Because irony is universal...

This is a sign that I pass on my walk to school every morning. I think this is funny in any language.




A picture of one of the cars parked on my street. I didn't check the license plate, but I might assume that it belongs to someone from the from one of the Gulf states (i.e. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, etc), many of whom have houses in my neighborhood. They come here to escape the heat - and you thought Jordan was the desert! - and, rumor has it, to partake in the sinful society that exists here, outside of their much more conservative cultures.

So never fear - any Americans who want to travel to Jordan can feel right at home in their Hummers. I hope the teal and magenta come through well in the photo; they were brilliant in real life.

An Hour with the Director

In search of finalizing a local institutional partner for the Global Youth Leaders Conference, Mohammad and I met with the director of one of the country's leading political research institutions. I won't give the director's personal details, as he is quite well known in the region - a frequent commentator on Al Jazeera, CNN, national newspapers, and the like.

Before the meeting, I was slightly apprehensive, as I had no idea what to expect from a high level meeting such as this here in Jordan. What would the manner of this director be, and how would he receive a student and a young professional? What formalities would be expected of us?

Mohammad and I took a taxi to a nondescript building in a neighborhood near downtown and climbed up three paint-peeling flights of stairs to reach the think-tank's office. Although I was surprised by its exterior appearance, the inside of the office was nicely decorated - simply appointed with modern furniture. We were warmly welcomed and ushered into the director's private office which had a large desk and separate sitting area.

The director was standing behind his desk, exclaiming loudly into one of his cell phones. The top three buttons of his crisp, blue dress shirt were undone, exposing his white undershirt. His gold-flecked tie hung around his shoulders, still strung through the shirt collar. All of this gave me the impression that he was sitting down to meet with us after he had finished his "real" work day.

He continued his mobile phone conversation as he sat down in the sitting area, gesturing for us to join him. At this point I was glad of my many past hours spent sitting in the divans of various important personages at UJ during my registration ordeal. Because of this, I knew that the director continuing a cell phone conversation like this is pretty common. While it certainly serves as a reminder that we are not as important as whoever is on the other end of the phone, it is not really rude, as I might have normally perceived it.

We began with business right away. I was surprised by this - I expected a few minutes of chatting to familiarize ourselves with each other over tea, but this actually came afterwards.

While we discussed the details of the conference and his organization's potential role as a partner, every so often the director barked out an unintelligible name into the hallway. Each time this brought one of various secretaries scurrying into the room. They would listen to his requests and then return with information, a tray of tea, booklets, etc.

The director gave his initial approval for partnering with us, conditional upon his closer examination of our other sponsors and the origin of our funding. With whom you are associated means everything here.

Business effectively finished, the conversation turned to national politics and the upcoming parliamentary elections - Mohammad had asked the director's thoughts about his own voting district.

A little background: After the Islamic Action Front (the party of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood and the only legitimate political party in the country) won a significant number of parliamentary seats a few years ago, the government changed the voting rules to one man-one vote, which essentially means that people must choose between their tribe and the IAF, and so the IAF loses votes. Mohammad had told me in a past conversation that he probably was not going to vote, and this surprised me, since he is so politically concerned. He explained to me that there were simply no candidates worth his vote.

The director quickly barked a request for the candidates' names in Mohammad's district and then agreed that he didn't see any candidate worth a vote either - they were all either government-backed or from the IAF.

The director then continued on, expressing his dissatisfaction with the legitimacy of the current democratic process, pointing to high-ranking officials recently imprisoned for violating laws that forbid criticism of the monarchy or the government. He noted that Jordan's press freedom index had gone down in recent years. He lamented the way that U.S. and European government officials have stopped pressuring governments in the region to move towards democratic reform, as this had been an important force in the past. "Several years ago when Condoleeza Rice came here," he said, "she met with actors from the whole range of civil society. Now the US is concerned with stability, and on her last visit she met with the chief of intelligence."

I thought his remark on the recent setback of democratic progress related to the US and European government emphases on security and stability was most interesting - yet another side effect of the Iraq war.

The Little Things and a Bit of Optimism

After almost two months, I'm slowly falling in love with the life here. I don't believe in the idea of a "paradise" or really of any country or city being better than any other - I find that each new place I go has just as many problems and just as many benefits as the one before. The key difference is that the nature of these problems and benefits varies from place to place. And perhaps the combination in Jordan just suits me better than other places.

At the same time, in any place there is always at least a short list of things that you miss. For instance, my mother always laughs when she remembers her preparations for coming to visit me in Paris - I sent her on a shopping trip to Walgreens!

Here, I've figured out that I miss: fast internet (each picture I upload to this blog, for instance, takes about 20 minutes), showers with water pressure, and the Barnes and Noble or Borders experience. There are very few bookstores here at all, and there is no concept of spending several hours in a bookstore with a pile of books and a cup of coffee in an armchair. Pleasure reading is not really part of the culture here - it is more associated with study. There is also no enforcement of copyright laws, so I imagine that is why publishing companies are hesitant to tap into the industry here. All the textbooks here are just copies bound together with cardboard and masking tape, for example.

(This is not to say that people don't relax in cafes - this is a major institution of life here. They are just usually playing cards, chatting, and smoking narguileh.)

On the other hand, it is already difficult to imagine a life where I couldn't walk down to any street corner and buy an utterly satisfying falafel sandwich for 250 fils (about 40 cents) or a fresh-squeezed mango juice (as in, you watch them drop whole, fresh mangoes into a blender) for 600 fils (about 90 cents).

I would also miss how personal life is here. Nobody in Jordan ever wishes you a nice day because it was in his employee training manual. A few days ago riding home in a taxi, the driver offered me and my friend half of the dinner he had just purchased - a huge percentage of his income - and wouldn't hear of us not sharing. It killed me to take the food from him, but it would have been deeply offensive not to do so.

As another example, yesterday in class somebody asked where a vending machine was - and received only laughter as a response. For better or for worse, a machine rarely does a person's work here. Now, it's true that that's a facet of the need to raise employment rather than a particular cultural value - but it's still the way things are!

Tonight I was walking with a friend to catch a taxi after a run in the King Hussein Gardens (Amman's Central Park), when we noticed giant craters in the sidewalk at regular intervals. I learned that these are leftovers from tree removal. Many of the sidewalks in Jordan have beautiful trees landscaped into them - which unfortunately leaves no room to walk! People have been walking in the streets instead, often at great risk because of the fast and heavy oncoming traffic. The government is now removing the trees (I can only hope they are replanting them and not just trashing them) so that people can use the sidewalks for walking.

Now, I admit, it does not take a genius to realize that if you fill narrow sidewalks with giant trees, people won't be able to walk on them. So perhaps it was an unnecessary mistake on the part of the government. But the important thing here, to my mind, is that they realized their mistake, and now it is being fixed. A very postive development.

Unlike many people, I feel extremely optimistic about Jordan's future after being here for a few months. This attitude goes against the grain - when you ask about the general state of the country, you are much more likely to get a shaking head and a list of problems such as inflation, unemployment, an economy based on foreign aid and remittances, and largely symbolic elections than a positive prognosis. However, I see other things. I see that the government is correcting past mistakes, such as unusable sidewalks. I see an informal national dialogue occurring around the upcoming elections - even if it is mostly used to express dissatisfaction - and I see newly paved roads, expanding academic departments at the largest state-owned university, and construction everywhere.

In fact, there is one district of Amman, Abdali, currently housing the central bus station, which is set to be transformed in the next five years to an upscale residential district and home to the new American University of Amman. (The American Universities in Cairo and Beirut are very prestigious and well-established institutions already.)

I admit that the situation is much more complex than I am making it - a largely educated population, for instance, can become a burden if there are not enough desirable jobs. (This deeply hurt Nasserism in Egypt in the 80's.) But my point is, there is enormous potential for positive change here - and some of it is already coming to fruition.

Rain and Juthrs

I had the strangest feeling walking out the door yesterday. Stepping out onto the veranda for a twilight study session, my Arabic papers felt slightly heavier in my hand. My long brown curls felt weightier and wilder than normal. Then I realized: humidity! I have not had the sensation of humid air, nor seen rain, for six weeks, probably one of the longest sunny stints in my life. So long that I didn't even recognize it.

Humid air plump with rain is a sign that the weather here is slowly moving into winter, which will be mostly characterized by drear and drizzle, I am told. There is a rumor going around that it may rain by the end of the week, and I'm intrigued to see what that will mean for Amman. I still vividly remember a February day in Cairo several years ago when there was a brief middday rainstorm - workers with crude straw and stick brooms appeared on all of the streets, seemingly out of nowhere, and swept the water to the sides so that cars could pass. There were no drains or sewers anywhere! So while the sweepers managed relatively well, there were still enormous, impassable mini-lakes on some of the main roads. Roads here have drainage, so perhaps rainy days will not be so complicated.

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I'd also like to share a thought about language, unrelated to the weather.

Arabic words are all built on a core of three letters, which is called the "juthr". From each juthr (pronounce the th as you would in "that") comes a family of words whose meanings are generally related. For instance, from the combination k-t-b comes kitab (book), kaatib (writer), and maktaba (library).

Irhab is the Arabic word for terrorism, and the three-letter core in this case is r-h-b. Interestingly, I just learned that the Arabic word for priest is rihab, coming from the same juthr. At first when I found this out, I thought it was simply coincidence, but it's not. In this case language can give us an insight into history, as the term for priest developed in the context of the crusades. From an ancient Arabic-speaker's point of view, it is then easy to see how these two words are connected, since they were both once associated with striving violently for a religious cause. So my language class surprises me again - another day complete!

Blog Action Day

Today, according to Blogger (part of Google) is Blog Action Day. All interested bloggers can register to participate and then expound in any way they wish on this year's theme: the environment. I've decided to participate not only because I agree that the environment is one of the most pressing concerns of our time (and for my generation in particular), but also because I am fascinated by this sort of cyber-activism. There are currently at least 7000 blogs (with estimated 5 million readers) participating in this year's Blog Action Day. An impressive way to convey information. And in my opinion, since technology is set to be a dominant cultural phenomenon for a long time to come, we should practice using it as a force for good.

The dominant environmental question in Jordan is water, as its scarcity throughout this area has made it very valuable. You can find water affairs behind almost every political relationship in this region. For instance, there are many disputes about the use of the Jordan River waters and its tributaries. Syria diverts some of the waters for itself on the pretense of keeping them from benefiting Israel, while this is also harmful to Jordan and violates the terms of an agreement between Syria and Jordan regarding the distribution of Jordan River water. In addition, due to overuse of its tributaries, the Dead Sea is actually shrinking, and it is estimated that if conservation efforts are not stepped up, it will have disappeared completely in about 20 years. It is possible to avoid this, but it will require cooperation between Israel and Jordan, and so political problems have trumped environmental progress thus far. However, there is hope that this can be a source of trust-building and common interests between the two countries in the future - projects to bring this about are in the works.

In Jordan, 90% of the water goes to agriculture even though this industry is less than 10% of Jordan's GDP. I am told that it is not uncommon for the average Jordanian's apartment to run out of water before the end of the week, and people are urged to conserve - I mentioned in an earlier entry that we are supposed to take "army showers" where I live, meaning that you shut the water off while soaping up.

Yet, I am often amazed to see trucks leaking water out the back as they transport or shop owners relaxedly hosing down the sidewalk in front of their places of business. If these small wasteful acts don't make sense, neither does the excess of water use in the Western hotels and other posh places of business. My American friends joke about going to Le Meridian or the Four Seasons here simply in search of a shower with actual water pressure. When I'm in one of these places (they have all become important venues for meetings, meals, and parties - not just as hotels) and the tap water comes out strong and hot, I can't help but think of people on the other side of town who can't take a shower until the water delivery next week.

A Word on Arabic(s?)

After being here for almost six weeks and engaging in quite a few conversations about the differences between Modern Standard Arabic (MSA, or Foos-hah) and the various colloquial varieties that abound, it seems to me that Arabic speakers are faced with a difficult quandary.

On one hand, there is MSA, which adheres to the vision of what most people think of when they think of a language. It has strict grammar, readily available dictionaries, a specific rhythm and style: you can learn it in a class. It's in the newspapers; it's in the literature; it's on Al-Jazeera. The only catch is: nobody speaks it. So if you want to learn about the daily life of Arabs - if you want to know the language in which they eat, love, and praise their children - you have to learn the dialect. For this, there are few (if any) language classes, dictionaries, or grammar books. A dialect can differ from one town to the next and always differs from one Arab country to the next.

Why, though, can't you learn a dialect in a class? Here is the crux of where Arabic-speakers are really torn. There is still a strong desire for a unified language (the first Arab League meeting in the 1970's was held in English because it was most widely common, and this is clearly problematic) and a strong respect for MSA as a more eloquent, expressive form of communication. MSA is also a modern version of classical Arabic, the language of the Qur'an. It's hard for people to let go of it, and it is, after all, still in use in some arenas of life - the news and books, for example. One friend told me how disappointed he was that Arabic had moved away from MSA. "We really lose out by not using foos-hah," he said, "there is such an opportunity for deep expression in it." But the different dialects develop inexorably across the region, and more babies every day hear their mother's voice coo to them in dialect - this is the language here closest to the heart.

So, what's a student of Arabic to do? Most Arabic classes for foreigners are in MSA, as this seems to be accepted as a strong base from which a student can launch into a dialect. In my opinion, however, there should be parallel teaching of MSA and at least one dialect from shortly after the beginning.

However, I don't know what will happen in the Arabophone world in the long run. Will there be a movement for the spread of MSA? Or will the dialects continue to evolve independently so that the Middle East will resemble Europe's separate-but-related Romance languages in another hundred years? This is possible, but it seems unlikely because of one main difference - the widespread communication technology available today. Channels like Al-Jazeera reach the entire Arabophone world, for example. Perhaps someone has already studied globalization's effects on the evolution of language, and there are more concrete predictions out there already that I haven't yet found.

Aqaba

I spent last weekend in Aqaba, one of the most beautiful places in Jordan. Aqaba is on the Red Sea at the very southern tip of Jordan, and it has fast become a popular resort town as well as a bustling port. A friend from my hostel, Ben, and I rented a car and made the simple drive down - it takes about four hours, and again, like for Azraq, there is only one road - the King's Highway in this case. The drive passes along small towns, each with its own mosque (even the truck stop along the way had its own mosque) and then gradually moves through dramatic rock formations until you reach the coast. This change of terrain was that much more beautiful after so many weeks in Amman's pervasive flatness.

We spent two days in a strange combination of roughing it (beach camping) and luxury pampering. (because of Ramadan, the only places open for lunch were the Western 4-star hotels, and the prices, though expensive for Jordan, were about what an average lunch costs in the States.) Aqaba has both public and private beaches, and many people, even if they do not stay at one of the nice hotels, pay 7-14 JD (about 11 - 18 dollars) admission and use the beach for the day. We used one of the public beaches, and you can see the shoreline and the shelters in two of the pictures. Many scubadivers used our beach as a meeting place before getting on boats, and if you look closely in one of the pictures, you can see a red circle of buoys which outlines a sunken ship just off the shore. Never fear, no one was hurt - King Abdullah was fond of scubadiving when he was growing up, and so he had a ship sunk there. Now it's one element of a well-maintained public beach.

The snorkeling and scubadiving is spectacular on the Red Sea, and we got to go snorkeling on the second day. I have never been before, and I felt like I had jumped straight into an aquarium. We snorkeled along coral reef landscapes, spotting clownfish, lionfish, zebrafish, eels, and whole schools of tiny, guppy-like fish which parted for us to pass as we neared. After about 15 minutes (I thought,) Ben motioned for me to pull my head out of the water and told me we'd already been at it for an hour and a half! I couldn't believe that this hidden world was less than 100 meters from beach I'd been sitting on the day before.

The Gulf of Aqaba is also an intriguing place because four countries with very complicated foreign relations share its shores: Jordan, Israel, Egypt, and Saudia Arabia. If you look at the map I've added, you can see that that the very top tip of the Red Sea, the gulf is shared by all four countries so that you can sit on the shore of any one and see the other three. In fact driving around Aqaba, we got more Israeli radio stations than Jordanian ones.



As with other places in Jordan, you can find both the past and the future in Aqaba. We ate lunch at the Movenpick, part of a Swiss chain of hotels, and probably one of the nicest hotels I have ever been to. But most of the stores, restaurants, and cafes look like an Arab town, and as long as you are outside the confines of a Western hotel compound, the average Jordanian still outnumbers the tourist. Although, this observation has to be taken with more grains of salt than usual since we went the weekend before the Eid, and many Muslim tourists would not have been there, waiting to go next weekend instead. This perhaps added to the impression I got of a stiff divide between Western tourists and Arab locals.

Today When I Was in America...

My gym is closed for the weekend of Eid, and so I was lucky enough to be able to go as a friend's guest to the gym at the American Embassy. Being on American soil again, even for a couple of hours, was an intriguing feeling. When we walked into the workout room, past the ambassador's residence, the giant pool, several immense office buildings, and a black Mercedes rolling behind a black Suburban, we found all of the signs in English and the machines working in miles. Welcome to the U.S.A. ! (Jordan uses kilometers, as I found out when my usual treadmill setting of 6.5 seemed mysteriously slow on my first day at the gym here.) CNN and Fox News were on the TV, and I could even wear shorts to work out in, without a care! (This was probably the most exciting thing that happened to me all day - I've really missed my shorts since I arrived here.)

As I began my run, I felt more American than I have ever felt before. When I am in the States, I often feel alienated or in disagreement with a large part of the country. I don't eat fast food; I think television is a waste of time; I don't like big portions or big cars; I disagree with many domestic and foreign policies. Yet traveling so far away makes me realize once again that I belong strongly to a part of American culture, no matter how much pleasure I take in foreign people and places. I don't think it's obscene to wear shorts; I like the Dave Matthews Band; I am used to watching CNN. Feeling a sudden rush of affection for my country (even feeling that it's acceptable to say "my country") makes me wonder if and when I will turn my humanitarian designs away from the international community and back towards domestic reform issues such as political accountability, poverty, class/race disparities, education, etc. At the same time, I think nationalism and patriotism are dangerous sentiments associated with much violence and war, so perhaps in the long run it is better to understand the experience of nationalism and yet focus on our unity as one world instead.

Eid Mubarak! Ramadan Ends

After a full-to-brimming week, I am finally sitting on my balcony with an October breeze and a quiet Amman below, ready to recount. Today is Eid al-Fitr, which literally means "holiday of breaking the fast." It comes at the end of the holy month of Ramadan and is an important, festive, family-oriented holiday whose closest American equivalent would be Christmas.

No one knows which day will be Eid until the moonrise the night before. We didn't know whether the Eid would be today or tomorrow until about 8pm yesterday, when the new moon was officially sighted. If this had not happened, fasting would have continued for one more day, and then the Eid would have been Saturday instead. In fact, because of geographical distances, some Muslim countries do fast for an extra day and celebrate Eid on the 31st day of the month instead of the 30th.

Shortly after 8pm last night, I watched as private fireworks displays shot off one after another all over the city. And then, the shopping began! In Amman, people celebrate the night before Eid by flooding the commercial districts and malls late into the night. I ventured out with some Jordanian friends, Adib and Mohammad, whom I had previously met through a local Rotaract club, and we found standstill traffic when we tried to go downtown - at 1am!

The three of us, in Adib's little white car with big stereo speakers, zoomed off the highway and went to a different district of the city instead, (once you're near downtown, you can get anywhere in Amman in about ten minutes) to a hidden Lebanese pizza joint which had drawn a bustling crowd to the otherwise tranquil, winding streets of the neighborhood of Jebel Webdeh.

To backtrack for just a second, we had begun the night at Adib's home with a cornucopia of "helwyiet," or desserts, for the last night of Ramadan. The tradition of hospitality here continues to astonish me. Adib's mother (and the live-in southeast Asian maid - which seems to be about as standard here as a microwave in American kitchens) had laid the table with ten different types of sweets. There was Arabic ice cream (slightly stickier than regular ice cream, and pistachio flavored) gitayyef (special Ramadan desserts which are like half-moon crepes stuffed with either cheese, nuts, or both), baklawa, dried fruit and nuts in syrup, and several other honeyed goodies whose names I can't remember. I blame it on the satisfying sugar coma that soon ensued.

At any rate, by the time we got to the restaurant, Adib and I weren't too hungry. Nevertheless, I agreed to taste a little of Mohammad's pizza, and true to his hospitable form, he ordered three! The restaurant was take-out only, and so we sat among other young people our age on the stone walls lining the streets, under a leafy canopy of trees. The air - a perfect temperature for a relaxing outside - was filled with a collective sigh of relief after a month of fasting, and the anticipation of several days of celebration. We sat for hours, trading English for Arabic grammar and vocabulary, talking comparatively about family and religion, all the while pleading with Mohammad not to order any more food. (He ordered two more pizzas anyway.)

As a sidenote, I think it's interesting that the common Arab celebration image that we see in the media - people shooting their rifles in the air - no longer exists here in Jordan since it was replaced with fireworks by an edict from King Abdullah. Shooting still happens in other countries (people were killed as recently as two months ago, for example, in Iraq, during celebrations for the Iraqi national soccer team) but people here seem to have replaced rifles with fireworks pretty easily. I can see wedding fireworks from my window in the evening a couple of times per week.

It is strange to see Ramadan go - it's as if I will wake up on Tuesday to a new Amman. I have become accustomed to organizing my meals (they must be eaten at home or discreetly in the bathroom between classes) and my movements (it's difficult to get a taxi around 3pm when everyone is going home or around 6:30pm, right before iftar) around a Ramadan schedule. In addition, as this month is focused on family, hospitality, charity, and self-discipline, it has given me unique opportunities to learn about the fabric of family life here. I have had a wide variety of delicious iftar experiences - everything from being a guest at a luscious five-course meal, to bringing a simple meal to orphans with a local Rotaract club.

To elaborate on this latter part a bit more: Rotaract is a youth service club connected to Rotary, and I've been lucky enough to connect with a local chapter. They do various service projects around Jordan, such as fundraisers and educational events. I went with them one night in the second week of Ramadan to an orphanage in Marqa, about 25 minutes outside of Amman. We brought an iftar meal of chicken and rice (cooked by another family in Rotary) to a house for boys. An orphanage here, I learned, is not necessarily a house for children that have no parents or family, as I had assumed. Many of the boys that we met had families that could not afford to take care of them, and so they have sent their children to the "orphanage." The kids see their families on special occasions, but otherwise they stay together, where they are educated and taken care of by the government.

We ate dinner with about 40 boys who were sweet and well-behaved, though extremely excited to have guests. Iftar was in a large, plain basement room, at a long table covered in a plastic table cloth. The room was clearly multipurpose, as I saw classroom posters on the walls. Although I could speak to them in simple Arabic, the boys knew enough English to ask me if I liked Bruce Lee and Jean Claude Van Damme. I guess we know which movie genre gets the most play for them. After we had finished eating, the boys used some of the larger Rotaracters as jungle gyms, while they armwrestled and thumbwrestled some of the lightweights, like me. I only briefly considered letting them win before I realized that they were going to win anyway - they were all extremely strong! I enjoyed that such a simple act could make so many people so happy, and I felt as if I was finally doing what I had really come to Jordan to do.

I recall this memory often in my head as I struggle with choices for making friends and socializing here - most of the options available to me are part of the wealthy, elite society of Jordan. As with any developing country, the gap between the few rich and many poor is quite large here, and those that are very educated or even go to restaurants regularly are quite well off. I am constantly thinking about trying to keep a balance between these two distinct worlds, and I'm glad that I have found Rotaract, which seems to be one place where they meet.

Jordan...Transitioning Between Yesterday and Tomorrow

I have already come to see Jordan as a "between" country. That is to say, the existence here is somewhere between the hijab and the mini-skirt, somewhere between a monarchy and a democracy, somewhere between patriarchy and feminism. It's somewhere between the farm and the metropolis, somewhere between the tribe and the individual, somewhere between the souk and the mall, somewhere between the local cafes and Starbuck's.

There's a constant, pressured pull here as modernity, globalization and a global economy interact with a long history of tribalism and agriculture. It is common among Jordanians living in Amman to refer to a weekend visit to their farms, and possessing land here is clearly still a foundational priority, even as this might not help the newly diploma-ed dentist, accountant, or IT specialist's career.

I wonder what Amman will be like when I return in ten years - construction is everywhere (ten years ago there wasn't a single mall and now there are five with more on the way) and signs of gradual social change are uqbiquitous (although whether this will go in an Islamist, moderate, or liberal direction is unknown). And what will happen when the generations being educated now (remember that the University of Jordan is 80% female) begin to run society? How will women's roles evolve?

Development seems to be happening without an overarching scheme or urban planning, although there is no reason that that, too, will not change. It seems that in many ways people here are just realizing the implications of modernity's sweep into Jordan, especially Amman.

I was reminded of all of this when I began my walk to school this morning. I walked out my front door, straight into a herd of sheep! It was a striking contrast to see the shepherds nonchalantly guiding about 100 sheep (and one donkey and one goat) through the multi-story homes and apartment buildings near where I live, all in view of a four-lane highway. We spoke briefly with the shepherds - they were two young men in their early 20's, as curious about me and my American friend as we were about them, I imagine. We didn't stay to see whether or not they would actually herd the sheep across the highway, but it wouldn't have surprised me.