June 15, 2009
All were interesting interviews, but I was most affected by our trip to East Amman where we'd been told not to go after dark. The streets are narrow and we saw trash on them for the first time in Amman. We drove by one of the refugee areas and there are children in tattered clothing running the streets at sundown, something you NEVER see in West Amman. Everyone in West Amman seems to be wearing the newest Gap and Zara and Adidas. (Clearly i'm exaggerating but it's my impression). We weren't sure what to expect as we drove off into the netherland of East Amman this afternoon at 6, already exhausted from a full day.
After getting lost five or six times (now the standard), we finally were able to meet up with Rami*, an Iraqi who is being resettled in Tennessee in a month, thanks to his help as a “mutarjim”, a translator, for the American army. He hopped in the backseat and instructed us on how to get to Kumiko’s apartment where the English class was being held. I wasn’t sure how on earth they’d expected us to find this place, given the sparse directions we’d been given, but I’ve given up being surprised by the directions in Amman. People seem to assume you’ll just ask around 6-7 times until you find some landmark someone can meet you at. This is the third time we’ve had to resort to this method. I have to say that probably a tenth of our time here in Amman has been spent lost in our Toyota Camry. Poor Israr had to keep rolling down his window to ask "Where is Hashemi?" or "Where is Plaza Mall?" and decipher the cryptic answers for me as I skirted death by crazy driver and dodged people leisurely crossing major roads mid-traffic.
And who is this Kumiko? We weren't sure. We’d met a Syrian-American guy the week before, doing medical research on refugees, who’d put us in touch with Kumiko. She turned out to be a Japanese woman who’s been living in Jordan for 14 years, speaks Arabic as well as English and hosts English classes in her apartment every night for refugees. She’d invited us to come by tonight and we’d said yes of course, hoping to get some information on the Iraqi experience in Jordan, but knowing we might not have any formal interviews.
We were right about that. But had a much more rewarding experience. And saw a window into the lives of Iraqi refugees in Jordan. Rami led us in and introduced us to the class. I dazzled them with my meager Arabic skills “Ismee Heidi. Ana min Amerka. Sakne fee New York. Ana taliba fee jama’a Columbia, buss sanke fee saef fee Amman.” From that moment I was a celebrity. We then switched over to English as that is after all why they were there. Abdul explained that he was being resettled in Illinois, where his daughters already lived. He’d been rejected once before for resettlement, because of his service in the Iraqi army, even though he’d done work for the Americans, but finally had gotten his papers and now was leaving in five days. Hussein was leaving for North Carolina in 8 days, and Ali for Ohio in a month. Samer and his daughter Aliya were still waiting for resettlement. Rami told us how he’d been angry for a while at how long it took to get his resettlement, even though he’d work for years for the American army, but he said with a grin, “Now I’m leaving in a month for Tennessee, so I’m not angry anymore.”
Rami was the teacher for the day, having excellent English skills. During the middle of the class, as students were struggling to pronounce “p” versus “b” (Arabic doesn’t have a “p” sound), I tentatively raised my hand, remembering a trick from my teaching-English days, and offered to help. I was invited up to show them how holding a piece of paper in front of one’s mouth when speaking could demonstrate that when you say “book”, the paper doesn’t move, but when you say “park”, the paper moves with the air from the aspirated P. For the next 20 minutes, I was invited to continue teaching the class, as a guest teacher. We went through “C” words, “D” words (dinosaur was the first suggestion, from eight year old Aliya tagging along with her dad to class), and “E” words. Somehow “era” came up which fortunately an Iraqi woman with excellent English who was helping out the class was able to translate. It was both deeply rewarding to spend time doing hands-on work again, and also heartening to see the work of not only Kumiko, opening her home and giving energy to the places where help was truly needed, but also the comraderie between students, with those who knew English volunteering to teach the class every day. They offer two levels of English as well as men’s and women’s classes. And two hours each day. It’s really a great group. But it was also very depressing for me to think of the lives ahead of these Iraqis, most from Bagdad, but one from Basra and one from a smaller town I’d not heard of, all educated with lives from the past that were no longer possible. I thought of those headed to Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina. What will they find there? Each are struggling with English and I know Americans aren’t particularly patient when it comes to people who can’t speak English. And I know they’ll face racism and anti-Arab—particularly anti-Iraqi sentiment at times. I’m worried for when Aliya is resettled. Where will she end up? Will her classmates make fun of her accent? Will they call her “the enemy”? I told them that they were going to nice places. And I asked them if they had any questions about America, but they just looked at me with anticipation for what was coming and smiled at me and thanked me for visiting. I do believe my country has many wonderful aspects. And the children of these men will probably live a good life, and will hopefully be fortunate enough to travel to visit their parents’ homeland some day, but it made me incredibly ashamed to represent this “great country” that had bombed their towns, killed their friends and family, and which was now hesitantly opening it’s doors to them only to throw them racial slurs and hard work when they arrive. I know the situation is more nuanced, but the facts remain... Maybe it’s the air tonight, but I’m feeling a bit disappointed in the world. Right before I left, Kumiko said “You study human rights? I need so much help. So many problems. Please come help.”
*all names in the above blog entry have been changed, because I didn’t ask permission to use names in any writing.
On a separate note:
Link to an interesting gender study of the small town of Sahab, produced by JOHUD (the Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development): http://www.johud.org.jo/Latest/why-don-t-women-join-the-work-force.html
This post is from a blog I kept in 2009 while working in Jordan to conduct a conflict assessment of the country.
Today was a new day. A busy frantic getting-lost getting-lost again talking asking listening learning seeing going feeling day.
We conducted three interviews, one with a high up politician man in the major Islamic opposition party (IAF), one with representatives from Al Jazeera Amman and one with an English class of Iraqi refugees living in East Amman. Basically West Amman is wealthy and has lots of foreigners and cute cafes and East Amman gets less services, less water, it's where the Palestinian refugee camps are and where many Iraqis live--those who don't have the money that most Jordanians perceive Iraqis to have.
 |
| Amman, Jordan |
After getting lost five or six times (now the standard), we finally were able to meet up with Rami*, an Iraqi who is being resettled in Tennessee in a month, thanks to his help as a “mutarjim”, a translator, for the American army. He hopped in the backseat and instructed us on how to get to Kumiko’s apartment where the English class was being held. I wasn’t sure how on earth they’d expected us to find this place, given the sparse directions we’d been given, but I’ve given up being surprised by the directions in Amman. People seem to assume you’ll just ask around 6-7 times until you find some landmark someone can meet you at. This is the third time we’ve had to resort to this method. I have to say that probably a tenth of our time here in Amman has been spent lost in our Toyota Camry. Poor Israr had to keep rolling down his window to ask "Where is Hashemi?" or "Where is Plaza Mall?" and decipher the cryptic answers for me as I skirted death by crazy driver and dodged people leisurely crossing major roads mid-traffic.
And who is this Kumiko? We weren't sure. We’d met a Syrian-American guy the week before, doing medical research on refugees, who’d put us in touch with Kumiko. She turned out to be a Japanese woman who’s been living in Jordan for 14 years, speaks Arabic as well as English and hosts English classes in her apartment every night for refugees. She’d invited us to come by tonight and we’d said yes of course, hoping to get some information on the Iraqi experience in Jordan, but knowing we might not have any formal interviews.
We were right about that. But had a much more rewarding experience. And saw a window into the lives of Iraqi refugees in Jordan. Rami led us in and introduced us to the class. I dazzled them with my meager Arabic skills “Ismee Heidi. Ana min Amerka. Sakne fee New York. Ana taliba fee jama’a Columbia, buss sanke fee saef fee Amman.” From that moment I was a celebrity. We then switched over to English as that is after all why they were there. Abdul explained that he was being resettled in Illinois, where his daughters already lived. He’d been rejected once before for resettlement, because of his service in the Iraqi army, even though he’d done work for the Americans, but finally had gotten his papers and now was leaving in five days. Hussein was leaving for North Carolina in 8 days, and Ali for Ohio in a month. Samer and his daughter Aliya were still waiting for resettlement. Rami told us how he’d been angry for a while at how long it took to get his resettlement, even though he’d work for years for the American army, but he said with a grin, “Now I’m leaving in a month for Tennessee, so I’m not angry anymore.”
 |
| A focus group |
Rami was the teacher for the day, having excellent English skills. During the middle of the class, as students were struggling to pronounce “p” versus “b” (Arabic doesn’t have a “p” sound), I tentatively raised my hand, remembering a trick from my teaching-English days, and offered to help. I was invited up to show them how holding a piece of paper in front of one’s mouth when speaking could demonstrate that when you say “book”, the paper doesn’t move, but when you say “park”, the paper moves with the air from the aspirated P. For the next 20 minutes, I was invited to continue teaching the class, as a guest teacher. We went through “C” words, “D” words (dinosaur was the first suggestion, from eight year old Aliya tagging along with her dad to class), and “E” words. Somehow “era” came up which fortunately an Iraqi woman with excellent English who was helping out the class was able to translate. It was both deeply rewarding to spend time doing hands-on work again, and also heartening to see the work of not only Kumiko, opening her home and giving energy to the places where help was truly needed, but also the comraderie between students, with those who knew English volunteering to teach the class every day. They offer two levels of English as well as men’s and women’s classes. And two hours each day. It’s really a great group. But it was also very depressing for me to think of the lives ahead of these Iraqis, most from Bagdad, but one from Basra and one from a smaller town I’d not heard of, all educated with lives from the past that were no longer possible. I thought of those headed to Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina. What will they find there? Each are struggling with English and I know Americans aren’t particularly patient when it comes to people who can’t speak English. And I know they’ll face racism and anti-Arab—particularly anti-Iraqi sentiment at times. I’m worried for when Aliya is resettled. Where will she end up? Will her classmates make fun of her accent? Will they call her “the enemy”? I told them that they were going to nice places. And I asked them if they had any questions about America, but they just looked at me with anticipation for what was coming and smiled at me and thanked me for visiting. I do believe my country has many wonderful aspects. And the children of these men will probably live a good life, and will hopefully be fortunate enough to travel to visit their parents’ homeland some day, but it made me incredibly ashamed to represent this “great country” that had bombed their towns, killed their friends and family, and which was now hesitantly opening it’s doors to them only to throw them racial slurs and hard work when they arrive. I know the situation is more nuanced, but the facts remain... Maybe it’s the air tonight, but I’m feeling a bit disappointed in the world. Right before I left, Kumiko said “You study human rights? I need so much help. So many problems. Please come help.”
*all names in the above blog entry have been changed, because I didn’t ask permission to use names in any writing.
On a separate note:
Link to an interesting gender study of the small town of Sahab, produced by JOHUD (the Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development): http://www.johud.org.jo/Latest/why-don-t-women-join-the-work-force.html
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