Jordan
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Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan on Social Media #tg09 #leweb
December 14, 2009 by Renee Blodgett
Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah gave an amazingly inspirational talk….on social media and how powerful it can be to mobilize social issues and causes, on passion, on having a voice, on Twitter, on taking action because action is so easy for all of us now with the free and easy-to-use online tools we have at our fingertips.
LeWeb: Queen Rania Discusses Digital Darwinism and 1Goal Initiative For Global Education
December 10, 2009 by Beth Blecherman
In the age of digital media, it is inspiring to see women with a global presence utilizing different social media channels for communication and public good. On Day 2 of LeWeb conference, Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashermite Kingdom of Jordan spoke not only about “The human race living in a digital space” but of her global education initiatives.
Queen Rania is a role model for living in the digital space; she is active in the following social media outlets:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/queenrania
Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/QueenRania
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/QueenRania
Website: http://www.queenrania.jo/
On her website, Queen Rania lists her initiative areas including global education. The initiative she discussed during her talk is called 1Goal (http://www.join1goal.org/). Here are the goals from Queen Rania’s website:
“1GOAL is a new campaign to raise support for Education for All, and hold world leaders accountable to their promises. 1GOAL brings together the experience and expertise of the Global Campaign for Education with the passion and power of football through FIFA.”
Queen Rania asked everyone to take a second and
Hojabis: Mecca or Paris?!
September 15, 2009 by Stilettos In the Sand
‘What do you want?’ shouts a tall fair skinned woman with long blonde hair in Arabic. The young men hanging out of the beat up lada passing by slow and continue to taunt her; shouting a mixture of insults, compliments and propositions in Arabic.
‘Enough!’, she screams, her outstretched hand is finally answered as she shuts her mobile and waves for an empty taxi to pull between her and the shabab, an Arabic word for young men also interchangeable with hooligans.
‘Asalam wa laykum’, the peace be with you she mutters to the taxi driver could not be any less peaceful. Pulling her legs into the vehicle, she ensures her knee length skirt continues to cover as much as possible of the painted on jeans hiding underneath.
‘Wa alaykum salam, wain raihek?’ (and peace be with you, where are you headed?) he says, eying her exposed shins as he turns up the volume on his mobile Qur’an. As if playing it louder will protect him from the exposed white skin now touching his back seat.
‘Paris, I am going to Paris, but first the Airport’. A smirk crosses her face as she recalls something she heard the day before.
‘Inshallah’…
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Ramadan in Amman
September 6, 2009 by Stilettos In the Sand
The midpoint of Ramadan was marked last night by the emergence of a full moon. As full and swollen as the moon was, my stomach was not much different after being stuffed at yet another iftar celebration. Some 24 hours after my final bite of qatiyef Jordanian Ramadan’s version of pancakes, I wonder how long it will be before my hunger returns. With only coffee and water having passed my lips since the evening before, my food coma has more than run it’s course.
As an American Christian in the Arab world, I have fasted for a handful of days of the Holy Month thus far. Not intentionally, that I did for one month before I came to the Middle East for the first time in 2002, but those were short November days, not long, hot end of summer ones. This haphazard fasting is the result of racing out of the house in the morning without my prepared handbag minibar morsels to consume in secrecy between meetings. Only two days ago, after nearly seven hours of meetings, and only consuming my own saliva I found myself famished, and light headed. So, I went to a corner shop to buy a…
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Seat Belts and Disability
August 31, 2009 by Stilettos In the Sand
‘Inti helwa, bis inti zei akhtie’ urges the young man enthusiastically raising his right hand, his fingers simultaneously pressing back and forth in my direction. The other guests seated in the welcoming room of the dilapidated house in the Ghror, one of the poorest areas of Jordan, erupt in laughter. The distinction with which this young man specifies his brotherly love for me serves as a reference of respect, and more importantly reassurance he is not hitting on me. Literally translated, I have just been told, ‘you are beautiful, but only as a sister’. Not thirty seconds later, the young man, Samer, jumps to his feet, raises both hands in the air and begins to shout ‘bismillah, rahman, al rahim’, the first line of the Al Fatha prayer, and also the beginning of the Qur’an. Now repeating the same sentence incessantly, he shouts violently at least twenty times, as I watch in horror, and my translator and driver urge him to continue, reciting, ‘mashallah’ or ‘how beautiful God has made this’. When he finally ceases, he takes a bow and returns to the large colorful cushion covered with tribal fabric from which he leapt. ‘Do you know what I prayed?’…
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Head hunting in Mikawir
July 30, 2009 by Stilettos In the Sand
Nearly 2000 years ago, on a beautiful mountain, over looking the Dead Sea, John the Baptist became yet another casualty to then King Herod, an overzealous, maniacal tyrant who requested his head as a birthday present. Hardly surprising, given he had already become known for murdering members of his own family, including several wives as well as Rabbi’s. All in an attempt to thwart the spread of Christianity, to which King Herod eventually converted anyway.
Machaerus, a site unknown to even most Jordanians sits nearly 30km outside of Madaba. Nestled between Mt. Nebo; where Moses was shown the Promise Land and Wadi Mujib; one of the regions most fantastic canyon/river hikes. While most of the known tourist sites, such as Petra or Jerash or even the Baptism site of Jesus are over crowded with foreigners covered in camping clothes some sly salesman suggested were appropriate for the desert, Mukawir remains undiscovered and almost entirely desolate.
Hiking 15 minutes nearly straight up hill to be met head on with a series of columns and dilapidated walls, the remnants of the castle itself are hardly impressive. Yet, the views of the Dead Sea and the Jordan Valley are unprecedented. Having done this…
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Snippits from Jordan and “H2O+MF”
July 14, 2009 by April Rinne
June was full of wonderful changes: new professional chapters and travel adventures.
On the former front, I’ve begun my new role as Director of WaterCredit for Water.org. What is WaterCredit, you ask? It’s an innovative initiative that applies microfinance tools — small loans, group-based lending models, etc. — to the water and sanitation (watsan) sector. WaterCredit has been underway since 2003, though it’s now reaching an inflection point that demands greater outreach and strategic development; hence where I come in. Expect to see more about water + microfinance issues (“H2O+MF” as I like to call it) in future posts, along with more travelogues. The travel demands will be intense and fun — India, Bangladesh, east Africa, west Africa, Europe… I’m not complaining!
No sooner did I dive deep into WaterCredit for a few weeks, than it was time to hit the road for IDLO. Destination: Jordan, for the MENA regional microfinance course. Jerry and I packed up — still proud of the fact that the two of us can fit everything for 3 weeks into one bag together — and headed east. En route we stopped over in England, for the wedding of…
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