Arab Films

A little more than a month ago (well a week before Harry Potter 7 pt 2 came out) all Hollywood films were blocked in Jordan. I still don't know exactly why. Rumor has it that it's about taxes or something....? Don't worry the blockbuster hits are back (I hear), but it hasn't been all that bad because I've been going to the Jordan Royal Film Commission and The Al Hussein Cultural Center instead to watch free films and documentaries.

The Film Commission is downtown in Jabal Amman and they have a beautiful outdoor theater that overlooks the entire downtown area. It's the perfect place to be on a summer evening.

Below are a few of the films I've seen recently, most at the French Arab Film Festival back in June. I would recommend them to any movie buff, or if you are interested in Arab-French culture or language!

Disclaimer: One thing to keep in mind is that not all the films below are documentaries or based on true stories and events. So enjoy what you watch, but don't use these films to generalize about the MENA region, people, and culture.

Des hommes et des dieux (Of Gods and Men) by Xavier Beauvous

"Brotherhood. Religions. Faith. Martyrdom. Love. French monks are living, working and praying in a Catholic monastery in Algeria in the '90s (civil war). It starts off showing how the Islamic locals and the Christian priests coexist in harmony. The situation with the Algerian Muslim-terrorists became worse. They will have to decide whether to stay or go back to France. They are forced to question themselves and their mission very profoundly. Their sense of fraternity with the locals and amongst themselves is challenged." (IMDb)

(No) Laughing Matter by Vanessa Rousselot

"Convinced that humor knows no frontiers, a young filmmaker embarks on an unusual quest: to search for humor in the West Bank. At first she finds only disillusionment - "our whole situation is a joke" - but little by little she uncovers a vibrant culture of humor that defies conventional wisdom. From inane stories mocking the residents of Hebron - the classic butts of Palestinian jokes - to self-deprecating, political quips and bitter-sweet anecdotes about the absurdity of everyday life, her journey plunges her into a little known universe, one in which a glimmer of hope and humanity endure in the shadow of conflict..." (IMDb)

Incendies by Denis Villeneuve

"A mother's last wishes send twins Jeanne and Simon on a journey to Middle East in search of their tangled roots. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad's acclaimed play, Incendies tells the powerful and moving tale of two young adults' voyage to the core of deep-rooted hatred, never-ending wars and enduring love." (IMDb)

18 Days - The 1st Egyptian film about the Tahrir Square Revolution

Details:

A group of ten directors, twenty actors, six writers, eight directors of photography, eight sound engineers, five set designers, three costume designers, seven editors, three post-production companies, and about ten technicians have agreed to act fast and shoot, with no budget and on a voluntary basis, ten short films about the January 25 revolution in Egypt.

Ten stories they have experienced, heard or imagined. All the proceeds of this movie will be devoted to organizing convoys to provide political and civic education in the villages of Egypt.

Between 25 January and 11 February…18 Days.

The films are:

• Retention by Sherif Arafa, 14 minutes.
• God's Creation by Kamla Abou Zekry, 8 minutes.
• 19-19 by Marwan Hamed, 14 minutes.
• When the Flood Rises by Mohamed Ali, 9 minutes.
• Curfew by Sherif Bendary, 15 minutes
• Revolution Cookies by Khaled Marei, 13 minutes
• #Tahrir 2/2 by Mariam Abou Ouf, 13 minutes.
• Window by Ahmad Abdallah, 13 minutes.
• Interior/Exterior by Yousry Nasrallah, 11 minutes
• Ashraf Seberto by Ahmed Alaa, 12 minutes.

Egypt was the guest of honor at the Cannes International Film Festival 2011 and “18 Days” was screened during the festival.

AIESEC Jordan 5th Anniversary!

What an exciting time to be part of AIESEC Jordan! We just celebrated our 5th Anniversary last weekend, with a lovely Gala Dinner. In attendance were representatives from our national partners, our supervisory group (like our board of directors) and the local and national leaders of AIESEC Jordan.















Suzi (out-going LCP of Irbid), and my MC teammates - Daniel from Spain (MCVP Talent Management) and Abi from Indonesia (MCVP ER/Communication).


GENERATION 6.0 here we come!!

AIESEC Jordan National Conference: TACTIC

I arrived in Jordan on May 31st and TACTIC was June 9-11th in Jerash, a city just 40 miles north of the capital Amman. It was incredibly exciting to have a national conference right away because it gave me to perfect opportunity to reconnect with AIESEC Jordan and our members! The challenging part was that I was very involved in the overall success of the conference, being both a FACI team member and an in-coming MC (AIESEC national team) member, so upon arriving I knew we had a lot of work to do.














So then I spent my first week was spent catching up with old friends, re-adjusting to life here in Jordan, and planning session content for the conference. TACTIC is a planning conference, the time when AIESEC Jordan gets together as a nation to re-cap the achievements of the previous term, analyze the strengths and learn from our weaknesses in order to plan a more successful year to come. On top of that we provided training session for new and old members.

















Overall, TACTIC was the perfect way to re-start my AIESEC experience and get pumped up for the upcoming year! I got to reconnect with old friends, bond with new members, and do a hell of a lot of AIESEC dances. Of course we had our moments of doubt and panic, but we made it through the conference as a team and most importantly set the tone and direction for AIESEC Jordan in 2011-2012.

Guess what....I'M BACK!!!

Hello Everyone! Marhaba!

After 10 months of consistent blogging while in Jordan and making a promise to myself that I would continue my blog once back in the states...I obviously dropped the ball! So after a one-year hiatus I'm back! So here's a short recap for ya'll.

After 10 months in Jordan, I returned to Chicago in Jul 2010.














(At 'The Bean' in Millennium Park, Chicago)

After spending some quality time with my family, I moved back to Madison to finishs up my degrees in Anthropology and Political Science. It was a busy year. Working at Husnu's as much as possible, staying involved with my AIESEC LC doing TM and coaching, studying, falling in love and of course having fun!













(I admit, I'm a cheese head! Posing in front of a huge block of cheese...on Wisconsin!)

After starting college in 2006, in mid-May I got that long awaited piece of paper...aka my diploma! Now I can proudly say that I am a member of the University of Wisconsin-Madison class of 2011! Woot!












(Doing our "AIESEC-Madison" pose in front of the capital building, Madison, Wisconsin)

It's been a crazy 2 weeks in between graduation and my departure for Jordan. Move out of Madison. Move into parents house in OP. Host a graduation party! Travel to Puerto Rico! Pack for Jordan! So much happened in those 2 weeks that it's hard for me to comprehend, but all in all it was the perfect way to say goodbye.

And here we are now. I just arrived in the Jordan late last night! After almost a day of travel, I landed safely in Amman and was greeted by my friends at the airport. Then we went to downtown Amman for dinner at my favorite place for hummus and falafel, so zakee! After dinner all I could think about was crashing in my comfy twin bed, but instead I spent a few hours unpacking, setting up my new apartment, and chatting with my roommates.

It's odd because on the one hand Jordan is already so familiar to me. I know my way around and there are tons of AIESEC friends still here. It odd how long and at the same time short this last year has been...it's almost like I never left. But on the other hand, I have a completely new set of responsibilities as an MC member and I'm living in Amman, which I know will be completely different than my days in Irbid. And of course as with AIESEC there are ALWAYS new members and interns to meet.

We have TACTIC, our national conference coming up just next week! So I've got sessions to prepare, meetings to attend, and on top of that a boat load of transition...all at the same time trying to get re-acclimated.

All I can say is that I am anxious and excited for the coming weeks!

Ridiculous happenings in Jordan; take 3.

1. Animal crossing near Wadi Rum. Actually happens pretty frequently these days, but I still think it's new and exciting whenever I see it, haha.
























2. One of my students, Belal, has a f-ing TV monitor and sound system in his car...he doesn't even have a job! Ha, the things people will do to have a PIMP ride.

















3. Drum roll please.......Let's all give a round of applause for Jordan's newest invention, a car seat. Just place your baby safely in the rear view dash! No seat belt or even a seat needed for that matter, simply pray for the best. Lets all hope this car driver did not slam on his brakes, speed around curves, or get in a car accident like most of the other drivers in this country.

This is dangerous parenting at its finest.

My Arabic Experience.

While in Jordan I have had the fortunate pleasure to study a lot of Arabic. For the 1st month I spent my time bugging my roommate Rouchen and my students to teach me simple words and phrases for everyday life; greetings, how to talk about myself, shopping for groceries and the like, transportation, etc.

Of course, it was an advantage having studied Arabic at my university before I came and refreshing my knowledge with Rosetta Stone, but since it had been over a year since I had actually been in the classroom, and I was struggling at first.

It was nice that I could read and write (although it took forever, ha). But all my previous teachings were in Fus'ha (الفصحى) or Classical Arabic. Generally, all Arabic speaking people can understand the language, but they would usually not be able to speak back to me in the same tongue, since each country has it's own spoken language, which tends to vary drastically in vocabulary, pronunciation, and accent.

So meeting Michael was a blessing from Allah. As part of his fellowship, he was given money which could only be used towards language studies. Thus, he had been searching all over Irbid for a suitable place to study and an equally suitable class-mate. Alhumduleh, I fit the bill.

So we started at the beginning of November studying at the Leader's Cultural Center in Irbid. Our main objective for the first months were to learn the local spoken language, known as 3meya (A'ameya) or Colloquial Jordanian Arabic.


















(Pictured above: Me beside my teacher Rawan, along with some of the women that worked at the language center).

We were in class every day of the work week for 1 hour, which really helped me improve quickly. We mainly focused on verbal communication, building vocabulary, verb conjugation, and building sentences. We focused on topics that were fitting for our situation. Such as; grocery shopping, colors, clothing, numbers, eating out, traveling, how to talk about ourselves and our families, and our work.

Our teacher however, was a young woman named Rawan and although a native Arabic speaker and fluent English speaker she was experienced in teaching Arabic speakers English, not vice versas. It quickly became evident that teaching Arabic was not her strong suit. Not to mention she was on the verge of getting married, which made her lessons and our learning enviornment quite disorganized.
















(Pictured above: Rawan and her husband Mohammed, members of the British Council in Amman, and Michael and I. This was at an English teacher training day run by Michael and the British Council at the Irbid Chamber of Commerce, where Michael works).

All in all it was a fun and entertaining course. I learned a lot of colloquial Arabic in a short amount of time. We were able to share traditions and culture from America, while she shared Jordanian customs, an exchange which I truly value.



















(Pictured above; Michael, Lyida, and I with our Arabic teacher Hanan and her youngest daughter Dana.)

After taking a study break over the winter holidays and then some, ha Michael, Lydia (my co-worker) and I began to study Fus'ha (Classical Arabic). It was a nice change of pace. First of all, our lesson we not in a classroom per say, but in our teacher's dining room. And instead of studying daily, we were doing two times a week for 2 1/2 hours each class period.

Our two months of classes focused on the same topics as we studied in colloquial Jordanian Arabic, but this time in the written and spoken Classical Arabic. It was great to review my reading and writing skills. My handwriting is much better now and I can read a lot quicker, although still not always fast enough to read road signs before they pass me by.


















Studying at her house came with some other lovely perks. We were served snacks and tea every lesson. And she kindly has us over for meals with her family as well. Hanan was also much more experience and focused in her way of teaching.























(Above is a picture showing the fruits of our labor).

We even got to do a cooking lesson, where we learned (in Arabic) how to make some down-home
Jordanian dishes! We cooked mjedra (a rice and lentil dish), 3layet bendora (a tomato based dip), mtebal (similar to baba ganoush), and salata (salad).

The food was so delicious! And now I know how to cook it all, which I will be doing on a regular basis back in the USA.



















The food and lessons were wonderful, but the best part was being around a family again. I really do miss my family a lot, so it was so nice to interact with one. And be in a cozy environment, even it was just two times a week. I loved being around her children, especially the little girls. Reminded me of babysitting all my neighbors kids in Oak Park.

We finished our Arabic studies for good in the mid-May, so we could have more free time to travel and see people before we leave. As Michael will be returning in about two weeks and myself in the 1st week of July.

Overall, I so please with how much Arabic I have learned. Most of my skills still lie in spoken Jordanian Arabic, but I am confident that if and when I return to the region, I will be able to pick up other dialects easily. My biggest success is my vocabulary and my listening comprehension. I have my students to thank mostly for that. Because I frequently hangout with them and our conversations tend to be nus-nus or half Arabic and half English (outside of the classroom of course).


















(Pictured above; Michael, myself, Dana, Hanan and Lyida, beside their family pool in their backyard which looks over the beautiful countryside).

Language has been such a huge challenge, learning experience, and one of my favorite overall experiences about living abroad. I am going to miss it immensely. Not ready for reverse culture shock yet.

King Abdullah Sighting.

His Majesty King Abdullah II was in Irbid last week to speak to over 700 community leaders of the city, in an effort to urge them to vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections.





Being King and all, the streets were being patrolled by countless armed men for, including city police, traffic police, and various branches of the military. Basically there were 200+ military and police officers, plus who knows how many Mukhabarat (General Intelligence Directorate...secret police) in Irbid to guard his red carpet. Oh and 2 army helicopters.

Local news articles; King meets Irbid dignitaries and tribal elders --
http://www.petra.gov.jo/Artical.aspx?Lng=1&Section=8&Artical=195624































































So exciting to see King Abdullah II and a big fat 'check' on my 'to do list' for Jordan!