Three Week Days

Not a lot has happened since my last blog post, but for the sake of putting something up more regularly, here’s another one. So we had class Sunday, and afterwards we all planned to go to get our visas renewed, as we only had three days left to do so before incurring the 1.6JD/day fine. But things worked out in such away that I didn’t bother going with the rest of the group as I had a meeting with my language partner and then church in the evening. As for the rest of the group, they got the run-around, being told that the police stations computer(s?) was down. That is the clearest sign of a (former) third-world country: clouted bureaucracy. Because there are no good private jobs, eight people get to split what should be just one position in a government agency, and laws are passed so that processes involve seeing all eight of them, seven of whom will likely expect a kickback. So that evening I went to church, but there was a note on the door saying (in Arabic) that all of the priests in Amman had left for Madaba for the week (the city we were in the day before) and that there would be no mass that week. So we went to Americans’ other favorite Sunday gathering place, the mall, where we had a nice dinner and some ice cream.

The only thing that happened Monday worth mentioning is that we decided to try doing visas in pairs rather than as a large group, hoping the (lazy) police would be more willing to accommodate smaller numbers because there would appear to be less hassle involved. And fortunately they did, so I now have permission from the government to stay here for the remainder of the summer. I spent Monday evening studying for the mid-term exam,

Which proved quite easy. Not that I aced it, but it wasn’t hard either. I finished it in much less time than that which we were allotted, allowing me time to do some domestic chores, such as cleaning our bathroom, doing laundry, and getting a haircut. Then in the afternoon our Miami group had an appointment set up at the American Embassy. We didn’t get a tour of the embassy, as it is mostly offices and meeting rooms, but we were able to spend two hours talking with government agents in the fields of public relations, US aid, political science, and economics. The most interesting thing was that the US aid officer highlighted Jordan’s 1994 peace accord with Israel as the most significant date in US-Jordan relations, as it precipitated huge amounts of aid and military support from America. Today our country gives $500 million usd to Jordan annually, half in aid and half in military support. Being a smaller country, this puts Jordan near the top of the list of per capita aid received by our country. America has termed its mission in Iraq as one of spreading democracy in the Middle East, so Jordan being a monarchy may seem adverse to such goals, but the King is very interested in bringing Jordan’s economy into both modernity and stability, and this, combined with peace with Israel, has made Jordan a tight ally for our own nation.

Last, I checked ESPN before posting this, and just want to say wow is Josh Hamilton good. But Volquez has been fantastic as well, so we’ll just have to wait and see who can be great longer.