Spaces between

This is a rant I made about a week ago - jet lag was making me a little crazy. I intended to fix it up once back to normal, but a week on and I'm still feeling kinda nuts, so here it is : 

I got back to Amman at 3am this morning from a 2 week trip to Australia. 

Living between two cultures, or just two countries really, can be challenging. Think 'Almost French' (Aussie woman falls in love with Frenchman and moves to Paris to live with him, loves both countries, can't have it all...). Splitting your life like that is a choice you make, and the challenges can be easily identified before it gets too late to turn away. 

Lately I've been thinking, 'why invest so much of myself personally into another world....keep it simple, stay at home, it's a good place...'.

But 'home' has very quickly become an abstract place for me. I've lived in 17 houses in four countries with people from around the world. That's not to brag, in fact it's a bit sad in some respects. But that's just how it is, and it's getting a bit ridiculous. How far can you go, spreading yourself around the world, looking for yourself, and just losing yourself in times and places and cultures that you don't really get. I don't get Australia, and that's my home. So what do I want from Jordan?

Most Jordanians tell me I'm crazy to want to live in their country and lament that they will probably never have the chance to leave. Obviously that's another issue that complicates it even more - I can fanny around the world as I like, in and out of countries on the back of my innocent little Australian passport. The guilt could be worse of course, for example if the Australian dollar was worth anything (or if I had any Aussie dollars) and was able to live a glorious rich expat existence in a cute little poor country. But as it is, it's bad enough. I complain about getting abused for being Western (see whingy post below about being groped etc.) but at the same time, I hate the respect that often comes from my Westerness/Australianess/Whiteness (call it what you will...) as though my origin makes me worthy of some kind of deference (once again, not that big a problem, it would be a fleeting encounter with me that would leave any doubt as to my true worth on the respect scale...). Anyway, what I'm trying to say, is that there are sometimes things to feel guilty about, living around the world, as we crazy home rejectors do, but they are insignificant...I'm trying very ineloquently to get to the point: Why? 

Why is such a confusing question. It's like remembering childhoood moments: do I really remember the first ride on that pony, or am I remembering remembering it, perhaps with the help of photos....Likewise, when people ask me, why do you live in Jordan, the answer is lost between fact, fiction, time, ideals, lies (to myself, or to others that I may have started to believe), and basic confusion. 

Obviously, at it's roots, I'm living in Jordan because at some point I decided that learning Arabic was a good idea, or rather, that continuing to learn Arabic, and getting serious about it, was a good idea. 

I intended to stay three months in Jordan, then a further five months, and now as I enter my ninth month, I'm not sure how many more times I'll back out of my intended departure. At the moment, it stands as July, and after my visit to Australia, I'm becoming more convinced that I will actually follow through this time...

Going home made me realise how close I'm coming to losing my sense of being Australian. Already, living abroad, especially in a country so different to my own, does that in a way. Because in Jordan, I'm not Australian. I stopped being that a long time ago. I'm Western. I have one Australian friend here, and was recently told by some Americans that I 'look, speak and act like an American'. Growing up in Australia, I was convinced that we were the one English speaking country that didn't have an accent, that we had no particular food, customs, behaviours or attitudes that characterised us. But we do, and each time I go home, I am more aware of this. I think this means two things. First, that I am now better able to regard my own culture critically and objectivally, but second, that I am becoming less a part of my own culture. This is normal and not necessarily bad. But as they say, it's a slippery path...to somewhere. Not sure where, a really bad accent maybe...

Anyway. My first week was in Hobart, regrettably for the funeral  of my dear grandmother. I will acknowledge that the exceptional and unexpected circumstances surely affected me more than I expected or realised, but, I have never felt so alienated from my own country. A week in Hobart and I thought, 'what could I possibly want in coming back to in this country?'(obviously excluding my family and friends). I judged it, I critisised it, and I didn't see a place for me in it. I can't describe it, I just felt nothing pulling me there. 

A bank advertisement in the Abu Dhabi airport proclaims 'Home is where the heart is'. And I thought yes! of course it is, it's that simple! And then, hang on,where is my heart? 

The first time I went overseas was when I was 16, and I was living with a host family in isolated Finnish countryside. I was alone and all my ideas of self, strength, independence etc. were kind of crushed, and then drowned by my tears of self-pity. And I knew there was only one thing I was pining for. And it wasn't my friends (they pretty much sucked back in those days), and it wasn't my lifestyle, or the familiarity, or the trees, mountains, birds or smells. It was my Mum. Just. No one, and nothing else. Obviously I would have accepted other people or things in her place that would have calmed me substantially, but the point was, I was home sick, and home was my Mum. 

So that was simple for a while. Then of course I grew up a bit, and moved away from my Mum, and learned to live for myself and so forth. And then the concept of home became more complicated. Of course, always, everyone (most people) will feel some kind of strong migratory force towards their family, but there's clearly a point, at least for me, where that's no longer enough. 'I want more'. 

When people ask what it is that keeps me in Jordan, I'm not entirely sure. Because the same things I love are often the things that drive me to frustration on a bad mood day. I love the relaxed lifestyle, where anything's possible, and nothing's urgent. I love that people come first, and not just people in the sense of 'me' but actually collective people. And I'm not saying that Australians are anti-social, but we do put significantly less value on friends/family time, and often we just don't have time for other people. And in a way, I like that in Australia, people are more inclined to get on and do their own thing. But it's easy to get lost in that. It's also easy to get lost in living your life through the group. And I guess it's these kind of contradictions that keep me torn between here and there. I love both, and on one day, appreciate what irritates me the next. 

I guess life is a bit of a battle between yourself, and how you fit into the world. Maybe it shouldn't be, maybe it should be between yourself and god, or yourself and your higher self. I don't know. But my reality is clearly how I fit into the world. And the world very quickly becomes the society we live in. So getting out of their is a good way to find yourself. And I think going back there could be a good way to place yourself, now that you're found. I'm not sure, just a theory. I'm neither found, nor placed, so I can't really say. I hope it's going to be something like this. I hope that I'm not losing myself in times and places, which is equally possible. 

Being back in Australia for a few weeks reconnected me, and that feeling of alienation now feels surreal. Because Australia is so clearly my home, in that it is where I can sort of place myself. But for now, my heart is very much in Jordan. I'm not entirely sure why, or for how long, but it keeps things interesting for now. Maybe I'm distracting myself from finding myself in the place where I really belong. I don't know. Another of the important things to figure out. Anything's possible, and nothing's urgent. 

Rain

I always knew rain caused some problems in Amman. The drainage systems don't seem to be able to cope with more than about 10 minutes of rain and the roads and footpaths become rivers. Driving is pretty hectic as indents in the road become ponds that throw water all over the car, momentarily destroying visibility. Rain here is often accompanied by strong wind and thick fog and fortunately because it is rare and fairly hectic, the usually crazy Ammani drivers reduce their speed by about fifty percent and put their hazard lights on. It might seem like overkill, until you remember that people believe lanes are a suggestion for if there is a car behind you. It becomes more serious when the drivers can't see these cars around them....

Anyway the weather here the last few weeks has been up and down. Just the weekend before last, we hired a car and went for a bit of a roadtrip to the Dead Sea. The fog was so thick that at times I had no idea where I was, and I completely missed the turn for the Dead Sea. So we ended up on a back road that alternated between positive signs - directing us towards the Dead Sea - and strange nondescript signs advertising a detour. It was unclear what the detour was for....In the midst of our confusion in the fog and on unfamiliar roads, a huge down poor of hail started beating us. After the four to five summer months of 'not a cloud in the sky' it's startling to find yourself at the end of a road (we found the reason for the detour), completely disoriented in the blinding fog, with this crazy hail. 

A week and a half later, and little has changed. Fine days alternate with torrential rain and the shoes, laundry, streets and cats remain sopping wet. Expected, and thankfully this silly weather signals the end of winter, and the last hope for farmers before the deathly summer sun comes along for six months. 

What is not expected is that all the schools in Amman were shut yesterday. I originally thought they were being shut because snow was expected. But no, it's because of the rain! I laughed on the one occasion in Tasmania when my school was shut because of one centimetre of snow, but rain! I never heard of that (floods maybe, but there are no rivers here, and though the streets are pretty nasty, they're definitely not flooding.) 

So, there was I, marvelling at the silliness of shutting schools for rain, at the same time as wishing that my uni had too been shut for rain. Alas. Anyway, I asked my teacher about it, because it seemed too silly to be without reason. And it was. There was a very good reason, and it's not silly at all, but a reflection on how, even after all the time I've spent here, I still don't get it. 

Many school children have to walk long distances to get to school because they cannot afford transport. And those in that position may also have limited access to gum boots, raincoats and such luxuries. A classroom full of wet children is not such a good outcome. So I recognised my silliness and forgot about it. 

Until my housemate's dance rehearsal was cancelled because of the rain! Different situation. People simply not wanting to go out in the rain. 

And I kind of get that position now. I'm pretty happy sitting in my room with our petrol heater slowly burning away. Feet are dry and things are calm. I like this lifestyle, where if things are just not super practical or convenient (such as going outside and getting cold and wet), don't do it. I can live with that.