I went downtown today with my mother, to buy some books and other items. Threads and needles, brown paper bags, gift wrapping paper…
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| Downtown Amman |
Archive for the ‘Jordan’ Category
The Mosaic Class
In Jordan, Life on June 5, 2008 at 10:11 pmI went to Madaba today to enroll in a mosaic class at a workshop owned and run by a mosaic artist and instructor who also teaches at the Madaba Institute for Mosaic Art and Restoration (previously The School of Mosaics of Madaba).
It took me and my sister a bit of time to get to the exact location of the workshop, thanks to several natives who gave us wrong directions. Our instructor gave us a tour of the Institute, a modern workshop which awards diplomas to students who have finished high school, both in the production and restoration of mosaic art in the model of the Italian school.
We also went to Virgin Mary Church at the Madaba Archaeological Park, which was an enriching experience especially since it seems that I really like ancient churches and church ruins for some reason. They feel entirely holy to me — to be complemented by incense and a dark mood listening to Gregorian.
The Virgin Mary Church even had two subterranean chambers where the monks used to store food and other items. Very eerie, I loved it! Perfect with the above mentioned settings and mood.
Contemporary mosaic at the institute:
Virgin Mary Church mosaic:
More pics here:
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| Mosaic Class in Madaba |
Needless to say, I am very much looking forward to the start of this course. I’ve been wanting to learn this art for years. The downer is that I will have to cut my nails before classes start, and I found a better-looking lion than the one I plan to make.
Has Anyone Been Watching Nart TV?
In Jordan, Opinion on June 5, 2008 at 9:15 amNart TV (National Adiga Radio & Television) is such a great idea that I can’t believe a similar initiative was not born years ago. The TV station aims to reach Circassian viewers and to spread Circassian traditions, culinary arts, and language. This is important because as the official website of Nart TV says “the language is almost not spoken within the many Circassian communities today and virtually about to go extinct among our youth of Circassian descent. The disappearance of the language would not only be a loss of world’s linguistic heritage, it would also open the door to the gradual loss of Circassian culture around the world.”
The Circassian flag, used in Nart TV logo.
The word “nart” means chevalier or horseman and it’s the name of one of my cousins. My own parents (both of them, which I find very cute) always have the tv on Nart to watch either dancing, or traditional cooking, or even to learn the language. My mother, albeit Circassian, did not receive a solid linguistic instruction from her mother or father. Living in the heart of Amman at the time, right around the Roman Amphitheater, she was brought up to speak Arabic rather than Circassian. She understands it though, and can speak it if spoken to, but she never could make a serious effort to teach us her language.
This is heart warming really. I think what the young people at Nart TV are doing is a commendable effort, and a large part of it is actually volunteer work. Another one of my cousins is a volunteer there, and very much encouraged by his family, as I imagine all the other Adiga youth in Jordan are, to help the channel any way possible. I heard they had a bazaar the other day to support the channel. It’s all good.
They should also enlist the help of the talented Circassian “visual artists;” be they graphic designers, art producers, photographers, or others. The Circassian community in Jordan -at least- boasts of an impressive number of these talents and they would do well to help educate young generations about their culture. I also think on the long run they have to have solid partnerships with well-to-do Circassians and corporations, or to generate substantial funds through ads and other endeavors, in order to remain in business. Even if it’s not a for-profit project, it still needs money to function.
Honour Strikes Again
In Jordan, Wonder Woman on June 1, 2008 at 9:58 amJust the other day I was thinking of the role that women in leadership must play to help society move towards gender equality by cooperating with women’s civil society organizations. This duty is often clouded by “differences” between women in various leadership posts.
At the call of the The Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW), women ministers, deputies, mayors, and others met last week to discuss ways to cooperate to lobby for women’s causes in the country. This is a good step forward I think, but I withhold judgment until something tangible comes out of it — like suggestions to achieve equality for women in the various laws.
Take this an example of legal and social discrimination against women in Jordan:
20-year-old kills his sister in so-called honour crime
By Rana Husseini
AMMAN - The criminal prosecutor on Saturday charged a 20-year-old man with the premeditated murder of his younger married sister in the Jordan Valley for reasons related to family honour, official sources said.
The suspect reportedly confessed to stabbing his sibling to death at their family home a day after she was released from custody by the administrative governor, the source told The Jordan Times.
After the incident, the suspect waited for the police to come and arrest him and when they arrived at the scene, he claimed he killed his sibling, who was married at the age of 16 and had a one-year-old child, to cleanse his family’s honour, the source added.
His sister’s husband accused her of seeing other men and she went missing from his home a few days before the incident, according to the source.
“The authorities found the victim and she was detained for a while by the administrative governor, who handed her over to her family on Thursday after her father signed a JD5,000 guarantee that he would not harm his daughter,” the source said.
The victim went home with her father on Thursday and on Friday morning her brother murdered her, the source said, adding that the criminal prosecutor did not press charges against other family members, but ordered her brother detained.
The victim’s husband refused to press charges against the suspect, a source close to the investigation told The Jordan Times.
The victim became the seventh woman to be killed in a so-called honour crime in Jordan since the beginning of the year.
She is also the third woman to be killed for reasons related to family honour in May.
Every time something as atrocious as this happens in my country, I feel a piece of me has died. When I think about it, I feel that I am powerless except to shout from the bottom of an abyss. There has to be something you and I can do about it, I hate to think we are so insignificant in the face of organized and legalized murder. What can we do?
Mouse Running All Over Meat in Carrefour (?)
In Jordan on May 29, 2008 at 11:56 pmI got this video as a forward from several people. Apparently, a mouse was spotted in the meat display section at Carrefour in City Mall Amman. I can’t say this is the precise location of the video, but the people around do talk Jordanian. One man is telling the employee in the video “Oh no we WILL videotape this, because we are paying money in this place.”
Download the clip here:
MouseCarrefour
