Let me tell you about my weekend…

Friday dawned warm and sunny; bright and clear—wait, that’s every day in Jordan!

We had a field trip planned for Friday morning for us to journey about 1½ hours to Karak, a town that European crusaders used to build a formidable castle in the 12th century—I mean that fortress seems relatively recent given our trips to 2,000 year old Petra, and centuries-old-I-mean-from-the-Bible-old to the Dead Sea and Mount Nebo.

So I show up on Friday morning, armed with my sunscreen, camera, and sunglasses (the most imperative things for any of you planning to come and visit me!). After about 15 minutes, the nurse is there, the bus driver, and soon a colleague huffs and puffs over to say he can’t join us today. Now he was to be the tour guide, so it looked like it was just the three of us for the excursion to Karak. I decided the very nice nurse and bus driver did not need to spend the whole day taking just me to this town, so I said we should cancel the trip. I really didn’t want to cancel—I really wanted a dozen colleagues to run up and happily get on the bus, but I guess everyone else had to write their syllabi, go shopping, sleep in, blah blah blah, so I moseyed on back to the dorm.

I don’t like it when activities don’t happen. It is safe to say I am an activity-aholic. I like them as didactic thrills, distracting devices, and a chance to add one more to ‘dot’ to my mess of dots I am trying to connect here.

So as I walked back, the prospect of a long day on campus looming before me, I decided to walk around the campus, and pretend I hadn’t seen it before. I could hear my mother’s voice in my head, “Now pretend you are giving a tour around the campus. How would you introduce the buildings and the setting?” Darned if it wasn’t an interesting and illuminating walk!

As I sauntered (that might be the right verb—I wasn’t in any hurry) around the campus, I was struck by the horizontality of the landscape around me. Beyond the confines of KA, there are these beautiful, rolling hills to the north—in fact, they look like the rolling hills in Tuscany and Umbria, if you have had the good fortune to travel in Italy. As I walked around, yeah, really killing time, the horizontality of the sky, of the hills, reminded me how very different this was from my years in New York, which of course is so much about the reach, the verticality of nearly everything and everyone. Here, it is the expanse of the fields—some of the most arable and bountiful fields in the Middle East, the groves of olive trees, and vegetable farms that provide me with all the great produce we have to eat here. It struck me as a little odd that I really am not a very good “Country Mouse,” or at least I have seen myself as more of “City Mouse.” But I will benefit from this country calm. Indeed.

I come back to my apartment and decide to read some more of the history of the Middle East I am finding so compelling—these searing, quixotic, passionate stories of settlements and betrayals, promises and divides. When I finished Queen Noor’s memoirs I could not believe how much I did not know about her husband, King Hussein, who ruled Jordan for 46 years. I loved her reminiscences of how he struggled to foster peace in the region, and how he would try and break down the barriers of prejudice in the Arab-Israeli conflict, often through marvelous speeches Queen Noor recounted. In one speech from 1994, as Israel and Jordan edged closer to signing a peace treaty, ending nearly 50 years of a state of war, King Hussein said, “I have asked God the Almighty, to help me be a part of forging peace between the children of Abraham.” Over and over in speeches King Hussein invoked that image of the “children of Abraham” embracing reconciliation. Okay, I had some time on my hands, so I decided to get out my Bible to remind myself of Abraham. I knew the story with Isaac (especially with all the references to the tale in art history) but I wanted to learn something new. I had a couple hours to kill before lunch.

I open to Genesis 12 to read about Abraham. What a smile I must have had as I read how God called Abraham to leave his country and family and “go to a land I will show you.” By faith, Abraham obeyed. He took a leap of faith. Gulp.

I know it is odd to relate to Biblical characters, but what a parallel! And of course as I looked at the map at the bottom of the page—you know where this is going, I am sure—Abraham moved to, oh, about 40 miles to the west of where I am sitting and writing this blog. My dear friends Doris and Debbie would simply smile at me and remind me that we just have to take that leap and move out in faith. Of course I miss the comfort and security of that NewYork/Cincinnati life, but we’ll what’s in store here?

The rest of the day I worked on my syllabi and went to the gym. A quiet day of horizontality and standing on the promises.

Saturday I went to the Mall. They even call it, “Mecca Mall,” which seems a little sacreligious in such a religious area, but—what a mall. Now it is not nearly as big as the Mall of America near Minneapolis, but it is huge! I walked around, taking it all it, and then saw a sign sure to set any bargain-hunting-Leistler blood a’racing: “Big Sale!”
It was a men’s clothing store, so I should probably walk in and see how good the sale was, right? It was 75% off. Ahhhh….so I got a blazer and a suit for about $215 total. And no charge for the alterations…

I am feeling pretty good about the purchases when I come into the Food Court. A gourmand’s delight! Did I want Turkish food? Lebanese? Indian? Thai? No—I head toward the sign for “Popeye’s Chicken and Biscuits”! I want fried chicken. I want that biscuit. I want to pretend I am eating at my favorite place for fried chicken in the world (that would be Charles’ Southern Fried Chicken, on Frederick Douglass Boulevard in New York, up around 155th street. If you are any where near there, make your way there, and get the fried chicken and candied yams).

What can I say? A great expenditure of $4. As I am making my way toward the exit to get the bus back I see a sign for a place called “The Chili House.” Gotta check that out.
The closer I get, I see a poster—maybe 3 feet by 4 feet—of a—no way, can it be?? A 3-way!!! And a poster of Coney islands!!!! If you are not from Cincinnati, you may not know what this ambrosia is: a 3-way is chili on top of spaghetti with a mountain of golden, shredded cheddar cheese on top. A coney island is kind of a chili dog, again, with the delectable, cheddar cheese on top. In Cincinnati, we have chili parlors. Maybe 150-200 of these chili “diners” around town, all doing a variation on this Greek chili thing.
You haven’t lived until you have sat down at a Skyline’s (or the competitors) and indulged in the chili experience. I worked one summer at a chili parlor—ate it every day and never tired of the experience. Often when I fly back to Cincinnati, my dad and/or my friend Sylvia and I make a beeline to a Skyline’s to get the fix.

So back to this serendipitous moment—I am here in the Middle East—fully cognizant that I will have to wait until about midnight on December 21 to have a 3-way—when I am sure my jaw dropped at seeing the poster. I rush up and ask, “is this like the Greek chili that is only available in my hometown?” The nice counter guy just smiled, and I said, “I gotta have two coney islands please!” I know, I know, I had just eaten a wonderful greasy chicken meal, and no I wasn’t hungry, but I had to know, was this like the stuff in Cincy? [an aside is probably important here—if I get this excited about a hot dog in a bun covered with chili, onion, and cheese, aren’t we all infinitely grateful I never tried crack???!]

I have never had to wait so long for a coney in Cincinnati. But I waited, and then the plate arrived. 11 bites later I concluded that they were definitely a first cousin to my Skyline’s coney islands.

I wonder if Abraham discovered a fond meal from his home in Ur when he moved to the Canaan area???

The coney island was a sign!

Later that day a Jordanian colleague named Randa, picked me up to take me to a church in Amman. Many services are on Saturday since Sunday is a work day.

I am getting a little more used to Amman (but all, and I mean 99% all, all the buildings are white limestone—so hard to orient oneself) and Randa drove up to this area to a Baptist school where there is an International Christian church.

The service was laid back, people dressed casually, and while I didn’t talk to many people, I can see myself going back and trying to make some contacts there and enjoy a church service not unlike a church camp service. Anyway, very nice to get to broaden my horizons.

Randa invited me back to her home for tea and dessert after church, and it was a wonderful chance to meet her family, see family pictures, gobble a plate of Arabian sweets (I don’t think they like it when you say, “isn’t this just like baklava?”) and pass the time with new friends.

Randa told me that Jordanians like nothing more than spending time with family. They are not like New Yorkers and Bostonians, she said, in that quiet evenings, or whole days even with family is the norm, and “we really enjoy that time,” she smiled and said.

I couldn’t help but think that exactly three weeks prior, I had had the good fortune to spend a day with my mother’s side of the family, the Griley family, two days before I left. Aunt Dot had somehow managed to corral 30 members of the family together for what was the most superb time I can ever remember with cousins and aunts and uncles. The party also came on the occasion of what would have been our beloved grandmother’s 104th birthday, but I have thought many times in the last 3 weeks how delightful it was to spend time with that branch of the family. Aunt Dot deserves many kudos for that organization and special day.

So as I came back to KA, preparing for a new work week, and an important one at that, I had some lovely, albeit small, subtle moments to savor.