The voting over at www.moroccoblogs.com has been delayed until January 7th to allow for a few last minute nominations. Thank you for all your support already. And sorry for the confusion.
This is why I love the medina of Marrakesh:
Blogging
Jordan highlights
Highlights of the Amman workshop, before they totally fade from memory:
Meeting a group of highly accomplished, strong, loving, happy women.
Presenting my blog to these amazing ladies and feeling very appreciated and affirmed. What a gift. Thank you ladies. Feelin the love.
Sitting on the sunny terrace dreaming up a fictional character with “the fiction group”.
Doing portraits of each other, with Christina (Denmark) and Rita (Egypt). We each came up with 3 questions and took turns answering them. The answers diverged in all directions, giving us a good thin-slice of each others lives. I learned about “bawwab culture” in Egypt (what will the doorman think? ) and being a vegan in Denmark.
Hearing the adhan (call to prayer) from the nearby mosque and feeling it stir up my cells in a way that was both home and foreign.
A crazy whirl-wind tour of Amman with Hala and her friends. Saw the Roman theater, Citadel and old Ottoman railway station. They were all closed but it was the best tour ever. Beat the crowds.
The discussion about whether or not to use English as the language for our collaborative work. Some felt that English was the best tool, despite the fact that it wasn’t anyone’s native language (except me, so I mostly kept quiet on that one). Others felt that it was an inauthentic way of expressing themselves and preferred to blog in Arabic, French or Danish, even if that meant less accessibility. I appreciated the dialogue that place, it felt very real and for lack of a better word, very democratic.
The excitement of working on a collaborative project with my fellow bloggers, to be presented at the next workshop in Copenhagen. Content is being added as we speak to the website www.blog-on.net Ahem, some of us are a little behind with our contributions.
Meeting a Dane who spoke excellent Arabic. That’s some dedication.
Being interviewed for Danish TV about being a woman blogger. Me: I’m a little nervous, reporter: nah, you’re a natural, me: thanks, I’ve been practicing all my life. Jokes aside, it was another good opportunity for me talk about the same stuff I blog about…appreciating beauty in the smallest of things…considering the needy around us…the positive experience I’ve had on my spiritual path…discovering photography…food of course…and basically looking at the ordinary in an extraordinary way.
Did someone say food?
This one is hummus, bits of meat, and pine nuts:
Tea or coffee:
Sugar. Good thing my kids weren’t around, my kids + freely available sugar = disaster.
Artsy photo of something old:
The best ceramics workshop on Rainbow street:
This style of ceramics is originally from Jerusalem (an hour away). This little store is reviving the tradition. A few tiles made their way home with me:
Arabic calligraphy that reads la ilaha illah Allah, Muhammad rasulullah. No god but God, Muhammad is a messenger of God.
Amman, Jordan. My epic journey.
I just got back from Amman, Jordan. I was there for 4 days attending the Arab-Danish Women Blogger’s workshop. I received an invitation to this event back in November…but didn’t want to blog about it till it was a done deal. So many times plans change.
I’ve attempted to blog about the event several times. I keep feeling like I won’t do it justice. Words can’t possibly describe what a truly epic journey this was for me. Well, maybe thousands of words might. But with my self-imposed 1000 word limit per post (give or take a few hundred), synthesis will be a necessary process.
To really describe what this journey meant to me, at this moment in my life, I’d have to tell you all about the last nine years of my life. You know, those years where three beautiful souls made their way to this earthly plane via my body. Where my greatest joy and best means of survival was through surrendering ever more to the microcosm of my home life. Those early years where I needed, viscerally, to be on the same wavelength as my babies, so that I could distinguish each cry (tired, hungry, gassy, bored, you name it), and anticipate each need. Those years where sleep was the most precious commodity. Those years where the jewels of the universe where laid at my feet, time and again, in the form of my daughter’s smile, my son’s newest words, or the softness of a sleeping face.
So to be able to leave home for five whole nights is shocking, so abrupt in a way. I don’t want this whole phase to just roll over and give way to a new one without at least pausing to honor it. (And even “pausing” is a new luxury). I have been in the trenches for so long that I forgot what civilian life was like. You mean, when you are tired, you just sleep? I’m going to need some major re-integration to assimilate all this.
Ok, I think that gives a pretty good background as to where I’m coming from. How about we talk about the trip then. I was totally thrilled to be in a new country, for one. Amman is a beautiful city, laid out on seven hills; it’s been continuously inhabited for longer than almost any other city in the world. The local people that I encountered were warm and quite respectful. In fact I felt more comfortable walking around in Amman than I do in Marrakesh where I’m likely to get stared at, commented on by gawkers, hustled by tourist guides, and otherwise had my space invaded. Amman rules, in that way.
The flip side? Everyone smokes. Amman, I will miss you, but I brought part of you home with me, in the form of second-hand smoke carefully stored in the lining of my lungs. I had no trouble collecting this souvenir, opportunities were ample. Seriously, I hardly met anyone who wasn’t a smoker. From dainty ultra-slims to sheesha, that exotic water pipe a la caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland. There is no gender gap in smoking, either. Yay! Um, not. I imagine Virginia slims looking down approvingly from high above the smoke cloud. You’ve come a long way, baby. I was slightly nauseous the whole time I was in Amman. I need to either take up smoking (gag), or go detox in the Himalayas.
I spent a lot of my time comparing and contrasting Amman with Marrakesh. Here are some of my notes, which may not mean much to you, unless you live in either of these cities.
Music. Same music on the radio, alternating Usher and Rihanna with Tamer Hosny and Nancy Ajram.
Mixed identity architecture. Same way the city is half construction-site, half slick, shiny buildings…half ancient and half that kind of globalized modern look that denotes nowhere in particular. That’s familiar.
Weekends. In the Middle East, weekends are Thursday and Friday. I went out Friday morning and there was not a soul out or a shop open, it was a “Sunday feeling”. And Saturday was be “Monday”. It makes total sense for a predominantly Muslim country, since Friday is the community prayer day for Muslims.
Language. I know it’s all called Arabic, but Moroccan and Jordanian are so vastly different. I didn’t even bother speaking Moroccan, I just spoke Modern Standard Arabic, trying to add a Middle Eastern lilt. My vowels gave me away though, everyone could guess right away that I was either Tunisian or Moroccan. But seriously, our languages are so different. For example, in Morocco we say siri toul, which means “go straight”. Well in Jordan it’s, dalli doghri. Don’t bother looking for similarities. It just made me realize that the North African identity is very different from the Middle Eastern one.
Food. After having eaten in Middle Eastern restaurants all over the world, I was thrilled to be eating hummus, baba ghanoush, kibbeh, lebneh etc. in the Middle East. The food was so perfect, I almost cried. And so colorful, and varied. Fyi, it has nothing in common with Moroccan food, which is also amazing.
Well folks, it’s I’m-gonna-regret-being-up-this-late-tomorrow o’clock. So I’ll wrap up with a few pics. As for the actual workshop, well, there are so many insights, inspirations, beautiful connections, stimulating discussions, that I want to give it its own blog post…soon insha Allah!
The pics. My first Middle Eastern meal. Clockwise from top left: Arrugula salad, Lebneh (cheesy yogurt), Hummus, Salata. On the sides were wraps stuffed with Zeit ou Zaatar.
The view from the workshop site.
Amman by night:
The oh so rare self-portrait.
Life in Marrakesh 