Mr. Hakel Gets Ready to Leave

Blog 20 July 25, 2010

Visited the University of Jordan today and will make a return trip tomorrow morning. The campus was pretty actually. The main roads were lined by a double line of pine trees that were only growing about ten feet apart. The trees were quite mature so it was kind of like walking under a very large hedge. One of the six or so presenters really did a great job and was very interesting. A couple did alright including a Jordanian/American woman from Cleveland. A couple were pretty forgettable. Not really their fault though. I just wasn’t interested in their topic, but a number of a our group did find the possibility of returning for intensive Arabic instruction pretty intriguing.
We ate lunch in the cafeteria that the students eat in. wow. Imagine the worst cafeteria food you ever had in the United States. Now imagine it is that with Middle Eastern food. The lunch lady meets mansaf. I’ll only describe my dessert. It appeared to be a thin layer of cake with maybe a strawberry cool whip on top. Wrong. It tasted like a mild, mild soap. Didn’t eat much of that.
Dinner made up for it all though. We ate at Sara’s Seafood. Our Sara was pretty excited. We sat out on a rickety looking balcony over one of the main shopping streets in Old Amman. The meal started with the traditional first dishes. A plate of hummus, a plate of Baba Gannouj, a bowl of a spicy tomato mixture called Gallia that is similar to salsa, but still pretty different. These three dishes are served with pita before every meal. Three other salads were served, a green salad that is very bitter usually, I discovered last night that squeezing half a lemon over the top helps quite a bit. There was a potato salad that was just flat out weird, and a final salad that looked like chunks of vegetables slathered in a yoghurt sauce of some sort. I’m told that one was good, but I’ve come to fear foods in yoghurt sauce. I also noticed that while some said it was good, almost the entire bowl sat unmolested for the whole night. After awhile fried potato wedges on top of pita chips were served and then the first seafood course came out. Up first were a platter of fried fish with a Jordanian wrinkly to it. At home this kind of platter would have chunks of thick white fish in a shape that bore no relation to what the fish looked like in the first place. No problem with that here. The entire fish from head-to-tail was dipped in the batter and deep-fried. Not much to look at, but that actually was delicious. They were not large, maybe 8 inches all together, so I had two! Next up was a platter of large shrimp. Died and went to heaven. Then it was a platter of calamari a few minutes later. I actually enjoyed that too. Then it was a large platter of broiled fish. Actually I should word that differently. Then it was a large fish on a platter. Yes, the head was present, Zach and Josh ate an eyeball a piece…well, Josh had half an eyeball… And that was all! Between the conversation, the constant din of traffic and a rare chance to watch Jordanians without them doing the same to you, and the sunset, it was quite an evening.
This morning we had our last presentations at the University of Jordan. Dr. Asfour, pronounced with an “ahhh” at the beginning for reasons that should have been obvious to everyone, is the assistant dean of the Faculty of Arts. The doctor had received his training/Phd in Italy and was quite the “italophile”, if I can coin the term. His italianess was quite evident and he gave a rambling/entertaining talk that was fascinating and impossible to understand at the same time. At one point he shared a story about Sophia Loren bringing mortadella, an Italian bologna basically, into the United States. I wish I could tell you more about it, but that’s all I caught. The most interesting outcome of the talk was the varied ways in which our group received it. A couple members of group felt he’d been on the anti-american side, but I and at least one other member didn’t get that vibe at all. It’s always interesting how witnesses to the same event can come away with totally different impressions.
In a couple minutes, I’ll stop typing and leave for…..the Turkish Bath. Almost wimped out, but I’m solid. The next sentence you read of this blog will be post-Turkish Bath.
Well, it was actually pretty nice. The steam room was incredibly hot, the hot tub was almost unbearably hot, and the rest was pleasant. The whole treatment would have been pretty expensive for almost all Jordanians, but pretty darn cheap compared to the same back home. It was about $30 and included a massage and exfoliation. We guys tried to maintain our macho-ness and dignity, but all but one of us ended up liking it quite a bit.
We’re in our last hours and I’m ready to return. As I type today, Tuesday, we are 36 hours away from our departure time. I’m trying to find words to sum up our experience here. I think I’ll need a little time.
And now for something completely different…
• Yesteday’s presentation by an Ohio State Math Education Professor at the University of Jordan brought me a cultural relevation that the more I think about it really does help me understand some of the differences between our cultures. Dr. Halah Shirwa was asked if a Jordanian student would feel free to ask a teacher a question about islam. Her answer was very revealing. She shared that the teacher might reply, “There are some things that just are. Do not always be asking why, why, why. You might as well ask why does the sun come up? Why do I have two hands and not three? It is this way because God wills it.”

I think this is reavealing for a number of reasons, but most important to me is that it helps me understand that what I believe might be a Jordanian/Arabic and maybe even Muslim attitude towards fate, science, authority, innovation and God. While we are taught to always ask, “Why?”, it appears that here at least in Jordan, asking “Why?” is actively discouraged. I believe this would have incredibly wide-ranging consequences for a nation, a region and a culture.


Salaam,

Mr. Hakel/Lane/Dad