elections. If you are not interested in politics than skip the next section but I hope some of you do read it. To summarize the Jordanian political system, it is a Monarchy and in the end, the King holds ultimate power but there are two bodies, the upper and lower houses, which help to rule the country. The upper house is made up of about 84 people and they are all appointed by the king where as the lower house of 110 people is elected every four years but can be disbanded by the King at any time. There have been recent strides in women's rights and the king has allowed there to be 10 seats out of both the houses to be fore only women, who would otherwise be soundly defeated. The whole system however is terribly flawed and the people do not have very much faith in the elections as a whole. Jordan is still very tribal and so people only vote for members of their tribe or not at all making the biggest tribes the most powerful. Also the members elected to parliament are payed a life time salary that ends up totaling over $500,000 which is a massive amount to any normal Jordanian. Most of the people on the street see the people running as corrupt, liars, and cheats who are just using their money to gain influence. It is also quite common that many people are paid to vote for a certain candidate often making 100 JD which can be a month's salary for a poorer Jordanian. Even then the voting percentage was about 30% in Amman and a bit higher outside the city. As a whole I found that real critical thought was fairly rare with most candidates saying things to the effect of "Islam is the Solution" and not giving specifics. On the whole, the entire even made me appreciate our political system, flawed as it is.

I can feel your eyes getting tired from all the reading, so here are the few pictures that I have http://picasaweb.google.com/luke.bolton514/WadiWallaTheElections and I hope that you learned something, or at least to ask what is going to happen to you before you sit down in a barber's chair in the Middle East. In the next episode of my adventure here I hope to tell you about a super half-maraton, an athletic sufi prayer session, and a trip to the desert castles. Stay tuned.

Luqa

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Photos

Narrow Canyons
The rock was beautiful

The First Pool
We began our journey swimming

I look terrible...
Classic Jordanian haircuts definitely don't suit me

Are you Gellin'
I am.

Vote!
GOTV Jordan style

Too Cool
This is political activism in its hippest form.

Islam is the Solution
Thats what they all say...