Touring Jordan

OK, this is not a particularly accurate title because I've been too busy on this trip to do much sight-seeing. That said, if you come to Jordan, and you should definitely come to Jordan - in fact, I would love to bring some students over here on a cultural immersion trip - there are a million things to do. Amman itself is great, with loads of history (the Citadel is located right downtown, next to the Roman theatre, and it has been occupied over the centuries by Romans, Byzantines and Umayyads) as well as stores so modern you would think you were in Paris. Jerash provides some of the best preserved Roman ruins in the world. Umm Qais also has great Roman ruins, and is not nearly as crowded as Jerash because it is tucked away in the northwest corner of Jordan, but is also the location where Jesus is supposed to have driven the evil spirits out of the possessed man and put it in a herd of swing that jumped off a cliff - surprisingly, when I went there a couple years ago I felt fine. The Dead Sea is OK, mainly for the experience of floating in it, although it's way too pricey for my blood - it is a neat place to watch the sun go down over the mountains in Israel, partially because it looks strangely like the sun going down over the New York mountains as seen from Burlington. You can go to Bethany Over Jordan where it is believed, at least by the Jordanian tourist industry, that Jesus was baptized. You can also go to Madaba to look at more mosaics than you could probably stand, and get a shave if you want for on dinar. The desert castle at Azraq is great, especially if you're up on your Lawrence of Arabia lore. I had my ultimate nerd moment there, which is saying something because my life is one long unbroken string of nerd moments. On my first trip to Jordan I was reading Lawrence's Seven Pillars while riding around on the bus with a dozen others professors on a grant to study Middle Eastern culture. When we stopped in Azraq I read, aloud, to the other professors, Lawrence's account of the room he stayed in at Azraq in the very room - including his account of ghosts - in any other line of work I would have been beaten to a pulp, but the other professors were delighted. I had a really profound moment at Mukawir, which was a Jewish fortress on a hill that was eventually taken over by the Romans. It was where Salome danced and John the Baptist had his head chopped off. I was standing up there next to Roman columns while the sun was going down, and the lights of Jerusalem were starting to twinkle, and the Islamic call to prayer started at two different mosques on neighboring hills. It was really emotional. So, a million things to do, although that really wasn't an option this time.

The one huge exception this time was a return trip to Petra. It was a Saturday so university meetings were out of the question. It's about a three hour drive from Amman to Petra if you take the more boring modern road, as compared to around five hours if you take the king's highway. It only took about two and a half hours because the taxi driver was going around 160 kph, which, if you convert kph to mph, converts to really fast. When you think of Petra the first thought for most Americans is the end of the third Indiana Jones movie (and, actually, there is a little gift shop right at the entrance called the Indiana Jones Gift Shop). Certainly, travelling through the Siq and coming out to the Treasury is one of the most amazing moments that you'll ever experience. However, that is just the beginning - Petra is huge. You can walk around for seven or eight hours and still just be scratching the surface. At the end of the day you can walk up the 850 steps to the Monastery at the top of the mountain, which is even bigger than the Treasury. If you go a little further you come to the shop at the end of the world - these merchants carry their wares up to the edge of the cliff overlooking the Wadi Arabia, and it's almost a contest to who can come closest to the edge. Many of the merchants actually still live in the caves of Petra. There is also a massive temple in the center of Petra and endless Nabatean tombs. This time for the first time I climbed up to the High Place of Sacrifice which is on a different cliff. Exhausting, but absolutely amazing. Petra is one of those places that you see and then you can't quite convince yourself that you were there. At the end of the day I got the money shot - a Bdul riding a camel on a Roman road with Nabatean tombs in the background.

Real World Amman

ACOR really is a rather odd, albeit cool, place. There are more students around here this trip than there normally are, which gives the place a different feel. Several students are here taking intensive Arabic courses at the language center at the University of Jordan. They're all nice kids, although I was in the kitchen last night heating up leftovers when an episode occured that had sort of a MTV Real World Amman feel to it. One female student was talking to two male students and it turned into a major dish the dirt fest on another one of the female students - it was priceless. Apparently, as a forty-seven year old man, I was invisible anyway so they just went on talking as if I were not there. I was half expecting to see them later on being interviewed separately by the film crews as they talked about their deepest feelings while crying. Later on I was down in the computer lab working when the disher was coming to say goodbye to the dishee and it was full of "luv ya babes", etc. Pretty funny, all things considered.

Shuttle Diplomacy

Someday, I suppose, Champlain and the Global Modules network will be famous and we'll just be able to alert people when we're rolling into town and they will arrange their schedule to fit ours. Let me wildly paraphrase Uncle Tupelo and say that if there will be a time, that time's not now. Everyone is very nice and, once they've had a chance to really think about the GM approach, they usually become very big supporters. Still, we're a small school pitching a new educational paradigm so we have to work around everybody else's schedule at this point. Since I've landed in Amman I've had multiple meetings at the University of Jordan on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, today (Sunday) and will again on Tuesday. The only days that there were no meetings scheduled were on Friday and Saturday (weekend days) and Monday (I'll be down at the Dead Sea presenting at the LINC Conference, which will probably mean meetings, although of the more unofficial kind - as Michelle Miller always says, "heaven forbid you end up next to Scudder in a buffet line at a conference because you will hear about the Global Modules"). The meetings might be Powerpoint presentations to entire divisions or discussions with university presidents or planning meetings with professors where we actually sit down and discuss possible themes and readings or question/answer sessions with students. On Thursday I had a 9:00 a.m. meeting with a dean at Princess Sumaya University, an 10:00 planning meeting with an English professor at UJ, a meeting with a different dean back at Princess Sumaya at 12:00, and then another planning meeting with a different English professor back at UJ at 1:00. Luckily it is only around a twenty minute walk between the two schools.

Working Out in Amman

Finding a place to work out is usually quite a challenge. However, it's never been much of a problem in Amman. Whenever I'm in town I get a six-visit membership at the Madina Gym (it's embarrassing/resassuring when you're already in the gym's computer system). It is a short taxi ride from ACOR - just go down to the next roundabout (something Vermonters understand) and take a left - it's only a few miles and costs about a dollar. Taxis are easy to find, with the exception of Thursday nights when they are almost impossible to find. A couple times on Thursday nights I've had to walk the entire way to the gym, which at least got me out of doing cardio. You just tell the taxi drivers Madina or Sports City or do a pantomime of bicep curls or just point straight ahead and direct them with whirling hand motions when you get to the roundabout. The gym looks like any fitness center in the west and during peak time plays the same music - I heard a lot of Eminem and that song "I got 99 problems, but . . ." a lot. However, if you go in the morning you get the Arabic equivalent of easy listening.

UJ

My main mission in Amman is to continue a dialogue I started a couple years ago with the University of Jordan (although I'm talking to other Jordanian universities as well). UJ is huge. It has around 40,000 students and has almost a large midwestern university feel to it. The picture is of the clocktower in the center of campus, which is where you always agree to meet people before going on to another location for a meeting. Someone over there told me that something like 60% of all Jordanian university students attend the University of Jordan. I think there are a couple small dorms for women across the street from the campus, but beyond that itis completely commuter (which is really much more common around the world than the US residential college model). The diversity of the student body is fascinating, especially in regards to the dress of the female students. You will see many women dressed in a very conservative style with only the eyes showing (even down to wearing gloves), others dressed in a completely western style, and many somewhere in between.

The size of the place provides unique challenges and opportunities. With a university this big Champlain would only need a tiny sliver of their courses to more than take care of all of our Global Module pairings, although, obviously we want far more variety than that. However, it's also a greater challenge to find a way to tackle a school that big, as compared to the simplicity of talking to a small university. In the case of UJ it was partially a case of simply showing up again and again until they realized that I wouldn't take no for an answer (I'm like the devil from that horrible mini-series Storm of the Century - "give me want I want and I'll go away"). Sometimes I think we forget in the US what an email, faceless society we are. In most of the rest of the world it is almost an insult to simply email back and forth, especially when starting a partnership - instead, it is more customary and preferred for you to show up and do the ceremonial dance of sharing tea or coffee (I don't know how my bladder is going to survive, I have to have another cup at every meeting, hour after hour). One of the reasons why I've suddenly made such great strides is that 1) there is no suddenly about it, these are relationships I've been forged for years, and 2) Champlain has given me the resources to visit these places and talk to folks face to face and thus I can build trust. The other key to the recent success at the University of Jordan is finding the "right" department and the "right" individuals. We've found a home in the Division of Arts, and especially in the English Department. Dr. Ahmad Majdoubeh, the Dean of Arts, is a very big supporter. Inside of English we have great supporters such as Rula Quawas, Inas Ababneh and Lazaward Sughayer. Rula is currently running her third GM, Inas is running her first, and Lazaward is planning her first for the spring semester. In addition, they are very active in bringing in other faculty members. To be successful with every new university you always need a Rula. She is a ball of fire and just walks up and down the hall stopping by every office to talk to everyone administrator, professor and student. She is like a force of nature and she's been essential for the progress we've made here and I look for a new Rula at every institution. I think we could almost fill half of our COR 120 sections with GM links just from the Arts division here at UJ, although, again, I'll almost certainly try and bring in more universities to create even greater diversity in the discussion. We also have to keep in mind that we'll be expanding the GMs into second year courses like Spirituality & Belief and Capitalism & Democracy, which would also be great fits for Global Modules, so I'm also laying the groundwork for future classes as well.

Hamdil'allah Hamdil'allah

My luggage showed up my second full day here around noon, which meant that I only had to do a couple days worth of presentations in the same jeans and shirt that I travelled in. The other day a photographer came in to take pictures of me while I was running a powerpoint presentation and he was dressed much better than I was. I get hit hard by lost luggage because it's hard for me to stow away clothes as a carry-on because I already have two carry-ons I can't live without - my laptop computer and my CPAP machine (I have profound sleep apnea, so having the machine lost if I bury it in my suitcase in just not an option). Of course, carrying the CPAP is it's own little joy because the machine itself is about the size of a toaster with all sorts of wires and hoses coming out of it and even I think it looks like a bomb. So, anyway, for the moment life is good - clean clothes, toiletries, notes and books - hamdil'allah hamdil'allah (thanks be to god)!

The House on the Hill

This is my fourth trip to Jordan, and the fourth time that I've stayed at ACOR, the American Center of Oriental Research. ACOR is a big white stone building (like every other building in Amman) on a hill across the street from the University of Jordan (it's about a ten minute walk downhill to UJ, although a steep climb back up the hill). It's run with US government money and with private donations and it's established to give travelling American professors and students an inexpensive, safe place to stay when they're in the region doing research. It's $30 a night, room and board. Well, the board is really only a big lunch, which is almost always "comfort food" and not some exotic Middle Eastern delicacy. Yesterday we had fried chicken and today we had meat loaf. You cook your own breakfast (or pour a bowl from these seemingly self-perpetuating boxes of cereal that look suspiciously like the ones that were here on my first visit in late December 04, although they never run out). Supper is leftovers from lunch. It has a great library and some real archaeological treasures squirreled away down in the basement. You meet the most amazing people just sitting around chatting over lunch - folks that are out digging at Petra or finishing their tenth book or even lunatic Vermont professors pedalling an international online network. It's like the big nerd dorm on campus. Everyone is extraordinarily friendly and there is a real collegial atmosphere here. I remember on my first visit here I cajoled a bunch of professors to get up at 3:00 in the morning so that we could watch the college football national championship game broadcast live. People are always around if you want to go out to a restaurant or grab some ice cream or just sit around and talk about just about anything. They also have a great collection of DVDs that visiting professors have burned over the years and left as parting gifts so there is always something to watch on TV. It's in a nice neighborhood where you can walk up the hill and see some nice houses and a mosque or down the hill to find shops and restaurants. There is always a guard with a machine gun in front of the place, but I suspect that is simply because of the US connection. I've always felt completely safe both in ACOR and in Amman. I walk all over the place or jump in taxis and go all over the city and have always been treated warmly by everyone I've ever met here in Amman. ACOR itself has sort of become my home away from home.