Standing in front of a Canaanite-era mud brick gate that Abraham probably walked through, our class was listening with more or less focused attention to our professor: "...and you can see the etchings over the archway that were preserved by the--"
"I CAUGHT HIM!!!!! I CAUGHT HIM!!!!!!" Canaanites were no longer important as the instance focus of everyone's attention became Jeff Smith, running toward us with his most recent herpatological victory: a full-sized, terrified, beautiful chameleon. Jeff has been looking for a chameleon all summer, never found one in Jordan, and now, finally, our second day in Israel, he had one in his hands.
He gradually calmed down (the chameleon, that is, not Jeff) as he realized we weren't out to hurt him, and everyone crowded in wanting to get their picture taken with the special guest star.
I'm not saying that 3200-year-old Canaanite ruins aren't important to college students; merely that some things are more important.
Monday, August 17, 2009
The Mormon University
Having played at the Church of the Anunciation in Nazareth last week, my fingers have been twitching for action on a pipe organ. Once we got to Jerusalem, the Church of the Redeemer in the center of the Old City seemed like a likely candidate.
The doorkeeper at the church told me to ask in the office. The lady in the office looked at me and asked, in her most unimpressable voice, "Are you a professional organist?"
"No, definitely not a professional. I'm just an amateur, one that loves the organ."
"What are your qualifications?"
Racking my brain for the best way to impress her, I said that I've played the organ for five years, and that I volunteer as an organist for my Church in the US. 11:00 tomorrow AM. I can't wait.
She continued staring me down, face unchanged, obviously not convinced that five years of volunteering at an unnamed church merited any opportunity to play the beautiful organ in a massive Lutheran church.
Then I remembered an important detail that I had almost forgotten: "I've played the organ at the Mormon University several times."
"Really? Under whose direction? Bob Galbraith? In that case, the church opens at 9:00 tomorrow morning. Come on over."
Those Mormons and the Mormon University on Mount Scopus are better-known than I thought.
The doorkeeper at the church told me to ask in the office. The lady in the office looked at me and asked, in her most unimpressable voice, "Are you a professional organist?"
"No, definitely not a professional. I'm just an amateur, one that loves the organ."
"What are your qualifications?"
Racking my brain for the best way to impress her, I said that I've played the organ for five years, and that I volunteer as an organist for my Church in the US. 11:00 tomorrow AM. I can't wait.
She continued staring me down, face unchanged, obviously not convinced that five years of volunteering at an unnamed church merited any opportunity to play the beautiful organ in a massive Lutheran church.
Then I remembered an important detail that I had almost forgotten: "I've played the organ at the Mormon University several times."
"Really? Under whose direction? Bob Galbraith? In that case, the church opens at 9:00 tomorrow morning. Come on over."
Those Mormons and the Mormon University on Mount Scopus are better-known than I thought.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Traffic School
Three twenty-somethings* stood on the side of the road, wanting to get to the taxi waiting on the other side, but afraid of 4 crowded lanes of speeding rush-hour traffic.
75-year-old Suleiman strolled confidently across the road and the twenty-somethings followed in his slipstream.
Gosh, I love this country.
*Of which I may or may not have been one
75-year-old Suleiman strolled confidently across the road and the twenty-somethings followed in his slipstream.
Gosh, I love this country.
*Of which I may or may not have been one
Monday, July 20, 2009
Alive, Well and Sunburned
I just realized that it's been a long time since I wrote anything. I promise that I'm alive and well, even if I have dropped off the face of the earth.
Saturday, our branch went to the Cave of Christ, a cave in northwest Jordan, right on the border with Israel, on the hills above the Sea of Galilee, where Jordanian tradition holds that the Savior would retreat to teach his disciples away from the multitudes.
We went to clean the cave up. The Middle East doesn't generally share the same aversion to litter that we hold dear in America. Sometimes when I get up to walk to a garbage can to throw my garbage away, my friends will look at me strangely, take my garbage from me offering to take care of it for me, and then throw it over their shoulder. So you can imagine that a tourist site, even a slightly out-of-the-way one, would have a good build-up of garbage over a period of a few months. We spent time cleaning up garbage from in and around the cave, then ate lunch in front of the cave, overlooking the Sea of Galilee.
It's a beautiful area, and it was beautiful to imagine what might have happened there. It was less beautiful to think about the reality--the contention that continues over who's going to end up with these lands--but sitting there in the bright sun, with a gentle breeze, looking out over a beautiful lake in a lush valley, it was hard to remember that we were looking at some of the most violently contested land in the world.
And I got a sunburn.
Saturday, our branch went to the Cave of Christ, a cave in northwest Jordan, right on the border with Israel, on the hills above the Sea of Galilee, where Jordanian tradition holds that the Savior would retreat to teach his disciples away from the multitudes.
We went to clean the cave up. The Middle East doesn't generally share the same aversion to litter that we hold dear in America. Sometimes when I get up to walk to a garbage can to throw my garbage away, my friends will look at me strangely, take my garbage from me offering to take care of it for me, and then throw it over their shoulder. So you can imagine that a tourist site, even a slightly out-of-the-way one, would have a good build-up of garbage over a period of a few months. We spent time cleaning up garbage from in and around the cave, then ate lunch in front of the cave, overlooking the Sea of Galilee.
It's a beautiful area, and it was beautiful to imagine what might have happened there. It was less beautiful to think about the reality--the contention that continues over who's going to end up with these lands--but sitting there in the bright sun, with a gentle breeze, looking out over a beautiful lake in a lush valley, it was hard to remember that we were looking at some of the most violently contested land in the world.
And I got a sunburn.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Simple Gifts
Disclaimer: In writing, I frequently aspire to express the profound. You'll be relieved to hear that this post is different. I promise that this post is completely free from any taint of profundity.
Since the University came back into session last week, it's been harder for us to get time on the University soccer field. We've innovated.
Underneath our 6-story apartment building, there's a garage/workshop where the building manager stores stuff, and where all the air conditioning equipment lives. Most recently, it's become a soccer field.
It's not the most conventional soccer field I've ever played on. The open space is only the size of an extra-wide volleyball court. There are two large concrete pillars breaking up the space, and each of the pillars has four air-conditioning units attached to it. The ceiling is low enough that I can touch the ceiling almost flat-footed. Hanging from the ceiling are the sewer pipes coming down from 20 apartments. I can touch those flat-footed. There's a stairway taking up one corner of the open space, and a pile of old couches and desks stacked up in the opposite corner.
The goal is a foot-long section of 4-inch PVC pipe next to the wall, standing on end. Rules are pretty much non-existent.
The seven of us played for an hour yesterday. An hour later, another eight students were down there playing, this time with the building manager joining in.
The American soccer team may have made it to the Confederations' Cup Finals last week, but I can promise that our version of soccer is a lot more fun.
Since the University came back into session last week, it's been harder for us to get time on the University soccer field. We've innovated.
Underneath our 6-story apartment building, there's a garage/workshop where the building manager stores stuff, and where all the air conditioning equipment lives. Most recently, it's become a soccer field.
It's not the most conventional soccer field I've ever played on. The open space is only the size of an extra-wide volleyball court. There are two large concrete pillars breaking up the space, and each of the pillars has four air-conditioning units attached to it. The ceiling is low enough that I can touch the ceiling almost flat-footed. Hanging from the ceiling are the sewer pipes coming down from 20 apartments. I can touch those flat-footed. There's a stairway taking up one corner of the open space, and a pile of old couches and desks stacked up in the opposite corner.
The goal is a foot-long section of 4-inch PVC pipe next to the wall, standing on end. Rules are pretty much non-existent.
The seven of us played for an hour yesterday. An hour later, another eight students were down there playing, this time with the building manager joining in.
The American soccer team may have made it to the Confederations' Cup Finals last week, but I can promise that our version of soccer is a lot more fun.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
4-Cycle Engines
Me: "What do you call the thing that goes between the engine and the axle?"
Salah the Taxi Driver: "That's called the drive shaft, and it goes from the transmission (which takes the motion from the engine and converts it into the different gears that you choose using the gear shift) to the differential, where the spinning motion parallel to the motion of the car is turned into motion perpendicular to the direction of the car, thus making the wheels turn and the car move forward. The motion in the engine is produced by the pistons moving in their cycle: intake, compression, power and exhaust. The speed of the engine is determined by the amount that you push on the gas pedal, and, of course, if you hit the brake, you stop the car. The clutch is used to help you in shifting gears; it works when you push the clutch and the linking mechanisms compress the flywheel, thus disengaging the drive shaft from the input shaft, allowing you to shift gears, and then when you release the clutch, the flywheel comes back into contact with itself and the car is in the new gear that you've put it in, and all the forward energy..."
I didn't understand all of this by virtue of his extremely spirited, extremely fast Arabic explanation. I followed his explanation by virtue of the fact that my Dad knows cars inside and out, and taught me how they work.
But because I was able to follow what he was saying, I learned a lot of good words. Crankshaft, piston, and perpendicular come to mind.
I've repeated this experiment with other taxi drivers, and I've discovered that they're more likely to get excited about an American learning Arabic car parts than an American talking about politics.
So if you're ever in the market for conversation with your Arabic-speaking cab driver, and normal topics of conversation just don't seem to be cutting it, try for the drive train. It might work.
Salah the Taxi Driver: "That's called the drive shaft, and it goes from the transmission (which takes the motion from the engine and converts it into the different gears that you choose using the gear shift) to the differential, where the spinning motion parallel to the motion of the car is turned into motion perpendicular to the direction of the car, thus making the wheels turn and the car move forward. The motion in the engine is produced by the pistons moving in their cycle: intake, compression, power and exhaust. The speed of the engine is determined by the amount that you push on the gas pedal, and, of course, if you hit the brake, you stop the car. The clutch is used to help you in shifting gears; it works when you push the clutch and the linking mechanisms compress the flywheel, thus disengaging the drive shaft from the input shaft, allowing you to shift gears, and then when you release the clutch, the flywheel comes back into contact with itself and the car is in the new gear that you've put it in, and all the forward energy..."
I didn't understand all of this by virtue of his extremely spirited, extremely fast Arabic explanation. I followed his explanation by virtue of the fact that my Dad knows cars inside and out, and taught me how they work.
But because I was able to follow what he was saying, I learned a lot of good words. Crankshaft, piston, and perpendicular come to mind.
I've repeated this experiment with other taxi drivers, and I've discovered that they're more likely to get excited about an American learning Arabic car parts than an American talking about politics.
So if you're ever in the market for conversation with your Arabic-speaking cab driver, and normal topics of conversation just don't seem to be cutting it, try for the drive train. It might work.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Josephus=Cool
Josephus was a Roman/Jewish historian who historied (I know that isn't a real verb) in the first century AD. He's a household name in Ancient Near Eastern Studies, and all of my ANES friends joke about their geeky relationship with him. You hear about him often enough, and he becomes...well, a friend.
Yesterday, 8 of us went to visit some caves west of Amman. They were pretty cool. We saw some bats, some ancient Hebrew inscriptions, some goat droppings, and even sang a bit of Mozart in one of the more resonant caves.
Just down the hill from these caves, there's a 2nd-century BC palace that's lying mostly in ruins. It had lots of scurrying reptiles and plenty of photo-ops, so we managed to keep ourselves busy for a while. One wall was even graced with a relief of a baboon. In ancient Egypt, the baboon symbolized eternal life. I have no idea what it meant in 2nd-century BC Transjordan.
But the best part of the day came last night while I was reading up on the castle, and found out that Josephus mentioned it in one of his histories. I concluded that if Josephus knew about this castle and thought it worth mentioning it, it had definitely been worth going to.
Some people might think that Josephus isn't the final authority to turn to on things regarding coolness. But they're wrong.
Yesterday, 8 of us went to visit some caves west of Amman. They were pretty cool. We saw some bats, some ancient Hebrew inscriptions, some goat droppings, and even sang a bit of Mozart in one of the more resonant caves.
Just down the hill from these caves, there's a 2nd-century BC palace that's lying mostly in ruins. It had lots of scurrying reptiles and plenty of photo-ops, so we managed to keep ourselves busy for a while. One wall was even graced with a relief of a baboon. In ancient Egypt, the baboon symbolized eternal life. I have no idea what it meant in 2nd-century BC Transjordan.
But the best part of the day came last night while I was reading up on the castle, and found out that Josephus mentioned it in one of his histories. I concluded that if Josephus knew about this castle and thought it worth mentioning it, it had definitely been worth going to.
Some people might think that Josephus isn't the final authority to turn to on things regarding coolness. But they're wrong.
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