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Down and out in Stratford

2011-12-30T07:08:00.000-08:00

October 12, 2011
Stratford, London

As my surroundings in Paris had taken a somewhat Gone With the Wind-esque flavor, it seemed only fitting that my illusion of being in the deep south should spill over into real life.

In the movie, right after Scarlet O’Hara kills a northern soldier, she says, “I’ll think about that tomorrah.”

In real life, I had told myself this very thing about my return to London to gather the rest of my possessions. And now “tomorrah” was staring me in the face.

The last few days had been…eventful. Now, I was alone, lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling of the dingy apartment that less than a month prior I had thought would be my new home. I was due back in Paris the next day, but I could barely walk (thanks to a mysteriously sprained ankle), my luggage outweighed me, and this was only one corner of the jigsaw puzzle disguised as my life that I needed to sort out. What can I say? I had risked it all. What was it that my friend James had said while I was in Seattle? Something like: “Ah, your heart has been scooped out with a dull spoon and plopped on the table.” Yeah, that was about right. My heart was mush. But there was something else there, too. Lying in the dim light I let the weight of my situation settle around me. Surprisingly, I didn’t cry or wallow. From deep down one thought filtered above all the others:

I’m not going out like this.

I'm not leaving London on this note—I’m going to bury these memories and make new ones that will eclipse everything the last 10 months has brought.

I thought back on all my travels and the memories of the people I had met, what I had experienced and learned along the way. I had tucked these away in my mind and now began to retrieve them one by one like pulling out old boxes from an attic. But, instead of being dusty and grim, they were like bright, shiny, precious jewels. No matter how heavy my luggage is, how heavy my heart; these memories carry no weight.

As I took inventory of my life, I thought about my trip to San Francisco, the one I took a couple weeks before moving abroad over 3 ½ years ago. Right before I left, I had expressed my anxiety about not knowing what was ahead to my friend, Boogie, who I had met years earlier on a plane headed for Boston. He had shaken his head, raised his pint of beer towards me and said simply: “You’re the flame, darling…we’re the moths.”

The corners of my mouth curved slightly at this recollection.

Well, flame fucking ON! Helloooo, London...

Euh, excusez-moi????

2011-11-16T05:01:00.000-08:00

Oct 6, 2011
Paris, France

The stress over the past few months has taken its toll and I now have an eye inflammation that requires the talents of an ophthalmologist. Fortunately, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to go to the eye doctor in Paris so I know the drill. Left unchecked, however, this small inflammation has the potential of becoming quite severe, as history can attest:

So, I’m taking myself to the American Hospital of Paris as they’re one of the few places that will see me right away. Of course, it comes with a high price tag from a French point of view, but compared to my lack of medical coverage in the US, it’s actually quite affordable. Yes, I’m still living in that void between countries, where I have no rights in my own because I’m not present and no rights in the place I reside because a mountain of paperwork and red tape stand between me and basic social programs.

Nevertheless, I was feeling pretty good about the ease in which I managed the appointment and saw the same doctor as before. He remembered me.

He did a quick perusal of the situation with his microscope and began to give me his diagnosis in French.

Now, when you’re not fluent in a language every interaction is a rapid-fire game of deduction. You don’t catch every word, so you have to extrapolate meaning from a limited vocabulary.

Take for example the following sentence meant to provide instruction. Someone might say:
“Try to feed the dog late in the evening because that way you don’t have to get up quite so early to take him for a walk, although even then he might have an accident...oh, but if that happens, don’t worry.”

In a foreign language, from a sentence comprised of 42 words, you might pick out only 8:
“feed” “dog” “evening” “early” “walk” “accident” “don’t worry”

In the absence of more data, your mind immediately tries to fill in the blanks like a madlib exercise on crack.

Okay let’s see….

I need to feed the dog, that’s clear, but when…probably the evening or is it DON’T feed the dog in the evening because he’ll have an accident? I also need to walk the dog, but are they telling me that I should walk the dog in the evening after feeding or do I get up early and do it or is it BOTH? What does the “don’t worry” part refer to again??? Can’t be about not feeding the dog, so it must be about the walking of the dog, but that can’t be right…this is where the reference to an accident makes sense...Ah…fuck it! The dog must eat, the dog must walk, if there’s an accident I’ll clean it up. Whew, glad that’s over…now just nod, smile and all is good.

That's 42 words distilled down to 8, creating an inner dialog of 130. No wonder my head hurts so often in France!

Meanwhile, back at the doctor’s office...

My mind is racing, trying to follow the doctor’s words, fill in the blanks, translate and differentiate between the pieces of information that are meant to educate me about what’s going on versus actions that I must take to get better. I’m nodding attentively, the doctor completely unaware of the fireworks going on inside my brain as the synapses struggle to make the connections fast enough to catch up to where the conversation is actually at. I’m falling behind quickly, he’s talking very fast, but if I stop to think about how to tell him to slow down, I’ll easily miss the next few sentences. It’s a bit like the adults talking in the Peanuts comic strip. It’s “whah, whah, whah, whah…” (but with a French accent). From the words I know, I pick out and try to make sense of what’s going on. Suddenly, 3 words stand out and grind everything happening in my head to a halt.

“whah, whah, whah, whah….couper ton oeil…whah whah..whah..c’est ca,” he says, smiles, stops and looks at me expectantly.

I blink and stare at him, a few seconds of awkward silence transpire as my brain catches up to my ears and sends out a red flag with three words written on it “couper ton oeil!” “couper ton oeil!” it waves. On the other side of the flag my brain has helpfully provided a call to action in English: “Quit blinking like an idiot, he just told you he is going to cut your eye.”

Okay, enough’s enough, it’s all fun and games until someone says “couper ton oeil!" This French lesson has now come to an end. “Euh….et en anglais s’il vous plais?”

“Oh,” he smiles again and chuckles slightly and begins to explain to me that indeed the only way to address the issue is with surgery and tells me he has next Wednesday available.

I ask him what the recovery time is for something like this.

“Bah…I don’t know, it depends on how much it bleeds.”

Right.

He describes the procedure, which involves me completely awake as they inject a needle directly into my eyeball.

“Well, it will be so close that you won’t be able to focus on it,” he confides to me.

I leave the office a bit shell-shocked. Uh, seriously? On top of everything else, I'll be sans an eye? I try to imagine for a second being a photographer with a patch…merde.

My New Roommate?

2011-11-07T14:55:00.000-08:00

October 5, 2011
Paris, France

Is this my new roommate or a physical manifestation of my emotional state?

Of all the apartments in Paris…really? I end up sleeping next to a giant scary Gumby?

The other disturbing thing about this apartment, besides the spider that Barbara and I battled (and lost, mainly due to my scream of terror as she was trying to kill it…), was what was in the bathroom: Sean Penn’s head as a toilet paper holder. I stare at this as I go pee, at a loss, thinking back to that fateful night in Haiti, the expression on his face then was not too dissimilar. But, that is another story altogether and one that I’m not at liberty to discuss.

For the last few days I have woken up, not only NOT knowing what apartment I’m in, but not even being able to identify which country.

I’ve slept in 11 different places in the last 2 weeks and have hauled my luggage back and forth across multiple cities and 4 different countries. Normally, this level of movement and travel wouldn’t bother me, but this time I hadn’t signed up for it. I am utterly exhausted in every possible way and the idea of making decisions about my life has left me head-in-my-hands sobbing on Barbara’s couch for several minutes today. Every aspect has been tossed up in the air and instead of coming back down so I can DO something, it’s as if they are all suspended in mid-air keeping me in limbo forcing me to only exist in the present. Being in the moment is one thing, but not when the present utterly sucks.

Tomorrow I move to yet another new place: Savannah. At least, that’s what I refer to Brian’s apartment as. It’s a beautiful Parisian flat on the 6th floor in the 18th not far from Montemarte.

With its pale blue walls, antiques, tall bookcases, dark blue velvet curtains, ceiling fans, and collection of decanters; I'm reminded of the deep south and I suddenly have an overwhelming desire to watch Gone With the Wind and have a mint julep.

However, looking out the window shreds any imagination that I'm actually in the US, as the silhouette of countless chimneys against a rose-colored sky is quintessentially Paris.

The logistics relating to the apartment hopping have become infinitely more complicated thanks to several unwanted “guests” found at Joe and Gerhard’s, known in the scientific community as Cimex lectularius. Now on top of having my possessions spread between 3 countries and probably 6 or 7 flats, most of my clothes that I’ve been traveling with have been quarantined as the exterminators fumigate. Additionally, Brian’s friend who was holding the keys to his apartment has been unexpectedly hospitalized, which has kept him (and the keys) M.I.A. for close to a week.

So here I am, stuck between a scary Gumby and even scarier Sean Penn. How did this happen? How did it come to this? Well, I can’t even begin to write about all the twists and turns and ups and downs my life has taken. All I can say is that I couldn’t have gotten by without A LOT of help from my family and friends. You know who you are; in fact, you’re probably reading this blog. Thank you for making me laugh, letting me cry, protecting me from the elements, helping me move my shit over and over, forcing me to eat, and providing loads of free alcohol.

I started this blog about 5 years ago and have gone through long periods of time where I haven’t updated it, either because of lack of time, inspiration, or, in some cases, lack of electricity. It began because I wanted to keep everyone back home updated and entertained...to be able to chronicle my adventures/misadventures while pursuing a career in photojournalism and laugh at the unexpected that's cropped up along the way. Maybe this is my version of self-therapy, who knows....but I definitely believe that life is much more enjoyable when you don't take yourself too seriously.

Lately my life has been so unpredictable and complicated that I feel like I’m no longer in the driver’s seat and all I can do is sit back and see what unfolds. So, if you’re reading this and you want to come along for the ride, saddle up. Keep in mind: I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. So it begins…(again).

The Need to Know Situation

2010-02-24T10:25:00.000-08:00

February 19, 2010

It quickly becomes evident that getting our bearings here in Haiti requires more than a map and a sense of direction. The sensory overload that had overtaken us upon first arrival has somewhat subsided and in its wake has left us with the monumental task of figuring out how to get anything done in this country. How do two girls, trying to help a small non-profit, navigate through this massive disaster?

Our initial focus is to help individuals and families that have been displaced and living in tent cities surrounding the NGO’s facility. First task was to figure out who was not receiving aid already.

My biggest fear is to have our good intentions result in repercussions or unrealistic expectations that could lead to misunderstandings, distrust, and eventually bitterness. Many of these people had been promised help, but it had never arrived.

We needed to acquire information—fast.

Our driver, translator, and overall go-to guy is Cajuste, a local Haitian who has been working for the People In Need Partnership since its inception as the on-site Program Director. His home was located on a hillside, a neighborhood called Morne Lazare, which was decimated during the earthquake. He was lucky, he and his family survived, but his wife and 1 ½ year old daughter were among those who fled Port-au-Prince and are seeking shelter in the countryside some 200km away. After the earthquake they wanted to be as far away from buildings as possible and even though they are away from the immediate chaos, they are still living in a makeshift tent.
Cajuste takes us on a tour of the various tent cities nearby. He slams on the breaks as we pass a large group of tents and points.

“50,000 people live here,” he says soberly. We peer into the tent city and can barely comprehend that figure. The next one we come to is significantly smaller, but still not small enough. We only have enough resources for maybe 200 people and we still have to figure out how to give out food without being mobbed. Every time we near a tent city people approach us and tell us they’re hungry.

On our way back to the office we pass a small lot with tents. Cajuste slows and looks at us and asks us if we want to stop. We nod.

As we approach the tent city people come to greet us—a young mother, an older man, kids flock around us. They tell us almost immediately that they do not have food. We wonder how this can be, from the camps we have seen; some of these have obviously received aid. The largest even have huge tanks of water, which are routinely refilled by large water trucks. But the people in this tent city tell us that the aid goes to the larger camps that are just down the road, completely bypassing them.

A quick count reveals that there are approximately 75-80 individuals living in this small lot, many are single mothers or single women. Holli and I look at each other, both thinking the same thing: we’ve found a tent city that we can actually help.

35 Seconds that Changed Haiti Forever

2010-02-21T12:46:00.000-08:00

February 18, 2010

From our first moments here we realize the devastation has not been exaggerated and only mildly documented. Everyday we take a new road and see different parts of the city that have crumbled. Pieces of everyday life have fallen together haphazardly and resemble the rubble that litters the street. In the 35 seconds that Haiti shook, many experienced catastrophic losses.

People are everywhere. Make-shift living quarters are everywhere. Everyone is on the move. Some are fleeing the city, some are salvaging their belongings, most are scrounging for food and shelter and others are selling whatever they can on the street.

It’s as if the entire city is homeless. In fact, with current homeless estimates coming in at 1.9 million, an entire city IS homeless. Take, for instance, Paris—inside the Peripherique (the highway that encircles the city limits) holds a population of roughly 2 million lives. Imagine the entire population of Paris suddenly living outside.

After the Earthquake

2010-02-17T19:16:00.000-08:00

February 17, 2010
Port-au-Prince, Delmas, Haiti

I was awoken again in the middle of the night, this time not by the rooster that doesn’t seem to know that it’s NOT morning, but by the silence that ensues when the electricity goes off and the fan, which was circulating air on and around me, suddenly quits. My eyes are open—I think. I can’t quite tell as the darkness here is absolute. I strain my eyes seeking an outline in the dark of the fan or the barred window suggesting a hint of the night sky—but nothing. It’s pitch black. I ponder this strange feeling of being suspended in darkness for a moment. It’s something you never think about. In much of the modern world people are surrounded by light. So much so that it’s impossible to shut it off. Street lights, a neighbor’s house, cars, shops…these are ever-present in our lives. Even shutting these out doesn’t prevent a stray clock display, a charging cell phone, or a computer from giving one’s night surroundings a gentle glow. But, here in Haiti, everything seems to be unplugged.

Without the circulating air courtesy of the fan, I am unprotected from the various bloodsucking insects that thrive in this tropical climate. Though I can’t see or even hear them, I can feel them touching down on my exposed skin for a snack. I cover up and suffer through the stifling heat and the sweat that begins to soak through the sheets. I’m barely able to go back to sleep, but there’s no other choice. When you have no electricity laying in the dark is preferable to sitting in the dark.

I long for morning. I toss and turn. I awake every hour to see if the veil of darkness over Haiti has been lifted. It has not.

October 10, 2008: 5am, Dubai, U.A.E.

2008-11-01T12:36:00.000-07:00

A thick haze of humidity shrouds the city of Dubai as the plane descends, so I can’t see a damn thing, but I don’t care, my main concern is retrieving my checked baggage quickly enough to make my connecting flight at the other terminal, which was a 15-20minute taxi ride away.

* * *
Made it, with a half hour to spare! Kabul here I come.

I was hoping to get a window seat so I could lean my head against it and perhaps get a little sleep—as the last time I engaged in this blessed activity was Tuesday evening and it was now Friday.

“Hello.” An older man with kind eyes greeted me as I sat down next to him. I didn’t particularly feel like conversing with anyone, but his warm greeting prevented me from being aloof, which is my normal M.O. on airplanes as there are few things worse than being strapped to a cramped seat with a conversation forced upon you.

I quickly learn that him and his wife have been living in California for close to 30 years, but are originally from Afghanistan and plan to be in the country for about a month. He shows me his American passport, the picture shows a man who’s wearing what looks to be a general’s uniform and identifies him as Said Opeyany.

“I live in San Francisco now,” he says.

“How long has it been since you last visited Afghanistan?” I ask.

“Oh, about four years. I expect there will be some people at the airport when I arrive,” the excitement of returning home showing on his face.

He asks me if I work for a NGO or the UN. When I tell him my plans, he nods with understanding. “I am an editor and founder of a magazine called ‘Marafat’.”

My eyebrows raise mentally, but the gears that started turning quickly stop as he mentions that it’s a religious magazine about faith and how to worship. Not a lot of room for my bomb squad in that…ah well.

We keep talking, and I learn that his wife, Fariba (sitting next to him), is a microbiologist. “You know, when we get to Kabul, there will be a celebration. I’m kind of a famous man in Afghanistan. I used to be a judge and I’m a candidate for a position here. Ah, you should join us! Come to lunch with us and have some authentic Afghani food and experience our hospitality.”

I thank him sincerely for the invitation, but how do I explain that I’ve spent the last 48+ hours in public spaces and all I want to do is retreat to a dark hole, have a shower, and sleep until tomorrow? The journalist in me was feeling guilty, but the woman in me needed some pampering.

“Well, I do have someone meeting me at the airport and I should probably have a shower before going to your party…,” I begin to explain.

“Have a shower at our house! You are welcome and bring your friend that’s coming to the airport!” he says enthusiastically steamrolling over my roadblocks.

“Oh, hmm…,” thinking it over, “well…maybe that could work,” I said, not completely ready to commit.

* * *
I had managed to fall asleep for about 20 minutes and when I woke up I saw my first glimpse of Afghanistan over the shoulders of Fariba. Even from my limited vantage point it did not disappoint. The jagged mountains reached up at the plane—barren now, but in a month or so would be covered with snow. They screamed of isolation and looked impenetrable and unforgiving despite being silhouetted against a brilliant jewel-colored blue sky.

October 9, 2008, 7:30am: London, England

2008-11-01T12:22:00.000-07:00

I had endured the 8 hour bus ride to London in the middle of the night with the belief that when I arrived I would head to Joe’s place in King’s Cross, have a nap, then a shower, check-in for my flight online and take care of other last minute emails and logistics, meet the travel agent (who supposedly had my plane ticket to Kabul), give Joe & Gerhard (who were flying back from Seattle that same day) a welcome home hug and kiss, and then be on my merry way with enough time to pick up last minute essentials at the airport.

Robbed of all of these possibilities thanks to the late arrival of my bus, thereby missing Joe’s roommate before he headed to work, I was forced to do the last of my prep for the trip from Camino, my favorite wifi café tucked away not too far from St. Pancras station. Fortunately, it was a good base camp as I literally found everything I needed within a 2 block radius plus several cell phone calls and texts to Andy and Jason, which carried a range of helpful antidotes to prep me for my trip:

“You’re a nightmare! You don’t even know what terminal you’re flying out of??? Just where were you expecting to go when you got there???" –Andy

“Make sure you ask for a room in the back, that way the next time the hotel gets bombed the blast won’t blind you. Although, it really doesn't matter as the whole place is glass... not that there would be anything left... um, sleep with your back to the window.” – Jason

The hours of my 10hr layover in London were quickly passing and I began to get anxious when within an hour of me catching the tube to Heathrow, I had still not heard from my travel agent. I did, however, manage to line up my fixer in Kabul, who would be like my “Alfred” if I was Batman. After a brief phone call we had worked out that he would meet me at the airport with a driver, take care of my hotel reservations, help me buy my domestic plane ticket to Mazar, change my money, get a local SIM card, credit card, and teach me some survival Dari.

Fifteen minutes before I needed to leave for the airport, my travel agent appears. We do the exchange: $700 USD for a roundtrip ticket. We talked about safety, journalists he’s worked with (I find out that he helped Seamus Murphy extensively with his book on Afghanistan), burqas and headscarves.

“So, do I need to get a burqa?” I keep asking this question to different people to see if I will ever get a different response, but each time I’ve received a definite: “No.”

“You’re fine, just the way you are, you’ve got a scarf, so no problem.” I was wearing my old AG jeans and a plaid cowgirlish-like button up shirt. I had wanted to change and have a shower at Joe’s, but…

“…and you don’t look American,” he continues. “Everyone will just assume you’re from the north. I just came back 3 weeks ago, it’s better now. Just make sure you’re not in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Classic!

We come out of Camino’s courtyard and are blinded by sunlight. He looks up, “Ah, beautiful. See this sky?” he points upwards, “So different than Afghanistan. The blue of the sky in Afghanistan is unlike anywhere else.” He sighs, then asks, ““Do you know anyone in Kabul?”

“No. Well, yes, but he’s not there yet. I do have someone meeting me at the airport, though.”

“Good, good,” he says as we reach the station and say goodbye.

October 9, 2008: Border Patrol, United Kingdom

2008-10-28T07:51:00.000-07:00

“So, what, you’re like a photojournalist or something?”

It was 3am and we were crossing British immigration at Dover, or was it Calais? We had gotten on and off the bus so many times I had lost track. It was all a blur of cold air, heavy luggage, and grunting responses to various government officials.

“Mmm-hmm,” I replied, too tired to open my mouth and form words.

The surprise registered clearly on his face. “And, how long do you plan to be in London?”

“Just a few hours, I’m in-transit,” I said, mentally visualizing the “IT” they would add to my entry stamp.

“Okay, and what time does your plane leave?”

“4:30pm.”

“Today?” he asks and I nod. “Oh, so you really are in-transit. And, what are you going to be doing in Afghanistan? It doesn’t matter,” he adds quickly, “I’m just curious.”

“I’m going to be following around a bomb squad that finds and disposes of left over munitions and explosives.”

More surprise registers on his face, followed by the click and clink of the entry visa stamp. He clears his throat slightly, “Interesting story, good luck and be safe,” and hands me back my passport with a genuine smile.

October 8, 2008 - The Journey Begins

2008-10-28T07:31:00.000-07:00

The Afghan Diaries: Paris, France

The day before leaving for a war zone I probably shouldn’t have been having waffles. I also shouldn’t have stayed up half the night. Nor should I have hired myself out as a photography instructor, a Photoshop tutor, and a personal chef. And, I should have gone straight home after all of these activities, rather than accepting a dinner invitation at my friend’s house, and definitely had no business even entertaining the idea of a possible nightcap. But extreme circumstances made me want to relish every minute of the present. Eat them up, much like the five pounds of waffles I had consumed in the last 12 hours.

As a result, I found myself running around Roland’s apartment in such a frenzy that I would often forget from one minute to the next what I was doing as details about my trip that hadn’t quite been worked out surfaced in my head. You know, small details, like I didn’t actually have my plane ticket from Dubai to Kabul yet! Ah, but at least I had my visa, secured that very morning.

“Is there a place in the city where I can get a book on Dari?” I asked the embassy representative after he had handed me back my brand new passport, with the first page brandishing a one-month visa. I smiled down at it. This is going to be fun to re-enter the US with.

I looked back up at the embassy representative; he was staring at me like I was crazy. “Dari language resources?” I added hopefully.

He asks his colleague, who shakes his head.

“Oh, okay,” nodding my head to the colleague and thanking them both.

It’s a brisk fall day in Paris and I put on my headphones and walk through the park by the embassy noting the falling leaves and wondering what autumn is like in Afghanistan. Holy shit, it’s really happening, I’m going to Kabul.

On the road again...

2008-10-28T07:27:00.000-07:00

I spent several weeks after Jordan traveling and there were many highlights and adventures that ensued. BUT, I have to stop somewhere or else I’ll never get to Kabul…

Speaking of, just how does one get to Kabul? It’s easy and here’s a little map to illustrate.

Saved!

2008-10-24T02:32:00.000-07:00

After dodging Arabs in the desert, I was saved by the Virgin Mary herself, also known as filmmaker, actress, editor, yoga master, and world traveler extraordinaire: Jackie S. She had in fact just finished playing the role of the Virgin Mary for a historical documentary filmed in Jordan and unbeknownst to both of us our paths may have crossed during her work on the Italian film “The Holy Family”, the crew of which I kept running into during my stint with the Jordan Times in 2006. But, we instantly had another commonality, in good friend, former roommate, fellow wanderluster, badass editor, journalist, and linguist, Victoria M.

Sitting in the living room of Sofian’s (Jax’s super cool & super talented BF) parent’s house, my narration of recent adventures in the desert where punctuated by Jackie’s disbelief.

“OH MY GOD! I know him!” she said when I disclosed M.’s identity. “He’s hot shit in those parts.” She turns to Sof in explanation, “He’s like the Ivory Tower of Wadi Rum.” She begins to impersonate his high and mightiness with her funnier than hell Arab accent and mannerisms.

I proceed to tell them about the camel milk, the comments, the massage incident (oh yes, there was a massage incident with both M.’s)…

“OH MY GOD! I can’t believe I left my mother alone with that man!” Jackie exclaims.

When I tell them about M2 and the drinking games, Sof interjects, “So you had ‘After Sex’?”

“WHAT?” Jackie and I whip our heads around and ask in unison.

“’After Sex’ – it’s a drink here. It’s what we call vodka and orange soda. You can get it at most liquor stores,” he explains matter-of-factly.

“What??? It’s actually written on the bottle ‘After Sex’?” Jackie asks, shocked that the conservative government would allow a product with ‘Sex’ in its name to be sold off the shelf.

“Yeah, it’s premixed orange soda and vodka, it’s really cheap, you can get a bottle for like 3 JD.”

Jackie and I look at each other and start laughing. A stop at the liquor store is in our future.

I sigh dramatically. “Oh, M2,” I say, full of forlorn sarcasm, “that’s what you were doing wrong--you can’t give me ‘After Sex’ before…”

At the 2nd liquor store we check, we find our orange treasure.

When I see it, I start laughing.

Jackie, picks up the bottle for a closer inspection and reads the label. “After Six???” she rolls her eyes and laughs. “Oh, brilliant…it’s like the words “version” and “virgin” they can’t pronounce the difference.” She begins another hilarious impression playing two roles:
“I’ll take the other ‘virgin’.”
“Uh, you mean, ‘version’.”
“Yes, ‘virgin’.”
“No, ‘version’.”
“Right, ‘virgin’, I want that ‘virgin’.”

I take a peek at the label as well and remember the assortment of sharpies in my bag, “Ah, we can make it ‘After Sex’ after all,” and load up my arms with several bottles and a sly grin.

Bedouin Mind Tricks

2008-10-20T22:34:00.001-07:00

The last thing that M. did for me besides insisting that I owed him at least 200 JD for the pleasure of his advances was to deposit me at the small hotel owned by his friend, um…let’s call him Mohammad (M2), close to the resort where the rest of the Distant Heat festival was taking place. I was skeptical, but when I arrived, it was indeed minutes from the main resort, the rooms had air conditioning, their own showers, there was an outdoor pool that was clean and peaceful, and it was within my budget.

After another all-nighter, I collapsed in my little air-conditioned hut and planned to laze the next day away poolside in silence and solitude.

The day started out pleasantly. M2 greeted me on the way to the pool and asked if I wanted coffee. I happily accepted the needed fuel and breakfast, which M. had told me, was included.

I was a little disappointed when M2 brought out a tray for two, but at least it wasn’t one beach towel for two—I tend to count my blessings with the little things now. I was hoping the coffee would cure my headache, but I was overly optimistic.

“Do you have any aspirin?” I asked M2.

“You have a headache?” he seemed incredibly interested in this possibility.

“Yeah, I was up pretty late last night,” I replied ignoring the alarm bell that just went off in my head and was competing with my headache.

He leaves and a few minutes later returns with some aspirin. I thank him and before I can even swallow the pill, he’s sitting behind my lounge chair and grabs my head and begins a massage technique that he tells me he learned from the Russians.

I wanted to shout, “Hey look! I’m cured – good job!” and then under my breath add a “quit fucking touching me" to the accolades. But, before I have a chance, he asks, “Can you feel this?”

He has a lock of my hair that he’s holding up from the top of my head. “Yes,” I say tentatively.

“Okay.”

Snap!

He pulls hard on the lock of hair and I immediately turn around and put my hands to the top of my head. “What are you doing?” I demanded.

“You have to pull the bad energy up from the scalp through your hair. It works, the Russians taught me.”

“Do I have a huge bald spot on the top of my head????”

“No, no….” he assures me.

I rub my head and look at him dubiously. “Don’t do that again.” Still a bit dazed from the hair pulling, I barely notice that he has moved from his head massaging perch and is now standing over me with a bottle of sun tan oil and an eager look on his face.

“Lay on your stomach,” he says, “and I will rub this on your back.”

Fuck…

“Oh, no, that’s okay. I’m good,” I say trying to be politely dismissive.

“But, I want to massage you.”

“No, that’s not necessary, really…”

“But, really, I want to do this for you,” he insists.

“Ah, well, maybe later, I’m going for a swim so best not to waste!” I say cheerfully, knowing that later will never come.

Finally he relents and jumps in the pool.

I don’t follow. A few minutes later he’s back at my lounge chair.

“I think you are lazy,” he states plainly. “You are not swimming.”

Mamma mia! I might actually drown myself in the pool if he doesn’t leave me alone.

“I’m getting in, I just want a little more sun,” I say in response, but hating the fact that I’m even explaining myself to him.

He annoyingly stayed by my side for the rest of the day, but it gave me ample time to question him about the area and find out that some of the best snorkeling in the world is located across the street.

He insisted on coming snorkeling with me and as he knew where the best coral was, I relented. Little did I know he would come to think of this later as a date.

“Can I make for you a dinner on the beach?” he asks as he’s putting away the snorkeling gear.

“Uh, well, isn’t dinner served here at the hotel?” I ask.

“Oh, yes, but I can grill for you some fish, it will be very nice.”

“Ah, thank you, but I think I’ll just eat here--with everyone else.”

“As you like,” he says, and then a few minutes later, “What do you like to drink? Vodka?”

“Um, yeah, sure…I drink vodka sometimes.”

A huge grin appears on his face. “Okay…tonight we drink vodka.”

Whatever, dude.

I gladly retreat to my hut, alone at last, until my stomach leads me to the communal dining area towards the front of the hotel.

Thankfully, M2 does not dine with me, but just as I’m finishing my meal, he’s by my side.

“So,” he says with that same big grin, “what do you like with your vodka?”

“Um, soda, I guess?”

“Ah, you like orange soda, like orange Fanta?”

“Sure, sure, orange Fanta’s great.”

I sigh inwardly as he motions for me to follow him towards the pool area. I suppose if I can’t hang out by myself, at least I’ll have some vodka to dull the pain.

I plop myself down on a lounge chair by the pool. M2 stops in his tracks carrying the tray with vodka, ice, orange Fanta, and glasses. “No, the view from the terrace is very nice. Come, come...” he beckons.

“Oh, I’m sure it is, but let’s just have a drink down here,” I suggest. Where there are plenty of lights and people.

“No, you must see the view.”

I follow the direction he has cocked his head, it’s just up a short staircase and within site of all. “Okay,” I relent.

Up on the terrace there are two lounge chairs set up facing the sea. I don’t lounge; instead I sit upright, really wanting that drink now.

He pours me a drink and I realize that I have nothing to talk to him about, so decide to get some fact-checking for my article out of the way. I ask him more questions about the area: distances, names of towns, future plans for this part of Aqaba, history, etc. Soon, he’s pouring us another drink, plus a shot.

“Look, here,” he says as he’s pouring vodka into a small shot glass. He covers the top of the shot glass with the palm of his hand, picks it up with his other, gives it a good knock on the table, and then shoots it. “This is how the Russians do it,” he explains proudly.

What? Am I supposed to clap? Let’s see, the last time the words “shooting” and “Russians” were in the same sentence, I was aiming an AK47.

“Oh,” I say. “So the Russians taught you that? Do you get a lot of Russian tourists here?”

“People from all over, yes,” he says and shrugs. “Here, for you” he slams another shot on the table and then hands it to me. I proceed to sip it. He looks disappointed and pours himself another.

I finish my drink and shot and he quickly pours me another of each.

I chuckle to myself. Hey, I know this game! It’s: “Let’s get the small American girl drunk!” Oh, M2…if only you knew that I have a Norwegian-like ability to drink...

Having run out of questions and growing tired of drinking, I tell M2 that I’m heading to bed.

“But, wait,” he says, “I still must give you a massage.”

“Ah, no, thanks – I’m just going to bed, I'm really tired.”

“Okay, well we can do it either in your room or my room, as you like.”

“Uh, no, that’s okay, I don’t need a massage.”

“But, you told me ‘later’ – you said I could massage you later,” he protests.

Ah, fuck. Using my words against me – dammit!

“Well, I don’t want a massage,” I reply flatly.

“But, I want to do this nice thing for you. What? You don’t trust me?”

The alcohol is kicking in and he’s starting to get agitated by my refusal.

“You said ‘later’ so I waited. I want to do this nice thing for you. But, now, you don’t trust me? Look, we went snorkeling together and I could have done something then—“

“WHAT could you have possibly done while we were snorkeling?” I ask cutting him off, shocked by this ludicrous example of his trustworthiness.

“This is the way it works,” he tells me like I'm a six year old, “if a man and a woman are having drinks, surely they will have sex.”

“WHAT!???”

“Yes, yes,” he reiterates. “For a guarantee—if we drink together, either I will end up in your bed or you in mine.”

It takes me a moment to recover when I realize he’s dead serious. “Well, I can guarantee you that that is NOT the way it works.”

“Yes, it is. I see it in your movies, this is what happens.”

“Wait, you’re basing your ideas of how men and women behave toward each other on Hollywood movies?” I ask incredulously.

“For a certainty, this is the way it works,” he insists.

Speaking of Hollywood, his insistence is starting to remind me of Rainman. “Look, I can make ten phone calls right now to male friends of mine who will tell you otherwise.”

“I do all these nice things for you!” he continues ignoring anything I’ve said, “…dinner, drinks, breakfast, snorkeling...and now I just want to massage you,” he mutters annoyed by my refusal and working himself up into a tizzy. “Fine, fine—the snorkeling and the drinks I’ll pay for, but you can pay for your breakfast and dinner.”

I stare at him dumbfounded, shocked at how quickly he has become belligerent and rude. And what’s this about paying for breakfast and dinner? First of all, I was told they were included and, second of all, I had intended to pay for everything, especially if it meant I wouldn’t be harassed about being given a massage.

“Look, I only let my boyfriend massage me,” I say tersely, thinking that maybe this will put things in perspective for him and make it clear that he should drop it.

“Fine!” he sneers. “Go find your boyfriend then!”

Ah, shit. Now he’s done it. He crossed the line.

I could almost feel all the emotion draining from my face. Even the shock I initially had at his belief that drinking would inevitably lure me to his bed had left me. I went quiet and still and stared coldly off at the horizon taking deep even breaths. I must have been giving what Pat used to refer to as “devil eyes” as M2 began to back peddle quickly.

“Well, I want you to have a good time. You’re my guest…” he trailed off.

“Thank you,” I said coldly and left the terrace without another look in his direction. Forget this Bedouin, nomadic, hospitality, bullshit—I’m tribal, too, asshole. Mabuhay Waray-Waray.

Lactose Tolerance

2008-10-20T22:13:00.000-07:00

My cave in the desert.
The weeks leading up to Distant Heat, I had wondered how I would manage to stay up the entire night without the help of much alcohol (being that I had to stay coherent enough to take photos and remember the event well enough to write about it), but after 3 days in the desert with M. I had all the incentive I needed. In fact, I was pretty damn sure I could have stayed up for 3 days straight if necessary.

In the past few days, I had learned way too much about the properties of camel milk (a Bedouin aphrodisiac, in case you find yourself in a situation where someone offers it to you) and M. had also disclosed to me intimate details about various down and dirty adventures in the desert that he had had with other women who had found themselves alone with him in the desert. It was if he was interviewing and providing me with examples that could showcase his virility and lovemaking skills.

Fortunately, my demure-asian-thing was working.

“I think you have more of your mom in you, than your dad,” M. says to me as we’re bumping along through the desert.

You have no idea.

Images of my mom flash through my head: her with a hoe raised above her head killing a snake during a childhood camping trip; her chasing the neighborhood bullies down the street with a frying pan after they threw a rock at my sister; picking up spiders with her bare hands that would make most people faint; the murderous look she would give right before all hell broke loose…

“Really, what do you mean?” I ask lightly.

“Well, you’re not the kind of woman that is always after a man, and I’m not the kind of man that’s greedy for a woman.”

“Well,” I said in reply, “I am shy,” still playing Asian, “and besides I don’t get it, YOU’RE MARRIED!” I say with extreme emphasis.

“Oh..well,” he says with a slight shrug as if brushing off some sand from his clothing, “I’m celibate from my wife. She does her thing and I do mine. We have children together, but that’s it.”

Translation: I haven’t been laid in a year and I’ve been drinking camel milk on a daily basis. Holy fuck, thank god the festival is tonight.

“Ah, it’s a good thing you didn’t have any of the camel milk,” he says.

I turn my head and stare out the window at the passing desert scenery. I want to mouth “HELP ME” to the rocks and sagebrush—I can’t even imagine what the look on my face must have been.

Yup, he milked it on the spot.

Voyage into Dumb…I mean Rum

2008-10-20T04:48:00.000-07:00

It’s pitch black.
The stars crowd the sky.
The night is quiet; the breeze is light.
And I am incredibly anxious.

The night sky in Wadi Rum is unparalleled for stargazing. Here there are so many stars that it’s difficult to make out even simple shapes like the Big Dipper or Orion. They are outshined by constellations that most people will never see in their lifetime. Under normal circumstances I would revel in this spectacular light show, but enjoyment eludes me.

I’m lying on my back on a mostly flat section of sand, hands resting absently on my stomach. To an outside observer, I may appear relaxed, but every muscle in my body is tense—instinct telling me that something is going happen, while my mind is trying to convince my body that it’s wrong.

M. is laying beside me and has fallen silent, but I know he’s still awake. I feel vulnerable and a bit duped.

Earlier in the evening M. had asked where I wanted to sleep. I had asked what my options were. He had given me a vague response, “Well, the village, or the campsite, or wherever…somewhere outside,” he had said with a wave of his hand in the direction of the vast desert.

“Well, I think the village would be best, especially since I have all my gear,” I replied with a wave of my hand to my bags in the back seat.

He shrugs slightly, thinking about that possibility. “Hmm…,” and mumbles something unintelligible.

Now, he asks the question again as we are driving away from Diseh Camp and I restate my wish to sleep in the village.

“Well, I didn’t make any arrangements in the village and it’s late,” is his reply.

Suddenly it all becomes clear, the bypassing of the village, the visit to Diseh camp, the extended dinner, the line dancing…all of this so that there would be no choice but for me to spend the night in the desert—alone with him.

Godammit!

When we reached the campsite he plucks two mattresses from the cave (I had insisted on sleeping out in the open), but only one blanket—meant to share.

Brilliant...

Now lying side by side, looking up at the stars, I’m desperately hoping I see another falling one so I can make one fervent wish.

There’s a slight movement beside me and a moment later all hopes of wishing upon a star evaporate as M.’s hand finds mine in the dark. I go as still as a corpse, but my mind is racing. What does one do in this situation?

Running away from this scene means running miles through uneven terrain without a flashlight, not to mention leaving all of my gear. Even if running miles in the dark was an option, I have no idea how to even get to the village and at 2am, it’s doubtful that anyone would be around to help me. Leaving the campsite is not an option. But, now what? What are the repercussions of rejecting a tribal leader who is used to getting whatever he wants? Powerful men typically don’t take rejection well. Would he feel slighted? Humiliated? Would that turn to anger? And, who even knows I’m out here? I begin to wonder. This situation could get ugly very quickly.

Think!

The little voice inside my head says: Stay calm, play it cool, don’t be a bitchy American. Be the shy, demure Asian girl that people expect to encounter when they look at you.

“Hey! Look at that one,” I exclaim and with a quick motion I free my hand from his grasp to point out a non-existent shooting star.

“Hmm…?” he replies sleepily.

“Oh, did you miss that one?” I ask innocently.

I’m quite happy with my chess move until a few minutes later my hand is again seized. I try to make it as limp and lifeless as possible—like a dead fish, is the feeling I was trying to invoke.

“Your hand is cold,” he says.

Hmm, maybe this dead fish thing is working…

“Don’t worry, I’m easy. I’ll hold your hand and just fall asleep.”

I say nothing in reply, not sure what to believe or what will happen next. I start to plot my next move, but try to factor in his responses to those. Let’s see, if I pull my hand away and he really is in the process of falling asleep, will that wake him up and start the game all over again? Or, will he reach for something else? My shoulder? My waist? (shudder) Right now, it’s just my hand. It’s kind of like a weak handshake…I mean, better a hand than a breast, right? Because then I’d have to smack him and then things would really get ugly…. FUCK!

I stare up at the heavens looking for an answer and to my delight I hear slow even breathing to my left. Whaddayaknow, he really did fall asleep...

I slowly extract my hand from his, much like tiptoeing away from a sleeping baby’s crib.

* * *

At the first signs of dawn I spring from my bed in the sand before M. could even entertain the possibility of morning hand holding, morning spooning, or even worse—morning wood.

“Where are you going?” he inquired to my quickly retreating back, “it’s too early, you should sleep more.”

Fat chance, buddy.

“Ah, but the light! The rocks! …take photos…I must…before sun…too late..” came my disjointed reply over my shoulder as I headed to the more permanent part of camp and reclaimed my personal space.

I must have taken 30 shitty pictures, but I would have gladly taken a 100 more.

shitty picture#28

Return to Rum

2008-08-10T06:02:00.000-07:00

July 29, 2008

“No way,” I said resolutely. “That’s too steep.”

I was staring down a sand dune that came off the rock we had just climbed down at about a 60 degree angle and I was rooted to my spot. My Bedouin guide—let’s call him Mohammed—was several paces ahead of me motioning me forward. I was back in the Wadi Rum desert and all too aware that my last visit had literally scarred me for life.

I had met M. on my first trip to Jordan 3 years ago and the second time, when I was working for the Jordan Times, I had stopped in at his house and seen his family, but we hadn’t managed to meet up. He and his ancestors had lived in this desert for generations. “From when there was only one, “ he had said when I asked him earlier how many generations of his family had called this desert home. As tribal leader, he was known from Aqaba to Wadi Rum, parts of Saudi and even as far as Amman, 500km to the north. A true Bedouin, I had never seen him in western clothes.

“Give me your camera,” he says ignoring my protests.

I hand him the camera and in one smooth motion he slings it across him, grabs my hand and heads for the slope. There was nothing left for me to do unless I wanted to scream like a girl, but my pride kept me silent.

We reached the top of the dune and took the first step over…oh god, here we go…

With the first step our legs sank into the sand almost up to our knees and caused the sand around us to start moving downhill at an alarming rate—an avalanche of sand grains. Another step and more sinking, a little sliding as the sand beneath our feet became more fluid. Then another and we were moving faster, quicker steps and more sliding—it was like surfing the sand with our bare feet—and amazing and disconcerting feeling at the same time. By the time we reached the bottom we were practically running to keep up with the momentum of the sand. I laughed as we landed on solid ground, “That was crazy! I NEVER would have thought we could walk down that.”

He chuckled. “Wait..I’ll take you to some bigger ones that we’ll do at night.” With that he walked away and headed towards the car.

I looked back at the sand dune we just walked down. An alarm belll went off in my head. Bigger? Steeper? At night? Just where the hell am I going to be sleeping tonight? Shit.

A few hours later, I’m at Diseh camp, the site where the festival that I came to cover will take place two days from now. We had stopped in to see how the preparations were coming and of course M. knew everyone there and we received the royal treatment. I’m sitting in a circle, the only woman drinking tea with four Arab men who are fully decked out in their Bedouin garb. They’re speaking Arabic to each other, smoking lazily, and I’m absently staring up at the stars wondering how long I will be able to avoid giant sand dunes in the dark when it hits me: Tim’s right. I’m not normal.

I had started the day in Tel Aviv, waking up at 6am to catch a bus to Eilat, the Israeli resort town next to the Red Sea. My taxi driver had taken me to the wrong bus station, which resulted in additional cab fare and the additional stress of almost missing my bus. After the 5 ½ hr bus ride, I crossed the border between Eilat and Aqaba by foot in temperatures exceeding 105 degrees and stumbled through multiple checkpoints, a retina scan, and fingerprinting before getting in another taxi and figuring out how to get a hold of M. now that my cell phone was no longer working. Now, it’s after 11pm and I still have no idea where I’m sleeping tonight and despite my fervent hopes that I’m wrong, I’m beginning to get the vibe that M. may want to be more than just my guide. I should be exhausted, but I’m wide-awake, thanks to the large amount of tea I’ve consumed.

Incredibly loud Arabic music starts up suddenly, disrupting my silent epiphany and evaluation of my current plight. There’s an Arab man dancing toward me with a huge smile on his face, and while I had distinctly remembered swearing off line dancing about 7 years ago, I looked up at his eager face and thought: What the hell, when in Jordan…line dance like an Arab.

When you're alone in Prague...

2008-05-31T10:31:00.000-07:00

March 27, 2008

Perhaps I had seen one too many Bourne movies, but there was something about Prague that made me feel like a spy—the towering spires, the majestic squares, the beautiful Czech women, and various Eastern European languages that I grew up associating with Global Thermal Nuclear War…

Whatever it was, my head was filled with thoughts of intrigue and danger and I decided to allow my inner Bond-girl to run free with a trip to the local gun range. Plus, I was quickly tiring of watching countless couples drool over themselves while I chowed down on my bratwurst and hot wine from the sidelines--although I can't say I didn't enjoy it.

The gun range was situated in Prague 6, a little ways out of town. As the directions on their web site were in Czech, I was left to fend for myself, but figured I’d get close enough and figure it out from there.

I had been walking back and forth down the same road for the last 40 minutes and had found a veterinary school, a college registration office, and two non-English speaking Czech men who had sent me in opposite directions when I asked about the gun range, which is called Magnum or Střelnice, by its Czech name.

After finally asking a woman and getting a correct answer, I was soon on my way down a gravel road, past an abandoned looking house, several dilapidated fences, and about five black feral cats that stared at me with bright yellow eyes as I walked by. I was just beginning to wonder if I was still on the right path when the sound of automatic weapons floated towards me.

The building was plain and communist like except for the plastic tables and umbrellas on the makeshift patio. As I walked up I was joined by a group of middle-aged Czech men all with various firearms slung across their shoulders. We waited together outside the front door and were buzzed in. The woman who greeted us sensed immediately that I didn’t belong.

This was Alena, we had spoken on the phone earlier. She leads me into a smallish dining room that consisted of doily-like curtains, a small bar, and a wood stove. She doesn’t speak much English, so with hand gestures she tells me to sit and returns a couple minutes later with a clipboard and a highlighter in hand.

Ah…the menu! I peruse it curiously…
-Pump-action shotgun
-.357 magnum
-.44 magnum
-.22 sniper
-Glock

And then there it was—the semi-automatic Russian made Kalashnikov also known as an AK47 (AK for Avtomat Kalashnikova, 47, as in circa 1947).

Arms dealers the world over have sold the AK47 to countless militias and it is the weapon of choice for many foreign armies based on its extreme tolerance to adverse conditions and ease of use—it was originally designed for Russian soldiers serving in the Artic who would need to operate the weapon while wearing heavy gloves. With an estimated 90 million AK47s having been manufactured in the last 50+ years, it is the most widely distributed assault rifle in the world, but outlawed for civilian use in most Western countries, including the U.S. until the ban expired in 2004. Although some states, such as California, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Massachusetts have specific restrictions. It weighs roughly 10lbs, has an effective range of 300-400 meters, and a “lifespan” between 20 to 40 years depending on the conditions it has been used under. It’s chilling to think that this weapon will last longer than my digital SLR, my computer, most likely my car, and countless other gadgets in my possession. Not to mention the fact that in the poorest and most war torn countries in the world you can purchase one for less than a tank of gas. And, now, here it was in front of me, providing some afternoon diversion, quietly waiting to see whether I had any aptitude for shooting a different kind of mechanical device.

I slowly pulled off the cap of the highlighter, made my mark, and handed the clipboard back to Alena. She looked at my selection with a smiling, knowing nod of approval and I followed her to the next room to meet my instructor, Tom.

I was fiddling with my camera gear as he began to explain how to load the bullets and I realized quickly that with his accent if I didn’t stop and really pay attention I might miss some valuable detail. His English was limited like Alena’s, but we covered the basics—don’t point the gun at him, only at the targets; load the bullets one at a time in the magazine; click the magazine cartridge into place; pull the side lever toward you in a quick fluid motion; hold the gun so your shoulder takes the brunt of the recoil; check your sights; and then Tom says quietly, “Very gently, so softly, pull the trigger.”

--if you see black (safari users), double click inside the frame to start the movie--

Somewhere Over Germany

2008-05-31T09:53:00.001-07:00

May 30, 2008

I’m on a plane on my way to London and, somehow, I always spend my travel days completely exhausted. Whether it’s staying up late trying to figure out how all my belongings will fit into 2 bags or partying like a rock star until the sun comes up, it never fails—I end up on a plane, train, bus, car, boat, etc. completely wiped.

Just three days ago I was on Mykonos with Karina and Juice. The three of us traveled around Italy and Greece for two weeks and all manner of hilarity and craziness ensued. We laughed our asses off, danced our asses off, and drank like sailors.

I think I’ll have to just pick and choose singular events to write about as trying to summarize everything would be too much. So! here begins the part of the blog that will no longer be chronological as I fill in some of the gaps from the last couple months…

Return to the Hut

2008-05-29T09:59:00.000-07:00

May 29, 2008

Oh god…there’s something definitely living underneath Huong’s old bed. And to think I scoffed at her when she used to think she was getting chewed on at night. But, today I saw them…at least fifty tiny black carcasses in a mound in the corner. I had to stop investigating as I had no desire to see who my new roommate was and if I don’t actually see it perhaps I will still be able to sleep at night.

The latest update with Mr. Vardakas is that him and Poppy have split up for good. Apparently she moved out right around the same time Huong and I left the hut.

“I wish I had never met that woman,” he spat out the words bitterly. “She’s with an Albanian now. I told her to get out. She’s a son of a bitch!”

I tried to make sympathetic noises.

“So, I told her get out and I slapped her,” he said matter-of-factly. “She deserved it, she’s a bitch.”

Alright, then—sympathy time over. Must-leave-now before he does something else to piss me off.

As I’m backing out as quickly as possible from the conversation so as to avoid any additional details about their altercation, sex life, or racial slurs against Albanians, his bitterness evaporates and he gives me the once over.

“Oh, you look sexy,” he says with a wink and a smile. “Do you want to go out on the boat tomorrow?”

I start to throw up a little in my mouth.

“Why don’t you stay here with me?” he suggests.

I laugh. “I’m taken!” I shout enthusiastically and begin to walk up the stairs to the roof, acutely aware that he’s probably trying to look up my dress. So maybe it was a lie, but there is some truth to it–-I AM taken, I’m totally committed to myself!

Sponge Bath Fas

2008-05-14T04:57:00.000-07:00

May 12, 2008

I’m on the night train to Florence and my couchette-mates are two American girls and an older French woman named Monique. The light streaming through the window gives the cabin a golden glow as the sun sinks into the horizon. There’s something very special about traveling by train, perhaps it’s just nostalgia or the fact that I always think better as I watch the countryside speed by.

After six weeks in Paris and especially the last few days filled with trips to the park, concerts, patanque, goodbye drinks, and goodbye dinners, I feel much like I did upon leaving Seattle—sad to go, excited about my next destination, and in desperate need of sensory deprivation, not to mention a little detox.

I’m also immensely happy that for the next week I won’t have to travel across town to take a shower, although I have to admit, it’s made for a very interesting experience and I realize more than ever that I’m so fortunate to have such generous friends. In the last 6 weeks, I’ve slept in 7 different apartments and showered in almost as many places—hmm…perhaps more if you include the semi-sponge bath I did in Starbucks. Yeah, so don’t knock the Starbucks—they’ve got the cleanest bathrooms in all of Paris!

I got into the habit of just carrying bathroom toiletries around with me as my first lesson in Paris was: never turn down an opportunity to take a shower. The second was: French is a very difficult language, especially if you’ve studied a language like Italian, where you normally pronounce everything.

This past Friday marked the completion of a 5-week super intensive French language program that pretty much sucked my brain dry—in a good way. My day typically started at 7:30am, as the courses were held Monday through Friday, 9am to 6:15pm, with a variety of different professors. The courses were conducted completely in French and we were forbidden to use any English, even to each other. Some of the professors focus solely on working with beginners, others teach a theatre class once a week, there are also a variety of workshops that cover written exercises, audio drills, supervised study hours, and group exercises that focus on oral proficiency. I was pretty skeptical at first, but overall was pretty impressed with the level of professionalism that’s devoted to teaching and it’s pretty surprising how much I’ve learned in such a short time. Plus, it’s damn satisfying to be able to have small talk with Monique in French and then switch to Italian when the conductor comes by, so what if I speak like a toddler.

The classes were made up of students from all over the world and of varying age ranges. The largest nationality represented in my class was Swedish, but there were also Spaniards, Italians, Mexicans, Germans, Brazilians, Portuguese, Chileans, Dutch, British, Australians, Americans, Turkish, and a surprising amount of Koreans. If you’re traveling alone it’s a great way to meet people, as you automatically have something in common with everyone there: learning French.

I'm incredibly excited about seeing Karina and Juice as well as Capt Lew & Nick in Italy and being in Florence again after four years. I've never returned from Italy unchanged so it will be interesting to see what this trip brings. Already the conductor has checked in on us for the 8th time...ah...viva italia!

Paris is always a good idea…

2008-04-28T23:50:00.000-07:00

April 14th, 2008

It’s been nearly 5 years since the first time I set foot in the Paris city limits and that trip taught me that when your current living situation looks bleak, Paris is always a good place to recharge.

I had already decided to go visit James and Leigh for their birthdays when Huong had given me the bad news about the hut. She had decided to leave for good, but wasn’t quite sure of her heading. Being that I’m scheduled to meet Juice and Karina in Pisa on May 15th, I’ve decided to camp out in Paris for the next 6 weeks and learn French. I’ve been couchsurfing between 3 different apartments since arriving mainly because I have an intense fondness for showers.

Leigh had graciously offered to let me stay at his place while he was on tour, but had warned me about the less than luxurious amenities: servant quarters in the attic with the toilet in a closet down the hall, faucet in a hallway, no heat, no kitchen, and up a dizzying 8 flights of stairs. The attic was made up of narrow hallways lined with multiple doors, some of which had tenants and others that were simply storage compartments for the tenants that were fortunate enough to live in the main part of the building. I rummaged around in one of the rooms in the far end of the attic and found a broken mirror. Voila! I now had a makeshift vanity – nevermind it was in the hallway by some ancient mops.

It reminded me a little of my old Georgetown loft, gritty and a bit dorm-like. “So…,” I asked, after Leigh had given me the grand tour, “where is the shower?”

“Yeah…um, I haven’t been able to find one yet.”

Gulp. I suddenly realize that “camping” is a very appropriate term for my stay in Paris. “What do you do?” I ask.

“Well, I go to a friend’s house, sometimes Vero & James’, or I go swimming.”

Time to find a swim cap, I guess.

Last Days

2008-03-31T10:27:00.000-07:00

March 26, 2008

“Do you want the bad news or the really bad news?”

I had just received an email from Huong and at the mention of bad news my heart sank. She had left Prague three days prior to head back to Chios, but I had stayed behind to meet with a photography contact.

“Give it all to me,” I wrote back hastily.

She then began to detail out the series of events that would lead to the eventual parting of ways between her, the hut, the island, and ultimately Mr. Vardakas.

When she arrived back at the hut, the warm weather, a dripping shower, and airtight doors & windows (which we had left closed) had created a steam room effect. The entire hut was weeping. Our mattresses, our blankets, our sheets, our clothes, and any paper that was left out—all of it was soaked. A ½ inch of water covered the hut floor; water dripped from the ceiling and walls, and the entire bathroom ceiling was covered in mold that was quickly spreading to the kitchen.

To top it off, the next day she awoke to Mr. V. dumping brown liquid onto the roof from a suspicious cistern on top of the hut. “Um…what are you doing?” she asked him anxiously.

“We clean the tank, “ he replied.

“The sewage tank?” she asked even more anxiously. “Water from the toilet?’

“Yeah, the water, it comes down and we clean, “ he replied matter-of-factly.

She watched in horror as the brown liquid emptied out in vast quantities onto the rooftop and inched its way to our front door. She ran inside to escape and then discovered her bed was covered in tiny black specks that had been biting her all night. During her killing rampage, Mr. V. brought her a bill for April’s rent—9 days early. “Rent is due on the 21st!” he told her happily. I could just picture her, flip flop in hand wanting to swat Mr. V. like one of the tiny bugs that had pestered her all night.

The next day, he lured her into his apartment under the premise that he had some food to give her.

“I want to love you,” he told her over some pasticcio.

“I said no already,” she said coldly.

He was not deterred. “Poppy…she’s no good for nothing. She works too much. I told her to get out. So, you can move down here and live for free.”

Soon after I received an email detailing out these events and her decision to leave.

But the clincher was what had happened the following morning.

She wrote, “And, this morning I heard him having sex.”

Later I asked her how she came to this conclusion. Was it Poppy? Someone else? Who could he have possibly convinced? She proceeded (at my prodding) to tell me about the sounds she had heard in the dark. It reminded me of that scene in Grizzly Man where Werner Herzog tells the coroner that no one should ever listen to the tape that recorded the sounds of Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend being killed. Well, I realize now that I never should have asked her to describe the sounds she had heard early that morning. It’s bad enough that she has to live with Mr. V.’s happy ending echoing in her ears—now I do, too.

Night Out in Dublin

2008-03-25T17:59:00.000-07:00

Finally had a chance to go through some video footage and string together this little clip. Possible long load times, when you see black, double click in the frame. Enjoy.

St. Patrick's Parade

2008-03-21T02:50:00.000-07:00

I've been a little behind at posting thanks to intermittent wifi in Prague (oh, and a crazy woman who is renting the room next door...She apparently hears voices--angry voices--at all hours of the night). She got kicked out this morning and now the wifi is also working. So! here are some photos from the big St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which had a surprising amount of American marching bands performing in it. Even one from Washington State—the Shorecrest Highlanders.

I was actually expecting the parade to be crazier, I guess the Fremont Solstice parade has made me equate parades with all kinds of wackiness and freakiness, but it was all wholesome family fun at this one.

www.hfassio.com/stpatricks/index.htm

Embrace Your Inner Irishman

2008-03-17T17:48:00.000-07:00

March 17, 2008

I made this little list while drinking Guinness and shots of Bushmills at an Irish Pub called The Ivy House not far from our B&B. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to take notes as I managed to accomplish task#1 on the list rather quickly. So, for those of you who have yet to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, here are some tips (from the source) on how to be Irish.

1. Get loads drunk.
2. Start a fight.
3. Learn an Irish song.
4. Hate Irish celebrities.
5. Be friendly to all.
6. Wear green.
7. Know (by heart) a song by Oasis.
8. Participate in a “breezer” (as in Bacardi Breezer – insert straw in bottle, tilt head back, say a prayer, and try to finish first).
9. Slug an Englishman.
10. Snog an Irishman.
11. Do an Irish jig.

And last, but not least…

12. Be sure to tell someone “Póg Mo Thón” (kiss my ass) or just wear the shorts!

hmm...do these shorts make my butt look big?

blimey!

2008-03-15T08:28:00.000-07:00

Gotta love technology. I'm currently at heathrow posting from my iPod touch. I love this little gadget. Thank you Henry!! I'm on my way to Dublin for St. Patrick's Day and then headed to Prague later in the week where the forecast calls for snow. Then it's back to the hut in time for Greece Indendence day, which has got me wondering if there are any countries that do not have an independence day. The Uk perhaps?
But back to St. Patrick. A couple interesting facts:
-Yes, he was a real person.
-At 16 he declared himself a pagan.
-He was captured around the same age and sold into slavery by a band of maurauders.
-He spent 6years in slavery during which he found god.
-March 17th is the anniversary of his death.
-The Celtics celebrate Mar 17th as the rebirth of spring.
-In Celtic lore leprechauns were cranky ferries who were forced to mend the shoes of other (I would say more fortunate) ferries.

Okay kids that's all for now my index finger is tired of pecking this screen.

A Day at Sea - Part Deux

2008-03-12T09:44:00.000-07:00

More from our day at sea. This is my tribute to Bear Grylls by way of Mr. Vardakas. I call it "Man vs. Tiny Sea Creatures." The load time will probably be long and you might have to click or double-click in the black box to get it to start. Please ignore my frizzy hair.

A Day at Sea

2008-03-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

March 9, 2008

Huong and I have taken a time-out from our normal routine at the Internet café to get a cooking lesson from Mr. Vardakas on how to make tsatziki. It’s best to let the tsatziki sit for a bit to release more of the garlic flavor, so he suggests that we go with him for a fishing lesson. Today he will be hunting sea urchins, or “ah-hee-nee” in Greek.

Sure, we say, and soon after we’re heading out to Agnusa, a small island north of Chios and closer to Turkey. The wind is with us so the trip should only take about an hour.

We didn’t realize it, but entertainment was included! I couldn't post this video to Blogger for some reason, but go here to view: www.hfassio.com/movie.html

And here are some stills. These poor little things were alive, it seemed so cruel!

How to eat a sea urchin:

Crack the sea urchin in half using a knife or fork. The juice inside can be drank and Mr. Vardakas assures us that it will do wonders for you.

Scrape away the grayish-greenish-brown gunk, which I believe is its waste.

The orange (meat) that is left are eggs, sea urchin caviar.

Scoop out, squeeze fresh lemon on top of it, put on some bread (preferably lagana, a Greek sesame bread), and enjoy!

It tastes very similar to raw oysters. I don’t need to have one again. For additional photos from our day at sea, go here: www.hfassio.com/sea/index.htm

The weather got a bit rough on the way back to Chios and Mr. Vardakas emboldened by ouzo, or maybe the sea urchins, decides to chat me up while piloting the boat. He’s sitting too close for comfort, but as moving about the boat to escape is not an option, I’m a captive audience.

“You watch the show the Honeymooners?” he asks.

“No, not really,” I reply.

“Oh…I used to watch it while I made donuts in New York—late at night. I have lots of tapes at my house, if you want to watch,” he offers. “My daughter, she gives me Titanic—have you seen it?”

“Yes, many times,” I say.

“I have that also at my house. And…other videos, too—sweet videos,” he says with a smile. “You like sweet videos?”

I’m desperately wishing the sea was infinitely rougher so that he would have to give all of his attention to steering the boat. I look around at the sky, there are thick clouds over the island and I begin to wonder what the chances are of a freak thunderstorm and 40mph winds.

“Sweet?” I asked, feigning confusion.

“You know ‘sweet’,” he emphasizes. Oh god, here it comes… “Sexy videos,” he says and gives me a knowing grin.

I'm suddenly reminded of Borat..sexy time? I laugh uncomfortably and then become intensely occupied with photographing some detail of the boat. He begins to serenade me with a Greek song. I glance back at Huong; she’s sitting on a bench bundled up against the cold wind and his advances. She’s grinning from ear to ear. “Your team,” she whispers so only I can hear. I resist the urge to give her the finger.

Nightlife

2008-03-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

March 8, 2008

Saturday night in Chios and we’re at our favorite gyro place by our hut. Isadora, who owns the restaurant and speaks a little English, is working and we chat with her and her father (another Stomatis – much nicer than the one at the bar), take some photos of the two of them, and practice our limited Greek vocabulary.

“We are going into town tonight to go dancing,” Isadora says pointing to the other girl (Eleni) who works at the restaurant as well. “Do you want to come with us?” she asks excitedly.

I look at Huong, who is non-committal and ask what time they plan to go.

“Oh…probably around 2am,” she says.

Huong starts shaking her head, laughing, and says that she will be fast asleep by then, but tells me that I should go without her.

Hmm, I thought, weighing the idea of heading into town at two in the morning. It reminded me of a night in the south of Spain with my best friend, Leah…

We had been staying at a timeshare that was very reminiscent of the resort portrayed in the movie “Dirty Dancing.” We had had our fill of bad flamenco dancing and couldn’t take it anymore. In desperation, I had asked our waiter where we could go dancing. “Ah,” he had said, “meet me at reception at 2am.” Of course, he had replied in Castilian Spanish (my Spanish was conversational at the time) and so “reception” actually sounded like “ray-thep-thee-own”. After a few tries my brain engaged and we nodded happily that we would pick him up at 2am as we had Leah’s parent’s rental car for the evening. The night had ended at a private villa in a swimming pool with me wearing a pair of speedos and a t-shirt that said something like “I like beer.” So, naturally, when Isadora suggested going into town at 2am, I was up for the adventure.

At half-past midnight, I got a call from Isadora. “Maybe,” she says, “it will be another 2 hours.”

“Okay, so 2am?” I ask to confirm.

“No, 2 more hours after that,” she clarifies.

“4am?” I laugh. A 4am start is pushing it even for me. I tell her I will go next time, when I have a chance to take a nap.

History of the Hut

2008-03-08T08:26:00.000-08:00

March 6, 2008

At about 11pm there was a rap on our door.

“Hello, girls!”

It was Mr. Vardakas—in blue pajamas.

“I saw your light on, so I come up! I looked in the window and saw you weren’t sleeping, so I knock!” he says grinning enthusiastically.

The window he is referring to is right above my bed. It takes all of my willpower not to look at Huong. The image of Mr. Vardakas peering in at us while we were sleeping was comical enough, but I might just burst into laughter at the look of horror that was surely crossing her face.

He had given us food earlier that day and it was surprisingly good. A homemade version of spanakopita and then a shrimp risotto of sorts. Tomorrow he said he wanted to make us another dish.

He looked around the room and began to tell us about all the improvements he had made to it over the years. How he and his ex-wife had lived in the hut when they were first married. His eyes rested momentarily on his most recent contribution to the hut—my bed.

“You know,” he began, “one day I was on my boat—out at sea. There were no fish, but I see this log on the water…And, well, no one was around, so I stopped and pulled it up.” He pauses to laugh as he remembers and continues, “So then, when you came, I said, ‘Whatta I'm gonna do?’ and I thought, I make a bed with this log.”

“This?” I asked, pointing to the bed I was sitting on. “You made this out of a log you pulled from the sea?”

“Yeah,” he said shrugging nonchalantly, “sometimes freighters/Russian ships pass by, things fall off… Well girls, sweet dreams!”

With that, him and his blue PJs shuffled out of the of hut and back downstairs. Kind of nice, I thought to myself, being carried off to sleep every night on a piece of old driftwood.

The Invisibility Cloak

2008-03-05T07:10:00.000-08:00

March 4, 2008

I've started waking up and doing yoga on the rooftop--well, a combination of yoga and kickboxing moves. I'm sure I'm giving the neighborhood something to gossip about, as we're situated in a very visible area, but I don't care--I am a ninja.

Interestingly enough, like a true ninja I have developed a certain amount of invisibility, although my invisibility stems from being an immigrant dishwasher rather than years of practiced stealth. It's amazing how much you're ignored when you don't speak the language and when you're at the bottom of the social food chain. It's like a handicap that my co-workers would rather pretend didn't exist than having to deal with it. They actually don't even know my name. I think they've been calling me “Poppy”, the name of the Bulgarian dishwasher. Hmm…maybe “Poppy” is Greek for dishwasher?

There's been some debate over my employment at the bar. I had stopped by to see Stomatis, one of the bar managers, to talk about my schedule. He's a small, blonde, possibly gay man who doesn't seem to like me very much. Perhaps this is because I called him Stomachness when we first met.

“Okay,” he had said, “you work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.”

Whoa…whoa…hey now...

Huong was right, the old bait and switch. Originally when I “interviewed” with Steyo he had been very open to whatever shifts we could work, which in my mind did not include 5 days straight of the vampire shift. Not to mention the shifts were so long that even doing 2 equaled 20hours a week. And that doesn't even factor in the recovery time from an all night shift. I was lucky to get to bed at 7am and even being exhausted it was hard to sleep past 11am with the bright sunlight streaming into the shared, one-roomed living space. Huong had actually never taken the job, she decided being a zombie wasn't for her.

So I told Stomachness/Stomatis what Steyo and I had discussed. “Okay, I'll check with him,” he said and took my number.

“Uh, do you want my name?” I asked, looking at the scrap of paper that he had scribbled my number on.

“Oh,” he replied absently, giving me the pen when he had no clue how to spell my name.

When I walked out of the bar Huong was waiting outside away from the endless cigarette smoke trying to catch the Wi-Fi signal. “Well?” she asked.

I started laughing. “I think I just got fired.”

Tech Support

2008-03-02T08:21:00.000-08:00

March 2, 2008

Huong’s computer died two days ago and she’s been mourning its loss ever since. I can’t blame her; our laptops are our lifelines to the outside world. We have no TV, we can’t read the newspapers, and most of the locals are indifferent to our presence. If it wasn’t for the Internet, we could almost forget that an outside world exists.

The last couple days have been spent lazily walking to town and hanging out at our favorite wi-fi Internet café, Cosmos, sharing my laptop. It’s a huge step up from the InSpot Internet café with its rows of desktop computers, teenagers playing video games, and constant cloud of cigarette smoke.

Yesterday Huong went to pick up her laptop from one of Mr. Vardakas’ cousins. He has a shop that sells heaters, stoves, washing machines, random kitchen appliances, and apparently can fix laptops, too. We both were skeptical. When we arrived, Huong asked meekly if they were able to save anything.

“No,” Costas, the technician, replied. “Big problem.”

That was as much information as we could get out of Costas. Much to Huong’s dismay, they had reinstalled a Greek version of Windows XP, which left most of her computer indecipherable. On top of that, the wireless modem and DVD drive was no longer working. Even more to her dismay were the several text messages from Costas asking her to get a drink. Perhaps the half-fixed computer was all a ploy to see her again.

We went back to see Costas again and dropped off her computer. We have no idea what he’s going to do with it.

Meanwhile during my stint as a dishwasher, I had missed out on some domestic drama that Huong filled me in on: she thinks Mr. Vardakas is in love with Poppy, the Bulgarian dishwasher. Everyday he takes her to work and every night he picks her up. He lets her stay with him (in her own bedroom) free of charge while she sends all the money she makes at the bar back to Bulgaria for her children, who are 19 & 21. At every occasion Mr. Vardakas likes to mention how stupid this is. “They should be making their own money,” he says adamantly shaking his head, “but instead she works herself to death. Stupid woman.” Ah, yes… such terms of endearment.

“No, really!” Huong tries to convince me, “There were tears in his eyes as he was talking about her!” Hmm…was this before or after he mentioned how badly he wanted a girlfriend, I asked.Poppy seems only irritated by Mr. Vardakas’ attentions and as she speaks only Greek and Bulgarian, our conversations are currently limited to pleasantries.

¡Dios Mios!

2008-02-29T04:55:00.000-08:00

February 28 or...eh...29, 2008

It's six in the morning and I've never appreciated last call in the States until this very moment. I smell like a stale hookah—no , a USED hookah. Ugh. I spent the last 10 hours washing dishes at one of the busiest bars/nightclubs in Chios. The night started out pleasantly enough, cappuccino in hand I sipped the liquid caffeine that would get me through the night and surveyed my surroundings. Everything was in order, no problemo.

At about 2am we ran out of water. I’m the dishwasher and there is no water. My world sucks ass right now. As the dishes piled up and up and up and up, Britney Spears sang “Gimme, Gimme, more…” Little did I know they would be continuing to give me more until 5:45am.

I feel like I’ve smoked five packs of cigarettes, my feet hurt, my back hurts, I have tiny cuts all over my hands thanks to multiple glass breakage—the intense hot and cold from the ice and then the dishwasher makes the glass extremely brittle. In 40 minutes I will have been up for 24hours straight. I must have expended 3,000 calories tonight. I am starving. Can someone please get me a gyro????

On top of the hours of hard labor I just did, I now have to walk 2 miles home—in the dark. But the sky is quickly changing; it’s gone from a pitch black to a deep midnight blue. I’m sitting on a bench across from a large square. I breathe deeply, hoping to muster enough energy for the walk. The city is starting to come alive, but I’m about to die.

my own personal hell

Hello, I’m your Mexican

2008-02-27T07:31:00.000-08:00

February 26, 2008

Huong and I have been exchanging questioning looks as Mr. Vardakas explains the job that he thinks he can get us at his cousin’s bar. “Well,” he says nonchalantly, “you start at about 8pm and then you’re done whenever the bar is closed. Sometimes they close early, sometimes they go until 8am.”

We find out that the pay is 30euros a night, regardless of how long the shift is. It's a bit of a dilemma: do we spend our nights working, days sleeping, barely making any money, or do we throw caution to the wind, plough through our savings, but have a blast for the next 3 months traveling about?

We have an appointment at 3pm to meet the boss and Huong and I have been weighing our prospects. On the one hand, the bar is situated in a primo location, right on the main street that hugs the sea, it’s always packed, and the potential for getting more integrated into this culture increases by working in a social environment. So far, our interactions have centered around Mr. Vardakas and Poppy, a Bulgarian woman who also works at the bar 7 nights a week and rents a room from Mr. Vardakas.

The reality is that our options as illegal immigrants are few and we find ourselves in a curious position—we are the Mexicans here. We share a cramped living space, we don’t speak the language, we will be working long hours for little pay, our country’s currency is significantly weaker than the country we are currently in, and we don’t have the official paperwork that would allow us to get a job that doesn’t require menial labor.

Steyo, one of the three partners of the bar, breezes down from the upstairs office. He greets us kindly and says, “So, would you like to work here?” I stall by asking questions. I knew Huong was still on the fence, but I had just about convinced her that this job could lead somewhere. Where that might be, I had no idea, and although I had only planned on working at a restaurant as a last resort, the journalist in me wanted to be a Mexican.

So when Steyo asked if we wanted the job, I served us both up on a platter. After all, I’ve met some of the most amazing people I know in a bar.

“…but I don’t love to arrive.”

2008-02-26T02:54:00.000-08:00

February 24, 2008

There’s a line from my favorite poet, Mahmoud Darwish, that describes my mood right now: “Addresses for the soul, away from this place…I love to travel to any wind, but I don’t love to arrive.”

All the anticipation, excitement, flurry of activity, day dreaming about what things will be like once you arrive, plus the physical effort expended to get to your destination puts you on an adrenaline high that heightens every sense. Then you arrive and you still can’t relax—a new set of realities is greeting you at every turn, your own reflection in the mirror looks strange...everything is foreign.

Our one bedroom apartment is literally one room rectangle about 12’ x 10’ with a smaller hallway for a kitchen in back and a tiny bathroom. It could be worse. I remember my friend James’ apartment in Paris had the toilet in a utility closet—so small that your knees brushed the door when you sat down—and you had to step up onto the kitchen counter to take a shower. But, at least there was water and even hot water, unlike the apartment in Jordan, which was huge, yet missing these key elements much of the time. Given the small space, right now our luggage looks like it threw up in the room.

But, despite our clutter, some nice details greeted us: fresh vine-ripened oranges on the shelf and in the refrigerator, newly painted walls, two new beds, and my personal favorite, which words cannot do justice:Was this little shrine left over from previous tenants? Or, was this Mr. Vardakas’ personal interior decorating touch? Best not to dwell too long on this subject…

While our little hut on the rooftop is small, we do have the entire rooftop to ourselves and we wake up every morning with a view of the sea. We’ve decided that we will claim the rooftop as outdoor living space and make it cozy.

Later in the day we got our first look at the island with Mr. Vardakas as our tour guide. We met an Orthodox priest, who is the lone caretaker of the Mersinidiou Monastery, apparently because everyone else has died.
We asked Mr. Vardakas what will happen to the Monastery when the last priest died, he shrugged his shoulders, picked some geraniums and handed a stem to each of us. Next we strolled about Lagada a nearby town to the North, very idyllic, with its main street floating just above the sea. Not bad for a short Sunday drive.

Mr. Vardakas

2008-02-25T06:05:00.000-08:00

February 23, 2008

Baggage in hand, I walked out of the terminal to survey my surroundings. Still no sign of Huong or Mr. Vardakas, so I parked myself on some outdoor seats and rummaged through my bag to find his number. To my relief when I got him on the phone he knew exactly who I was and said he would be there in 10 minutes to pick me up.

To my right was the sea and a deep orange sun was rising above the horizon. The hazy land mass in the distance must be Turkey. I breathed deeply, the fresh sea air a welcome change to airport terminals and airplane cabins.

A few minutes later, a short, older Greek man was approaching. “Hello, here I am!” he waved and smiled heartily. In pure American fashion I was ready to give him a nice firm handshake, but he came at me with arms spread wide open. Yes, I thought, I guess it’s time to leave my American manners behind and do the European cheek kisses. But, do the Greeks do one kiss on each cheek like Italians, or do they do three like the French, or four like the South Africans? Or is it two like the French and three like the Dutch??? I can never keep it straight… He was approaching quickly, I guess when in doubt, just act like an Italian. As I lunged left, he moved left, too. I moved right, he did, too, and my reflexes dulled by exhaustion, he planted a kiss right on my lips. Alright then—nice to meet you Mr. Vardakas! Good lord, the only thing to do now was hide my uncomfortableness in laughter and pretend it didn’t happen.

Later when Huong and I were alone, she had explained to me that this, too, was how she was greeted and she learned quickly to always approach Mr. Vardakas with the side of her face. He had already proposed that she be his “companion” and now that I was here she was quick to offer me up as bait at every opportunity. I told her I would I get her for this… But she was nonplussed, “Hey, I’ve had to endure this for the last two days by myself!” she countered. Fine, fine…I had said, she had apparently been traumatized enough. No matter, when Jenny comes to visit he’ll forget all about both of us.

My New Island Home

2008-02-24T01:43:00.000-08:00

February 23, 2008

I flew into Chios on the first flight out of Athens. The first signs of dawn were beginning to show and as I looked out the window the prop from the small plane was silhouetted by the magenta and blue of the sunrise. This is what I was hoping for: to fly into the island with some light so I could get a view of my new surroundings by air. The flight was short, just 35 minutes, and we were soon beginning to descend. I could see the island in the distance—alone in the Aegean sea and a ridge of mountains rising out of the water like the back of some sleeping dinosaur. I couldn’t pull my eyes away and as we got closer to the island I greedily took in the details below.

Small roads wound about the hills, some paved, but many of them dirt. This must be an off-roaders paradise. I saw multiple secluded harbors and beaches, and I could tell by the rich blue in the dim morning light that in full daylight this water would be a vivid teal. Even from so far above, I could see straight through to the ocean floor.

Movement from below caught my eye and I saw a man cruising on a bicycle on a deserted road. The road was protected on one side by a stone wall and I followed his route as he passed by villa after villa. I inadvertently smiled like a Cheshire cat as I watched him—ah…this is one of things I would do—ride a bike through the hills at dawn with my camera. The architecture reminded me so much of Italy, could it be Italy on an island?

In a matter of moments we had landed and I approached one of the smallest airports I had ever been in. I went straight to baggage claim and looked around half-expecting to see Huong and Mr Vardakas waving at me, but was greeted only by my heavy luggage. All of it, thankfully. I had been forced to check some of my precious equipment and was crossing my fingers tightly that it wouldn’t get lost or damaged. In this I had faced my first financial setback. Olympic Air had a weight restriction that I hadn’t prepared for: everything combined had to be 30 kilos. My total weight was at 55 kilos. I must have spent 2 hours at the check-in counter going back and forth, packing and repacking. This hadn’t been an issue on British Airways and the Olympic Air agent looked at me with pity as he told me each additional kilo would be 10 £, and at 25 kilos overweight that would be a total of 250 £, which thanks to our weak dollar, that’s $500 to me.

He left me on the sidelines to think about my options. None of which were any easier or less expensive. Left baggage costs close to 7£ a day, but then I would have the added burden of coming back to Heathrow sooner than expected to retrieve my bags, not to mention the unexpected airfare costs. I could call Joe and run into London quickly and store some bags at his place, but I only had 2 hours before my flight left for Athens, not enough time to get there and back. I could ship stuff home, but shipping from the airport would cost a premium and I didn’t trust my sleep-deprived mental state to be able to decide what I needed and what I didn’t, I thought I had been so good at coming with the necessities. What was really causing all the weight was my equipment. I was traveling with 3 camera bodies, 7 lenses all of which were premium glass—even heavier than the actual camera bodies, two flashes, filters, special film, laptop, hard drive, cables, connectors, flash drives, card readers, power adapters, converters, etc. etc… Needless to say, I ended up paying the $500.

May 22, 2006: Stranded on the moon

2006-06-08T20:34:00.000-07:00

It was a peaceful day in the desert, but hazier than I had ever seen it. The wind had stirred up the sand, giving the landscape of Wadi Rum and even more moonlike appearance. We traveled south on the Desert Highway passing the backside of the mountains that hide Petra with my friend, Naiym, who had lived in the area all of his life and seemed to know every nook and cranny.

After about 45 minutes of driving we took a sharp left and left the paved road and the modern world behind. The road was bumpy and after a few minutes Naiym stopped to take some of the air out of the tires, apparently this is a trick for being able to drive on sand. It works so well, in fact, that we were cruising smoothly without even using four wheel drive. We stopped here and there taking photos of land formations, climbing over rocks, and enjoying the scenery.

We stopped to have tea under a pomegranate tree and there it became apparent that we were not the first ones to come to this place.

Man, I just hate it when people don’t put away their goat carcasses.

The desert is amazing, the sand changes from yellow to deep red and the rocks tower hundreds of feet above us.

We reach an area in the desert that looks like a silver lake. It shimmers and now I understand why mirages in the desert were common The “lake,” which is actually an open area of desert that spans for miles, is comprised of sand so compacted and dry that it’s essentially cement. After bumping around in the dirt and slogging through sand dunes, Naiym takes the opportunity to race through this natural highway as we head back towards civilization.

We’re cruising at over 100kph/60mph over the hard pan when both Joe and I see a dark line on the horizon up ahead. Neither of us say anything. It’s approaching rapidly. By the time we all realize what it is we’re only a few feet away. To our horror we see that it’s a fissure in the desert floor and there’s no way we’re going to stop in time. Naiym futilely tries to break, dropping our speed only slightly. We hit the crack going about 50mph and I see the desert floor and hear glass shattering around me. I must have closed my eyes because when I open them the windshield of the truck is completely gone and the truck has flipped onto its side. I’m completely stunned. I look to my left and Naiym is right beside me trying not to fall on me. “Jump,” he says. When I don’t move, he says it more urgently, “JUMP!” Suddenly images of the truck exploding enter my head and I crawl out the windshield in a matter of seconds, spitting a chunk of glass out of my mouth on my way. I get out, still in a daze, and then remember that Joe is still in the back seat. Joe! Joe! I randomly think about the miscellaneous camping gear that was in the back of the truck, any number of things that could have injured him.

Joe emerges from the windshield in just about the same state of shock. We all ask each other if we’re okay. I seem to be the only one bleeding and Joe quickly slides back into the truck to get water to wash out my cuts, which I guess came from the dashboard and windshield. I’m more concerned with my camera gear at this point and start taking photos. Joe and I are both a little delirious from the accident and it takes us a few minutes to realize that we’re stuck in the desert, many miles from help.

Fortunately, Naiym is still getting cell service and going through his phonebook to see who is available to help. After a few tries he gets a hold of a friend who can come out with a vehicle that can get the truck back on four wheels. After several tries, the truck is freed from the desert, the steering wheel turned completely around so the writing on the wheel is now upside down. We drive back an hour and a half to Petra, mostly in silence, all the while Joe and I having the same visions of him being stabbed in the throat by the stray piece of windshield glass that’s still holding on or having a piece of rock kicked up by one of the semi-trucks on the highway embed itself into his forehead. We vow to each other that we will have many cocktails to celebrate our safety.

Me, after the accident: exhausted, bruised, scraped-up, and incredibly dusty. Joe’s at the pool. I take an hour long shower.

May 18, 2006: Jordanian hospitality

2006-06-07T22:27:00.000-07:00

I’m horribly behind on my postings, but have been happily distracted for the last week by my friend Joe, who has been visiting me from London. I can’t begin to express how wonderful it was to have a friend to travel with, someone who you can let your guard down with, who you don’t have to be formal with, who gets your sense of humor, and has the same travel-tolerance and attention span as you.

Joe’s always been such an awesome host when I’ve visited in London. Always gracious and generous—making sure I was well taken care of. So, naturally, I wanted to do the same for him.

I was expecting him at around 1:30am and had sent a driver to meet him at the airport under the name “Joe Fassio” – in order for him to stay with me at the apartment I was sharing with Victoria, he had to pose as my husband. I made him take my name. Earlier that evening, Victoria decided to have an impromptu house party as one of her good friends had just moved back to Jordan. It was a small group, just five of us. Two girls and three guys: Meesh, Salem, and Mahmoud.

Sitting around the table, we collectively drank whisky, rum, beer, and some really bad Jordanian wine. It soon became apparent that Meesh is one of Jordan’s resident party boys. His eyes lit up when he found out my friend was soon to arrive. “We have to play a joke on him,” he says. The mischievous look in his eyes scared me. “What kind of joke?” I say cautiously, not sure if I wanted to throw my friend to the wolves and also a little scared of what a Jordanian prank would be.

He thinks for a few seconds. “What we should do is pretend he is at the wrong apartment,” he says, “and pretend it’s a brothel.”

I start laughing. Oh my…should I tell him he’s gay now or wait and see?
“We can put the TV on one of those soft-porn stations!” Victoria enthusiastically chimes in.

Meesh starts planning it out. He’ll be the one to answer the door. He begins to practice his lines in a slimy heavily accented voice, saying, “you like girl or you prefer boy?”

We’re out on the balcony and see the taxi arrive. We call down to him and tell him to come up to number 8. Meanwhile, Meesh is preparing. When I walk into the living room all the lights are off, candles are burning and Meesh has stripped off his shirt and is wearing Victoria’s pink bathrobe. It’s a hilarious sight. Meesh is 6’3” or 6’4” built like a brick-shit house, and his Greek-Lebanese-Palestinian background gives him exotic good looks. Joe is going to kill me.

The apartment stairwell is pitch black and Joe can’t find the light switch to turn the hallway lights on. I wince out of guilt imagining him trying to find his way, but also know that turning on the lights will ruin the joke. It takes him what seems like an eternity to get to our floor. When he does, Meesh is waiting. Victoria and I hide in the dining room by the front door and watch Meesh get into character. He throws open the door, and mumbles a greeting to Joe.

“Hi, uh….,” Joe stammers politely when he encounters Meesh, “Um..I’m looking for Heather. Uh, do you know Heather?”

Meesh murmurs something and beckons him in asking if he would like a girl or boy. Joe is speechless and Victoria and I can no longer hold back our laughter. We jump out from the darkness and see a mixture of relief and disappointment on Joe’s face. Thank god he’s a good sport, he’s not going to kill me after all. In fact, he might have been slightly disappointed to see us. We all head back into the kitchen for more drinks, which last until 6am and include a 4am run for cigarettes. On our way back from cigarettes we get stopped by the Jordanian police, fortunately Victoria is driving Meesh’s car and as soon as they find out she’s American they stop all inquiries, welcome us and send us on our way. We ask Meesh what would have happened if he was driving. He says that the car would have been thoroughly searched. The sun had risen by the time we went to bed and I realize that this is my first sunrise to see. It was beautiful and the quietest I had ever heard the city.

May 15, 2006: Around Amman

2006-06-07T21:14:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty ho-hum day. We did a little tour around Amman, going to the citadel, once an Ummayed Palace, and saw two of the ten Roman theatres in Jordan.

We spent quite a bit of time at the train station and all I could think of while I was there was doing band photos in the old trains. I was pretty disappointed that I didn’t get to take more shots in the downtown area and in what I believe was one of the major bus transfer stations, which was basically just a big parking lot.

People had set up all manner of stands: clothing, shoes, CDs, DVDs, toys, something that looked like a churro stand, fruit, vegetables, nuts, old shoes, old clothes, you name it. I don’t think this was the flea market, since that apparently happens on Fridays, but it was similar. Part of the reason I didn’t get to take many photos was because Yousef couldn’t find a parking space and didn’t want me to go very far out of his sight while he watched the car. At least, I think that’s what he was saying. “Don’t go,” he said in broken English and waived his hand toward one of the side streets downtown. It’s pretty frustrating and very annoying. I spent an hour or more taking useless photos of trains because we got roped into a tour by someone who didn’t speak English and then when we get to an area like the bus station or downtown souk, I’m given 5 minutes and told I can barely cross the street. To top it off, my editor wants detailed information about every photo I take. Ha! Maybe she can extract the info from Yousef, he’s probably an expert on Jordan train history after this morning.

Our last stop of the day was an exhibition hosted by the Japanese embassy featuring kites and tops. All of us at the paper had a slight misconception as to what exactly this meant, as we thought we would see colorful kites flying through the air. No such luck. These kites were affixed firmly to the wall, although they were colorful. There were about 4 other photographers present, who I’m guessing were hoping for flying kites as well. It was interesting to watch how they worked and see the gear they were using and carried with them. They were all men and all knew each other. One of them came up to me after getting in the frame of my shot to apologize. “Ah...I’ve heard of you,” he says after introductions. “Heard that you were coming… I’m friends with all those guys, Samir, Ranjina, Jenny... Why haven’t I seen you until now?” he asks. I told him I had been traveling around the country building up the paper’s stock archive. “Oh, I would love to have that assignment,” he says. Ha, ha…and I would love to have YOUR job, I thought to myself, shooting for AP and Reuters.

May 14, 2006: Dana…

2006-06-07T21:03:00.000-07:00

What a surprise Dana was… It’s amazing to me how Jordan can have yet another breathtaking national park in such a small country. Dana is 300km of virtually undisturbed wilderness and when you stand on the threshold looking out at it there’s a certain overwhelming aspect to it that makes you want to look at it, but not disturb. At least, that’s how I felt. I guess because it also demanded more of my attention than I could give. I was allotted a couple hours at Dana, at the most, and looking out across the landscape I knew that this was the kind of place where one needed to linger and would be best experienced in the evening. One of the rangers at the outpost gave me some literature, from that I read about a small hotel in the southern part of the park that you could stay at that is completely candle-lit or the Rumana village that consists of tents and makeshift kitchens for overnight stays. I try to imagine Yousef and I hanging out at the Rumana village silently staring off at the rocks, neither of us being able to say more to each other than identifying fruit and animals…no, Dana is a place that I could see coming back to with friends. A place to recount past experiences, laugh at our escapades, and enjoy one of the few places on earth where the land exudes solitude.

May 13, 2006: The daily grind

2006-06-07T20:17:00.000-07:00

Today is Saturday, but it’s my Monday. I was half-expecting a call at 9:30am from Yousef for our next adventure, but it never came. Looks like today I’m on my own. According to the schedule I’m supposed to photograph the National Gallery, Darat al-Funun, the Roman Theatre, and the Luwaibdeh neighborhood, all located in Amman. I’ve been slowly getting ready. I thought two-day weekends were short...this one-day weekend routine bites.

I made it Darat al-Funun—barely—my taxi driver had no idea where it was so we circled the area several times before finally getting to the right place. I’m not sure how much I’ll be doing on my own if finding locations is this much of a problem.

They wouldn’t let me photograph inside the gallery until I identified myself as a member of the press. The exhibit on display was of findings in a town about 10km from Petra called Beidha. One of the most impressive findings in Beidha were the carved heads of various gods that were affixed to the capitals of columns located in one of the excavated residences. The residence is that of a wealthy family and the heads are in phenomenal condition. The presentation of the artifacts is also impressive. They are housed in a rectangular room, with a smaller rectangular structure built inside the room so one can walk around the entire display and view the heads from various angles. The interior of the smaller room is painted in blood red, but the outside is painted black with slats for viewing.

Another room, which showcases rock carvings found in the region, allows you to step up and walk—catwalk-style—with artifacts on either side. Nicely done. This installation was a refreshing surprise to what, so far, had seemed to be the lack of art in Jordan.

May 14, 2006: Arab Karaoke

2006-06-07T20:05:00.000-07:00

After many quiet evenings in Amman, I decided it was time for me to venture out and see more of the nightlife. Aside from the first day I arrived, I’ve been somewhat of a homebody. I met up with Lena and some of her friends at a karaoke bar in the Kepinski hotel and convinced Victoria to come out and play as well. But what we stumbled upon was not just regular karaoke, it was World Championship Jordan 2006 Karaoke. Apparently, Jordan is participating in the world-version of American Idol and the contest will be going on for a few weeks. Being the seasoned and discriminating karaoke enthusiast as I am, I regret to say: I was not impressed. My prediction is that Jordan will not win the World Championship, but it’s nice to see that some things are universal.

May 13, 2006: Arabian business

2006-05-26T10:26:00.000-07:00

I’ve been gone for a few days on an official business trip to check out the south. I was paired up again with Mahmoud, the reporter from Gaza, and Yousef of course was there to get us to our destinations. I knew we would be spending a few nights away from Amman, but had no idea where we would actually be staying. My last experience with hotels in Jordan was that they were pretty bare bones and you were lucky to get a towel. I decided against bringing my computer, the thought of it getting stolen or being left in the car for long periods of time gave me intense anxiety. We left Amman at 6am and were searching for our hotel in Wadi Musa, the town just outside of Petra, by 8:30am. It quickly became apparent that Yousef had no idea where our hotel was. He would pull over randomly and ask someone on the street where the Petra Hotel was. Apparently, it didn’t exist. Finally after stopping at the Petra Palace Hotel, they were able to determine by the fax number we were given for this mysterious hotel that it was most likely the Marriott. It wasn’t until after we returned from hiking Petra that I truly appreciated this hotel choice.

After 10 days with minimal showering, little to no water pressure, hot water, or even water, for that matter, I fell in love with the shower at the Marriott. It was spotlessly clean, large, the water pressure perfect, huge spa towels… I was in heaven. It was especially refreshing after the dusty sweaty hike up and down hundreds of stairs in Petra. It was so nice to really feel clean again. And, I had a huge hotel room with white down comforters, piles of down pillows, a real mattress—not a foam cot—and, Hellboy was on the Movie Channel. Exactly what I was in the mood for: a mindless action flick. It was my own personal slumber party.

Earlier that night we had met up with Naiym, the guide from last year who had taken us all over Jordan. He lives in Wadi Musa or perhaps just outside of the city and came and met us for a drink and shisha. We ended up at the Cave Bar, which is just outside the gate to Petra. It’s an actual Nabatean ruin and used to serve as a customs office of sorts for the traders who, centuries ago would bring their goods into Petra to buy and sell. Naiym apologized that he wasn’t available earlier in the day, but we made tentative plans to meet up when I came back in a couple weeks.

Petra, as before, was magnificent. This time I hiked up to the high place of sacrifice. The trail wound around the rocks with sheer cliffs on one side and a towering rock wall on the other—the path had literally been cut out of the rock, stairs and all. I actually recognized a couple of the workers from last year. They were still there doing their same thing: selling jewelry, riding horses, trying to a make a buck.

Tomorrow we head to Wadi Rum, the desert that looks like Mars and actually where quite a few movies have been filmed. Speaking of which, I ran into the Italian film crew. They are staying at the Marriott and were doing what appeared to be auditions. I walked into the conference room that they had overtaken, which had Polaroids of potential cast members pinned to the wall and a sign taped to the door that said “The Holy Family”. I introduced myself and asked them if they had a few minutes to comment on their production. The woman I spoke to disappeared briefly and came back a few minutes later with the name of the production manager for the Royal Film Commission. Apparently, in order for them to speak with us, we first needed to get the Royal Film Commission’s permission. But, she said they would be there until the end of July, so would be happy to do an interview after the Film Commission gave the okay. All these rules, maybe I shouldn’t have identified myself as a member of the press. I’m beginning to learn that this isn’t always the best practice.

In Wadi Rum I finally meet Erga, the 65(?) year old woman who has lived out in the desert with the Bedouins for the past 9 years. Char had told me about her, but until now had been a mystery. We sat and talked with her in the Sheikh’s house, drinking tea, and discussing the changes she has seen in the area over the years. Life in the desert is a hard life and it shows on the people who live here. People can look 30 years older than they actually are. It’s amazing. “How old do you think he is?” Mahmoud had asked me, referring to this man we met in one of the villages. “Oh, I don’t know….seventy-five?” I guessed. Mahmoud agreed. “His grandson is so cute,” I added. “That’s not his grandson, that’s his son,” Mahmoud corrected. I was shocked. Seventy-five and still having kids??? “No,” Mahmoud told me, “he’s only 45.” Let’s all remember to hydrate, please.

Just being in the south, especially in Petra and seeing the vastness of Wadi Rum was invigorating. Amman to me is definitely the least interesting place in Jordan to be. After Wadi Rum we headed to Aqaba, the city on the tip of the Red Sea and the place from Jordan where you can see into Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. There’s an enormous flag that waves over the area, the Arab Unity flag I was told.

Aqaba is a strange place. There are enormous five star hotels with beautiful grounds and all the amenities you could ask for and then dusty grimy lots as soon as their property lines end. It’s a little hard for me to believe that this is a resort town and is where many people come to enjoy the beaches after having enjoyed some of the most amazing beaches in the world in Hawaii, Australia, the Caribbean, and Brazil. I guess I’m a little bit of a snob, but my idea of a beach doesn’t involve having an oil tanker on the horizon. But, looking around at the dry desert landscape, I guess the Red Sea would seem like paradise.

We stayed at the Intercontinental, another five star hotel and I have to say I’m pretty shocked that the paper was shelling out this money for us. Yousef was in heaven, he said he wasn’t going to sleep tonight so he could enjoy the hotel and maybe find a nightclub. I have no idea if he ever found one—the hotel itself was pretty dead since the majority of people only come to the city on the weekends.

I look back on our time in the south and at the time, I thought we were accomplishing a lot. I was pushing to get a consistent theme going so that we would have a cohesive story or photo essay to bring back. But, I’m finding that my ambition goes only as far as what the editor decides to publish.

May 9, 2006: Published!

2006-05-23T03:24:00.000-07:00

The woman who committed, or at least tried to commit, the suicide bombings in Jordan last year has finally been assigned a lawyer. It has taken months, largely due to the outcry from the public that she be denied this right due to the nature of her crime. She and her husband entered a hotel in which a wedding was taking place with explosives strapped to their bodies and detonated them killing himself and several wedding guests. Although she tried to detonate her explosives, they didn’t go off and she was taken into custody. The government, however, feeling that she could not be deprived of a proper defense, appointed her a lawyer today. Yesterday, I went along with one of the reporters to his interview so I could get a photo—the first to be published in the paper. Maybe not the most interesting shot, but it was more difficult than I thought it would be to catch the right expression. We didn’t want him to appear happy, indifferent, upset, incompetent, or mean, which was the range of expressions that filled up my memory card. Plus, with Arabic being such a guttural language, it seemed like he constantly had his mouth open.

Despite the heinous nature of her crime, I can’t help feeling sorry for the woman on trial. Did she really know what she was doing? An Iraqi by birth, she told the Jordan authorities that she thought she was coming to Jordan to get married. At 35 years of age she has the education level of a sixth grader and claims that she had no knowledge of the attacks prior to having her husband (of two weeks) lace her with explosives a half an hour before they entered the hotel. Obviously, the husband and the other men had been planning these attacks for some time, but she was given a half an hour to mentally prepare herself for ending her life. I wonder if she felt like her husband was killing her. Or, did she reason to herself that death was the best option considering she would be a widow of a murderer with no family in a foreign land?

May 7, 2006: Tourist trap

2006-05-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

I don’t like tourists. They freak me out. They walk around with a manic look in their eyes and I just know at any moment they’re going to snap and I sure as hell don’t want to be around when that happens. In Madaba, they were everywhere. When did this little town become such a tourist destination? I find out later that tourism in Madaba is definitely on the rise, encouraged in part by the government. The majority of tourists come to see the oldest map of the Middle East, which is a large mosaic housed in the St. George Greek Orthodox Church. Then they shuffle off and head to Mount Nebo to overlook the promised land. We were headed there as well, but I decided to forego Mount Nebo due to the haze that covered the valley. “La shadra, il youm” I told the driver and pointed out at the horizon and then my camera. No good for pictures today. He got the point.

A few hours later we were traveling along the highway on our way back to Amman, when I caught a glimpse of some shepherds close to the road. “Wa-if losama!” I suddently burst out. Yousef quickly swings the car into a dirt shoulder and comes to a stop. “Shukran!” I say, laughing slightly and hop out of the car. He's probably wondering what he did wrong to ever get this assignment. I peer at the shepherds through the trees, all the while slightly tentative about walking up to strangers holding sharp knives who I can’t communicate with. I realize that I walk a fine line between being respectful and utterly obnoxious. They see me and motion for me to come closer. I put up one finger and run back to the car and get Yousef.

As we walk down the hill to where they are working I see that there’s an old woman sitting on the ground and in front of her are three men in the process of shearing their sheep and goats. The sharp knives are actually large bulky scissors, which they’re using to slowly undress the animals. The old woman pulls out a cup, fills it with Pepsi and hands it to me. I have no idea when the cup has last been cleaned, but I can’t refuse. I just tell myself not to look at it and take a big gulp. One by one the shepherds fetch a sheep or goat, lift them up and lay them on their side, tie their feet together so they can’t get up and start cutting away a year’s worth of hair. It’s fascinating, but pretty nasty to see the underside of a sheep. All that hair has accumulated a lot of shit. Literally. There is a good amount of their own feces that they’ve been packing around with them, stuck and matted in their own hair. It’s amazing how docile the sheep are during this whole process. It makes me wonder if they somehow look forward to it. They come out of their haircut half the size they were and probably 30 degrees cooler.

The shepherd on the left, looks at me, looks at the sheep and then says something in Arabic, which makes everyone laugh. What the hell? Did he just make a lewd comment about me and the sheep? Damn, I wish I could understand what they’re saying.

May 6, 2006: Living up to my name

2006-05-13T04:49:00.000-07:00

Yes, I’m living up to my name, my old nickname, that is, given to me by my brother so long ago: Scrub. Not only is there no hot water, there is now no water, period. I’m pissed. I thought it was bad the other day when I boiled water in a pot and took a ghetto sponge bath. But, today proves that situations can always get worse.

Fortunately, Victoria’s boyfriend intervened on our behalf and the water problem seems to be resolved, for now. I don’t trust it at all. Most of Amman doesn’t have city water lines. Instead water is stored in tanks and water trucks come and refill the tanks every few days. If your tank goes dry, there is usually a reserve tank, but switching to the reserve tank is not an automatic process. I realize suddenly that the entire city is run like an RV park. I watched, horrified, as the last drops of water dripped out each faucet and then dried up. I was so excited when I had overlooked one of the faucets in the kitchen and was able to get half a pot of water out of it. I will never take water for granted again.

May 5, 2006: Mall rat

2006-05-13T04:47:00.000-07:00

The weekends here are Friday and Saturday as opposed to the typical Saturday-Sunday of the western world. I think this has to do with the Sabbath being on Saturday rather than Sunday, but I’m not entirely sure. My weekend, however, is Friday. At the paper we work six days a week. No one here knows about Cinco de Mayo, except maybe the Pollo Ranchero fast food chain, but even then it’s doubtful. Why is it that every time I go abroad what I miss the most is Mexican food and why can NO ONE outside North America even come close?

Victoria had a friend in town from Cairo and took off for Petra early this morning. They invited me to come along, but with all the day trips earlier in the week and future trips to Petra on the horizon, I decided to wait and save myself.

A large part of my day was spent at Mecca Mall, soaking up the wi-fi connection. I’m officially a mall rat.

…later…

It’s past one in the morning. Something’s happening to a cat outside my window. It’s probably getting impregnated. Sounds painful. This is the close of my first week. It’s been in a whirlwind. I seem to go back and forth between being exhausted and just wanting to be alone, to being lonely and feeling like I’m bored out of my mind. It’s not boredom, though, it’s more…isolation. Not being able to speak Arabic and communicate with others makes me feel very disconnected from the world. Even though I travel with Yousef, given the communication barrier, we often drive for long periods of time saying nothing, our soundtrack a tape of Arabic pop music playing the same tunes over and over. You take for granted being able to express yourself and having others understand, but when you can’t communicate even the simplest things, like buying a pack of gum, become a chore. I bought what I thought was grape bubblegum today, instead, I got what I can only assume is the Arabic version of spearmint. It was the worse tasting gum I’ve ever had in my life. It tasted…medicated. Bleck!

May 3, 2006: Peace and Umm-Qais

2006-05-12T05:17:00.000-07:00

We headed to the far north today, to a small city called Umm-Qais (pronounced um-kh-ice), which houses one of the ancient decapolis cities of the Roman Empire: Gardara. Perched high on top of the rolling hills, there’s a constant breeze and great views of Israel, the Golan Heights, Yarmouk gorge, and Lake Tiberius. So far, this has been my favorite city. Perhaps because it was virtually empty and allowed me to imagine I had just randomly stumbled upon this place, unknown to the rest of the world. If only my iPod was working.

In the open air museum I was approached by the site’s resident archaeologist and manager. “You take so many pictures, what are you doing?” he asked politely. I thought for sure he was going to ask if I was Japanese, which has happened several times already. Camera, asian-looking, what else could I be??? Korean?

I explained what I was doing and he instantly told me that I had full access to the site and invited me into his office to share more information about the work they’re doing. Despite the amount of ruins that are present, they are still excavating the city.
He invited me to come on one of their digs that they primarily do during the summer and also to come back in two months when an Italian film crew will start production on a new movie. “What is the movie about?” I asked, intrigued. Umm-Qais would be a phenomenal movie set. He didn’t know, historical period piece, he thought. I took his information; perhaps Victoria can come back and cover it.

Yousef and I seem to be settling into a groove. With my broken Arabic and his broken English somehow we still manage to get to our destinations. My Arabic vocabulary has increased by 100%--I now know ten words. The most important being wa-if losama (stop please). I use this constantly.

May 2, 2006: Wandering the wilderness

2006-05-05T08:02:00.000-07:00

Jesus didn’t get into the waters of the Jordan River to get baptized; he got into them because it was hotter than hell outside. Why else would he be lured into these murky waters? I remember being underwhelmed the first time I was here and this time was no exception. Because of the proximity to Israel, which is just on the other side of the Jordan River, everyone is escorted to and from the premises and counted to make sure the same number going in also come out. In three large steps you could literally cross the river and enter Israel, but guards are present day and night to ensure that doesn’t happen.

The group of tourists I ended up with wanted in and out as quickly as possible, and I didn’t blame them, you literally feel like you’re going to melt into the ground. Our guide, knowing I was with the paper, though, didn’t want me to miss out on anything so he offered to leave me to wander the trails by the river and then come back and show me the Byzantine church ruins, which was nearby. Oh, thanks soooo much! I tried to get out of it. “Is there a bathroom here?” I asked, knowing there wasn’t one and hoping he would get the hint that I should leave with the rest of the group. No luck. Having been to the Byzantine church ruins before, I knew there really wasn’t much to see, but how could I refuse when he was so enthusiastic about them? Off they went, leaving me and Yousef to wander the wilderness, both slightly crazed by the heat.

I begin to get a little confused as to exactly what I’m supposed to be covering today. I’ve literally been wandering around, stopping off here and there and I feel like I’m missing the real action, which is going on at the Dead Sea Convention Center, where we dropped off the other reporters this morning.

Earlier, Yousef and I found ourselves hiking through a small canyon climbing over rocks and wading through a stream.

Then we took a sudden detour off the main road to climb a dirt one straight up the hill so I could get a better vantage point of the valley. I guess this is part of the stock archives that I’m building for the paper. By the time I’m done I will have documented every thistle in the country.

May 1, 2006: First day on assignment

2006-05-03T09:19:00.000-07:00

6:45am
Today I officially start for the paper. I woke up a full hour and a half before my alarm even went off—excitement, maybe? anxiety? A mixture of both, I think. I’m heading off to the north. First stop is Jerash an ancient Roman city, which is the site of several summertime festivals. From Jerash we head further North to investigate the city of Ajloun, which has been inhabited for over a thousand years, unlike Amman which has only been in existence for the last century. Ajloun has ignited some recent interest as of late due to a large amount of funding that is being diverted to the region without a cent being spent on the city. We’ll make another stop in Dibbeen, one of Jordan’s national and virtually untouristed forests, perhaps also see if we can uncover the mysterious reason Zubia (the other national park) remains closed, and also try to find a couple holy sites in the area, one being a 150 year old wooden statue of the Virgin Mary and the other of the birthplace of the prophet Elijah, significant to both Christians and Muslims alike.

I really hope there’s hot water so I can take a real shower today. I’ll eat my cornflakes while I wait for the diesel (if there’s any left) to heat up the water.

…much later…

What an incredibly long day, it's now close to 10pm. I was accompanied today by Yousef and Mahmoud. Yousef is the driver that the paper has hired for the month to drive me around the country. Nice, huh? I have a loose schedule, but I can basically tell him to stop and can investigate whatever I please. The only problem is he doesn’t speak English so I’m not sure how much I’ll be playing my driving miss daisy card. Mahmoud is a reporter that has recently moved to Amman from Gaza. He’s done freelance work for a number of U.S. newspapers covering the West Bank and although he loved the hard-hitting type journalism he was doing there, it was time for him to incorporate balance and a little less danger in his life.

At Jerash we were denied entry as journalists, which began an hour-long debate with members of the ministry of tourism. Phone calls were made, claims of friends in high places were threateningly uttered, but they were final in their decision—ultimately because I am American and Mahmoud is Palestinian, we would have to pay the non-Jordanian fee. Out of principal we left without seeing the ruins, but we were able to get into the show going on in the hippodrome, which featured menacing gladiators and fierce Roman soldiers, comprised mostly of ex-policemen.

I can’t believe I wrote earlier in the day that Dibbeen was untouristed. I guess that would be true if you ignore the used cups, soda cans, chip bags, shoes, pants, shirts, etc. that litter the forest floor. I have never seen so much litter in a place that is supposedly a national reserve. I see a story hatching…

April 30, 2006: The mega Mecca Mall

2006-05-02T10:15:00.000-07:00

Since I was unsuccessful at hooking my laptop up to the Internet at the Times, I would now have to do the unthinkable: take a taxi to Mecca Mall with the sole purpose of visiting the Starbucks, one of the only places in the city that has wi-fi. It’s remarkable how much of my time, equipment, and energy is spent trying to communicate with others. Think about it…Internet connection, email access, acquiring a cell phone, hauling my laptop, film camera, DSLR camera, AND web-cam half-way across the world, this blog…all this, this..stuff…somone better damn well be reading this. I’ve decided I will go on vacation after this to some place where everything I need can fit in a fanny pack.

I stop in the corner grocery store to break a $50 JD bill and ask the owner how much I should expect the taxi to cost (he’s one of the few people in the neighborhood who speaks English). Seconds later I’m heading toward Mecca. The taxi driver says something to me in Arabic. I shake my head and smile. He asks me (in Arabic) if I speak Arabic. “La,” I reply. He then proceeds to ask me in English where I am from, whether I am someone’s wife, why I’m in Jordan, how old I am, whether I like Jordan, who I’m here with, why I don’t have a husband, how long I’m staying etc. etc. Fortunately, the twenty questions ended fairly quickly as the taxi ride was pretty short.

As seems to be the norm here, bags are hand-checked by a security guard, men are frisked, and entry is gained only by walking through a metal detector. The mall is a five level shrine of western capitalism and here you can find virtually every indulgence you could ask for, except a good selection of movies playing in their cinema. I’ve resisted the Mrs. Fields cookie stand twice now, but I’m not sure if I can hold out much longer. Starkbucks here is just like home including its larger than life muffins. I think I’m even sitting on the same fabric that they have in the one down the street from my apartment in Seattle.

I’ve been here for a while now using the Internet; people watching is a constant diversion.

April 28, 2006: Canvas, canafe, and a dead body

2006-05-02T09:04:00.000-07:00

It’s hard to believe I just arrived this morning, especially since I just awoke from a second nap. I’m going out tonight with Victoria and some of her friends to a bar called Canvas, a swanky place that’s popular with hip Ammanis. I’m anxious to see what a bar in Amman is like and also to meet other people our age.

Canvas does not disappoint. It’s a beautiful restaurant and bar filled with beautiful people, candlelight, a terrace with cushioned seats, huge umbrellas, and pots filled with flowers and plants. They also have their own security staff. Our purses were checked by a metal detector and all men were frisked prior to entry. We take a seat out on the terrace and slowly the rest of the group arrives. Victoria is anxious for a drink. I’m still in a fog of jet lag, but of course, have a drink. The men in the group all introduce themselves formally; they shake my hand and say their name. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure if they were saying their name or a greeting in Arabic, all of the sounds meld together to my ears. So I do what most foreigners do in a strange land, I smile, nod my head dumbly, and murmur something that sounds like a greeting.

An interesting group, one of Victoria’s friends, Jareis?, is part of a program called Operation Smile, which is comprised of a group of doctors who volunteer in the Middle East, particularly Iraq, to do reconstructive surgery on children who are born with hair lips and other facial birth defects. It’s amazing to think that what they do in a few hours will change a child’s life forever. Jareis said one of the most amazing operations performed was to a child who was born without a nose and without an upper lip. Victoria had covered Operation Smile for the Jordan Times during a mission they did in Jordan and was able to be in the operating room; she said for days afterwards she considered starting over and becoming a doctor.

Then there was Lina, from Abu Dhabi. She had lived in the Emirates most of her life, but had studied in San Jose, California and was anxious to make new friends, having just arrived to Amman as well. The beginnings of a dinner party began to form. I learned a few new words: sahtak, Arabic for cheers, aseer (juice) which I initially had mistaken for cheers and it became a great joke around the table, mensof (traditional Bedouin dish) which they had quite a lot of fun eluding to a special “surprise” that came on top of it, and canafe (traditional Jordanian desert made with filo dough, cheese, and sugar). Victoria decided that she would forego the banana split that was tempting her on the menu so that I, and consequently she, could have canafe.

On our way to canafe we stopped off at a cash machine as I was getting desperately low on cash and needed to give Jacob money so he could get me a mobile phone. Victoria and Jacob dropped me off on the corner and rounded the block to pick me up on the other side. As I slid back into the car, they pointed behind them. “There’s a dead body back there,” Victoria says. I look back and sure enough there is a crowd of men standing in a circle looking down. It must have just happened. I wondered if it was happening while I was getting my cash, only half a block away. “I want to go over there,” says Victoria, her journalistic instincts kicking in, “but, it just doesn’t work that way in Jordan.” She explains that the press doesn’t have the freedom and rights like they do in the states. We park the car a block and a half from the dead body and head for the canafe stand. Sirens and ambulance lights come from behind us and stop at the scene of the…what? Crime? I wonder what had happened. Was it foul play? An accident? A heart attack? Street crime is rare in Jordan, I’ve been told, but not knowing what had happened was still a little disconcerting. We walked through a small dingy alley, whose only light came from the pastry shop. Here we were in for another shock–they were out of canafe! Defeated, we headed home making promises to ourselves that the canafe would be all the more sweet because of the wait.

April 28, 2006 : The sandninja has landed

2006-04-30T04:20:00.000-07:00

Finally in Amman. It must be 4am, the prayers have started and the musical chanting reverberates throughout the city, the sound intensifying as it hits the limestone buildings. It’s beautiful and feels like a fitting announcement of my arrival. I fall asleep to this lullaby.

...hours later...

I have no idea what time it is. I awake to the sounds of children playing and car alarms going off. It looks overcast outside...flat light is falling against the building next door which I can see from my window. The apartment is quiet. I venture out and am greeted enthusiastically by Victoria’s kitten, Fel-Fel (Arabic for pepper). He follows me everywhere as I check out my surroundings.

The apartment is quite large. It has 3 bedrooms 2.5 baths, a formal dining room that fits both a dining set and a set of couches, a living room with couches and entertainment center, and a roomy kitchen with an eating area and balcony that overlooks the street.

Judging from the décor and the size of the furniture, I’m guessing this place came furnished. What is it with 3rd world countries and their obsession with over-sized furniture? I can’t imagine how they got all of it up the eight flights of stairs. I almost died just getting my luggage up and I was only carrying my little carry-ons, the driver took up the big bag.

April 27, 2006 : Accommodations at 37,000 feet

2006-04-30T04:03:00.000-07:00

It will be another day before I reach my final destination: Amman, Jordan. It’s Thursday afternoon and I realize with a tired sigh that I haven’t slept horizontally since Monday night. The flight from D.C. to London was ahead of schedule the entire way thanks to a nice tailwind. Heathrow, however, apparently has a curfew and doesn’t allow planes to land before 6am, so our flight, scheduled to arrive at 6:20am circled the airport a good 15 minutes before landing at 6:02am.

At least I had a chance to stretch my legs while in London. First stop was for coffee, a latte, which was unexpectedly good. I hadn’t really realized how much I appreciated the indoor smoking ban that Seattle adopted until I was sitting in the non-smoking section of the café surrounded by second-hand smoke. Breathing in second-hand smoke at 6am after being stuck on a plane full of recycled air was more torture than being cramped in economy seating for 8 hours. I had to get out….now.

I reached the city center at about 11am and met up with Ram, my Canadian friend that Vidya and I met while in Jerash last year, and had a quick beer before heading over to the Camden Tube stop to meet up with Joe and Luca for lunch. Was great to see familiar faces, but all too soon it was time for me to get back to the airport. Had a nice little surprise on the way back: the train broke down in the tube about 3 minutes away from the airport stop. We sat for about 50 minutes. Helpless. The Europeans took it all in stride. No one complained, no one got angry, and no one made inappropriate demands. At about 30 minutes, people started to get antsy especially when we realized the conductor had left us. Five minutes later he was back letting us know that a team had been dispatched to fix the problem, “quite a large problem with the train,” he had said repeatedly. That didn’t sound good. Luckily I had given myself a lot of time to get back to the airport. Suddenly, all the lights went out on the train and emergency lights in the tunnel clicked on one by one. Wasn’t there a murder scene in a book that started this way? Hmm. A series of bangs were heard outside along with voices and radios. Lights are now back on. The train’s engine rumbles to life and begins to sputter forward on the track. It’s going very slowly, but at least it’s going. Come on…only 3 minutes until the stop! I think I can, I think I can… We’re within seconds of the stop and the train groans and begins to slow. Nooooo!! We’re so close! It recovers and regains speed. “Heathrow Airport,” the conductor says, and the train grinds to a stop. The doors opened and it was a mad dash by all to get to their flights. Including me because I realized I had left my bags at the wrong terminal. Ugh.