Where'd you go?

It's been a few months since I've written on this blog!  In that time, I decided Jordan wasn't the best place for me to live and thrive, and moved home.  I came home on July 4, 2013.  It was a great day to arrive in the U.S., after a stressful and exhausting few months in Jordan.  I spent the next few days sleeping off jet lag, and trying to catch up with all the friends I've missed for so long.  I hit up a family reunion in Maryland, and a family beach trip in Virginia.  I took a few days to visit my best friend Becky in Richmond (along with her husband and sweet puppy dog).  I headed to Texas to celebrate my little brother's 'winging' ceremony for the US Air Force.  I spent two weeks basking in the northern California sunshine, and stuffing myself full of organic goodness and playing with my sister-in-law's adorable pug.

My goal during this respite was to go for long walks, do yoga every day, and write all the thoughts I've been having over the past few months.  You see, I decided to stop traveling quite so much.  I've been headed toward this decision for several months - somehow the schizophrenia of my life has caught up with me, and I've gotten tired.  Right after making those goals, I sprained my left ankle in an obstacle race - did you know a sprained ankle can take several months to heal?  Neither did I.

This past couple of months has been a season in which I'm learning humility - that my plans for health, for fitness, for a new job, for anything can change in a moment.  I'm not the one in control of my destiny, God is.  Rest and recuperation can look way different than I expected, and that is ok.  It's scary that this is not the best time to look for a job - the end of the fiscal year, Congress in recess during August, and a budget crisis in our government.  It's made me wonder how I add value to the world.  How do I contribute, if it's not through my job?  How do I serve, if it's not to people in a war zone overseas?  How do I take part in the world, without stealing from it?  While I'm not sure of the answers, I trust that my future is secure because God's handling it.

Yesterday, I felt so discouraged - like I had nothing to offer.  This morning, I did a headstand.  How do you moderate these feelings?  And what do you do with a blog about travel, when you're going to stop traveling?  Well, I'm figuring all these things out, and I'll let you know what I discover.  In the meantime, thanks for reading.

Petra and Rum and Aqaba

This past weekend was Memorial Day in the US, and our office was closed from Friday - Sunday.  My friend Alisha had planned a low-budget, adventure-filled weekend for her husband who was visiting, and they let me tag along.  We took a bus from Amman to Wadi Mousa, which is the town where Petra is located, spent the day in Petra, then the next day headed to Wadi Rum, camped in Bedouin tents, and finally spent an afternoon in Aqaba before taking the bus back to Amman.

Also known as the Rose City, Petra was discovered about 50 years ago by European hikers, and archeologists have since discovered the huge ruin of a city built by the Nabateans and conquered by the Romans.  You may recognize Petra more from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade than its historical context - I believe it's where he found the holy grail, and the chotchkis are everywhere.  Petra covers a huge area - you could hike your way through there for days and days, get lost, find your way, and get lost all over again.  After the three hour bus ride, we got to Petra along with all the other tourists in Jordan - so we had to fight our way through the crowds to get down to the Treasury, but by the time we got to the amphitheater, the crowds had dispersed a bit.  My favorite part of Petra is the set of houses that you see after the amphitheater - they are so beautiful carved into red stone.  After these houses, we hiked up all 950 steps to the Monastery in the heat of the day!  I do not recommend going during this time - we all got dehydrated, but it was worth it to sit under the shade at the top of the monastery and take a short nap. 

The next day we drove down to Wadi Rum, where we took a jeep tour of Lawrence of Arabia's desert.  Now if you're independently minded like I am, you might wonder why you need a jeep to go hiking.  Did you ever see Lawrence of Arabia?  That desert is huge!  Trying to walk from stop #1 to stop #2 would be a disaster, and we would have gotten extremely lost and dehydrated on our way.  Thankfully, Mohammed took pretty good care of us, and showed us a number of different sites, explained some of the history, fed us in the shade at lunchtime, and didn't even tease us for wimping out of a 3 hour hike at the hottest part of the day.  My favorite part of the weekend was sleeping in the Bedouin camp - Mohammed cooked us an amazing dinner (something involving a chicken smoked in a pit buried under sand), and we watched the stars blink while the full moon rose.  I also don't remember when I've slept so soundly - there is something about the sun, moon, and stars that brings tranquility.

The last day of our adventure was a letdown - suffice it to say that while the Red Sea is exquisitely beautiful (the color of a sparkling sapphire), the public beaches are not even somewhere I would go on spring break in high school.  We got a bottle of wine and burgers to celebrate Memorial Day, rode the 4.5 hour bus ride back to Amman, and were happy to be back 'home.'

 

...not all that glitters is gold.

That's the second line from the title quote of my blog, a favorite by Tolkien.  Traveling alone as a woman is really hard to do.  I try not to complain about it too much, but these things get to me after a while...  Here's a journal entry I wrote:

"Today I stopped by our office, to say hello and check on a few things for next week.  The team was asking me on different occasions about my plans and my next steps, and two of the guys told me I needed to stay here in South Sudan and get married.  I went through all the usual protests - I'm too young, I'm not ready, I require only one husband + one wife (no girlfriends or second wives), and on and on.  Here's what Elias told me:
"Are you older than 18?  I think you are old enough for marriage."
"In South Sudan, production [having kids] is a gift - we do not limit the gift to two or three."
"When you only have 2 children, people here view you as having no children at all."

I mentioned that I think having many wives would make a bit of trouble for the man, and Elias said, "Trouble is what makes us men."

Then I was talking to Chan, and he asked if I could please get married to a South Sudanese.  I asked him a bit more about why, and turns out he wants to be my negotiator.  I asked if he's been very happy in his marriage, and that's why he wanted me to experience the same - Chan told me he has no cows, but if he is my negotiator, then he would of course get a percentage of what I earn and then he can get married too."

Here in Jordan, I am very careful to dress modestly - no skirts above my knees, shoulders always covered, clothing mostly loose and formless.  Let me tell you, this does not make for good gym motivation!  But I still get stared at - leered at - like a hooker on Saturday night.  The men hiss at me, beep at me, yell things at me in English and Arabic, and it's not just me - my pregnant friend gets yells and stares too.  I find it most ironic on Fridays, which are supposed to be holy days here!  I'm not so naive to think that this is the only country where this happens, but it really makes it uncomfortable to be here.  Come on, Middle East, surely you can do better.

It's strange to think that women are seen as property in so many countries.  The whole idea that women are lesser, therefore they shouldn't mind being shoved aside in lines at the grocery store, or that foreign women are basically all loose women - it's so wrong.  This morning at breakfast, I had the maitre d' seat me at a booth with a high wall on one side so that I wouldn't be stared at by all the men at breakfast.  It mostly worked.

To fortify myself, I always think back to my Aunt Chris's story about some men speaking derrogatory comments about her in Venezuela, to which she turned around and punched one of them in the face.  This story gives me some strength, strength to hold my head high, ignore the comments, and clutch at the dignity I have left. Different people react differently to these sorts of situations - I am learning just how much of this I can take before I snap.

Welcome to the Holy Land

You know that moment when you get a call that tosses your world into a tailspin?  March 12, 2013 was that day for me.  It's 5:40 p.m. and I'm getting ready to go meet my mom for dinner at her new favorite spot, The Protein Bar, and my former boss calls me and asks what I'm doing for the next six months.  Hadn't really planned it out that far, why?  I need you to go to Jordan.  And here I am.  One week, 48 hours' clearance time to pack, 1.5 suitcases, and a 12 month supply of Dentyne later, I've been in Jordan for about 6 weeks.

Packing in a short period of time is no sweat for me - I basically know what I will need, but the idea of moving to the Middle East is a new one!  I've never been farther east than Zanzibar, and now here I am in the land where Jesus was born and baptized.  The first thing I needed to know was how people dress here - which I can now tell you is cool, fashionable, and covered.  Nobody is wearing tank tops or shorts, not even skirts above the knee.  Second question - what sort of weather are we talking about?  Well, the first few weeks were rainy and cold (meaning 50 degrees and a rainstorm every couple of days), but I think we have successfully moved into warm weather now - about 80 every day, and sunny!

Jordan is beautiful and peaceful and safe and calm.  It's the one neutral spot in the middle of the Arab Spring.  There may be protests on Friday afternoons, but they are not about to overthrow any government.  People are welcoming and warm, the food is incredible (imagine fresh hommous every day for lunch), and there is a lot to see!  Everywhere you look is an ancient Roman ruin or a piece of old Byzantine architecture.  Did you know that the Mongols got all the way to Jordan?  It's true.  In the past few weeks, I've gotten out to see the amphitheater in Amman, the Dead Sea, Petra, Jerash, and Ajloun.  There is so much to do here - I feel like each weekend needs to include some new adventure.  And yes, I know just being overseas should be enough adventure - but of course it never is!

This is the Dead Sea - definitely, do NOT drink the water.

Here's Petra, the beautiful rose colored Roman city, cut out of rocks.  And featured in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. 

 And here is Jerash, another roman ruin - this is Hadrian's arch. Hadrian marked the corners of his empire by an arch and a wall (in Scotland).

Just a mosaic hanging out on the ground - for everyone to see, probably hundreds of years old.

I loved Ajloun - an ancient byzantine and Arab fortress at the top of a jebel in the heart of northern Jordan.  It's like every castle you ever wanted to explore as a little kid - complete with a moat, catapolt boulders, slits for flaming arrow shots, and spaces for boiling oil to be poured over evil intruders. 

And the beautifuly countryside in Jordan - can you see the olive groves that are giving me such bad allergies right now?

the misadventures of Jonglei

My job sent me into the wilds of South Sudan to do research on education - I can honestly say this was the most wild and fun African bush trip I've ever taken.  We hired a Jonglei expert who turned out to be also just a great person to travel with.  Who would have guessed that a simple 5-day jaunt to ask questions about education needs in remote communities would have turned into such a trip?  Welcome to South Sudan.

Andy (our consultant) helped figure out the travel route - we were headed to Waat, then to Duk Padiet, and onward to Bor - with a few stops along the way.  It's funny to see how people pack differently for this kind of trip - Andy brought coffee and peanut butter, Pete brought whiskey and books, and Mike brought dried mangos and an iPod.  I was probably the least prepared, meaning I had granola bars, toilet paper, a headlamp, and a pocket knife.  At least we all had books to read by the dim headlamp lights.  It's funny the things that field people are impressed with - Andy was eager to compare all of our field pants - whose breathed the best, repelled water, and kept out the sun.  Mike was very concerned with the hat situation - he had an Indian Jones hat, while the rest of us went a more traditional route.  (I like the scarf & sunglasses, Pete went with a baseball cap, Andy had a light hiker hat from Patagonia)

It was the very beginning of the dry season when we were there (February), so the roads which are normally rivers in the rainy season were just drying out.  The first hurdle was our car not arriving to pick us from the airport, but thankfully our host organization loaned us a vehicle.  Our car showed up 2 days late, covered in mud from tire to roof, with the back windows busted out, mud tires bald, and extra fuel stolen out of the boot.  Oh, and the exhaust pipe was barely hanging on.  I would show you a picture, but I couldn't capture from one angle the sad story that was our car.

I love being in the field for the raw, simple life that you live there. Every meal is rice & beans, maybe add some chicken or goat, bucket showers to wash off all the dust and sweat of the day, sleep under the beautiful, beautiful stars, in bed by 10 every night, and awake with the roosters.  Of course it's easy to idealize it after you have left, but there is something beautiful about the simple life.  It's the reason when I come home from a long trip, I try to toss out the excess of my life.

Well, after a couple days in Waat, we were driving onward to Yuai - but we had to drive through a swamp to get to Padjiet and pick up the fuel that had been stolen and then recovered.  A bunch of kawajas can't just roll up to a town, though - first we got stopped by the SPLA, who wanted us to take them to town along with their giant kaleshakov, which is very much against the rules of basically everything.  We negotiated down to one commander riding with us, with his handgun.  Then we crossed through the swamp (which is where the driver had gotten stuck for 2 days earlier), and we had to go pay homage to the town commissioner.  We explained the needs, he allowed us to talk to the police and recover the fuel.  You wonder why things take longer, and you have to be more patient in Africa - these are the kinds of reasons.  Instead of a quick pickup, we strolled through town, had a couple meetings, and got on the road 2 hours later.

The next 6 hours we spent in the car headed to Yuai, even though we weren't entirely sure of the direction - the driver had never taken that route before, nor did he speak English.  Did I mention that he was about 16 years old?  yep.  Driving to Yuai was like being on a really mean roller coaster - there isn't really a road per se, more like a cow path, that sometimes is blocked - you guessed it - by cows or tiny villages.  After those six hours were finished - we had gotten so close we could see Yuai, but there was a swampy river in our path.  We decided to get out and wade through, so the vehicle would be lighter.  No sooner had we exited the car, then the driver drove it straight into a deep well, and it was stuck.  For the next 36 hours, our muddy, mud-tire-less, beat-up old SUV was stuck in that river.  For the next 36 hours, we sent more and more guys from Yuai town to try to dig it out, but nothing worked.  Finally, Andy and I were starting to wave down tiny bush planes - when we discovered the lovely organization of Tearfund (run by my friend James in Yuai), who loaned us mud plates and towed us out of the river.

That night, we continued our focus groups on education needs and had a goat roast.... fun tip:  travel with someone who is a local celebrity, and you won't have to dig into your canned corn and beans.  Finally, we got back on the road to Duk Padiet, which turned out to not have ANY space at the inn or any place whatsoever, so while the driver changed the flat tire, we decided to head onward to the next town, where Norwegian People's Aid housed us for the evening.  Pete scared up some beer, and that was our dinner.  The 'showers' were missing a roof, so it was like a luxury open air shower under the stars and full moon, haha.

The next day, we drove all the way back down to Bor - where we all got lukewarm showers and spent some quality time in the air conditioning.  It was great - we passed a few huge cattle camps, and saw the house where John Garang was born.  The next day we flew out, and of course I was amazed to consider Juba a luxurious capital city.

I'm sorry for the lack of pictures - imagine dry, arid land with lots of small brush and random rivers :)  I will try to dig some snaps up from my email archives and post.

Pura vida vacaciones

My former roomie Victoria has been bugging me to travel with her for years.  I'm kind of a bear to plan travel with, because I only want to go very specific places, and I'm hard to tack down for planning, and I don't like to make firm plans very far in advance - somewhere between yoga and Africa, I've learned everything will work out if I have a headlamp, a credit card, and a passport.

This past year, my bff and travel buddy got married to a wonderful man, and is settling down in our hometown.  With Becky all domesticated, I needed to travel with someone new - but it's really hard to break in a travel buddy on both sides.  Do you have similar sleep habits?  Want the same things from your vacation?  Get stressed out over little things?  Pack too much?  Have different hotel standards?  Anyone who has traveled will tell you this is not an easy person to find!  Because Victoria and I have lived together and are both somewhat laid back, we figured we'd give it a shot.  Victoria is a wedding photographer, a total foodie, and one of the friendliest people you'll ever meet.  She can strike up a conversation with a brick wall :)  And she's patient and determined enough to make sure we bought plane tickets and made some sort of hotel reservations.

We stayed the first night in San Jose with Victoria's friend's mom's house-sitters, who were the most delightful family!  Immediately when we walked in the door, they had fresh Costa Rican coffee for us, along with an afternoon snack.  Jeanette and Giovanni took us out for dinner at this amaaaaazing restaurant that served all the fried queso, nachos mixtos, and chilles rellenos we could possibly want.  My mouth is watering just thinking about it.  It was so fun to speak Spanish again - to remember that I can speak Spanish, and to try to translate for Victoria.  Early the next morning we hopped on a bus headed all the way west to a tiny surfer town called Santa Teresa.  I love taking buses around different countries, because you really get to see what the country looks like.

When we finally arrived in ST, we were pretty tired and hungry - so we headed directly to a local restaurant and had fresh fish tacos and batidos (milkshakes!).  Then of course I wanted to get to the beach as fast as humanly possible - I may have even skipped there.  The beach in ST is almost indescribable.  It's warm sand, crystal blue water, and open skies.  Rocky outcroppings surround either side of our beach and separate us from the other towns.  We were there a little before high season, so there were always a few people about - but never too many.  I loved watching the surfers catch waves, fall, try again, and there are always lots of town dogs running around the beach.  People are relaxedly friendly - it's pura vida, man.

Adventures were waiting for us, and we didn't disappoint!  The first evening, I made a friend nameed Melanie who let me tag along with her to sunset yoga class in a raised open-air pavilion.  Victoria lined up surf instructors for the next day, and made several new friends at the bar while she was waiting for me.  The next day's highlight's were banana pancakes served by the chef named Nacho (you can't make these things up) and our hilarious awkwardness on surfboards.  Our instructors were Marcello and Leo, and their surfer abs made it a little hard to concentrate on technique, but at some point I think we both got up onto the waves.  That night we found an incredible Argentinian grill and feasted.

The next day, our new friend Jack took me to rent ATVs or 'quads' as we now call them very coolly, and we raced over to the next town called Montezuma.  The roads are dusty since it's dry season, so we wore makeshift masks of bandanas, helmets, and sunglasses.  Of all the cool, fun things to make your heart race, this one was at the top.  Once we got to Montezuma, we jumped in the ocean, grabbed some sort of fresh lunch (including batidos), and then hiked to the Montezuma waterfall.  At some point on the trip, Jack took us to the highest lookout point over the ocean, and we all yelled off a cliff, Garden State-style.

I think the next day we took the quads to a fishing village and Victoria bargained her way into buying giant red snappers and sea bass - which we were going to cook at the communal kitchen that night.  One of the guys working at the hostel, Martin, used to work as a professional chef - so he promised to help.  Then in the afternoon Victoria wandered the town taking pictures, while I laid on the beach reading.  Looking back at this post, I realize it's written day-by-day, which is consistent with the feeling of our vacation - we slept as long as we wished, decided each step one meal, one surfing lesson, one swim in the water at a time - the best way to have a vacation!

We had decided ahead of time to do both beach and mountains, and to build in enough time for travel in between. So we rode a bus up to the tiny touristy town of La Fortuna, which sits at the bottom of the (mostly dormant) volcano Arenal.  The drive took about 8 hours, but again - we got to see so much of Costa Rican countryside. We packed the next couple of days with activities - went ziplining, hiked the volcano base, swam in the hot springs, hiked to a waterfall, and got mud massages.

We also took a coffee tour for this organic, cooperative farm called Arenal Campesino.  Their mission is so interesting, 70 families living entirely off the land - including growing natural pesticides and medicines. They taught us how to make real tortillas ticas, and served us proper coffee in a pourover style - wow!  We had a really interesting conversation about the way tourism is taking over the country, and people are no longer doing the work that they grew up with - farming. Arenal Campesino is working to preserve this life, along with several strains of coffee that have become rare.  It was hard to think about the tourism industry taking over the whole country and creating a class system while we were there as tourists, but I hope it will help me think about responsible tourism for future trips.

We headed back to San Jose, had dinner with our friends Jeanette and Giovanni, and headed back to DC.  I officially love Costa Rica - that is unquestionable.  In the future, I would spend the whole time at the beach, just because beaches are my favorite places in the world - but the mountains are also beautiful and wild.  Photo credits in this blog post all go to Victoria (have I mentioned how fun it is to travel with a photographer? I recommend it!) - you may see the real versions on her blog at some point.

The thing I love about grown-up vacations is that you just do only what you want, and you skip anything that doesn't interest you.  This vacation was no different, and we had the most relaxing time - full of adventures, sleep, reading, sunshine, and more adventures.  Vic, where should we go next?

 

Back to Juba

 Can you look at a suitcase and know if it will hold all your life for the next 3 weeks?  I can.  I'm leaving for Juba on Saturday, and feeling so excited to get back 'home' as my friend Claire says.  Now Juba is not like Nairobi, where you can find many consumer goods on the shelves at Nakumatt - so I've offered to carry whatever my friends might possibly need, and here's the list of extras for my Juba family:
-teeth whitening toothpaste
-blue hair dye
-a french press
-Starbucks ground vanilla coffee
-CDs
-Reese's Pieces
-mini speaker
-laptop
-about 100 calendars

Juba goodies have pushed me over the top - I'm traveling with the larger of my two suitcases, just for 3 weeks!  Haha, but of course I'm so happy to do it - I know they'd do it for me.  At least I'm not trying to take a yoga mat like last time- I thought the customs people in Nairobi were going to laugh me off the plane.  (If you're picturing me bopping people as I swing around with the mat tucked into my side, you are right on)

How does it feel to come back to somewhere that was home for 5 months?  Scary.  Good scary and bad scary - I know Juba has changed since I've been gone, but my friends are still there, which is really all that matters.  I'm excited to see everyone - late nights of sweat and debate over weak Tusker beers, pizza night at Afex, Saturday mornings at the pool, days bathed in sunshine, nights doused in crickets and moonlight, Indian food galore, all my favorite taxi drivers, and my old phone number!  Will culture shock hit me again?  What about on the way back?  Nobody knows...  The adventure continues.