Week Six:

As many might have heard, the holy month of Ramadan is now past and yesterday was the last official day of ‘Eid al-Fitr, the celebration for the end of the fast. Doing the fast was an experience but I can definitely say I was glad when the end of the month came around; not eating or drinking makes it difficult to be motivated to do anything during the day. With Labor Day and ‘Eid back to back, it was a very short week at the Embassy, and a lot of people take advantage of the slow time to take their vacations, so it was very slow at times as well. As classes begin on the 19th of September, my time at the Embassy will become more and more limited and I may take some time to explore a little more around Jordan.
Just as a quick update, this weekend I went with a coworker (an Army Reserve Captain) and a group of his friends up on a hike through one of the wadis that comes off of the Dead Sea. A wadi is basically a canyon cut into the desert by water, though it’s also used to describe a valley as well. The hike was fun and the wadi had a surprising amount of greenery, even now towards the end of summer. There were numerous opportunities to climb and explore and even swim some. The view from the campsite was incredible, and despite the heat, the air was extremely clear even across the Dead Sea, and we could easily see into the West Bank (as well as the lights of Jerusalem at night). One bit of advice for hiking and camping in the desert: bring lots of water AND a method to purify more, if need be. I’ll let readers read into that advice what they would like … Overall, the trip was great; a good group of people, a good place to see, and a great new experience.
The majority of this week’s post I’d actually prefer to focus not on what I’ve been up to, but rather tell about my new friend Khalid, who I met at the beginning of this week. He’s a colleague of another friend, with whom I may end up training and hopefully boxing in the near future. Khalid is one of those people who strengthen my belief that people from different parts of the world are not as different as they might seem through the television or newspapers. I had the opportunity to go and hang out with Khalid last night for a few hours, and reflecting back, it was a truly incredible conversation.
Khalid is 26 years old. He is from a Palestinian family but he himself was born in Jordan, in one of the refugee camps nearby to Amman. He finished his studies at a small university four years ago, with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature. He’s a pretty devout Muslim, but not overbearing, he’s just willing to talk about his faith if someone else asks. Since graduating, he’s been teaching third and fourth grade at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)* School in his refugee camp, focusing particularly on teaching English. Khalid is self-admittedly addicted to the internet. He’s a pretty outgoing guy so he’ll be on Facebook meeting people and even on English phone-call sites so he can practice speaking English. Unfortunately, as many know, people who are kind hearted and outgoing at the same time can sometimes be taken advantage of, which seems to be Khalid’s problem. It sounded like he’d had online trouble from with everything from “fishing” to viruses to an online love that essentially stood him up.
In talking to Khalid for a few hours, a lot of things came out pretty quickly and to be honest it became somewhat apparent that, as nice of a guy as Khalid is, he may be struggling with depression in the truest sense of the word. As a school teacher for UNRWA he makes a decent salary, particularly for his age, but he’s disheartened because as soon as he became employed he started footing the bill for his younger brother to study. Once his younger brother graduated (he’s now employed as a radiologist), Khalid picked up the bill for his younger sister to study nursing and the younger brother refuses to help support her because apparently she is not “good at studies.” So Khalid has literally spent every extra cent on his siblings’ educations; he admitted, somewhat sadly, that he feels trapped and like he’s working for nothing, especially now that his younger brother is using his extra money for fun and travel, while he, Khalid, is stuck on the refugee camp. Listening to that story, I could only hope that I would have the heart and generosity to help pay my little brother’s education, should he need it, and to maintain that strength of character despite the disheartening situation with his brother.
Khalid also asked me at one point to explain “The American Dream.” I was a little taken aback by the question at first, but decided to run with it. After explaining and then discussing it for a while, he nodded and said “Yes, I have this, the American Dream.” Unfortunately, I can’t honestly say that the American Dream is very welcome in many parts of the world, including Jordan. As a Palestinian, despite being born in Jordan, Khalid does not have all of the same rights as an East Bank Jordanian, particularly with regard to employment and professions. Just as an example, in an unrelated discussion Khalid admitted he had always wanted to serve in the Jordanian army because he liked the clean-cut look of the uniforms and the thought of training. He didn’t say it, though I knew it was in the back of his mind, but being of Palestinian origin, Khalid can’t serve in the army. And as odd as it might sound, Jordan is one of the best countries in the region for Palestinian rights, even offering the majority citizenship. So ultimately, Khalid can succeed if he works hard and has it in himself to do so, but I fear his birthplace (a refugee camp) and the Palestinian aspect of his identity may always be a limit to him here in Jordan.
















I could definitely write more about my conversation with Khalid, but I’m my post might be running a little overlong. Tonight I will be going with Khalid to his home for dinner; his mother invited me in a brief phone conversation. So we’ll see how that goes and I’ll hopefully have more stories to tell next week.
I hope you enjoyed and as always, thank you for your interest!

Respectfully,

Brennan Roorda


*Note, Palestinian refugees are not considered the same as other international refugees and thus UNHCR, the primary organization for international refugees, does not deal with them.