391 meters below sea level

Today I visited the Dead Sea. This extraordinary body of intense blue water, polished smooth like an oiled skin on a windless day in winter, is a sea like no other. The water is 9 times as salty as that of the ocean – 31% to be exact; and, it makes for an almost intolerable environment for all but the most microscopic of life forms. At one point I was relaxing at the edge of a trendy resort infinity pool, surrounded by locals swimming with their prayer beads and foreign couples engaging in insinuating acts of public displays of affection, and I peered out over the horizon and simply gazed at the calm blue water and salt dunes in awe. In that moment I was overwhelmed by gratitude for the adventures I have been able to embark on thus far in my life.

Interestingly, the concentration of salt has nothing to do with the Dead Sea being below sea level; rather it comes about because of the high evaporation rate. The water’s oily minerals also contain healthy properties. I read that German health insurance covers periodic visits to the Dead Sea for psoriasis patients to visit and luxuriate in the healing waters. It made me wonder if Kaiser will reimburse me for my visit when I get back home. Although the Dead Sea is 3 million years old, it has shrunk by 30% in recent years due to evaporation and the demands of the potash industries from Jordan and Israel.

While swimming in the salty waters, the first thing I noticed was every minor cut on my body. After the sting subsided I was slightly annoyed by the water that had managed to get in my eyes and mouth. But, a few moments later I was acclimated and blown away by the sensory experience of “swimming” in the Dead Sea. The best part about it was that I was actually bobbing rather than swimming. You literally float on the top of the water and at one point I watched a local man covered in mud literally float while he read a newspaper. It appeared as if he was sitting in an invisible lounge chair. The other interesting thing I observed was swimwear made for the women in the region. A nylon cotton combination of fabric covers women from head to toe. Although it may have been the novelty of it for me, but I have to admit I found these prudish suits to be much more enticing and alluring than the two piece bikinis I saw many French, Germans and Danish swimming around in.

My departure for and arrival to Jordan was filled with many emotions. While on the one hand, I was touched and honored to have been asked to help with this very interesting and meaningful program aimed at offering mental health services to Iraqi torture survivors, I was also in the midst of processing some pretty intense recent events and I wondered how the two would mix. My contract will have me in Jordan for one brief month. I am already well aware that this is not enough time to do justice to the work or the experience. Fortunately, it appears this trip has indeed been good for my mind and my soul and each and every day I seem to heal a little and learn something about this very interesting country and its people while still being able to process my own material and recent events.



The first thing I noticed about the country was the chalky white gestalt of the buildings laid on top of the hills and in the cracks of the valleys of Amman. It’s as if an elaborate city has been drawn on a chalkboard and the fragility of the beauty could be erased with one foul swoop from an angry God. The suspected vulnerability of it makes it all the more breathtaking.

The next thing I noticed was how much is going on here beneath the surface. Jordan has sheltered millions of refugees in recent decades which have changed the demography of the country forever. Palestinians now account for the majority of the population and their struggle, their beliefs and their desires have seeped into every element of the culture here. Clearly, there is much I am not seeing or understanding and, yet, what I am seeing suggests that nationality and religion are only a few of the unique threads that bind Jordanian society.

Alomst every single person I have met has wanted, maybe even needed, to tell me that they are Palestinian. They may be second generation Jordanian, born in the UAE or America, but each one of them has taken the time to tell me that they are first and foremost Palestinian. Just last week I asked if there were any museums in Irbid, the town I am living in (which is also the second largest city in Jordan), and I was informed that while yes, there was, and I could get directions easily, a few of my female staff members quietly told me they could not accompany me to this museum because their Palestinian families would be confused, or maybe even upset, by their child’s expressed desire to visit a Jordanian historical site.

While first generation kids in America often report they are in fact American because they were born there by the time they turn 10, third generation kids in Jordan will proudly report they are Palestinian with a Jordanian passport. Nationality here is defined by the father’s blood and thus there is a continuous chain of passing on Palestinian nationality to children. Therefore, it appears Palestinian immigrants altogether avoid the overt process of assimilation while integrating with ease. There is much the American immigration movement could learn from the Jordanian situation as it appears Jordanians are confident enough in themselves and their country to not be insulted by refugee or immigrant national pride with their home country and Palestinians feel connected to both identities, forever and always. In many ways the conversation has been changed from an issue of giving up the old and accepting the new to accepting the new and holding on to the old.

The first thing I noticed about myself since my arrival to Jordan was that that time and space opened up once again for me to be reflective and thoughtful. While it is painfully hard to be in another new country where I do not know the language, it is strangely freeing to have such a huge bubble created around me where I am not influenced by the passing comments of strangers. The most pervasive and looming thoughts I have been having about my time in Jordan thus far have been about gender.

In just a few short days one thing has become glaringly evident to me. The impact of gender permeates everything. Interestingly, every travel book and memoir I have read about the region in preperation, including a memoir writing by an American called Live for Jordan: Letters Home from My Journey Through the Middle East, were all undoubtedly written by men and did nothing to preapre me for this simple fact. While educational and instructive, nothing in these insightful books, aside from a few “warnings” for the female traveler, speaks to the experience of being a lone woman navigating a Middle Eastern County.

The experience is difficult to capture with words. I had come here thinking that with my dark features I might be able to “pass” as an invisible Jordanian mute. That, as long as I wasn’t asked to say anything, I could simply watch and learn in the moments of quiet exploration on the streets and remain unremarkable. I was however gravely mistaken. Excluding the fact that I have not been covering my head (which is somewhat uncommon here), there appears to be something about the way I walk or the way I carry myself that outs me to every man, woman, and child on the street. Every single moment that I have spent on the streets of Jordan (which admittedly is much more than the average woman or man because my dog Tuesday has taught me to be a lover of the long stroll), everyone around me has been fully and evidently aware I am not from here. Male taxi drivers drive up, honk and slow down, assuming I must be looking for a ride because no woman in her right mind would walk alone here on these relatively safe streets. Restaurant staff appear baffled by my bold attempts to engage, discuss and connect. I know some of this is cultural, but the feminist in me struggles to control herself as there are times where I can tell I am being judged for being self-assured. Over the course of the day, it gradually starts to wear on me and I start to intentionally make eye contact with men or attempt to talk and engage with women and children while I explore alone because the strong, confident, feminist in me wants men and women in this part of the world to know that WE are indeed equal and should, in fact, be treated that way. A few times these encounters have ended wonderfully with young teenage boys and girls laughing and asking if they could practice their English with me. Other times it was less clear what the impact was.

While I know some readers may be thinking, ‘but Gwen you are in a foreign country and it is good to respect the norms and values of the country you are visiting.’ To that I shake my head in agreeance and nod solemnly and promise to check myself and try and control my assertive feminist streak; but, mark my words, the minute I get back out there on the streets and I notice some gesture of inequality or injustice towards women, my thoughts and feelings will go unchecked and I will proudly start acting like a woman empowered. For example, just the ohter day I noticed a basketball/football court near my all women’s apartment complex and I boldly stopped to watch the men play a pick-up game. No one else was watching and the men kept looking up to see if I was still there and what I was doing. My first thought was I could hold my own with them, if only they would let me play. When I told Lorenzo about this thought, he laughed and said you better be sure to make sure every inch of your skin is covered before you step out there to play. I love that he laughed and I love that he didn’t say ‘no you can’t!’

Right or wrong, being a assertive, sporty, playful woman is simply who I am and I only hope that a few women here, maybe the ones who have been blocked from studying abroad simply because they are women and their brothers got first dibs, or the ones who are forbidden to drive or get a job, will see me and smile secretly under the veils and whisper – one day.

joining the harvest

Although it was only 7 AM, it was already ninety degrees and Mada’s Town was bustling with activity. Two teenage brothers were fixing large palm branches to build a new roof for their kitchen. Their younger brother was sweeping aimlessly yet somehow productively; and, Yassa, the youngest of the bunch, was standing naked in a blue container splashing water while her older sister, Korpo, scrubbed her backside furiously with lathery soap. I knew this little band of siblings because I knew their mother. I had met their mother 9 months ago. She was a former client of ours and when a visiting journalist from the Carter Foundation asked me if there were any clients that might be willing to talk to her about the counseling process and her progress since her participation in therapy, I thought of their mother instantly. She had gone from severely depressed and functionally debilitated to emotionally stabilized and socially functional with the help of her group and the counselors. She embodied the success story of someone who benefitted from the healing process of a reparative relationship with a therapy group and my sense was she might be willing to talk. Her individual counselor asked her if she would be interested in sharing her story, stressing she had the right to say no and that only she would determine what would be shared with this stranger. The former client contemplated it for about a minute and then said “yes, I‘d like to talk to her.” She later noted she was shocked anyone from America would be interested in her or her journey.

Deddeh, one of the local counselors (who would be playing the role of Loma interpreter), took the former client and the journalist inside the house for some privacy. Once comfortable, she willingly shared her horrific trauma story. She shared her story for two reasons. First, due to therapy, she had been able to “master” her story in such a way that it no longer felt traumatizing to her when she thought about it or told it. The second reason she shared was because she felt empowered by the curiosity of this foreigner and impressed people wanted to know about her and her experience.

I didn’t want to cause any more reason for anxiety so I remained outside. After a while I became bored and decided to join the game of knock foot that was being played by a few of the girls in the shade behind the next hut. Knock foot is a girl’s only game where players hop on one foot and kick toward their opponent with the other foot. While hoping and kicking out a foot, the participants collectively keep a well known beat with a quick clapping sequence. It’s sort of like rock, paper, scissors but, instead of playing with your hands; you play with your feet. For every kick one player makes, the opposing player tries to kick out in such a way that they beat the play of the other kicker. The winner is determined by the type and placement of the kick. Once the winner is determined she quickly faces a new opponent and so on, or until she is beat.

Although the above description of the game might suggest I know how to the play knock foot well, I have to admit I still have a few lingering questions about the rules of the game. These questions never seem to get answered because all the girls who I ask are busy giggling at the fact that I am trying to play the game in the first place. “Look at that why wo ma, she tryin to play kna fo oh!” was all I could get out of the girls who surrounded me during my last attempt to play while ignoring my questions. Needless to say I keep trying play and didn’t care if I looked silly. I’m a sucker for games and a bit of a competitor so I’m basically always ready and willing to learn just about anything anyone is willing to teach me.

After just three rounds of knock foot beads of sweat start collecting on my forehead and so I decided I better switch the game before I passed out from heat stroke. I started teaching them the one joint clapping game I know put to beat by one very bizarre song I learned as a small child. The song was originally sung by Tom Hanks and his boyhood friend in the movie Big. It goes something like: “Dutch babes go down down baby down down the rollercoaster sweet sweet baby sweet sweet don’t let me go…shimmie shimmie coco pop shimmie shimmie rock…” It’s somewhat of a ridiculous song and when you think about it, it makes very little sense but my brother and I loved it and it has stuck with me ever since.

The reason we loved this song is still unclear to me but during the third or fourth time we watched the movie we decided we needed to know every single word to this song. The only problem was it was such a fast song we couldn’t pick up the lyrics in real time. At first we thought we could keep rewinding the movie and learn it, but as the weekend drew to a close, we realized our BETA movie would be due back at blockbuster the following evening and so we took matters into our own hands and placed our eighties style boom box next too the TV and recorded the song. We then were able to return the movie and play the song we grew to love over and over again until we memorized it in full. Drew memorized it much faster than I. He had and still has an amazing ability to memorize the lyrics of any song he hears and smokes me in every game of music trivia we have ever played.

The strange thing is I had completely forgotten this tiny little childhood experience of mine until, for some unknown reason, I blurted out the song a few months ago while I was hanging out with my little 5 year old twin princes back in Denver. It came to mind crystal clear and I sang it as loudly as I did when I had been sitting on that brown L shaped couch with Drewbers in our living room more than 20 years ago. If any part of me thought it was silly or useless, this part of me was quickly quieted by their excitement about the song. They couldn’t get enough of it and so the song quickly moved from a place in my subconscious to a much more accessible place in my consciousness. After the shift it subsequently infiltrated many interactions I had with small children. In Liberia it has taken on a life of its own as my already speedy American English becomes decipherable to the little kids I share it with but they LOVE it just as much as I did when I was as kid and end up requesting it over and over again. So now I can periodically find myself surrounded by kids in a village I have previolsy visited chanting variations of the song. The last time it sounded something like, “dune dune tabbies by by me toasters…swe swe babies roller coasters…”

It’s pretty fantastic and totally reinforcing to me a woman who has been diagnosed by her local counselors as someone who, “din’t get to pla enough as a small child and loves to laugh too much.”

Shortly after I had failed to learn the true rules to knock foot and the kids had failed to learn the true words to the song I was trying to teach them the journalist and our former client exited the hut and told us we would be going to the farm for harvest. It wasn’t really a discussion it was simply a decision based on the fact that is what the family would have done if we hadn’t been there.

We quickly got in a line and followed one another into the bush on a small trail that only allowed for us to travel one at a time. The two youngest led the way, the mother resolutely followed, Jessie, the journalist was next, then Deddeh (our translator) followed by me. Lonely the dog was also along for the journey as well and resolutely moved from the front to the back of the group in a proactive yet playful manner. I of course adored Lonely and quickly befriended him.

Our trek to the farm took about 25 minutes. At first we were surrounded by thick bush which amounted to huge palm trees and solid forest. After about 5 minutes we hit the pineapple farm which essentially looks like extra large Alice in wonderland versions of pineapple tops sticking out of the ground, separated thoughtfully by the farmer who planted them. Next came a log bridge over a milky brown marsh with a tree branch handle set up for safe passage. Following that came a 5 foot wide lagoon of dirty water that the locals were sure we would reject passing through. But Jessie and I were adventurous. She somehow managed to hold onto tree trunks and pass around the side without losing her clogs while I decided to wade right through the water just like the kids because I had on slippery flip flops and feared slipping and landing on my tush in the mud. Later I somewhat regretted my decision and ruminated about the possibility of picking up some sort of still water worm like the ominous scitizosomicion. The good thing is I look asymptomatic to date.

Approximately 10 minutes later we reached a bush kitchen. The kitchen was surrounded by about 10 children, 3 teenage girls, 5 women, 1 man, a large cement round structure used to make palm oil, 3 charcoal fire pits and baskets full of peas, okra and bitter ball. To the side was a large group of sugarcane resting against a fence. The group welcomed us casually and without ceremony (which was somewhat refreshing) and the women quickly started changing clothes from their regular lappa wraps with t-shirts and matching wraps form their hair some sort of strikingly unmatching yet still beautiful wrap to keep the baby child resting on their back in place. What they changed into was essentially men’s ware – dirty flannel long sleeve shirts and oversized jeans. I rarely see women outside their lappa attire but quickly realized they were changing because the harvest process must be scratchy and they wanted to cover as much skin as possible. Although I don’t really know why I assumed this (aside from my theory that the reason I love Africa so much is because I was African in a former life; more specifically I was a large and powerful African woman with 7 kids with an amazing singing voice), I was right.

In another unceremonious gesture a woman approached me and tied a wicker basket around my waste and placed a small knife in my hand. It was clear that if we were going to go into the fields, we were going to help with the harvest. After another ten minutes of trekking we arrived at a large rice field. The growth was high and surrounded by random stalks of corn. I quickly reflected on my experience in the rice fields of Vietnam and was amazed by how different everything felt and looked. This field grew much higher, was not swampy and appeared less organized than the rice fields I had seen in Vietnam. With that noted, there was still a very clear system of harvest and I needed to pay attention if I was going to earn the respect of these women.

The impressiveness of my surroundings was quickly trumped by the impressiveness of the women’s quick harvesting maneuvers that put my shabby attempts at harvesting to shame. They didn’t seem to mind however and after a few minutes we were engaged in a classic harvesting coup, a well known collective act of survival.