tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42692760281820172612024-03-07T22:56:34.353-08:00In the Valley of Edenkylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10768073424395718839noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4269276028182017261.post-63780871365144036662011-06-04T13:35:00.000-07:002011-06-04T13:35:02.115-07:00Taxi to the East Side<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is my first blog, and I am writing from the desk of my apartment in Amman, Jordan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Likewise, this is the first time I have traveled to Jordan and for that matter the Middle East.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the next month I will be studying at a language school across the street from the University of Jordan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On June 30 when I depart, I will fly to Beirut, Lebanon and will live among Palestinian refugees in the Shatila camp on the west side of town for another month.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In addition to my own studies, I will be teaching English to youth living in the camp.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The flight from O’Hare to Amman was a twelve hour flight aboard a Royal Jordanian airliner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite the fact that I had a window seat, I oddly enough had two people sitting next to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two men, Ahmed and Sayeed (which means ‘happy’ in English), were taking turns in three-hour shifts between first class and coach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were police officers from Amman who had been in the U.S. for the last month training with police departments in New York City, Chicago and Detroit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They spoke less English than I Arabic, but we still managed to discuss the basics: where we were from, the nature of our visits, and their occupations versus my areas of study.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Once I arrived, exchanged some cash for Jordanian currency and obtained my Visa, I went through customs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The customs agents were baffled by my box of some fifty plus pairs of those wonderful, cheap, colorful sunglasses that look like Raybans, and the bag of nearly thirty miniature, battery-operated fans that hang around your neck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did my best to explain to them that they were for my students once I reached Beirut, and once I showed them how the fans work they let me go. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The school sent a driver to pick me up, and he had no trouble picking me out of the crowd before I even saw him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His name was also Ahmed, and we had a lively discussion in butchered English and Arabic on the twenty minute drive from the airport to downtown Amman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He laughed for a good half minute when we passed his house and I said I thought it was where King Abdullah and Queen Alia lived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He took me to a shawarma stand downtown, and when we reached the apartment building gave me his business card so that I could call him if I needed a taxi ride anywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The apartment is quaint, furnished with a small desk, a love seat, coffee table, kitchenette, and a four-by-four bathroom that has no barriers between the toilet, sink and shower.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is located on the fifth and top floor of the building and I have a nice view of the surrounding area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is also a ladder outside a door in the hallway that leads to a terraced roof, where I can climb to the top roof and set.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From there I watched the sun set over the surrounding rooftops in the cool dry air.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a truly melancholy moment <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>after nearly twenty straight hours of travel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Despite being a world apart from my family, friends and home, and the language barrier the divides me from the people I will call my neighbors for the next few months, right now I find myself perfectly at ease here in Amman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As one of my old camp counselors used to say when we were out on trail and things got rough, “you can’t harsh my mellow.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Eden is geographically attributed to an area near the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, which is Iraq, though it is also purportedly in the area of greater Syria, which includes Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and traditional Palestine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Book of Genesis, God charged Adam with tending the Garden of Eden, where there lay two trees; the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the story goes, Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, and then God banished them from the Garden forever and hid the Tree of Life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Book of Ezekiel, he claimed that the Trees in the Garden came from what is today Lebanon. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Today, I am not only in the part of the world where this fabled utopia once existed, but I also am on a philosophical journey seeking both knowledge, and in many ways my own path in life. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is for these reasons that I title my blog “In the Valley of Eden.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope that you all will enjoy my writing and that I can share some of my knowledge and experiences with you.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Best,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">kyle </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div></div>kylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10768073424395718839noreply@blogger.com0