America

If you walk from a plane into the cross Atlantic terminal in the San Francisco International airport you will be guided down a long hallway which opens up into a large room threaded with strings of modular guide rope, the ends of which point to a bastion of awaiting officers sitting behind tall desks armed with an array of stamps and files. This is the gateway to America; United States customs and border protection. On walls next to the lines of people waiting to enter the country there are several flat screen televisions playing a video over and over again in a loop. Inspirational music plays in the background as the camera cuts between citizens staring approvingly into the camera while doing decidedly American things. A farmer sits on a tractor next to an amber field. An interracial family enjoys a summer outdoor barbecue as a little girl skips rope. A metropolitan couple enjoys a dinner at a fancy restaurant. Young Muslim women walk the paths of a university. The music crescendos to a photograph of the statue of liberty, beneath it is written "Welcome to the United States."

Yesterday morning I woke to the clock radio. It was nine o'clock and the voice of garrison Keillor was reading the writer's almanac for September 9th, 2010. Apparently, it was the 160th anniversary of California's admittance into the union. It was the 31st state. A poem was read about San Francisco. I made two pieces of whole grain toast, not flat bread, and put some blackberry jam on them. I also had some tea with no mint in it.

I work at a best western up the street from my house and the other night the hotel was completely booked. This weekend there is a popular sprint car race in Chico, and many of the teams and fans stay at our hotel. Also, an away team playing in the local baseball league was staying with us. It was very busy and it started to rain quite hard. The races and the baseball game that night were both rained out. Disappointed and drenched fans returned to the hotel and asked if we had any laundry services there. I said no but offered to bring them new towels to dry off with. Later, two women on a road trip checked into the hotel. I talked with them about Monterey and how I had gone diving there once. When I left around eleven thirty, the entire town had the smell of the first heavy rain and wet leaves.

As this is written, I sit in the student union of my modern American university. I sit at a row of computers next to a place where students can buy coffee. I am reading an article about a small church in Florida that intends to burn a number of copies of the Quran in remembrance of September 11th. According to the article, this action will most likely inflame incidents with Al Qaeda and result in more attacks in the west and deaths of innocent civilians. Councils of churches in Pakistan and Indonesia are protesting. The government has asked the church to call off the event. If he decides to continue the protest, the pastor's actions will likely be protected by the constitutions right to free speech.

Before I left the Middle East I spent a few days in Lebanon. I have been accepted into the American University of Beirut as a transfer student in philosophy. The trip was intended to help me make my decision. If I decide to go, I would attend the school for the spring semester and would be there for probably two years at least. Money could be an issue. Visits home would be infrequent. Beirut is the strangest place I've ever been and the middle east is a strange part of the world.

But this isn't about Lebanon, this is about America. I think that a lot of folks in America are ashamed. Maybe just kids my age, but I think a lot of people. We're ashamed because we have everything. We're spoiled and we know it. As a nation, our wealth and standard of living is beyond comprehension for the rest of the world and we still aren't happy. Antidepressants are the most prescribed drug in the United States hovering around 1 in 3 adults being treated. We're unhappy with our government, were unhappy with our wars, and were unhappy with ourselves. We can't get along in our politics, we're divided in our values, and we don't feel like winners so much anymore.

I confess that I thought this way before. I knew America had been a great nation once, but I thought those days were long behind. I thought we'd become a greedy, insatiable, unhappy, machine of destruction and arrogance that can't mind it's own business. I wasn't proud of America anymore, and I thought things were going to get worse before they got better. I thought the experiment of democracy had failed. Perhaps I was right about these things.

But I am proud of America, hell I love America. I love America and all her horrible flaws. Not because we have abundant running water, or green trees, or clean air or wide spaces. Not because of In n' Out, or Target, or Blackwater, or Fox News. Not because of barbecues or the K.K.K. I don't love Glenn Beck. I don't love pretension in academia, I don't love health insurance companies. I do not love Starbucks.

I love America because we have the most unique problems in the world. The world has never seen such a strange experiment, so young and so powerful. Our nation has become so wealthy, so powerful, so influential beyond our ability to comprehend, that the people of America have become the poor sap holding the ears of a lion; we can't let go of such an incredible power, but now that we've got it we don't quite know what to do with it. It's as though the founding fathers; themselves a ridiculous smattering of radicals, aristocrats, idealists, religious freaks, and regular men and women, having only just carved a new lifestyle out of a new continent based on a completely new set of values, have handed the keys to wealth, power, freedom, and luxury to our strange, sorry, mixed bunch, and told us to do our best.

And so modern America has struggled, pulled this way and that by our definitively pluralist society, united by values killed for by people we've never met, each individual trying to do his or her best given our bizarre situation. While I was in Jordan, thinking about the terrible things done in the name of American around the world, our inescapable influence, I wondered what any other nation would have done given a similar situation. For example, what if Jordan had been given tremendous natural resources, relative freedom of hostile foreign presence, and an insatiable natural ambition and persistence of it's people, all within the historical blink of an eye, would they have done any better? Would they have harmed fewer people? Or helped more? Certainly our history has been bloody and checked with selfish ruthlessness on many occasions, but do any other nations have the right to criticize? Were they ever burdened with such wealth and power? Did they ever have an unexpected empire grow up beneath them overnight?

Last night, a friend of mine and I were talking about our lives, our futures, what we plan to do after we graduate college. She told me that she didn't think it was fair that she, as an American, had so much and so many opportunities while others around the world had so little. She wants to help others, but she doesn't know how. This sentiment is not uncommon these days and I share her feelings as well. People, many people, Americans, want to use what they have been given to help others. And this is why I love the United States. Because a country that can engender this idea in her people, no matter how that idea functions in practice, is worth defending. America contributes more humanitarian aid than any nation in history. It's clear that many Americans use the opportunities available to them to do wrong, but it's also true that there are many Americans out to do good in the world as well. America may create some of the biggest villains in the world today, but she also builds some of the greatest heroes.

It may be that the experiment fails. The whole project may fall apart. Capitalist individualism may pull our economy to pieces, social isolation may destroy our families, greed and selfishness may run rampant until all that is left is obscene poverty and obscene opulence, the military industrial complex may become the biggest international bully ever created, the private media may squabble and lie until we eat dirt for breakfast, the American dream has shown to be unsustainable and we have begun to see it's affects around the world; every conceivable modern problem with America may collapse the entire thing into itself, and many others with it. But, if these things do happen, the United States has produced, is producing, and will continue to produce clever, compassionate, determined people who are going to change things. And if that isn't enough, if the whole project fails despite our best efforts, how spectacular will that failure be! How noble a failure! That such a place existed where freedom was a real thing, and practiced. Where autonomy and tolerance and shared values were protected. Where people made up the rules as they went along and made things like Moby Dick, and the airplane, Johnny Cash, and the transcontinental railroad. If a place like this can fail, I'll be proud to be a part of that failure. And should it succeed, how much sweeter that success to have been won in a place like this?

There are good people here, who want to do good, and have the unlimited creative opportunity to address these strange new problems. The best of the best and the worst of the worst call this place home. The United States is a mess, but she is a glorious mess. And I don't care what anyone has to say about it, I am proud to be a citizen of the United States of America.

Baptism

Water is scarce in Jordan. Considered one of the driest nations in the world, water is a valuable resource. Each part of Amman is rationed two days of free government water per week. These days in my apartment being Saturday and Sunday. The rest of the week, we rely on a small tank to supply us with water to cook, bathe, and clean with (The tap water being mildly unsafe to drink). I've heard it said that human beings are 70% water. This being the case, dealing without can be uncomfortable. The available water must be carefully spent and shared sparingly amongst the other housemates.

One of such mates is Rio, with whom I share a bedroom. Rio, like myself, is a philosophy major and currently attends Claremont Mckenna college. He is an accomplished chess player, among many other things, and knows a thing or two about suits as well. Most people don't care for Rio upon their first meeting; I didn't. However most people (myself included) who spend any amount of time with him quickly see beyond his biting wit and find him a clever and compassionate young man. Rio is a writer. He shaves with a straight razor. He is rarely without a fountain pen and notebook, and when he is, he will resort to writing on napkins, other books, and his own arms if need be.

(Rio looking messianic on the bridge into Wadi Munjib)

Over the course of our residence together, Rio expressed that he would like to be baptized while we were here in Jordan, in the very river itself, and asked if I would perform the service. After thinking about it a little I told him I would be honored to perform his baptism. Now, some of you may be thinking, as I did, that I am entirely unqualified for such an honor. Not only am I not a priest (only an aspiring pastor), but I had never before performed a baptism, and given the degree of reverence due such a ceremony, it should only be undertaken with the utmost gravity. Now I had considered all of these things, but after all came to the following conclusions: firstly, that I would much rather perform the service than not, as to abandon Rio at such a time would seem to me a graver sacrilege and generally rotten thing to do, secondly, that I believe the righteous and compassionate God whom I serve would pardon our humble ceremony, and thirdly, that if John the baptist, after due protest, was considered qualified to baptize the very son of God himself, perhaps I could be permitted a similar grace.

So last Saturday morning Rio and I arose, gathered the necessary supplies, and began a fast from food and water in order to remember the importance of the day. Our congregation was an odd half dozen: Rio and myself, Marwa; an American Muslim of Syrian decent with a penchant for sass, Mason: an ambitious and pensive American Christian who fancies himself a senator or a farmer, Song: a good friend of Vietnamese lineage whose religious identity I am ignorant of, and our driver Hussein: a young Jordanian Muslim who lives near us, calls me his little brother, and claims to look just like Jesus. We began our pilgrimage in our triumphant steed, Hussein's blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice Classic, with a broken air conditioner, which more or less comfortably sat all six of us. After a brief hiccup involving a return to the apartment in order to retrieve our forgotten passports, which were necessary to clear the various checkpoints, we embarked on our solemn task.

(Hussein on the left asking for directions)

The heat was diabolical. At a dry 45 or 46 degrees Celsius (113 F), the cab of the car was like the coffin of Epicurus, sealed up until judgment day, trapped in that inferno for hours as we meandered hopelessly across the Jordanian countryside, desperately searching for the dead sea. We read and slept and chatted and sweat. After several u-turns and backtracking, We were skeptical of our messianic friend Hussein, but we withheld our doubt. However after hours which seemed longer than they actually were due to the sun melting our brains, the highways continued to stretch to the horizon, accompanied by all manner of roadsigns delineating where we could and could not go. We drove on and on until that damnable freeway seemed more like the walls of a labyrinth in which we would be punished forever beneath that infernal sun. Meanwhile in the back of my mind I harboured a vague uneasiness, as though we were racing against some eternal clock, even though in the midst of that drive, time seemed to be in merciless abundance.
(Our faithful Rocinante)

But after an eternity we emerged, purified, at the very edge of everything. We reached the coast of the Dead Sea between Jordan and the promised land, the point of lowest elevation on the planet. In the heat of the day the water was producing this miraculous phenomenon. The sea and the sky blended together perfectly such that no horizon was discernible. The hazy sky at the bottom of the world slipped into pure dead water, and vise versa. Or rather, there was no sky and no water, but one divine undifferentiated whole. At the very bottom edge of the planet, all things were being pulled, inextricably, into this abyss. The air itself was flowing into the water, and we pitiful mortals were left sweating at the edge, our own stubborn rebellious individual wills preventing our bodies from falling in. From falling in and floating. Floating in that single, indivisible unity.

(Taken in the midst of a bright sunny day, not a cloud to be seen)

We met with a wall. Or rather a bridge, which is not that different from a wall when a man at one end says you're not allowed to cross. Wadi Munjib, the first stop on our pilgrimage, is an ancient river valley that flows into the sea. It is also one of six Jordanian nature reserves, which are open to the public between the hours of 8 and 4 for a nominal fee of 14 Jordanian Denar. We arrived at four thirty, sweaty and exhausted, the fight beaten out of us by the sun. The man behind the desk at the tourism center told us that we were too late and that we couldn't do the hike into the valley we had intended. However, brother Hussein managed to persuade the guard. We were permitted to tread to the end of the bridge, but no further. So we walked into the mouth of the valley to see clean, clear, fresh, running water. So with a healthy disregard for limits, we broke through to the shallow river. We took off our shoes. We skipped stones. We forgot the heat. We enjoyed that brief respite with a holy and playful abandon. But sooner or later we were discovered and had to return to the lonely and blazing caprice, to begin the final leg of our journey.

A fence. Topped with a stern barbed wire, surrounding a seemingly featureless desert expanse, like the sword surrounding the garden of Eden. It was a simple yet effective chainlink fence which denied us entry to Bethlehem, east of the Jordan river, the site of the baptism of Jesus of Nazareth, called the Christ. As dusk approached that hazy apprehension seemed to draw closer. A shadowy sense that our time was running out, with our work left undone. The sun was setting on us, and the shadows were growing long. The pilgrims were spent. Beaten by the sun on this, the hottest day in the hottest place, worn by the hike and a long days travel, wearied by the fast from food and water, we came to a fence. And in the center of that fence, a gate. And in the center of that gate, a guard. These were the things that separated us from one of the holiest sites on Earth.

Too late. The site was closed at six. We arrived at six forty five. No more tourists would be admitted. No more tickets would be sold. No more souls would be saved. We had passed through the trials and tribulations and arrived at the dusty gates, examined here at judgment day and were found wanting. We were told to leave. To return to the heat, the weeping, and the gnashing of teeth.

Heartbroken, we pleaded with Hussein. Being a native Jordanian, and a friend to us Americans, he could intercede on our behalf. But after a failed bribery attempt and a heartfelt Arabic plea, it seemed he was all out of miracles. We sat on the dirty curb alone in this desert and watched the guards. Rio told me that he had been abruptly and gravely convicted. Suddenly the only important thing in the world to him was this baptism. Yet, all was not lost. A call was made. Someone important somewhere was consulted. We would be granted this small boon, a quick tour of the baptism site, and the permission of the highest human authority to perform our humble baptism. How precious did that grace appear. Hussein even paid our way in.

We meandered through the hazy desert thicket, each of us like leaves on a stream slowly drifting along the rocky walkway that rolled throughout the brush surrounding the site. The dusty fog which hung over the dead sea now seemed to be dreamily descending upon us in this place. Rio, in his off white baptismal gown, put his arm silently around my shoulder, our considerable size difference making it awkward to reciprocate. But in the surreal dusk of the scene, and the gravity that held sway over the place, the gesture was brotherly. We seemed to blend together in silence, as did everything else amidst that sunset haze.

We saw the baptism site, now slightly removed from the river itself after Israel redirected it's flow in order to siphon off most of the fresh drinking water and provide a system of waste disposal for God's chosen people. There was a small stone building, and a type of empty reservoir. Our weary guide recited facts concerning the site in well practiced but still awkward English. It was dry. We stayed by it briefly. Someone took a picture, and I felt very little about the place. From here we continued to a sort of porch overlooking the modern river, where our solemn task could be completed.

The river Jordan is ugly. An inglorious eight feet separated us from the infamous west bank of Palestine. Eight feet of nigh stagnant, sickly green water. Surrounded by reedy weeds and other flora. Perhaps at one time it's banks were wide, clean, and glorious. Perhaps one day it would be so again. Today this was not the case. But despite it's ungainly banks, there was some quiet dignity in it. Not messianic, but very much Christ like. Venerable, like a feeble old man. Rio described it as humble. There was honesty in the place.

We descended into the murky water, first myself, then Rio. A couple other fortunate tourists chatted in Arabic and took pictures. As we slowly sunk into the water my first impression was of the mud. Our bare feet plunged into about ten inch deep mud beneath the dirty but refreshing river. I struggled to keep my balance. Our bodies settled into that murky creek, sharing the same waters as the body of the Christ. We prayed together. I read some small words. They sunk into the river and the walls and the ears of the congregation. The sun was setting and pouring the remaining light of the day out upon us like perfume. I baptized him. The water washed over his face and he was completely submerged. All of the sin was dissolved into nothingness. Mere solute in the blood of Christ. The walls of Jericho came crashing down. No longer separated from that great divine whole.

He arose, a new creation. We embraced. I could do nothing but laugh. He was silent.

On the ride home we all sat quietly. I doubt I'll understand the importance of this event for decades to come, perhaps much longer. The heat had abated now that the sun had almost set completely. Suddenly, as we were driving home, Hussein declared with authority that we must all have tea. Immediately. There on the side of the road. So we pulled over and decided to break our fast then and there with the taking of communion. Someone pointed out that strangely, the streetlights had all alighted behind us, and yet all the ones before lay still in darkness. Rio and I, still damp, walked out a bit into the desert with Mason. We set the bread and wine on a rock. Cars were driving by. Mason and I listened to Rio before taking the Eucharist. He recited to us, "We are one bread. We are one body. We will love one another as Christ loves us."

Project

Our class had to submit a group project back to Cal State San Bernardino for their banquet. This is what we submitted.

Why

Cal State San Bernardino, the school which is funding my trip to Jordan, asked the other students and I to write a brief page for their program's yearbook describing, among other things, why I had decided to study Arabic. The following is what I submitted to them:

"The decision to study Arabic was made haphazardly. When I enrolled in first semester Arabic two years ago I didn’t consider that I would be studying one of the most difficult languages for a native English speaker to learn, I didn’t consider the hours upon hours upon days upon weeks of constant study and memorization I would subject myself to, I didn’t consider that two years worth of study would be a drop in the bucket of language proficiency and that it would take perhaps decades before I could speak Arabic as well as English, if ever.

I had no knowledge of the depth of expression inherent in the vocabulary. I was ignorant of the unfathomable beauty and complexity of the verbal root system or the precision of the vowel case endings. I knew nothing about the ancient poetic tradition and the almost sacred reverence of the spoken and written word in the Arabic speaking world.

I knew nothing about the middle east, about Arabic, about people who spoke Arabic. When I made this decision, I was just a bewildered sophomore philosophy major with an open slot in his fall schedule. Arabic seemed as good a choice as any, and a good deal cooler than most. The box I checked next to “Arabic 101” didn’t warn me that I would begin the hardest task I had ever undertaken, or of the rewards that diligent study and perseverance would offer.

I was sitting against a sandstone cliff used as a makeshift wall and protection from the sun the morning prior to this writing, eating a breakfast of flatbread, hummus, date syrup and bitter yogurt when one of our Bedouin guides asked me, in heavy colloquial Arabic, this very question. Why did I study Arabic? A question I had been asked dozens of times before and never had a good answer for. Our camp was laid out before me around the dying embers of the morning fire, nestled in a fold of sandstone cliffs guarding us from the red sands of Wadi Rum. I sat cross legged on that carpet and chewed, looking up the expanse of wall and around the worn but happy faces and sore, burnt, sandy bodies of my friends and fellow students, and I still didn’t have an answer. As usual, I got caught up in the hundreds of seemingly meaningless or arbitrary or lucky choices and circumstances that had brought me under that tent into that conversation with that man.

I still don’t have a good answer. Or rather, I don’t have an answer in words beyond what could be said by that scene itself. Those Bedouin men, that moonlit desert, the Amman taxi drivers, the poorly translated English/Arabic advertisements that adorn the city, the kebab and falafel, the first meaningful Arabic conversation with a native Jordanian, the free and easy friendships, the call to prayer, the uninhibited hospitality of strangers. These things answer that question much better than I can. All I can say is that it is worth the work.

To those who would consider learning the language of Arabic and of coming to Jordan: consider these things. Consider the work and the cost. Examine your motives, your goals, your resources. The prize is great I assure you, but nothing good comes without cost. Surviving and thriving in Amman is easy if you have three things: flexibility, patience, and most importantly gratefulness. If you have these things, you can’t have a bad time in Jordan. Surviving the study of Arabic is harder. You have to be willing to bend your brain to work in a whole different way. The only advice I have is this: if you can fall in love with the language, it will be much easier. There are people who want to help you, who want you to learn Arabic. But if you don’t love it, it doesn’t matter. I didn’t fall in love with Arabic until I was weeks into the Jordan program and a few years into my general Arabic studies, perhaps this was impossible before coming here. But now that I have, everything is easier. Given the right circumstances, the small and subtle twists of fate that brought me here, you could be in my place, and you may be able to see and do these things few people in the world will ever have the blessing to enjoy. In Sha’ Allah."

There are many things that I've thought about and learned since I've been here, a lot of them Arabic. But perhaps the pervasive thought in my mind recently is about gratefulness. Some days it seems completely absurd that I should be here, or rather, that someone is paying me to be here. Everyday I think that most people will not get to experience the things I am experiencing here. And while I did work hard to get here, in many ways it's simply luck that brought me. I don't feel that I deserve to be here, and I feel that there are many more people who have probably worked harder than me and have received less. So rather, my question now becomes, Why out of all the people in the world, should I be so lucky as to be here and see these things? I don't know. But I am very happy here, and grateful to God, my family, and the rest who have sent me.

Dear Mom and Dad,

I received your postcard yesterday in the mail. I was so excited, I ran around the school and made my friends look at the picture of Chico on the front to show them where I was from. It really made me happy, thank you so much.

Tomorrow we have midterms in my class. I'm kind of nervous because there is a lot of material. But I really feel like I have been learning a lot and it is paying off. I have been having good conversations with my English students in Arabic. This has been extremely rewarding and I am making many Jordanian friends. I feel as though I am making the most of my time here, and I am extremely grateful.

Dad, I've been trying to decide if you would like it here or not. The city is really busy and smoggy, and there isn't enough water around. This makes me think that you wouldn't. But I think you would fit in perfectly with the people here. Everyone is very laid back and extremely friendly, and in general everyone believes that people are more important than time, and they practice it. I know you would like the parts outside of town, the villages and stuff. Everything is done very spontaneously here, I think you would have a lot of fun.

Mom, I'm really sorry that I wasn't home on your birthday. I feel really bad about this. I think that when I get home, I'd like to make some Arabic food for you and Dad as a late celebration. Thank you so much for supporting my trip here, even though you were nervous. I have been eating very well and getting plenty of sleep. I am very happy and healthy, but I look forward to seeing you guys soon.

It's about halfway through my trip now, and I will be home soon. Please pet the dog for me, and say hello to all of the family and everyone else back home for me. I love and miss you both very much, and I'll be back before you know it.

With much love,
your son,

Greg

English

On Mondays and Tuesdays I wear dress shoes and a shirt and sometimes a tie to class. Because these are the days I teach. Afterward I catch a taxi to second circle, which is maybe a fifteen to twenty minute ride depending on traffic. During this time I talk with the taxi driver in a broken English/Arabic mix. Most of the conversations I have with taxi drivers go the same way. We greet each other, he asks where I am from, I tell him I'm an Arabic student, and we talk about Arabic and English and what makes them different. Most Jordanians have taken English in secondary school or university and speak it with varying degrees of efficiency. Most Jordanians are extremely friendly and love to talk with me. I've had a couple folks give me their phone number and offer to help me with anything I need upon first meeting them.

The taxi driver drops me off in second circle, a large and unruly roundabout packed with cars, and I walk to a nearby shawarma or kebab shop. Amman is built around seven "circles" or roundabouts, and their surrounding neighborhoods, arranged in a line running from east to west, with the rest of the city growing to the north and south of this line.

I sit and read at a table while I wait for my food and speak with the store owner a little. I get a few different reactions from the Jordanians I speak with in passing; the first response is terse brief responses in Arabic, the second is friendly engaging conversation in Arabic, and English is only introduced when my Arabic skills break down or the person I'm speaking with knows the word I'm searching for in English. The third and perhaps funniest response is the enthusiast English speaker.

Occasionally you'll meet someone who is excited about the opportunity to try out their English on a native speaker. Much like myself, they've probably studied English for awhile and have learned a number of memorized phrases that clearly were printed in a conversation book somewhere. Walking into a convenience store, a friend of mine was greeted with an enthusiastic, "Good day to you sir! Will that be all for you? With pleasure! And may I get anything for you sir?" I empathize with these guys the most. The Arabic I study is called FUS-hha, or Modern Standard Arabic. It's what newspapers are written in. However, each country will speak a wildly varying form of 3ameya, or common or street language (sometimes Arabic sounds that aren't in English are represented by numbers, like 3, 5 or 7.). This common language can often be so divorced from the standard as to be a separate language in itself. The closest analogy that I can think of is if someone walked up to you and started speaking in colonial English. Needless to say this can be incredibly frustrating and serve to make me look like a fool. The only saving grace of Modern Standard Arabic is that it can be understood almost anywhere in the middle east, where as the common speech will have idiosyncrasies particular to that region only.

Arriving at the center after I eat, I spend some time speaking with the students in Arabic and English. They are eager to practice their English and also to help me with my Arabic. I co-teach a conversation class for seven intermediate level English speaking students, all of which are adult men, although there are women students at the center. We mostly focus on smoothing out the wrinkles in conversation, this means correcting the use of certain words, working on the use of things like 'was' and 'is', and minor grammatical errors. I have one student in my class who is from Ecuador and speaks Spanish as his first language, but the rest are Jordanians. They are mostly successful career men; an accountant, an engineer, an art teacher, etc. And they are all extremely grateful that the teachers are there to help them learn English.

The prevalence of English in Amman is really astounding. It is so integral to the country that street signs are printed in both English and Arabic. Most advertisements are bilingual, and any service involving a highly specialized or trained field, optometry for instance, can be expected to have a proficient English speaker. It's a very odd phenomenon. English is considered absolutely necessary to participate in the business world, both here in Jordan and all over the world. I know that teaching English here, in a small way, will improve the lives of the Jordanians I have met. But I can't help but wonder what it means that English is so dominant here. I have serious questions regarding globalism, even more so now that I've seen it in action. The dominance of the language is indicative of a whole way of doing things, a whole new system. Imagine what the United States would be like if every sign was printed in English and Spanish, and kids are taught from a young age both English and Spanish. In many ways it would be great, but in others it would completely change the dynamic of the country given enough time. The western life has really come to dominate in many ways out here, for better or worse.

Change

Throughout the course of each day I participate in a strategic exercise running constantly in the back of my mind. This is manifested in the question, "How am I going to acquire more pocket change and refrain from losing the change I have already acquired?". This puzzle is a constant struggle for me. Change is suspiciously difficult to acquire in this country, considering how integral it is to the function of daily life. We rely primarily on taxicabs for transportation here, the fares of which more often than not are payed for in Quirsh, (pronounced like KERsh) which are the minted currency of Jordan. Seemingly a simple problem, this is exacerbated by the fact that cab drivers, as most businesses in Amman, are reluctant to offer change in return. Therefore, having precise change is imperative to not getting ripped off. This creates a type of change vacuum for the average citizen in Amman, in which coinage is constantly flowing out of one's pocket with no steady income coming in. Such is the magnitude of this issue that the value of possession of coins actually outweighs the value of the money itself. God help you if you get in a cab with only a Fifty Jordanian Dinar Bill in your pocket; such a thing is next to worthless.

So this incredibly interesting puzzle manifests. How will I get change? It becomes almost as important a question as, "Where will my next meal come from?". Like some sort of carrion animal, I and the other students stalk the bake sale table at out school, or the bill paying session at the local coffee shop, or any other situation where change is in abundance, waiting for the opportunity to exchange our bills for precious metal. On more than one occasion I've walked to the market to buy a pack of gum or some other trivial thing for the sole purpose of breaking a five. And when the frustrated proprietor attempts to hand back the twenty dinar bill that I am trying to exchange for the thirty cent cup of coffee, I have to politely insist that it is the only money I have available. He reluctantly obliges and, having won this round, I get the change I so desperately need.