KK is a Zarqa boy. Zarqa boys are tough guys. The most famous things that came out of Zarqa are a guy named Abu Musab (who made some mess in Iraq) and an old fortress that actually never came out of the city: it still stands there and receives a brave, lost tourist now and then. KK is, however, a notable exception. Standing almost two meters tall with long, black hair he’s an impressive fellow.
First time I met him was in 2003. I was in town for a day or two to renew my Israeli visa; the easiest way is to leave the country and Jordan is conveniently situated just an uncomfortable border-crossing and some humiliation away. To make a long story short, a friend of friend of friend introduced me and KK, and he showed me around the ropes in Books@café. So, when I first came into La Calle this time around, it was nice to see the same dreadlocks stuffed under a Jamaican type hat behind the bar. Oh, and by the way: According to vicious rumors, KK is known to emphatically shake a leg or two when listening to Like a Virgin by Madonna.
No, he is not gay.
Instead, he’s rather something of a womanizer. Being the only (not just an expression here) sporting dreadlocks in Amman, KK seems to have an exotic appeal to most women, foreign and local alike. For sure it helps that he’s a bartender at a cool bar in Amman: La Calle, situated on Rainbow Street. The place is packed like a box of sardines on Thursdays and the only breathing room is the third floor terrace. There, on the other hand, you risk being accidently thrown over the railing just from the sheer density of the place, especially on warm spring nights. It was here he told me his life story (luckily on a chilly Monday evening). To Be Continued.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
The superhero
Ibrahim doesn’t wear his underwear over his pants, nor can bend steal with his bare hands, but he can make a quality website layout quicker than anyone in Saudi Arabia. Or so they believed the people who hired him and kept calling Ibrahim the “super hero” during his stay in Riyyad at a software company.
He hated Saudi Arabia; he detested the religiousness, the shortsightedness, the hypocrisy, the weather and the ever-present sand. And so he went back to Amman, got a less-paid job but felt that the air and the hijabs were not as thick as in the south.
His family is originally from Nablus, the mountainous city in the north of the West Bank. Born to parents who are extremely religious, he, like many other (but still small minority) revolted: dropped out of his Muslim Brotherhood youth camp (yes, it’s true: they have like Boy Scout camps, where they do treks from e.g. Amman to as-Salt. Without guns mind you). This caused him to be shunned by his old friends and almost caused a non-reparable split with his father. Now our superhero lives with some friends just off Rainbow Street and last night we all had a few beers on their front yard and discussed everything from the loudness of the adjacent mosque to how cats seemed to prefer Tuborg to Amstel when they licked our cans. They (the cats) didn’t bother us after awhile, go figure.
He is also a documentary filmmaker (like half of Jabal Amman’s avant garde population). His most recent movie is called "Closed for maintenance" and deals with the abrupt closing-down by the authorities of much-loved Books@café during last year’s Ramadan allegedly for serving alcohol. This event (as written about in an earlier post) caused a huge uproar from both sides of the argument, those who were for it, and those against. Being a man of severe secular conviction, Ibrahim began shooting the documentary just days after the shutdown, interviewing the owner of the café and random people whose opinions differed. The film is still number one of the most viewed on Ikbis, an Arabic version of YouTube.
Amidst all the thwarted arguments and bitterness, lies the core question: where is Jordan heading? Modern openness, mind-your-own-business-type of a society or towards Allah is my sole shepherd, my-mind-doesn’t-matter-type of a society. And Ibrahim, a.k.a. the Saudi superhero, knows the answer: Both. If it, in fact, is the right question to ask at all.
So we were sitting in t-shirts at midnight, after the cats had thrown up all the beer and fur balls and the imam in the mosque had gone to sleep, gently soaking up the humid brisk air of Jabal Amman. A very pleasant evening indeed.
He hated Saudi Arabia; he detested the religiousness, the shortsightedness, the hypocrisy, the weather and the ever-present sand. And so he went back to Amman, got a less-paid job but felt that the air and the hijabs were not as thick as in the south.
His family is originally from Nablus, the mountainous city in the north of the West Bank. Born to parents who are extremely religious, he, like many other (but still small minority) revolted: dropped out of his Muslim Brotherhood youth camp (yes, it’s true: they have like Boy Scout camps, where they do treks from e.g. Amman to as-Salt. Without guns mind you). This caused him to be shunned by his old friends and almost caused a non-reparable split with his father. Now our superhero lives with some friends just off Rainbow Street and last night we all had a few beers on their front yard and discussed everything from the loudness of the adjacent mosque to how cats seemed to prefer Tuborg to Amstel when they licked our cans. They (the cats) didn’t bother us after awhile, go figure.
He is also a documentary filmmaker (like half of Jabal Amman’s avant garde population). His most recent movie is called "Closed for maintenance" and deals with the abrupt closing-down by the authorities of much-loved Books@café during last year’s Ramadan allegedly for serving alcohol. This event (as written about in an earlier post) caused a huge uproar from both sides of the argument, those who were for it, and those against. Being a man of severe secular conviction, Ibrahim began shooting the documentary just days after the shutdown, interviewing the owner of the café and random people whose opinions differed. The film is still number one of the most viewed on Ikbis, an Arabic version of YouTube.
Amidst all the thwarted arguments and bitterness, lies the core question: where is Jordan heading? Modern openness, mind-your-own-business-type of a society or towards Allah is my sole shepherd, my-mind-doesn’t-matter-type of a society. And Ibrahim, a.k.a. the Saudi superhero, knows the answer: Both. If it, in fact, is the right question to ask at all.
So we were sitting in t-shirts at midnight, after the cats had thrown up all the beer and fur balls and the imam in the mosque had gone to sleep, gently soaking up the humid brisk air of Jabal Amman. A very pleasant evening indeed.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
the desert
Apparently it can rain in the desert. I know because I was there to see it. The night before yesterday a group of nine (four Jordanian men, four foreign women and I) drove down to Wadi Rum in two cars and just as we meandered through the Disi camp village the dusty sky opened up and it drizzled for about an hour or so. Bedouin kids of all sizes ran around like kids in Sweden do when the first snow arrives; soon they were all covered in brown water from all the puddles.
This post, however, is not only about freak natural occurences. Let me also tell you little about some of the people I went with:
Marwan is one month away from being titled a doctor. He is a hydro-geologist and works with the ministry of water when he is not writing on his thesis. Coming from a Bedouin family (the Bin Mas’our I think), he lives on a hill some 25 minutes from Amman with his three thousand relatives (really) and an olive grove. Beautiful views. A flat tire challenged Marwan for less than 3 minutes (we got one driving home). He is truly a handy man, although barely taller than Leila (see below).
His best friend Daoud is also a geologist and when they are not working together they hang out at Daoud’s apartment in the middle of a set of public stairs snaking down to downtown from Mango Street. The latter’s family is Druze but when you are young, educated and, I guess, living on Jabal Amman, you tend to drink alcohol. The only one in our adventure group that didn’t giggle herself to sleep was Leila, a vertically challenged Canadian of Somali origins who currently chills out in Amman after having spent nineteen months cocooning in a Bagdad bunker. Development work, project for USAID (United States Agency for International Development). I guess it paid well.
Next year she is off to Lund, Sweden, to pursue a Master’s degree in International Development. Being confined for that long time in Iraq made her pick up a bad habit though: she can be seen puffing away on a cigarette form time to time, although only tobacco, mind you.
Fadi is a tall guy with a fanny pack and a contagious laughter who spent a couple of years in Yemen. Apart from hating the place for its backwardness and gun-loving attitude, he managed to get some things done - like getting laid numerous times with local women there. Yes, that sounds crazy – I thought so too, so I asked him how. Behind the face-covering hijabs were eyes of lust, he said. So you just slip them your phone number and soon enough they will call you and within a week, open sesame. In the mornings, around 8 when people were going to work, that was the magic hour. He lived in an apartment building where other families lived so the girl could get in without too much suspicion. Fadi doesn’t strike me as the traditional womanizer, but I believe in Yemen he was as good as they come.
After having camped out in the desert at the foot of a huge mountain, we left to Asraq, a city situated half-way to Iraq, for mansaf at Daoud’s mother’s house. The mansaf (with chicken this time) was, of course, delicious and his mom is the best cook in the world, honestly. Driving towards that town is like driving on the surface of the moon, or so, at least, I imagine it would be like. Vast fields of black gravel, as far as the eye could see, and all flat. Picture a kitty box filled with sand and then sprinkled over it, ground black pepper. Suddenly trees start to appear, the landscape getting greener and you are approaching the oasis that is the reason Asraq is built where it is built. We all sat down on the rug in the living room and dug in with our bare hands into the one meter diameter dish on the floor.
Asraq is (was) famous for its wetlands which every year harvested a stunning collection of migratory birds. Chances are, that your little neighborhood bird that sits on your front porch begging for crumbles has been to Jordan, to Asraq, more times than you have been to, say, Gothenburg. But since Amman is like a big brother who gets all the family savings to go to college, Asraq, the kid brother, had to be sacrificed. Most of its water is diverted to the capital (and the Syrians are to blame as well, but only as much as to not start a regional conflict). So bye bye birdies. Find another pit-stop on your way to Africa in the winter.
In terms of humans, the city is literally and geographically divided. The south side harbors Chechnians, Bedouins and other human shrapnel. The north side, however, is Druze town, and that’s where our new friends grew up. Asked if they wanted to create a home there when they get married, they all said no. Amman is the new Wild West, and Jabal Amman is their preferred place due to its atmosphere and, as one of the guys said, only half-jokingly: “It is cleaner than other areas since rich Christians and foreigners live there.”
Well...
This post, however, is not only about freak natural occurences. Let me also tell you little about some of the people I went with:
Marwan is one month away from being titled a doctor. He is a hydro-geologist and works with the ministry of water when he is not writing on his thesis. Coming from a Bedouin family (the Bin Mas’our I think), he lives on a hill some 25 minutes from Amman with his three thousand relatives (really) and an olive grove. Beautiful views. A flat tire challenged Marwan for less than 3 minutes (we got one driving home). He is truly a handy man, although barely taller than Leila (see below).
His best friend Daoud is also a geologist and when they are not working together they hang out at Daoud’s apartment in the middle of a set of public stairs snaking down to downtown from Mango Street. The latter’s family is Druze but when you are young, educated and, I guess, living on Jabal Amman, you tend to drink alcohol. The only one in our adventure group that didn’t giggle herself to sleep was Leila, a vertically challenged Canadian of Somali origins who currently chills out in Amman after having spent nineteen months cocooning in a Bagdad bunker. Development work, project for USAID (United States Agency for International Development). I guess it paid well.
Next year she is off to Lund, Sweden, to pursue a Master’s degree in International Development. Being confined for that long time in Iraq made her pick up a bad habit though: she can be seen puffing away on a cigarette form time to time, although only tobacco, mind you.
Fadi is a tall guy with a fanny pack and a contagious laughter who spent a couple of years in Yemen. Apart from hating the place for its backwardness and gun-loving attitude, he managed to get some things done - like getting laid numerous times with local women there. Yes, that sounds crazy – I thought so too, so I asked him how. Behind the face-covering hijabs were eyes of lust, he said. So you just slip them your phone number and soon enough they will call you and within a week, open sesame. In the mornings, around 8 when people were going to work, that was the magic hour. He lived in an apartment building where other families lived so the girl could get in without too much suspicion. Fadi doesn’t strike me as the traditional womanizer, but I believe in Yemen he was as good as they come.
After having camped out in the desert at the foot of a huge mountain, we left to Asraq, a city situated half-way to Iraq, for mansaf at Daoud’s mother’s house. The mansaf (with chicken this time) was, of course, delicious and his mom is the best cook in the world, honestly. Driving towards that town is like driving on the surface of the moon, or so, at least, I imagine it would be like. Vast fields of black gravel, as far as the eye could see, and all flat. Picture a kitty box filled with sand and then sprinkled over it, ground black pepper. Suddenly trees start to appear, the landscape getting greener and you are approaching the oasis that is the reason Asraq is built where it is built. We all sat down on the rug in the living room and dug in with our bare hands into the one meter diameter dish on the floor.
Asraq is (was) famous for its wetlands which every year harvested a stunning collection of migratory birds. Chances are, that your little neighborhood bird that sits on your front porch begging for crumbles has been to Jordan, to Asraq, more times than you have been to, say, Gothenburg. But since Amman is like a big brother who gets all the family savings to go to college, Asraq, the kid brother, had to be sacrificed. Most of its water is diverted to the capital (and the Syrians are to blame as well, but only as much as to not start a regional conflict). So bye bye birdies. Find another pit-stop on your way to Africa in the winter.
In terms of humans, the city is literally and geographically divided. The south side harbors Chechnians, Bedouins and other human shrapnel. The north side, however, is Druze town, and that’s where our new friends grew up. Asked if they wanted to create a home there when they get married, they all said no. Amman is the new Wild West, and Jabal Amman is their preferred place due to its atmosphere and, as one of the guys said, only half-jokingly: “It is cleaner than other areas since rich Christians and foreigners live there.”
Well...
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Mom’s cooking, part II
“My mom’s Sayadiyye (a fish dish, basically fish and rice with cinnamon and stuff) is the best in the world”. My friend (yes, Dalia again) is a staunch supporter of the My-mom’s-is-the-best-cook sect. but, apparently, she is totally oblivious to the fact that the sect has other members, and when I tell her that, well, it is one of the biggest sects in Jordan, she refuses to believe me. Hating to leave people in the darkness, I confront her, telling her to ask any random guy around us (we are standing outside a place that serves sweets in downtown Amman) if his mom is the best cook. She takes the challenge and barges up to a man waiting for his slice of Kanafa. “Of course” the man replies, “of course my mom is the best cook”. In fact, he is so convinced of this he invites us, right there and then, to go to his village tomorrow and be converted into true believers of his mom’s supreme Mansaf powers. Just one hour away by bus, change in as-Salt. We kindly decline. But Dalia learned something about Arabia.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Your mom's cooking
Every Arab I have met has a mom who just happens to be the best cook in the world. Or so they say. If you get into a conversation about Arabic food (or whatever food for that matter), it will inevitable boil down to a cut-off, final statement, which goes something like this: “Well, they might have good Mansaf in this restaurant, but the best is the one my mom cooks”. For one to refute that would be like preaching atheism to a hard-core Muslim, saying God is dead or worse yet, that there never was one. Ya Allah.
The truth is that there is not ONE mom that cooks the best. All these veiled and unveiled women really are the best chefs; no proud person deliberately lies to me. Discussing the dish above, Mansaf (a rice dish with pine nuts and boiled lamb) with a friend, she of course said her mom did the best, far better than any other mom. The absurdity of it all is that I never really gotten two different kinds of Mansaf: It’s always the same. The need to experiment, to put, say, a bright red tomato right smack in there never seems to occur. You repeat what your mother did, and she what her mother did, and yada yada probably back to the mother of Prophet Mohammed.
I can honestly tell you that my mom’s cooking wasn’t the source of great stories from my part, but hey: I am a Swede and our mom’s are good at reading instructions at the back of Findus frozen meat balls packages but that’s pretty much it. What she did though, was experiment. Just as sure as you never dip your toes in the same river twice, you could bet your Saturday candy allowance that you would never get the same spaghetti Bolognese at my family’s house two times in the row. In Jordan, however, I have a hunch that the Maqlube (an upside-down rice dish with chicken) I tasted two months ago in a Bedouin tent in Wadi Rum tasted pretty much the same as the Maqlube I would have received if I had dined with esteemed nutcracker Lawrence of Arabia some ninety years ago. I guess it’s what they call tradition, right? All the same, it’s a damn tasty dish.
The truth is that there is not ONE mom that cooks the best. All these veiled and unveiled women really are the best chefs; no proud person deliberately lies to me. Discussing the dish above, Mansaf (a rice dish with pine nuts and boiled lamb) with a friend, she of course said her mom did the best, far better than any other mom. The absurdity of it all is that I never really gotten two different kinds of Mansaf: It’s always the same. The need to experiment, to put, say, a bright red tomato right smack in there never seems to occur. You repeat what your mother did, and she what her mother did, and yada yada probably back to the mother of Prophet Mohammed.
I can honestly tell you that my mom’s cooking wasn’t the source of great stories from my part, but hey: I am a Swede and our mom’s are good at reading instructions at the back of Findus frozen meat balls packages but that’s pretty much it. What she did though, was experiment. Just as sure as you never dip your toes in the same river twice, you could bet your Saturday candy allowance that you would never get the same spaghetti Bolognese at my family’s house two times in the row. In Jordan, however, I have a hunch that the Maqlube (an upside-down rice dish with chicken) I tasted two months ago in a Bedouin tent in Wadi Rum tasted pretty much the same as the Maqlube I would have received if I had dined with esteemed nutcracker Lawrence of Arabia some ninety years ago. I guess it’s what they call tradition, right? All the same, it’s a damn tasty dish.
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