Shukran, Jordan – 3 Weeks of Learning
Here is the link to photos for this post!
I threw my head back into the crisp water pouring down on me, relishing the instant sense of refreshment and relief and the delicious coolness on my scalp. The sensation was so soothing it made me want to sing- and so I did. There in the hostel bathroom in Santiago, my lungs filled with air and new life- I’ve made it to the last country of this trip. I can finally feel how close I am to the finish line, to returning home. And on the nearly 16-hour flight that we took from Amman, Jordan to get here, I had plenty of time to reflect on the past three weeks and what I learned from my time in the Hashemite Kingdom.
There are two parts of our Jordan visit that will stick with me the longest, I think. The first was our excursion to the Southern Badia region of the country, during which we walked the Sikh and wandered around Petra, we rode camels in Wadi Rum, we met, spoke, drank tea with, and learned from members of the native Bedouin tribe, and we basked in the beauty and geographical significance of Aqaba- Jordan’s only coastal town. I will never forget standing on the rocky beach on the edge of the Red Sea, looking out into the dusky evening sky and being able to see a sliver of Sinai Peninsula of Egypt and a fragment of Palestine off in the distance. It was profound to stand there and to realize how deeply interconnected the Middle East has been since the dawn of time, and to be there as a student experiencing such extreme luxury (our amazing country coordinator, Dr. Majd, put us up in a five-star hotel during our stay in Aqaba) whilst existing in close proximity to such extreme suffering, just across the water. The sky weighed heavy on the sea in-between, and it was hard not to feel guilty that we had ended up as tourists on one shore simply by virtue of where we were born and who we were born to- we did not earn our privilege, just as nobody in Palestine (or anywhere, for that matter) deserves the violence that has come upon them.
I will also never forget our site visits during our excursion to the South. We made multiple visits to women-led and women-run community-based organizations that seek to help Bedouin women generate income- this is important work, because Bedouin women face serious social, economic, and geographic barriers to financial autonomy (which often acts as the catalyst for other forms of female empowerment in the home and community). The Disi Women’s Cooperative was my favorite of such organizations- it was founded by a Bedouin woman who recognized a need for income-generating activities and female social empowerment in her community. Like many rural areas around the world, Jordan’s Southern Badia is less developed, more politically and socially conservative, and more geographically isolated than Jordan’s urban centers (Potter, 2023). As such, women who reside in this region tend to face even stricter regulations pertaining to their mobility, their right to assembly, their freedom of speech, and their right to decent work than do urban women in Amman. In response to these issues, the Disi Women’s Cooperative helps teach rural women how to create and run successful in-home businesses where they sell products they learn to create at the Cooperative, such as hand-woven rugs and tote bags, dishware and sculptures made of pottery, and Bedouin medicinal remedies made from native herbs that the women grow and harvest themselves. Women also have the opportunity to advance their English skills at the center by taking language classes, and they are able to form friendships and networking connections with other women who participate in Cooperative programming (2023). It was amazing to see what these women were capable of withstanding and overcoming simply by having a space to call their own- a space to organize, plan, exchange ideas, sympathize, heal, and create together.
The second part of our time in Jordan that meant the most to me took place on our excursion to the North- to Jarash, Ajloun, and the small village of Najdeh. While in Najdeh, my peers and I were given an unprecedented opportunity. For roughly two hours, we were able to meet and speak to four Palestinians who are survivors of persecution and displacement as a result of conflict and genocide by Israeli forces in Palestine. Two of our speakers live in Gaza camp and two in Souf camp, two of Jordan’s largest refugee camps. There was one man- Majed, a slender man in his mid-50s who is a schoolteacher in one of Gaza camp’s UNRWA-funded, 2-shift schools- and three women- Betool, a photographer and writer who teaches youth photography in Gaza camp, Hanaan, a CBO organizer and the director of the Women’s Committee in Souf camp, and Lubna, who recently earned a masters in Nursing after also completing a PhD in environmental engineering.
The speakers took turns answering our questions and sharing bits and pieces about themselves- Majed was born in Gaza camp and has never even seen Palestine, but he has spent his entire life fighting for a future there and strengthening the minds of younger generations so that they might have a better chance at freedom. Betool captures the lifeblood of community, hardship, joy, and resistance in Gaza camp with her moving photographs, which she posts online and spreads around the world. Hanaan works with women in Souf camp to help them raise their voices and find comfort in the support of other women. Lubna continues to volunteer in her community to “make herself useful” while she applies for jobs- having 2 PhD’s has thus far failed to shelter her from Jordan’s unemployment crisis. Majed said something that struck me as very surprising towards the end of our conversation- after being asked, “What message about Palestine do you think it’s most important for us to take back to the U.S, as students and as ambassadors for your nation’s cause?” he said, “Remember that Palestine will never forget what the American students have done for us. There is no bad blood between Palestine and the American people- We are grateful for the awareness you have brought to our struggles.” While Majed was speaking on the behalf of many people in that moment, the others nodded along with him. A sense of awe came over me. I could not believe the emotional capacity of this man- to have seen and felt so much death and destruction at the hands of U.S tax dollars sent in twisted military care-packages to Israel and to re-iterate to us that he has love for the American people?! The strength, the kindness, the perseverance, the resilience of his spirit swallowed me whole.
The rest of our time we spent back in Amman, visiting other CBOs and CSOs and attending lectures on topics that included Islamic Feminism, the history of British occupation in Jordan, and the 1993 Israel/Palestine peace treaty in the context of all that has happened since. It was after one of our Israel/Palestine lectures that Dr. Khan stepped up and gave us a timeline of U.S involvement in the Middle-East from the Cold War onwards. Listening to him speak about this was the very first time I had ever heard about the Soviet Union and the United States’ tug-of-war in Afghanistan, the U.S’s state sponsorship of the Mujahedeen through provision of weapons, the establishing of schools that taught extremist Islamic ideals and created child armies… I fought tears of frustration as I listened to Dr. Khan speak. I felt so ashamed to have lived 20 years without knowing or understanding the depth of the violence that my country has created, funded, and inflicted on this region of the world. Later that day I wrote a poem about it, which I’ll include here.
Another American Evil I Didn’t Know About Until Last Week
It reeks of U.S…
forced entry at a vulnerable hour,
proudly cloaked in moneypower,
that we sucked out of Black others,
and then we taught you to be extreme.
In this warped institution, under the US constitution,
AKs should shoot semicolons at the ends of holy passages and holy people.
Put down the pen and gather reams of information.
Gun-metal gleaming In the hands of angry children,
looking for anyone to blame but God.
And when we did not love your angry
children,
and they used the weapons given by U.S.
to try to burn U.S. down,
we trained terrier meatheads to track
the scent of a terror that’s traced to our teachings.
Unearthed were the strings,
sewed into the soft backs of angry child puppets,
as we pulled them by their wrapped heads to the altar of US national security.
Executed for executive protection.
We know that the hearts of our men hurt
as they kill ancient brothers in the name of what we call justice,
but justice has its fingers broken from clawing at the choppers when they leave it behind, crying
on the tarmac, knowing it will die.
And everyone knows that freedom matters
more than human life,
when the human in question does not
flatter U.S.
Nothing more than a poor, angry child with the gun that we hired as it’s babysitter;
It grew up to be a killer and
decided where revenge was best sought.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
I left Jordan a different person than when I arrived. I feel as though I have a significantly broader and deeper understanding of the yawning gap between what it means to be a woman in America versus a woman in Jordan versus a woman in Afghanistan, etc; What it means to be an American passport holder versus what it means not to be one, I recognize now that even with all that I have learned, there is so much I will never know. There is so much I will never understand about the suffering of others. But I must keep making efforts, each and every day for as long as I am alive, to learn more and to empathize and sympathize with more and more people from as many different contexts as possible.
I think that as Americans, we all have a duty to become global citizens- a duty necessitated by the insanely disproportionate amount of global influence our nation possesses, often at the expense of families we will never know the names of. I am extremely grateful for the freedoms that my country has provided me- I am hyper-aware of how insanely mobile and autonomous my life has been thus far, even just after 20 years of life- and at the same time, I recognize the unfairness of my nation’s historic and current actions and of my unearned advantages within and because of it all. I want to do everything I can to make room in local and global circles (to the tune of Bernice Johnson Reagon) and to continue to learn from the voices and stories of women like the members of the Disi Cooperative and Betool. I can’t wait to see what opportunities and knowledge Chile brings. Until next time.
November 8, 2024