Monday, October 28, 2002

Lawrence Foley was assassinated outside of his home at 7:30 this morning. His wife works with Peace Corps as our psychologist. Peace Corps volunteers know only what the press regurgitates, but we should be informed of more by Tuesday afternoon. This assassination has followed a supposedly unrelated September 27 warning that Al Qaeda operatives are planning to kidnap Americans in Jordan (learned this summer through intercepted materials, which Peace Corps is not allowed to tell us anything more about). We are not on " standfast " orders (to stay in our homes or with a neighbor we trust), but we are asked to be alert, to stay aware of our surroundings, and to change our schedules daily if possible. I have had no personal threats.

Wednesday, October 30, 2002

People have been apologizing for the past two days. My neighbors are disappointed and saddened, most especially because of the negative effects that the assassination will have on Jordan — mainly on the tourist industry and Foley’s USAID projects. There is hardly any news coverage of his death or how Jordanian police are handling it. Body guards are protecting US diplomats and American Peace Corps staff 24 hours a day, and I now have to ask permission for volunteers from other areas to stay with me in Kerak for the upcoming weekend. My request is approved, and the Peace Corps arranges for local policemen to sit outside my house all night.

One of my friends left Jordan on Monday, after Foley was gunned down, and she called me from the Peace Corps office after overhearing our director talk of evacuation plans. In my mailbox, she leaves me a protection cord blessed by the Dalai Lama. Foley was close to Peace Corps staff, and most of them live near his house in the expatriate community of the capital, Amman. The risk is much higher for official Peace Corps staff than it is for the lonesome volunteers out in the middle of nowhere.

Thursday, November 14, 2002

Nothing more has been said about evacuation since Foley’s death, so we figure that things have finally calmed down. We all assume the killing was an insolated incident, and not something that warrants closing all programs and uprooting 35 volunteers.

Still, due to a combination of the added security for US personnel in Amman and the nearby unrest in Ma’an, Peace Corps is concerned about a gap in our local security forces. In Ma’an, located about an hour and a half south of me, military and police forces are searching for people who might be responsible for Foley’s murder. Peace Corps does not have volunteers in the town because for a long time it has been an Islamic militants’ stronghold. Roadblocks were set up around Ma’an, and all the local telephone lines were cut to prevent possible communication among members of the militant group. So far, five people have been killed in street riots there, including two of the local Kerak policemen sent to help. The Jordanian military has detained at least 50 suspects and uncovered rocket launchers, among other weapons. We are all fine and feel safe in our small communities, but I am beginning to understand why Peace Corps officials in Washington are concerned.

Since the September 27 kidnapping warning, I have had to call an on-duty Peace Corps officer on my security-assigned cell phone every time I leave my site overnight. It’s not the normal Peace Corps experience by any means. With Palestine’s struggle for land, Lebanon’s struggle for water, and UN sanctions in Iraq, things are already bad enough in this region. During every bus ride, I hear the news proclaim: " Bush, " " Amriikiia " (America), and " har’b " (war), and wonder whether or not I should shrink down in my seat.

Friday, November 22, 2002

The Jordanian military still has not found the people responsible for Foley’s assassination. Over the past few weeks, American fast-food-chain restaurants in Lebanon have been blown up. Two marines in Kuwait were shot and wounded yesterday. An American missionary in Southern Lebanon was shot in the head yesterday at her workplace. She had been there for a year and a half.

Peace Corps has decided to evacuate all volunteers, and I am packing my bags. Jihad, my neighbor upstairs, has offered to help. She consoles me and gives me her husband’s prayer beads to keep me safe. I am in a mad rush, making piles of things for Peace Corps, my neighbors, and my students. My site mate is on vacation, so I have to do the same thing at her house as well, packing bags in her absence and guessing what she would want to take or discard. At four in the morning, I hear the daylight call to prayer and breakfast before the daylong Ramadan fast begins. I have six more hours to pack and say good-bye to everyone.

Saturday, November 23, 2002

I am in a rented Mercedes with two fellow volunteers and everything we own. We can take only two bags each. Staring out the window, I can hardly believe what is happening. There is complete silence as we speed by the desert landscape. The only things that run through my head are the hasty way volunteers were forced to say good-bye to everyone we lived and worked with (we had 15 hours to pack up and say good-bye), every project we began and didn’t get to finish, and all the disabled students at my center who will never understand that I did not want to leave them.

My forehead resting on the window glass, I try to concentrate on the paper-thin moon following me out of Kerak and the mysterious black cloud resting next to it. A moving figure in blue holds a child’s hand; they’re looking toward bundles of Bedouin tents settled in a sea of sand. Scenery changes so quickly here, from the smallest concrete home on a hill of dust to rows of olive trees surrounding a grandiose mansion. Should I absorb everything I can, watching each object that passes by the car window, since it’s probably the last time I will ever see it? Or should I close my eyes, pretend this isn’t real, and try to focus on still being in Jordan?

Another call to prayer, the second of five every day, yanks me back into the unfortunate reality of my quickly fading time in Jordan. I stop at the petrol station to fill up the Mercedes, and, feeling sick, I run in to find the porcelain hole in the ground. The man in charge of the shop is kneeling down in prayer, so I slip back out and again try to come to terms with the shock of my departure. The saddest part of all this is leaving the people who need Peace Corps the most: the disabled population of Jordan. Seeing these centers firsthand, and knowing that the people served there are the luckiest 10 percent of all disabled Jordanians — it blows my mind. They don’t look lucky to me.

I’m driving now, and I take a wrong turn, heading us toward Saudi Arabia. Our journey is weirdly reminiscent of a post-high-school road trip, except that I am not coming back. I am going to the States, my home, but it’s a place from which I now feel somewhat separated. Neighbors don’t know each other, people don’t appreciate an unexpected visit, and you don’t wait for a welcoming cup of shai or thick and bitter Arabic coffee or a piece of freshly made cake. The blur continues as I am put on a plane, land in Paris, get on another plane, and reach America.

Monday, November 25, 2002

Right now I am watching the sunrise from a luxurious hotel room in Washington, DC, thinking about what time it is in Jordan — 1:45 p.m. I would be getting out of work right now. I would be washing paint brushes, scrubbing scabies germs off my body, heading home to cook and eat secretly during the Ramadan fasting hours, and get some time away from the shebab that surround me at work, on the bus, and at the souk (market). I have not had one night’s sleep since Friday, when I got the " pack your bags " call. That was three days ago. I am still waiting for this bad dream to end, placing me back in my house on top of the hill, across from 60 chickens that eat my leftovers. However, the sun is still rising, and I think I have already woken up.

Now what? seems like an appropriate question, but I am still working on the idea that I exist in Kerak, not Boston (where I went to school), or my home town of Houston. And now what? mostly pertains to the next minute and hour, not next month, next week, or even tomorrow. Suddenly I can drink from the tap again, afford to call my family (although now I have a new family in Jordan, and calling them racks up my telephone bill), and have the luxury of being in a place where everyone speaks my language. But I will not have the pleasure of seeing the buses and taxis decorated inside like a holiday party, with plastic plants, tassels, curtains, photographs, and hanging CDs. I will not work in a place where there is no doubt in my mind that the students need me. A vegetarian, I will not smile secretly and selfishly at the luck of being able to buy tofu at the shop by my house that caters to the Chinese sweatshop laborers down the street (tofu is otherwise available only at the Safeway in the capital of Amman, two and a half hours away). And I will not be thinking and dreaming in Arabic for very much longer. I have not yet decided if it is good to be " home, " but here I am.

Sunday, December 15, 2002

I have been back in the States for almost three weeks now, and have just received an e-mail from a friend in Jordan with the news that Jordanian officials have captured the men believed to be responsible for Foley’s murder. Apparently the Jordanian military and police have known about the two Al Qaeda members since December 3. I am trying to piece together the reasons why we were evacuated so suddenly, and wondering if this has more to do with it than a potential war. It’s possible that the US embassy, aware that the assassins’ capture was imminent, was concerned about problems arising because of the arrests.

The great sadness of this whole situation is that just because two cultures and religions simply cannot accept each other as equal but different, cannot live in the same huge world without interfering with one another, hundreds of people — neighbors, co-workers, students, volunteers, and friends — have been affected by this drastic measure to evacuate. Part of why Peace Corps was started in Jordan in 1996 was to show Americans and other Westerners that Jordan is a safe and modern Muslim country. It’s hard to accept that a handful of angry people in Jordan are making this statement untrue, because as volunteers with lives, jobs, and friends there, we definitely did feel safe. Just as much as we do here.

Jennifer L. Warren can be reached at jenn_lw2@yahoo.com