Its All About Communication

Weather in Edmonton has been on my mind lately
Weather here has improved markedly since our flood.  I hear that there are many places getting the white stuff – even in the EU where high-speed trains are shut down.  Tonight is the first time it has rained since the flood we had before I left for Jordan.  I have the patio door open beside me and listen to the thunder as it lightly rains.  Nice!

Last week I was invited over for a ‘brunch’ at Arindam’s place with Kannan and his wife.  Arindam’s family is here now and he is definitely a happy man.  His spouse cooked a wonderful Indian dinner (not spicy at all!) and we were entertained by his 5 yr old son who is VERY excited about starting school here and now knows that his class is the best class in the whole world – at least according to his teacher and their class chant.

Before we ate and during, there was a man just outside the patio doors.  We talked about him a bit and Arindam and wife did not see that he was harming anything so had let him be.  But to me, it was an opportunity to reflect on my Canadian values.  I wondered what I would do if a person was taking his daily sleep on my patio in my back yard.  As we prepared for lunch, we watched him get up from his rest, spread his carpet out in a different direction and do his prayers.  After this, he just sort of hung out for a bit and then left.  I am not sure if he takes an extended lunch or if he actually has as much time off as he appears to have.  But… on my property, three feet from my couch? A man I do not know?  After he left we checked from outside if he could see in, and determined that he could not, unless the sheers were pulled aside or if the lights were on and the TV on.  Still…. where else could he find a safe, quiet and clean place for a rest?

Exam week has come and gone now and students are leaving as well as teaching/research faculty.  Last week I was in the library and one of the students I know came up to me and waved a plastic bound book in the air and let out a whoop!  He told me that he had finally got his text book – one day before his exam.  This is what life is like for students here.  Ordering through Amazon.com is sometimes faster than ordering from textbook printing companies.  I guess this semester was a tough one for faculty and students regarding texts.  I understand that many of the faculty were providing digital access to texts, providing detailed lecture notes online and scanning portions of texts in a stop-gap process until the teaching resources arrived.

I was asked by a colleague in Canada if I was interested in participating in some contract work that might come up as a result of a ‘call for proposals submission’.  She asked me to pass her my resume so I took the opportunity to update it with the work that I have been doing here.  So, for those who wonder what I do… here it is.

2009 -  Research and Instructional Technologist, Department of Research & Instructional Tech Management, KAUST, Saudi Arabia

Deployment, implementation and troubleshooting of an eLearning system for a brand new purpose-built Research University, from: the learning management system (Blackboard 9), policy & procedure development, interactive eLearning application deployment, building the unit’s HR capacity, to eLearning training and content development.

Garnet:

The most exciting thing this past week has been the result of a long phone call to my son Garnet.  I called him on his new phone and we talked about something that we had briefly discussed before I left.  It had been bandied about between Donna and I that Garnet might like to come to be with me.  So, my phone call to him laid out the groundwork.  I suggested that he might consider coming and that he could use Aven and his planned visit here during their Spring Break as an opportunity to scope out the place and decide if he wanted to attend next year (his grade 8) here with me.

The next day, I went and visited the high school to talk to someone.  I got a bit of time with the councilor who told me that Gr. 8 is the second year of the preparatory program for the IB (International Bachelorette Program) which is the curriculum for the school.  But the most valuable was when I ventured into the library.  Being a teacher and having a basic understanding of cultures in schools, I know that the library is the heart of the institution.  What I found was a library that was practically humming with activity!  There were three teachers (seemed like more as there were other adults there too) volunteering their time with a homework/study session for students of all grades.  These study sessions occur three times a week I was told.  The library!  What can I say but that there was not a space that was not full of books – table tops and shelves.  This library can be said to be ‘fully stocked’ and in many ways, so much better stocked than many of the school libraries that I have been in with Edmonton Public Schools. 

After talking for a short time with one of the adults (Librarian?) and after doing the obligatory expatriate introduction of ‘where are you from’, a young boy was pointed out to me.  He was sitting with a group of other boys busily working on some report or something.  He was very welcoming when I told him about Garnet and found that he is in the same grade as Garnet – that his family (two teachers at the school) came here from Dubai and that they are from Wainwright Alberta.  Sounds like a familiar path to me!  Donna says that Garnet feels like he has a friend here already.

And talking about phones!

In a surreal situation I answered my mobile phone while at work last week and it was Garnet.  He called as and must have been standing in his school’s office.  He asked me if he could go home early.  To say that I had to think fast was an understatement! He said that the school boiler had quit overnight and that the school was cold and all the other kids were going home but had to have permission from their parents.  I asked if he had his house key, just to make sure – typical parent question! He said he had tried to call Donna but she had not answered, so he called me in Saudi Arabia.  “Sure!” I said, as I thought to myself.  Like, what could the teacher do to me eh?  8-)

Continuing the phone call theme, the following are a series of texts between Garnet and I as he started to think about what life would be like here.

Garnet:  “Please Check if there is a pet store, or will be one at you compound or in the town then check if they 'house' rats J or at least mice.”

Mark:  “Yes they have pet stores in Jeddah. When u are here we can go check them out for something to do.”

Garnet:  “Yay! I hope u have nutin agenst rats,il take care of them-i need 2 get 2 cause they are best in pairs”

Mark:  “U can catch a rat outside the house! There is a pest problem here with them. None ever in my home tho. U shud wait 2 c what they have in the shops here.”

Garnet:  “Hmm no i need a store rat -they dont bite,if ther isnt rats at shop we will catch 1”

Mark:  “Maybe there is something better at the store! Who knows?”

My back yard:
I have a BBQ now, a small red one.  I have found out that I have to use quite a bit of charcoal to get it up to cooking heat as the bottom tray is quite a ways from the cooking grill.  I went and got a small ‘hibachi’ style one for $5 so that I can cook for one.  I hope to have some friends over for a bite to eat this weekend.   
I have an instant garden outside.  I swear, the gardeners who planted the grass and flowers were out there just three weeks ago and I have a fully green soft grass yard and flowering plants sprinkled sparsely around the edges.  This is like -- just wave a plant over the earth and it grows.  

Scuba Video:

And to finish this off, here is a video I have been waiting to get of my scuba training.  You will see about 12 other divers in my group of which 4 were involved in either photography of the event or the training.  The metal grid has been set up for a training platform so that we do not thrash the coral.  Note the coral wall beside us.  We are at about 45 feet below the surface at the platform.  The angel fish that you see at the end are about 10 inches top to bottom.  The platform must have been their home as they seemed to want to protect the area and came very close to us.

Eid in Jordan

My holiday to Jordan for the week of Eid (Nov 25 to Dec 4th) started with a soaking.  I woke up in the morning with most of my bags packed to see that it had been raining during the night.  I looked out the window and went downstairs to adjust my taxi by half an hour for an earlier pickup.  The roads outside the house were under water and in some places about 3 feet of it.  The taxi driver on the way to the airport said that the ‘land not drink the water.’ 
Got to the airport, and then panic set in.  I had been dropped at the wrong terminal!  I had been told that domestic flights went from the South but now I know that airlines owned within the Kingdom fly out of it!  I ran out onto the ring-road pulling my luggage and flagged a taxi.  I got there in time and was thankful that the flight was delayed by the rain.   Here is an image of one of the roads close to my home.

Amman has hills! 
Lots of them.  The buildings are just about all 4 floors but since they are built on the hillsides, they have six floors on the front and 4 floors at the back.  I do not think that there are many ‘private’ homes in this city as most buildings are apartments.  
I was picked up by some friends at the airport and taken to their home.  The next day I went with them as they wanted to see Petra.  I felt that a third day there, as I had planned on visiting later in the week for two days, was just great! 
The home of these folks is on the top or the roof of one of these apartment buildings.  The owner added two lean-to kind of additions to the single penthouse room on the roof.  Friday morning at this location was an interesting experience.  It was Friday of the Eid holiday and EVERY mosque (100s?) were calling prayer at sunrise.  The combined call and resultant multiplication by echoes in this stone city created a buzz like angry bees as it penetrated the stone walls of the rooms.  I opened the window to get an idea of the sound and could pick out, here and there, the original voices calling.  On the way out to our taxi ride we passed men in driveways butchering goats or sheep for this festival.  Next to the skinned and strung bodies, were more waiting in pens.  Later during the day we saw pens of sheep and goats along the roadside where people where buying and bundling into the backseats of their sedans to be taken home and killed. 
During my peregrinations through this country I was struck with how much of it was desert.  Most of the country around Amman is low rolling hills where people have pushed the surface rocks into hedgerows to expose a thin soil layer.  Since it was winter time here, the fields were bare.  Hard to imagine that much would grow on the thin soil other than the rocks that were there to begin with. 

Petra
My first day at Petra provided me with some precious time with George K to walk along the main valley bottom while the rest went up to an area called the High Point of Sacrifice (I did this on my second trip and know it is a tough walk.  Demetrious a 70+ year old gentleman with us, a bypass patient the year before, went to the top!).   My feet were sore by the end of a rich far-ranging day of discussion in an amazing historical environment.  A little bit of research provides some history of Petra and the Nabataean people who have been credited with its creation.  Petra sits on major trade routes and controlled precious water resources:

The Babylonian captivity of Hebrews that began in 586 BC opened a power vacuum in Judah, and as Edomites moved into Judaean grazing lands, Nabataean inscriptions began to be left in Edomite territory.
Petra has had religious significance since ancient times. Nearby Ain Mousa (Spring of Moses) is believed to be where Moses struck a rock with his staff to extract water; and Aaron is said to have died in the Petra area and been buried atop Jabal Haroun (Mount Aaron).  More recently (in the time of Jesus), the Nabateans built a city packed with tombs, temples, sanctuaries and altars to their gods. Finally, in its last years, Petra was the home of at least one Byzantine church.

Friday saw my small group of friends travel to the north of the country for a day-visit with others in the country.  Since they were staying on in the city of Irbid for another day, I traveled back to Amman to be able to start my travels-proper (what I had intended originally before I realized that I could meet with the group mentioned above). 
George dropped me off at the bus station in Irbid and with a little bit of negotiation I found another traveler who was going to Amman (1.5 hours South).  He only wanted to pay 2 JD and I agreed to cover the balance of the 10 JD ‘extortion’ cost of Eid travel so that I had someone who could talk English (taxi driver did not).  Mr. Amir was in Jordanian dress.  The trip seemed full of argument between the driver and Mr. Amir although each time he turned around and addressed me in English, he was very polite.  He was an unassuming internationally traveled multi-national HR personnel professional in the seafood packaging industry.  When we got to the bus station he paid for his AND my costs and forbid me to pay anything.  He then called a friend who turned up in a beat-up van and took me to my ‘two star’ hotel – at NO COST at all!  Overall, I have found that Jordanian and Oman people are the friendliest of the Middle East people.   

My second and third days at Petra were awesome.  I spent them walking around the site with the Blincows who we met in the UAE while I worked at Dubai Women’s College.  I also ran across Brian Keenan one of the Heads from DWC.  The first day with the Blincows was spent climbing to the High Point of Sacrifice and the second day to the far end of Petra and up to the Ad-Deir Monastery and to stand on the high point of the End of the World.

Wadi Rum
Monday found me on a small bus heading to Wadi Rum at 6:30 am for a two day/night back-packing kind of wilderness trip (sort of…).  On the trip down we traveled on the ancient  ‘Kings Way’ which is mentioned in the Bible (Numbers 20:17 and 21:22), the route that Moses wished to follow as he led his people north through the land of Edom after leaving Egypt.  On this road we passed a white dome crypt on top of a very high rock outcrop which I was told was the tomb of Aaron.   

Wadi Rum… what can I say?  Superlatives defy… amazing, awesome, superb....  How can I describe the vastness of this place?  Upon arrival I joined two others – an archeologist on sabbatical (holiday—personal research trip? of the main archeological sites around the Middle East), and his good friend a film producer.   We were driven in the back of a Toyota 4x4 to the base of one of the monstrous rock outcrop hills and started to climb.  Up and Up and Up!  The view was fantastic!  We were told that this area is the next hotspot for climbers as there are no rules or regulations and many of these mountains have not been climbed before.  This place is way away from anywhere.  When I stop and listen, all I get is the ringing of my ears – not much for any form of life here at all as the heat must be a killer in the summer time. 
Paul, the archeologist was an unending source of historical information as we discus evidence-based history vs historical spin of the region from Egypt to Turkey. I learned that a fair bit of what we ‘accept’ regarding major archeological sites in this region of the globe have been ‘managed’ to tell a story that conveys a politically correct message.  But then again, what history is not re-written by the victors? 
My first nigh to sleep in the Bedouin black goat-hair tent was a restless one on the provided foam mat with singe sheet and blanket.  I remember waking up a number of times and tracking the slow progress of the near-full moon through the fabric of the tent roof. 10.3 degrees Celsius in the morning, I could almost see my breath.   Our days were action packed though.  We got up around 6:30, breakfast at 7:15 and away for about 3 main hikes to be back by 4 and dinner by 6.  With nothing else to do, we went to sleep as the locals do, by 8 pm.
With Wadi Rum behind me, I was back in Amman again and staying at my 2 star hotel.  I called Donna on my mobile in a small restaurant beside the hotel and right at that time the owner shakes out his prayer rug and commences to pray beside me while I was on the phone.. I often find this openness to be a bit disconcerting, because for me, this is a very private thing, but for Moslems, it happens 'where you are at.'  I did not know if I should hang up of carry on talking…  I guess I was not too distracting for him as I was having a hard time talking very loudly as I was loosing my voice due to a cold I had just caught.

Biblical Sites
The next thing I wanted to do was visit some of the sites mentioned in the Bible.  Jordan has just about half of the sites mentioned in the Bible contained within its boarders.   I went with three other people from the hotel in a private taxi to Mt. Nebo, the River Jordan and the Dead Sea.
From the height of land of Mt. Nebo, where Moses looked out across the Promised Land and where he subsequently died. Deuteronomy 34:1-6 
From this location, looking across the large valley (I am standing on the edge of this valley), Jerusalem is 46 km.  I can actually see Jericho 27 km away, and too far away is Bethlehem, 50 km.  The valley floor where the River Jordan runs, is 800 meters below me.
Next point of interest on our trip was the River Jordan and the place where Jesus was said to have been baptized.  My small group joins more people and a local tour guide and we are warned sternly that we are entering a ‘military’ zone.  We visit the ‘official baptism’ site which is currently dry and has steps built down to where a pool used to be, before the river changed its channel and the volume of water reduced by recent irrigation practices.  We walk further and are told to NOT talk to or wave at the people on the other side of the river and to not wander away from the group.  A 20 foot bit of water separates the Israeli and Jordan River Jordan baptism shelters.  We take photos of each other across the water.  Strange that the ‘enemy’ looks a lot like us!  

  I witness another group of tourists baptizing themselves in the river.   On our way out of the ‘zone’, but still down on the river-flats, we stopped at where Alijah was said to have ascended into Heaven.  
 

A military zone they said… well I guess it is!  During our short time there, we were shaken three times by HUGE explosions.  About 4 km away the Israelis were blowing off landmines and confiscated explosives.  

Dead Sea
Donna encouraged me during my phone call with her to get to the Dead Sea and I did not realize that it was one of the stops on this day-trip until I was on it.  We visited the ‘public beach’ location of the Dead Sea. Floating or ‘water-walking’ in about 8 feet of water (floating straight up and down and ‘walking’ in the water moved you forward) was fun.  It was interesting to know that it is 390 meters below sea level.  The last time I was below sea level I was learning how to scuba dive. 
It rained my last night in Amman and my adjoining bathroom got all wet ... The roof leaked.  At least my bed was dry.  I felt it was time to head home and find out if my house got any wetter than it was when I left.
When I got home I found out that something like 77 homes had to be evacuated – everything from main floors of homes being flooded, electrical appliances ruined (computers etc) and even cars crushed in their garages by ceilings falling on them – drywall, concrete and all…  All because of rain!  My home is dry.
This week I was having lunch in the gourmet coffee shop here on campus and they were playing Christmas carols.  I guess I am not so far from Western society after all.
Oh, and another bit of progress here is that we have the large grocery store open now and can get everything from flowers to BBQ’s, fresh baked bread to fresh produce and everything between.  I am going bowling tonight with Arandam.

You can see my trip in photos at this site:  http://www.pbase.com/pinicola/jordan_trip
If anyone wants a large version of any of the photos, just ask.