...see what happens

I was standing on the side of a street somewhere in this web of a giant city. I had all my earthly possessions in two bags, a backpack and a duffle. I looked up and down the street waiting for a taxi to somewhere and took a moment to chuckle at how I even got here.

I had been to Amman once before on a short trip to renew my tourist visa in Israel. Then too I had been charmed, perhaps bewildered, by her size. On and on she spreads, hardly a five-story building anywhere, or so it seems when you look out over the city from a high point. In the yellowy purple of a hazy twilight she twinkles like gold dust and at night the lights of dinnertime or ongoing business shine out from their place like stars in the heavens, and so they seem as far away too. At any point I was surrounded by the city as far as I could see and I felt it a bit eternal and I a bit lost and where was the edge of time and space anyway? Getting from place to place we are shuttled in taxis, but this is an expensive endeavor. The buses are so much cheaper, but you trade price for a far-longer trip. And a good walk after you disembark.

But this time I am not here to renew a visa, but in punishment for even trying to get one.

On Wednesday the 7th I flew into Amman, paid for a week-long visa, and took a bus and a shared taxi to the Jordanian border control. Everything was going all-too smoothly. It was a great pleasure to speak Arabic again, though, and I figured my familiarity with the language and culture was helping things run along well. But that all changed quickly.

The process is extensive and expensive. I paid for the visa, then the bus ride, then the shared taxi. At the border control center there is an exit tax I didn't have to pay, but I did pay for the ticket to the bus which transports us over the River Jordan to Israeli customs and for my one piece of luggage I was forced to store below. My anxiety grew as we inched forward; I knew what was coming. Approaching Israel is always stressful. Perhaps I should have been confident, for I had been through this many times, and it is never pleasant, but always eventually over. But we sat and sat and waited and moved forward and stopped and waited and turned two kilometers into an hour of shortness of breath and not enough room and restless hands. When we finally got off the bus, I took a deep breath and gave some thought to the insanity of anxiety. Was I overreacting to a day full of travel or did I know things were not going to go well? And why has Israel become a nation unmarked by blessing, anyway?

My last trip to Jordan

It took four and a half minutes to get summoned by a pectoral, automatic-rifle boasting, scruff. I was pulled out of line and taken into detention number one. I had some extra screening to go through and I guarantee my beard had something to do with it, but I got to skip ahead of a long line at least. After one round of check up I was allowed to go to the passport checkers. I have never once made it through these unscathed. This time was to be no exception. And so I found myself in detention again, this time with many other men and women. We began chatting, laughing at how ridiculous it all was and sharing stories about Jordan, Israel and Palestine. Two Muslim sisters were there. One was married to a tall American who got his stamp with no problem, though she and her sister sat for four hours before were given access into the country. And her husband sat there too and we laughed together. A half British half Tanzanian man had been there for over six hours by the time we arrived. He couldn't speak much Arabic, wasn't an Arab or a Muslim, but he could have passed for one. He was repeatedly taken away and each time he returned with a goofy smile on his face. In that formal way Brits speak he said,

"They keep speaking to me in Arabic, and I say every time that I am not an Arab nor do I know much Arabic." We all join in on the joke, our only power in this situation, which we cling to to feel less like cattle. We look around and find not one officer or employee older than thirty. The uniformed men and women look pubescent and we shudder at how Maoist it seems to have the decisions of entry and exit made by kids who use there work time to flirt and laugh and take little moments to gossip or talk about their weekend plans. With M-16 in hand. At some other point we came up with names for our band, if we had one, and what we would all do. Really, we developed some terrible ideas, and all we had was a hype-girl, a rotten beat-boxer and a knee-slapper. But we were determined to succeed. And everyone did. Except me.

Five hours of this nonsense, this back-and-forth, this questioning and answering and waiting, a young woman, certainly younger than me, came out and approached me.

"It's going to be a no." I argued with her politely and intensely. I used reason, but to no avail. My passport was receiving the red stamp of rejection anyway. And so, in a desperate and deeply quiet rage I was escorted to my luggage, and then the bus back over the Jordan, where it is free. 

The only other man on the bus was a husband separated from his wife and children by the choices of unmarried children. We had to pay for the bus back, and then shared the price to a hotel this man had already been staying at. There are few options after midnight.

In the morning, I woke up, checked out of my lodgings, paid the expense, and walked to the nearest place to find wifi and food. Now I had planned to be in Palestine with my family that day, for it was the first day of Eid, and it would be a time of joy and laughter and love. Instead I only found a McDonald's that was open, and I felt bad for all the other people who were separated from family on that day.


Hours of wifi and meditation and contemplation later in a next-door coffeeshop I had my only plan: go to the Israeli embassy in Amman and plead my case. I found the address, climbed in a taxi and soon found myself on the side of a street somewhere in the web of this giant city. The guards informed me that everything was closed and the Israelis had gone on vacation, or was it evacuated? There had been some travel-warnings and Al-Quaeda threats, so perhaps it was the latter. A manager came out, spoke in English with me and then ended our interaction:

The web expanding

"Enjoy your time in Amman." 

He smiled and walked back inside. I had realized that rejection was one of two outcomes, and though I wished it wasn't so, I turned around. Let's see what happens, I thought, and put one foot in front of the other on the side of this street somewhere in the web of this giant city. 

…close your eyes

Warning: the last half of this blog contains no graphic images save ones captured by my words. A bloody holiday has gone by, and I mean no joke in my title. If you’d rather not read of this, stop when you see Eid al-Adha.

I woke up to the goose grumbling yesterday morning and the rooster’s competitive call, though I had wanted to catch up on some sleep. And I was a bit peeved so I closed my eyes and allowed myself to wander into daydreams of roasted goose and rooster cordon bleu. I decided, though, as I parted the covers and embraced a blast of crisp, cold air, that I should not be so upset. Perhaps the fowl aren’t nuisances, I think, but alarm clocks, and just have annoyance wrapped into their function. It was time to get up anyway.

This perspective change settled my fury enough for me to rise and stumble into my kitchen, hungrier for meat than is usual for that time of day. And as I slipped on my slippers, I realized there is much in my life I’ve changed perspective on. Many things surround me whose functions have been…redefined, for my slippers aren’t slippers at all, really. I didn’t bring real slippers with me, but my cement floors are vacuums of heat, so, my L.L.Bean boat shoes with my L.L.Bean socks have become, together, my L.L.Bean slippers. If I close my eyes, they feel about the same.

I go to put on a sweatshirt, but approach no dresser. Instead discarded cardboard boxes for tea, fruit and some other Israeli product sit on the floor, drawers for clothes. One has my shirts, another pants and snuggies, and still another sweaters and flannels.

After I make my coffee (this is real, though Arab, not filter) I head back to my room to climb back into bed for a morning in Middle Earth. I am greeted by hanging vines from window to window that display laundry instead of leaves and flowers, whose scent is soapy, sometimes musty. It makes my thin-walled rooms strangely cavernous when the cold creeps in undeterred, like the heart of Misty Mountains whence the Ring was found (which makes me Gollum, wide-eyed, riddling, fingering my preciousss. Sounds about right.).

Next to my head an upturned drawer becomes a long bedside shelf. Here my coffee perches, as do my collection of books. I don’t actually want this shelf here, because it messes with the spatial arrangement in my near-empty room, but with one outlet five feet off the floor by the exit, it is a matter of practicality: this shelf also supports charging cell phones and computers and razors.

And though I have surround sound (which is a stretch for the noise of these wild children), I have no television or internet, and entertainment is defined by the words of authors. But I think I’d rather have it this way. Coffeeshops with wifi are my transitory offices for e-mail, Skype and an occasional catch-up on some American TV.

When I find a good stopping point in my book, encouraged by a break in text or a call from nature, I get up and use the facilities. Often the water is short, and sputters when I summon her. It’s a good thing I have an Arabic toilet to use when flushing is denied me. Oh, my porcelain pit that opens to sewage, the child of holes and thrones, that proves useful, though pungent. This isn’t so much a change in function as a change within that motivates me to use it.

All of these things can make one feel “not-at-home,” and for me, the feeling of home is important. So I have been purchasing things that make life slightly homier: cooking utensils and even a pan, a knife for cutting and a bowl for rice. I have a couch-ish thing to sit on and a Palestinian flag serves as a light-shade.  And since it was the eve of Eid al-Adha, one of two important Muslim holidays, I had someone over for dinner and we ate on my small cardboard table with plastic-bag cover.

High sun on Eid al-Adha

Eid al-Adha is the holiday where the Muslims remember their father Abraham, who was willing to sacrifice his son when God asked him to. In their version of this shared story, the knife remains powerless to cut Ishmael’s neck, and a replacement ram was provided. The Muslim world celebrates this provision (for by it they live) by similarly sacrificing a ram in remembrance, and even in atonement. I have spoken with some of my English-speaking friends who say this replacement sacrifice can erase the owner and his family’s bad deeds. What it also means is that there is a dramatic swell in business at the slaughterhouses and butcher shops. Of this, I went to see.

I connected with a friend of mine at seven in the morning after an earlier-than-usual mosque service. We went and retrieved his family’s sacrifice, a milk-chocolatey ram with short, curling horns, and milky streaks. An apple was brought to encourage the ram’s cooperation, but he didn’t bite; he sensed danger.

We got him to the butcher shop and here the air was soused with the smell of dam (blood). My heart twinged at the thought that our ram could smell it too, but no one seemed to be similarly concerned. We caught the first wave of slaughters, standing in that shop and I held the rams head between my thighs to block out as much sensory input as I could.  Again we tried to get him to eat the apple, but it was no surprise when he turned it down. Soon we relocated him to the pen full of those on death row, and let him forget what he had seen and smelt. Many of the sheep seemed to have that bland look about them as they walked in circles sniffing one another like dogs. Perhaps I was seeing more than was real, that my open eyes deceived me, but our ram behaved unlike the others. Perhaps he had seen too much, for he had a calm not of naivety, but of peril, and he was driving himself slowly as far away from the door that led to the blade as he could.

Inevitably, his quest was fruitless, but I will speak of the process in general, not locating the affliction onto our ram, though I watched as he was led through every step.

A sheep is dragged, bleating and resisting, onto the bloody tile where carcasses lay, twitch and kick. I have recognized only two expressions in the empty eyes of these simpler animals thus far: calm and fear, but as he finds himself on his back, sopping up the blood of his kin, his head raised and knife at his neck, I see for one brief moment something deeply pitiable. He looks at me in absolute terror, though this is not a terror of what might be, but what is to come. He has a knowing terror that breaches the limits of his reason, and here, just before the butcher swipes, the sheep’s eyes become piercingly sharp, dark, like winternight, and then in a blink, they fade into a grey, empty dusk.

I couldn’t tell where life ended and death began; here there is a moment of passing, where some try in ignorance to get back on their feet and escape, only to collapse into gruesome knowledge.

The ones who cry out are the hardest to see go, but each one’s throat is gaped open, their breath immediately rasped and barbed, and their dam joins the sea around us. Perhaps the most graphic part of the process occurs as the twitching and flopping begins, which can continue for what seems like far too long. Thunderous thuds echo as hinged heads hit the floor and the spatter of bloodrain follows as legs involuntarily kick. As I tried to hide our ram from this sight an hour before, I was hit with this fleshy precipitation. The whole place reeked, as deep red rivers found drains and wide-eyes and slacked jaws stared at me in horror from mounds of matted wool. In movies people are beheaded with such grace, if I may use that word so irreverently, and William Wallace’s lover greets this kind of death with a calm sadness. I wonder how terrible it really was to have lived under the shadow of the guillotine.

A calm descends, though, as the sacrifices finally still. Some men congratulate each other and seal the moment with some coffee. Today everyone wears their best clothes, and often their brand new ones, as is tradition to receive for Eid, and it proves to be a strange sight: bloodfloor under the feet of suits and ties and children watching the grisly affair. They wait for the skinning, cleaning and partitioning now, half for their family, half for the poor, and the butchers do this with skill and ease. Some pull a carcass aside and begin, while some open a whole in the leg and pump air between organ and skin, bloating the goat. And as the knife makes slits and the balloon deflates, he lays there awkwardly obese, sagging and limp.

I saw enough; I needed to go home and throw my clothes in the washing machine. I said farewell and blessed my friends, then averted my eyes from what I came to see, and left with a fuller meaning of what a sacrifice really is weighing on my mind, and the images behind the lids of my closed eyes.

…practice your Arabic

Baha signing energetically

Today I was a bit selfish, thinking of only myself and not seeing with perspective. I wanted to be home, writing and relaxing. I wanted to be speaking with someone who knew my language. But what I was doing was communicating with a mostly deaf Arab through the obstacle course of four verbal and non-verbal language barriers. And we were talking about things like 9-11, Bush and Obama, the Iraq war and Guantanamo. What?

So I changed my iniquitous ways, but after an hour my brain was really tired so I made my leave and walked back to Dar Himony. And when I arrived I noticed the haze of a florescent light’s wan glow high above the street. Abu Majde was awake with his family; I took a big breath, exhaled every western molecule I could and took one shameless step forward. I was going up, uninvited.

See, Ramadan is now over, of course, but during those dry, hungry days, I tried to get invited into as many homes as I could for dinner. If I was unsuccessful Tim and I would go buy some food for ourselves and bring it home. But we were chastised for this as if it was our responsibility to waltz into homes and demand dinner at the fast’s end…which it might’ve been. But with American air still fueling my ego, I couldn’t do it. So I am trying to find this balance between accepting specific invitations and accepting the ever-invitation of the hospitable Arab.

My dissonant feet led me to the interior door where I paused and called out “Salaam walaykum!” making my presence known and giving any uncovered women the chance to cover. Then I stepped in and onto a roof decorated with sizable and savory grapes. Abu Majde gave me a seat of honor and introduced me to his sister and her twin daughters. Of course he, with a great big smile, told me to introduce myself. This is rote now:

“Ana Wisam Himony.”

Eruptions of celebrations ensued, and I joined with obvious pride. Abu Majde calls me son and tells me to address his wife with the affectionate Uma. This is one of my families. The other is the family of Abu Noor whose four sons call me brother and in whose house I feel welcomed and comfortable as his wife serves and sits and smiles hijab-less in front of me. In both of these homes I am frequently told that my biological mother should visit and that she has a place to stay for even a month. I find that the relationship between mother and child is very important and seeing me without mine is somehow a shame. Besides, she needs to learn how to cook like an Arab so that I can eat well when I return to the states. I smile and say Enshallah and mean it, and we move on.

Now, both of these men have sons my age, but I have long since known that they are a generation apart from one another. So last week I finally took up to making a shejerat al a’illa Himony, that is, a Himony family tree. There are so many Himonys, and some look alike, while others don’t, and most all of them disappear from the stoop into homes I have never seen before. I see grown men interacting and greeting one another with a historical kind of hello. They are familiar and familial, and after being here for four months now, my curiosity’s been piqued. After all, who is really whom?

A couple of days later and after several hours of asking questions like min abuk? (who is your father) or min hada? shu amru abu? (who is that, what is his father’s name) I arrived at a still-incomplete mess of a tree. It’s a weeping willow where generations descend into one another and cross-pollination occurs. I received many quizzical looks during the process and I heard many accusations that I was from the CIA and I was spying on them. I waved this off by explaining myself and suggesting that we paint a big family tree on a wall somewhere.

On the stoop, late at night

When I began the investigation I had to wade through the play time, jokes and innuendos of the young Himonys as I catalogued their family. And it was hard because every man we discussed has many names and they used them interchangeably as if I was following along. Abu Majde means the father of Majde, but his given name is Faleh, which I didn’t know, and because his father’s name is Abdul Fateh, he could be called Faleh Abdul Fateh (and if we kept going in a formal sort of way we’d be tripping over ourselves calling him Faleh Abdul Fateh Ramadan Omar Himony). Plus, if a man is the oldest son he is often referred to by his fathers name, thus Faleh's oldest son Majde could be Abu Faleh, Majde or Abu Ibrahim. And then, to add to the confusion, every other person is named Mohammed. As you can see, I was untangling a disturbed spider's web.

Eid shoppers...its the Christmas of Islam

A few days before I was swimming through a sea of Eid-shoppers with a couple of my brothers, Omar and Mohammed when Omar dropped back for a second, unnoticed by our brother. I learned how fruitless it is to shout Mohammed into a crowd here as I laughed when forty sets of eyes turned their gaze toward me.

My brother Ibrahim Faleh Abdul Fateh Himony

However, all this chatter was good for my family and question word vocabulary, but this whole talk-too-quickly thing, yeah, they do this a lot. Many times I get to the end of the street and am beckoned by the shop tender there, Ahmad (brother to Abu Noor whose name is Anwar Abdel Kareem Abdullah Ramadan Omar I-have-a-headache and first cousin once-removed to Faleh Abdul Fateh Ramadan Omar oh-my-gosh!Is-he-still-speaking?). Ahmad speaks to me about money, usually, and he rattles along like a runaway Arabic train full of slightly slurred speech on its way to the zoo. I have learned to test the tone of his speech and respond appropriately. Wallah?! means Really?! if you use it as a question and Woah! if you use it as a remark. Mabarifsh means I don’t know, and Tamam means Good.

Practice:

Blah blah blah blah money blah blah blah blah America blah blah you blah? (Quick! It’s a question. Say you don’t know and you gotta go: Mabarifsh. Ana bidi ruh. Salamet!)

Great! Ok, again. Blah blah soldier Israel blah blah blah Tel Aviv blah blah (motions a gun) blah blah blah. (Ok, here he obviously is referencing something about guns and Israelis. It’s more than safe to go with really (Wallah?) or woah (Wallah) depending on what outcome you want. The first option will probably bring more explanation after which you can say woah and end it. But don’t forget to tell him you gotta go: Wallah. Ok, ana bidi ruh. Salamet.)

Perfect. Ok, last one. I blah blah blah a lot blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. (So this time not much of interest was said, or at least not that much that you actually understood, and judging by the tone it wasn’t some exciting story. Say good, good and tell him you gotta go. Like this: Tamam, tamam. Ok, ana bidi ruh. Salamet.)

You’re a pro already. But back to the story…

Mostafa and Sey'r Khader Sabri 

I had to scroll up to even see where in the story I was. Right, trees. So while I was cataloging I was sifting through the silliness of the boys for answers. Tonight silly was awfully close to crazy…the lines been blurred and the juries still out. But it was quite entertaining. I had given an oversized New York Yankees t-shirt to one of them (Mohammed, of course. This one is Mohammed son of Akram son of Abdul Kareem son of Abdullah son of Ramadan son of Omar). Something was in the air because these young men tapped into a great creativity. They played dress-up, they became actors and the oversized baseball tee became a kuffiya for a strong, prideful Palestinian; it was a hijab to a beautiful woman, a skirt to some blonde westerner and the face covering for a criminal. It was even the traditional male head covering worn by the news anchors of Saudi television. An empty soda can became a microphone and this reporter went around interviewing people about the foreigner among us. 

And in the end, a gun was pulled out from somewhere and someone was shot. Someone is always shot, or dies somehow, in these games. And we roll into fits of laughter and enjoy the brotherhood of Dar Himony.

And by now I have the ever-increasing tree in my notebook and I can see exactly where I hang, as Wisam Anwar Abdul Kareem Abdullah Ramadan Omar Himony…or Wisam Faleh Abdul Fateh Ramadan Omar Himony…or just Wisam Himony. Goodness.