No Going Back

September 20, 2015September 20, 2015 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Saying goodbye is never an easy thing to do. I’m certainly not particularly good at it. In fact, there are quite a few goodbyes I’d like the chance to go over again, given the opportunity. You know the kind: the ones where it was all too fleeting, or maybe you didn’t quite say everything you wanted to say, or maybe the real goodbye never came around and you were left with a last meeting that wasn’t really a send-off at all. Most likely you’ve encountered that oh-so-very British awkward goodbye at least once in your lifetime: the one where you say goodbye to somebody, only to bump into them a few minutes later. Don’t you find that situation crops up a lot? It certainly does in Durham, anyway…

For a chatty gossip like me (you’ll just have to imagine the deep sarcasm there), I don’t suppose there’s much point in an elaborate farewell. It’s only really an issue if you’re going to be out of contact for an extended period of time, like stepping off the plane into the abyss and severing all connections with the outside world. Which is essentially what I do every time I step off the train at Three Bridges. I have a phone, true, but I rarely use it. I think I sent a grand total of three texts over the last three months, and all three of them last Sunday. Radio silence on my part doesn’t necessarily mean I’m traveling – I’m probably a lot more talkative when I’m on the road – but it doesn’t mean I’m inactive, either. I simply enjoy going for long periods of radio silence. Anything that needs saying can surely be said best face-to-face, and anything that’s worth saying is always worth waiting for. That makes me quite a distant person, I guess – and not the easiest to track down. For somebody who spent almost all of two years on teenage texting tenterhooks, it’s a policy I’ve guarded jealously for some time now. So in that sense, setting off on another long adventure isn’t really all that different from any other end of term break, as far as contact is concerned.

I’m going off topic. I suppose I’d better come out with it. I’m heading off to Spain in two days’ time – less – to spend nine months working in a secondary school… and I’m not coming back in between.

The idea first came to me when I had a look at the Spanish school calendar for the coming year. That projected end of term date on the twenty-second of December shocked me at first, despite having been schooled in Spain at Christmastime before. It’s all about the reyes magos out there, and that’s not until January. I must have got it into my head early on, but it wasn’t until saying farewell (successfully, mind!) to Andrew at Gatwick Airport that it hit me: I want to be out there for the long haul. Taking a year abroad isn’t just about honing your language skills to fluency, it’s about growing up – and Lord knows I’ve still so much more of that to do. What better way than to strike out on your own for an entire year? Because that’s what it’s set to be, with my second Arabic stint in Morocco striking up almost as soon as I’m done in Extremadura at the end of May, meaning I won’t see the green hills of England again until August 2016, at the very earliest. That doesn’t trouble me as much as it should.

I’m going to miss autumn in England. No, I’m really, really, really going to miss it

The last few days have been wonderful for a last taste of England. I consider myself extremely lucky to live in one of the most charming spots in West Sussex, overlooking a dream-sequence of rolling hills as far as the eye can see, right up to the point when they tumble into the sea to the south. Autumn’s in the air, the forest is full of mushrooms and the buzzards that nest deep in the woods are cartwheeling noisily through the skies as usual. Morpurgo described them ‘mewing’ in one of his books and I can’t think of a better way of putting it. This is England, and I’m going to miss it. But there’s something in the air, telling me it’s time I should be moving on. Maybe that’s autumn. The signs are everywhere. The leaves on the oak trees are going a gorgeous golden colour. Out on the school rugby pitches the odd wheatear sits taking a breather, whilst flycatchers and warblers hurry on through the hedgerows snatching a quick meal on their way home. But most telling of all are the great flocks of swallows and the martins streaming on southwards overhead, and in a couple of days I’ll be following them. Maybe I’ll even see some of the same individuals swooping by from Villafranca. Who knows?

Ten points if you can see the buzzard in this one

The hardest thing for me to leave behind – besides the monstrous tapestry, which is never going to be finished anytime soon – will be the growing mountain of books in my bedroom.

A year and a half, five metres in and still slaving away

A year and a half and still slaving away…

It’s pretty daft, but for an aspiring writer, I’m late into the fold as regards actually reading. I got it into my head once that if I never read any books that contained ideas similar to my own, I couldn’t get done for plagiarism, because I’d never have noticed the similarity. How very typically overcomplicated of me. The end result is that I haven’t read a decent book – besides Pavilions – in nigh on ten years. At least, one that hasn’t been prescribed by my course. Now I’m motoring through them at lightning speed, assisted by all the iBooks freebies, an immense library at home (courtesy of my equally bookish mother) that I never truly appreciated, and an all-too brief visit to a real bookshop over the weekend.

So many books, so little time…

I say real to distinguish it from your average WHSmith or Waterstones. Seriously, this place had everything. All the historical fiction you could shake a stick at. The entire Hornblower saga. Flashman in abundance. Sharpe, Iggulden and even the master of the art herself, M.M. Kaye. All beautifully spined, deliciously musty and lovingly second-hand. A new gadget may be a good thing, but there’s nothing better than an old book. Mum found a particularly beautiful pair of illustrated Arabic dictionaries – formerly the property of a military attaché, as stamped. Oh, I could have died and gone to heaven. I was in kid-at-Christmas mode. If I’d had this newfound book obsession just two years earlier, I might have given languages the boot and applied for an English degree. The only thing holding me back at the time was a general reading apathy…

Today’s been the downer of the month for no other reason than that every so often I have a lonely spell where it takes a lot to lift me up. Fortunately I’m in the best place for it: start of term or not, the grounds of Worth Abbey are no less than the finest place I’ve ever encountered for soul-healing. Alright, so the stone-pine copse along the Raya Real with its attendant black kites just comes up trumps, but that’s not on my doorstep every morning. Not yet, anyway. Besides, when the loneliness birds come flying in, the open world is always there. Nature’s an unpredictable lady at the best of times, but she’s never let me down. I’ve said that before, and I’ll say it as often as it takes to drive this funk of mine away. Everything will look better in the light of a new morning. It always does.

Waldeinsamkeit – the feeling of being alone in the woods!

These are curious things to dwell on when home will be so very far away for the next eleven months. But home is where the heart is, and mine has been in Spain for as long as I can remember, and that’s got to count for something. Maybe she’s out there, and maybe she’s not. That’s not for me to decide. If fate decides to cut me a break and give me a good turn, I’m ready to run with it. But one thing’s certain: I will leave Spain fluent. If I can leave the country at the end of the year as bilingual as the grandfather I never knew, I’ll have accomplished a dream two generations in the making. Being a quarter Spanish will mean so much more.

I will be fluent. And that’s a promise. BB x

End of an Era

August 28, 2015August 28, 2015 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Racked up a grand total of five hours’ sleep last night. Not exactly great, but a lot better than it could have been, considering just how FRICKIN’ AWESOME yesterday was.

No more classes at Ali Baba, for a start. We’re finished. Khalass. Two months of study wrapped up and tossed aside, just like that. And doesn’t it feel like every day of it…! Nah, I’m just messing with you. In truth the last four weeks have flashed past in the blink of an eye. Wadi Rum feels like it was only a few days ago, and as for Dana and the others who were with us for first term… why, they could have been here yesterday (now somebody hit the cliché button and hit it fast). We’ve had a really good run of it and ended on a good high, with a certificate presentation, a few last rounds of Arabic language games and a talent show no less, which I won on votes with yet another dangerously one-man rendition of a song, this time the gypsy ballad Arrinconamela – chosen mostly because I’ve kind of done The Circle of Life to death out here and it’s not as fun without my Lights at hand. Hey, I got a double Snickers bar out of it, so I’m not complaining.

I digress. Ali Baba has been nothing short of brilliant in every way. I’ve learned so much out here and that has more to do with the intensity of my four-hour classes than anything else, so a great big shout-out to Wafiqa and the Ali Baba staff for a grand two months of Arabic teaching. I sure hope ALIF can match your level of commitment!

We scarcely had time to rush back to the apartment to start packing, Andrew and I, when I was whisked back to the internet range of Ali Baba’s fourth-floor cafe to book both of our hostels for the next week, in Aqaba and Amman. You see, unlike the homestay girls, whose hosts have graciously allowed them to stay on after their lease and then to take them as far as the airport, we’re being booted out on command and thus have to find – and pay for – somewhere else to stay for the next week. In fact, our cheery landlord wants us out of here by ten o’clock this morning. Worse, the chirpy chap even followed us to the main road yesterday asking over and over if we wanted to have left by eight instead. Words fail me; words did not fail Andrew. We’ve tidied up most of the place, but it’s still very much occupied for the time being. It’ll be a last minute rush down to the bus station when the clock strikes a quarter past ten, but it’ll be worth it to see the back of this little apartment. It’s been great having a pad so close to our school, as it were, and it’s been nothing short of the party nucleus for the last two months, both because of its proximity and because Andrew and I have been voluntarily phone-less, so the only way to contact us has been in person. A grand idea from the get-go.

That aside, I’m glad we’re leaving today; this place is simply not worth $1000 a month, even split between us. That’s double what I was paying in Durham, and that was for an entire house. Jeez. And for the gall of living in a city, no less! Ali Baba’s only flaw is the price it puts on student housing, whether they find you a flat or a homestay. Take my advice and find your own place, through AirB’n’B or from the friendly environment of a hostel. Because had I known how small a flat we’d be getting for $1000 – with a faulty kettle, nearly-headless tap and other inconsistencies too numerous to name – I’d never have been so quick to hand over the cash. Arabists, take heed!

With all of our hostels booked, Andreas and his language partner Abu Ahmad took us out into the country for a barbecue, and I might use this as an excuse to debunk a few myths that I started. It turns out that there are trees near Amman, and not the artificially-grown ones in the university grounds. If you can get as far as the neighbouring town of As-Salt, the countryside surrounding it is stunning, even in the last few days of August when it’s had the full force of the Arabian summer sun shining down on its back for three months and more. We cooked more meat than Andrew and I have had in our whole two months of egg-based existence and were stuffed to the gills within minutes. That we managed to gather our senses and box some for today’s journey stands testament to some last-minute quick-thinking, or else they’d have thrown the last home-made kebabs away. Ach, just thinking of it is making me hungry.

But seriously though: As-Salt. If you ever get tired of the noise of Amman, get yourself on one of the many buses bound for As-Salt (they pronounce it ‘salt’) and take a hike into the country. It’s so green, so quiet, and such a world away from the hustle-bustle of city living. There were wild birds there too: I saw a couple of jays, homely-sounding blackbirds and even an Arabian Babbler to top it off. If only we’d stumbled upon it sooner… No matter. We’ve had fun. More importantly this was also our last night with Andreas, who’s been such a rock in our time out here, both for Arabic queries and for good humour, not to mention strength of character. We’re all going to miss you, Andreas, our only and favourite Swede. Good luck in Cairo (you lucky thing) and I hope we meet again someday!

Our heartfelt farewells to Andreas were cut short because we needed to be back in Amman for seven to catch a taxi down to a place called The Dome, a party venue halfway between our pad and the airport – so quite a way out of town. Believe it or not, we had a stroke of luck in that – for once – the second taxi we asked was willing to take us there. Only, he had absolutely no idea where there was. So he got to driving south and rang up the venue for us, amongst other contacts, to divine the location, and in the end he not only got us there for eight o’clock but offered to pick us up in turn. What a charmer!

I should explain. We were bound for The Dome because the biggest name in the Arabic music world at the moment, Saad Lamjarred (the mu3allem guy), is in Amman and there was talk of a great big party on the grapevine. We had it from another taxi driver, as it happens, who let us in on the secret. He even called up his friend to get us tickets. At thirty dinar a head it wasn’t cheap, but any misgivings I had about the price were obliterated in the first hour – and Saad Lamjarred didn’t even show up until about twenty minutes past ten. No, our thanks go to none other than DJ Khaled.

Charged up on unholy slushie (I don’t even want to know what was in the stuff) and Kinder Bueno ice-cream (these Arabs have such great ideas when it comes to sweets) we – that is, Andrew, Eloise, Mackenzie and I – couldn’t help getting itchy feet every time a good song came on. About every five minutes, that is. And so what if nobody else was dancing? We were having fun. Sure, we must have looked a little crazy, just dancing alone as the four of us for about an hour, but when Khaled’s C’est la Vie came on and we realised that we knew it, we went wild. And before we knew it, there was a crowd gathered around us in a circle to watch us move. Andrew, Mack and I were milking it for all it was worth; Eloise had the sense to hang back a bit (and film it for last shaming opportunities). In the end it wasn’t just spectator sport either, as some of the men felt the vibe too and joined in, which is when the party really started. We met so many people our own age who had been waiting, it seemed, for somebody to bite the bullet in order to let loose. As for me, I haven’t danced so hard in months. Between the four of us, we got things going in the back row, and because of that it’s going down as one of the best nights of the whole shebang, if not of my life so far.

The craziness of it all is that the first, second and third class tickets counted for nothing, in the end. We’d gone for the cheapest option at thirty, the most sensible route by far, as next to nobody was in the £50 second class row, and the £70 first class row was a seated affair. That’s no fun! But it gets better (or worse, depending on how you look at it). The bouncers, some naturally built like gorillas, others just oddly proportioned with arms nearly three times the size of their legs, proved susceptible to the whims of Eloise and Mack and their charm and/or sheer determination to get ahead, because bit by bit, we found ourselves jumping from third class to second, and eventually even into first, right to the edge of the stage. How’s that for white guilt? It got to me just before the end and I hung back whilst the others rushed into first class, until I felt like a first-class muppet myself when it was just me, an old woman and a mother and child left in second-class towards the end of the night. As for the man of the hour, Master Saad Lamjarred himself, his show was nothing less than blitz-worthy; I mean that in a good way. He only really had four songs of his own, plus a few great covers, but he sure knew how to get the party going – and all the while with a great big grin on his face that was infectious at the sight. We had quite a rave at the back with our new friends.

I’d better leave it there. It was quite a night, and because of it we’re both knackered, Andrew and I. He was awake when I started writing this; he’s fast asleep now. We’ve got another long day ahead of us, but on the bright side, in a couple of hours we’ll be done with this apartment for good, and bound on a four-hour bus for Aqaba, where we can really let our hair down and chill. We’ve earned it. BB x

Sunstroke

July 27, 2015July 27, 2015 / Benjamin Barnabas / 1 Comment

I’ve never felt so spent. More than once today I felt myself on the edge of what I could stand. Dana almost defeated us all, but it was the Sun that dealt the coup de grace.

I find myself collapsed in the shade of a fir tree halfway up the mountain on the winding path back to Dana. Andrew’s gone on ahead to get water. He’s been a real hero, egging me on up the mountainside, but I’ve slowed to such a dreadful crawl that to keep him waiting would be nothing short of torture, what with the Sun enacting merciless fury upon us all. I can only hope he doesn’t think too little of me for my lack of staying power. Working out may be a new thing for me, and true to form I’ve been none too quiet about it in my usual late-to-the-party mode, but this is something else. I can’t even see where the others have got to; MacKenzie shouldn’t be all that far behind – he was trailing us by just one bend a little while back – but there’s no sign of Kate and Andreas. I do hope they’re alright.

My heartbeat has slowed to a beat every half-second; it was pulsing like a war drum when I crumpled under the tree about ten minutes ago. Before that I’d been desperately seeking shade like some kind of wretched insect, curling up head-down behind woefully inadequate slabs of sandstone to dip my head beneath a foot or less of cool shadow. Frodo’s climb of Erebor might not have been too dissimilar; in my dehydrated insanity I even considered crawling some of the distance, when my legs felt like they might give way and my head started spinning. It’s not even the sweat that’s the problem, I’ve gone beyond that. Even here in the shade, it’s the lack of water that’s choking me. I’m drowning in hot air. Every breath feels like sandpaper in my throat. You can’t see it, but the air is full of dust, thrown up from the desert rolling out to the horizon at the foot of this canyon, some six or seven kilometers to the southeast. The mountains take their own prisoners, but desert mountains are in an especially villainous league of their own.

McKenzie just passed by. He’s still soldiering on, despite having free-climbed the cliff wall with Andreas just over an hour ago. How he has the strength for this I’ll never know. Christ, I’m out of shape. And to think that the original plan was to strike out for Petra from here. It beggars belief. I suspect we’d need a lot more than just two bottles of water to keep the five of us going. Ugh, water. It doesn’t bear thinking about. My mind can only picture two things at the moment: intense heat or gushing cold water. Both, as you can imagine, are tortuous in the extreme.

But this heat, though… It must be pushing forty. What could drive a man to seek adventure in this merciless heat? It’s dizzying enough without the climb, and there’s precious little cover, what with the Sun bearing down with unfettered ferocity on this face; just a couple of boulders and trees on the way up are tall enough to offer fleeting sanctuary. I’ve never been so exhausted, spent in every way, from my toes to my eyes. If I could put a name to it – other than a very bad idea from the outset – I’d call it sunstroke. Thick wooly walking socks and a swollen toe from this morning’s roof-jumping escapades didn’t help matters. If it weren’t for Andrew’s breathing exercises, I’d have just about given out, I reckon. Again, the man is a hero.

I hear footsteps in the distance, running. Ah – here comes MacKenzie again, bottle of water in hand. Salvation! The five thousand weren’t more grateful for all that fish and bread than I am at this sight. Enough, cruel Sun, I concede defeat; I’d quite like to return to Dana alive, if just to put an end to this despondent surrender. Over and out. BB x

Multiple Personalities

July 26, 2015July 26, 2015 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

My stomach hurts from laughing so hard. The view of the night sky from the roof of the Dana Tower Hotel is really something special, Milky Way, shooting stars and all – and yet I’ve spent the last two hours face-down on my mattress choking on laughter. And all because of the wonderful invention that is Psychiatrist.

Today has been, without a shadow a doubt, the most ridiculous series of adventures yet. I’m all fired out from the mind games we’ve been playing, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg – the last of a long sequence of madcap antics since waking up at Nancy’s this morning. The family rustled up a wonderful breakfast for us in much the same line as the night before: energy food galore. Andrew and I crept away to write the family a thank you letter and packed our bags into a corner of the room to go. The family came in and served tea, and there we were, in what can only be described as a hospitable but highly awkward state of siege. We wanted to get on our way, but at the same time we kept being denied the opportunity; on our second attempt, just as we’d reached a decision, we were invited to join them for mansaf, which we couldn’t really deny, seeing as they’d already started. Then followed several rounds of ‘the Moon is in the Spoon’, which only the father of the family could get his head around, and he didn’t even play a single round with us. Another hour and a half later it was pushing three o’clock and they looked to be after a second night, which had to be postponed if we should ever get to see Dana at all. We had four oranges we could have given them as gratitude but it seemed more awkward a gift than none at all, paltry as it was. So having got them out, we packed them back into the bag and made our broken farewells before finally crossing the threshold and striking out for the road, though not before receiving another invite should we ever be in Tafileh again.

The next half hour was a world away. From the almost entirely female household of Nancy’s world we moved on to a minibus carrying half a platoon of Jordanian soldiers on their way to a wedding party, though it could just as easily have been a stag night, for all I know. It certainly sounded as much. The ringleader tried to press cigarettes on us all in turn whilst a guy in the row in front of me kept slapping his chest and yelling “sniper, sniper – best in Jordan”. Climbing aboard was a bit of a rogue move, since we didn’t really know where it was going, but it ended up to be heading our way, and it was totally worth it for the experience. When we were finally dropped off in Ar-Rashādiyya, we were well and truly worn out. The following minibus ride to Dana was notable only in that I lost any and all feeling in my legs; the driver loaded the five of us plus one of the grunts into his ride, kitted out with a very inconveniently placed sub-woofer, so that I had to endure a twenty minute drive sat sideways with my legs crushed between the dashboard, my bag and the grunt’s physique, with the driver ramming the gear stick into the small of my back every few minutes. By the time we got to Dana I felt like I’d been amputated.

Dana is beautiful, though. Maybe it’s because we’re here in the lowest of low season, but it was almost deserted. Not a modern construction in sight and plenty of scrambling opportunities; almost stone for stone the way I wanted it to be. We scrambled up the mountainside for a killer sunset over the canyon before dinner, which was well worth the extra dinars, though being stuffed to the gills with Nancy’s mansaf we were hard-pressed to do the chef justice. So to kill time (and an unusually full stomach) I introduced the team to Psychiatrist. Chaos ensued, as it invariably does with that madcap thinking game, but at least I saw it played properly for the first time. The lack of alcohol really does help.

Sounds like everyone’s kipped out. Andrew and Andreas stopped talking a few minutes ago. I guess I’d better follow suit. Early start tomorrow. My walking boots are so ready for this. BB x

Beautiful People

July 25, 2015July 31, 2015 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Dear Jordan,

If I doubted you before, I must apologize now. I judged you by the opening couple of pages and now, as I look out across the golden hills of Tafileh, I see just how wrong I was. There’s no constant rumble of cars here. No horns, no screech of brakes. Not even the sound of the megaphone call to prayer. Just birdsong: roosters crowing at the dawn, sparrows chittering away in the scrub and that oh-so African call of the mourning dove. And this isn’t even Africa.

We were supposed to be waking up in Dana Biosphere Nature Reserve this morning. For all intents and purposes, we might as well be. I’ve seen more kinds of birds in the last five minutes than in the last three weeks in this country; from my post on the edge of a rise just in front of the house, I can see finches, wheatears, larks and doves in abandon. There’s even a rather gorgeous sandy-coloured shrike that keeps coming over for a look-in; I’m not sure what she is, but I’ll bet she wouldn’t be averse to a breakfast of one of the little scorpions I’ve seen lazing about. Oh, and here come the bulbuls, like the coda to the symphony. I’m in seventh heaven. Forgive me the nature nausea for this slice of paradise, as I intend to get very drunk on it.

A little back-story; I have some explaining to do. After all that sirri-mirri at the police station yesterday, we hurried back to the flat to grab our bags and hit the road. Five of us – Andrew, Andreas, Kate, MacKenzie and I – decided to spend a night or two at Dana, a nature reserve in the mountains to the south. Most everyone else had an afternoon spent lounging at the Dead Sea on their minds, and I don’t blame them for even a second. We got to the bus station in time for the second-to-last bus for Tafileh alright, but it was pretty packed, so the driver put us on the next. This turn of fate, and having the ever-resourceful Kate Brocklesby with us (read about her experience here), contrived to produce the miracle sitting before us, and I’m not talking about the kettle of piping-hot tea (although I could, and at length). During the three-hour bus ride out of Amman, where we all had ample opportunity to practise our Arabic, Kate got practically ‘shotgunned’ by a group of young women who were keen to try their English, one in especial, Nancy. I don’t know how, but as we pulled into Tafileh and braced ourselves for a tough search for an ongoing minibus to Dana after dark (there are no places to stay in this town), Kate told me that we had an invitation for dinner from her new friends. I’d also had a streak of luck with the driver who had arranged a very cheap minibus for us, but sometimes you just have to decide between two good offers and, after a few seconds’ thought, the answer seemed pretty obvious.

That’s how we ended up sitting around the garden a few hours after sundown, discussing animal noises with the hookah bubbling away in the background. I’d imitated owls, doves, monkeys and gazelles before the night was up. I haven’t had a more entertaining evening in ages. Nancy, the oldest daughter of the family and an aspiring tour guide, served us tea and coffee before treating us to a feast of a dinner: bread, labneh, tomatoes, olives, cheese, and even an omelette or three. But, at last, no hummus. I could have cried for the beauty of this change in repertoire. Seven they were in total: three daughters between nineteen and thirty, two younger children aged five and ten, the mother-in-law and the father of the house. For the first time, a very woman-orientated homestay. And a homestay it was too, for when they learned of our plans they offered to put us up for the night and even help us on our way the next day. How could we say no? How could anyone say no? Even if I did have to serve as Andrew’s flak-shield/reverse wingman for the first half of the night. Year Abroad Leaderboards aside, an unexpected marriage proposal would be a very awkward, not to mention inconvenient affair (mudhik, just kidding!).

Nancy said her sisters thought me wasīm, which apparently means handsome (but don’t ask me why, as I haven’t shaved properly in weeks and have this weird DiCaprio goatee going on). Worse, I’ve been selected as the ‘most beloved one’ (whatever that means) because of – would you believe it – my blue eyes, my nose (arrrrghhhh) and the fact that I look like “both a boy and a man at the same time.” As Andrew put it, I was “complimented and emasculated in one sentence.” As for why I took the fire, I don’t know, but I suspect it may or may not have something to do with Andrew breaking ranks and talking volubly about his girlfriend; the final line of defense. They, at least, are beautiful people as far as I’m concerned, inside and out. White-hearts, as a woman in Morocco once put it to me. Here’s that true Arab spirit I’ve been searching for for so long. As ever, you simply need to put a few miles between yourself and the capital. Tafileh may be the butt of many a yokel joke in Amman, but I’d back this place over the capital any day. I had the chance to meditate last night – much to our hosts’ amusement – beneath a canopy of stars in a silky-black sky and I feel so much the better for it. Here is a family I will try to remember in case I should return; such silver generosity is hard to come by and I should like to repay the favour some day, as I promised myself with dear Abd el-Rahman Rajji, the Berber. My faith in this country and its people has been restored and not before time, too.

All my love,
BB x

In the Shadow of the Golan Heights

July 6, 2015July 6, 2015 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

There’s a Palestine sunbird flitting about amongst the branches below, a dusky little thing with an emerald sheen on each shoulder. What difference does it make to her that there’s a tall iron fence all the way along the length of the cliff on the opposite bank? One little flutter of her tiny wings and she’s over. It seems a little ridiculous that a bird no bigger than my thumb can do things a human can’t.

I’ve found a shaded spot for myself in a makeshift bathhouse on the south side of the River Jordan, just a few miles to the north of Umm Qays, and closer still to Israel itself. The Golan Heights tower high above me, shining a brilliant gold in the midday sun. Down below is an offshoot of the Jordan, rushing westwards to its mother before the Sea of Galilee. A night heron flapped lazily past a little while back, and there’s a couple of geese paddling about downstream. The bulbuls aren’t exactly making themselves inconspicuous and all the while the hardy little sunbird is keeping herself busy hurrying to and from a crevice in the cliff. I guess she has a nest in there somewhere.

The others are frolicking about in one of the swimming pools under the lazy eye of the locals. I just had to get away. It’s so quiet here. Who’d have thought that I’m looking at a former war zone, just a few decades back? Legend tells that this is supposedly the place where Jesus drove the Gadarene swine into the river, but the landscape looks decidedly more Ethiopian than one of those colour drawings of Israel from an illustrated Bible. There’s even a laughing dove calling from a fig tree down in the valley. Ho-woo-hoo-hoo. A little slice of Africa in the Middle East. This is my idea of money well spent. If only there were places this idyllic nearer Amman.

And I’m now even more hungry for Israel; I’ve spent two days looking at its green hills and cool lakes from the dry Jordanian side. It’s enough to drive a man mad. Now more than ever I begin to understand why this place has seen so much conflict. Who would not fight to hold on to a home in a land like this, Arab or Hebrew? If there is a heaven-born hand guiding us all, let it lead me to Israel, just once, VIATOR or no VIATOR. I feel a strange pull to the place like never before, as though I have wanted nothing more my whole life. This, surely, is the stuff that wars are born from. Wars and jaded dreams.

The wind’s picking up a little. I expect we’ll be leaving for Jerash soon. Another sunset in an idyllic setting, and still holding true to a promise I made three years ago. I’ll paint this valley onto the backs of my eyes to keep me going over the next five days.

A flash of brilliant purple and the sunbird’s back. It’s the male this time. He clings to a vine hanging over the roof and looks my way before flitting off in the direction of the nest. If there are moments like this to wait for at the end of every week, I have strength enough to last out here. BB x

Thrice and Once

June 14, 2015June 14, 2015 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

I’ll be home in four days’ time. Staring blankly around my still alarmingly cluttered room as the sun sets outside, however, you’d never guess it. Two days’ clothes and my formal wear are lain out on the table in the corner, and I’ve crammed everything else – including all those goddamn shirts – into two suitcases. The wardrobe still looks a mess, however, largely due to the jumbled mess of coathangers, a onesie I’ve yet to wear (I don’t honestly know how I came to possess it, I can’t stand the things) and that ridiculous Soviet coat I thought would be a good fancy dress purchase, staring back at me as a poignant metaphor for the folly of flights of fancy. The only things noticeably absent from my room are all the books, packed away into three boxes. Since I’m already having to carry two suitcases, a satchel and a tog-bag on the train, I’ll have to split the three between friends who live nearby. Much as I hate asking for favours, I’ve gotten into trouble for not doing so before, and now’s just another example. Thank goodness for golden hearts. There really is such a thing as having too much stuff. Remind me never to take this much with me again. I’ll be living out of a rucksack in Jordan.

It’s that critical time of the year when, just like at the end of every term, there’s a moment’s lull before everything comes along in a gigantic rush; this time in the form of a flashmob, Erasmus applications, a major financial crisis vis-a-vis Jordan, Castle’s June Ball, module application, Student Finance, exam results, working out how I’m going to get everything home and lastly, and perhaps most importantly, leaving dear old Percy Square in a respectable condition. Definitely not in the condition we found it – which was lamentable, even for a troglodyte like me – but perhaps in the state after our first week, when we’d blitzed it to within an inch of its life. It’s the swan song of my second-year juggling career, and in all honesty I’ll be glad when it’s all over. Tensions are high on all sides and it’s no environment to live in. But perhaps that’s best. It makes leaving this place a little easier. I mentioned in my last post that Durham is sometimes too much for me, but it’s still Durham, and it’s as much in my heart as Canterbury. I will miss it. Truly.

And as if to remind me what I’m leaving behind, after a sage talking-to from one of my housemates, she pointed out of my window and told me she thought she’d seen a hedgehog. I went out into the garden to have a look and found two skulking behind the pond. It didn’t take long – they’re noisy little critters. Neither of them seemed at all bothered by my being there; one must have noticed eventually, but instead of freezing or scurrying into the bushes, it sped across the lawn and stopped right at my feet to investigate. That’s the third magical mammal encounter in as many weeks. I’m over the moon. Just goes to show there always is a silver lining, especially in the most unexpected places. Here’s to one last juggling spree. BB x

Curious George

Summer Blues, City Blues

June 13, 2015June 14, 2015 / Benjamin Barnabas / 1 Comment

There’s no better birthday present in the world than an invoice for nearly two thousand dollars. What a way to start the day. Even off the back of a very generous exchange rate, that’s still a cartload of cash. Of course, what with Student Finance working tirelessly behind the scenes, I suppose it’s easy to forget that I’m putting myself further and further in debt with those £9000 a year tuition fees hovering silently overhead, unseen until they pounce, leech-like, on my first pay cheque. That’s just a bugbear my generation have to face, I guess – not with apathy per se, but with a grudging acceptance that it’s the way things are. So yeah, in short, it was a good start to a twenty-first birthday.

In search of peace of mind, I took a wander out of town for somewhere quiet to sit and think. I initially made for my usual spot beside the river in the Broompark Woods, but as the sun was shining so gloriously and as I hadn’t actually done it before, I set my sights on the hill high over New Brancepeth and made for the top. It took a little while to climb down into the valley and up the other side, and it was quickly apparent that I’d left the Durham bubble far behind me. Everywhere I went I got strange looks from the people I passed; I guess not many students make it this far out of the bubble. Which is a crying shame, because it’s simply b-e-a-utiful. As soon as you’ve put a mile and a half between yourself and the city itself, you’re back in the real north again: fields lined with dry stone walls, rolling, sheep-strewn hills and open sky. Romantic, much. But you already know I’m a sucker for that kind of thing. From the top off the hill overlooking New Brancepeth, about an hour’s walk from Durham itself, you can see for miles in all directions. The cathedral tower, poking out from the valley in which it sits, dwarfs the city even from so far away. But what gets you is the silence. I’ve spent this year living on the fringes of the city, but you can still hear the hum of the A167. Get yourself out onto the hills and it’s another world. Just a couple of pipits, the odd yellowhammer and a single skylark singing their hearts out, with the far-off bleat of a lamb skipping after its mother. Rural idyll. Never mind its status, this is the real reason I applied here. If only I had the time to see more of it. I’d hoped to spend this end of term striking out around the north, but once again the year’s come and gone and I’ve not yet made the move. Fourth year will almost definitely see me finally striking out for Lindisfarne, the Lake District and the Farne Islands.

Durham City in the valley below New Brancepeth

I don’t know how I’m going to survive for the next two months. The Arab political situation and the basic laws of the land have left me no choice: if I am to continue to study Arabic, I must go to live in the city. Durham is by far the largest city I’ve ever lived in, which isn’t saying much, because it’s the only city I’ve ever lived in. And its size freaks me out sometimes. In less than two weeks’ time I’ll have to face down my fears and try to adapt to life in Amman, a sprawling metropolis compared to anything I’ve ever known. If I didn’t have a couple of good friends going with me, I know it would break me in days. I hope I can find somewhere to get away from it all, inside the city or outside. If only Amman weren’t so immense… The icing on the cake is the cost of it all. Two months’ study and accommodation in Amman is not exactly cheap. My twisted logic tells me that it’s just insulting to pay so much to have to live in a city, which is bad enough a situation as it is, but that’s obviously not the right way of looking at it. I’m just too much of a country boy for my own good. The sooner I can get out to some tiny, out-of-the-way pueblo in the Extremaduran heartlands, the better. My heart could do with the silence. BB x

Looking north from New Brancepeth

From One Extreme to the Other

May 22, 2015May 23, 2015 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Five months down the line and I have a destination at last! My gamble with the environment preference paid off after all and I’ve been allocated to a post in EXTREMADURA. It looks even more impressive in capitals. Extremadura, though! Steppe! Ham! Cork oaks! Cortes! Roman ruins! Bustards! And best of all, I haven’t even the slightest clue what it’ll look like in the flesh, since I’ve never even been there! That’s the major draw, of course. As much as I love Andalucia, living there once upon a time means I’ve seen most of it already. Extremadura is a blank slate. And if it all gets too much, then the dear old south is just a stone’s throw away – figuratively speaking. So much is within a stone’s throw from Extremadura, come to think of it. Doñana’s just over the Sierra de Aracena to the south, Toledo’s only a short distance up the Tajo and Portugal’s practically on the doorstep. So it’s safe to say I’m pretty chuffed with my placement! Whether I’m based in Badajoz or Cáceres remains to be seen, but unlike the last time, I think I’ll be more than satisfied with the information I have for some time now. Plenty of reading to do! Not too much, mind – wouldn’t want to spoil the adventure – but enough to get an idea. Cela’s La Familia de Pascual Duarte seems like a good place to start. Still… Extremadura! Can’t even begin to contain my excitement. I’ll be lesson planning before I’ve even got to Jordan if I’m not careful. September can’t come fast enough!

Latest essay came back a measly 66%… not my finest hour. Almost entirely to be blame was my choice of an opening line: ‘the colonial claws that raked the nineteenth century world left few countries unscathed.’ Make of that what you will. I hardly need to tell you that’s it’s not academic language. My marker did, though. Like I said, there’s no escaping the rule of three. Two got under the wire, the third did not. That’s natural. Especially since that last was written at around four in the morning. If that doesn’t lend a shred of credibility to that bat-out-of-hell opening statement, my Burtonesque verbosity just might (I promise I’ll keep the cultural references to a minimum in future). All things considered, 66% is probably a lot more than it’s worth. I’d tell myself to start earlier next time. But then, I tell myself that every time… So now Extremadura’s on the cards, it’s time to obsess over the place whilst I still have a couple of weeks to think in Spanish before I’m whisked off to the Middle East! Here’s a vista extremeña to whet your appetite for the time being. Hasta pronto! BB x

Learning to be Patient

May 1, 2015May 3, 2015 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

The long-awaited reply came back from the British Council today regarding the allocation of teaching assistant posts in Spain for the coming year. The deadline’s been extended – so we won’t be hearing the results for another week. Not only that, but it’s been split into parts, so we’ll only have the full picture after three weeks. And somewhere in that mess I need to organise the rest of my year abroad around eight ghost months that still may or may not be happening, and the later I leave it, the more expensive that will get. Frustration doesn’t cover it. It’s been pretty galling hearing from the other applicants on the French and German side getting both their placements and their regions in one go, and hearing nothing from Spain – and now this – but I guess I should have seen that coming. It is Spain we’re talking about, after all. Since when did any self-respecting Spaniard adhere to the laws of time? I’ll hear when I hear and I guess that’s just it. It’s not like I don’t have other things to think about. Oral exams, for one. Prioritise, man!

So this is just a first post to touch base, really. I’d counted on christening it with a confirmation from the BC, but obviously that will just have to wait for the time being. All I know for now is that I’m in with at least a ghost of a chance because I had the common sense (or total lack of it, depending on your point of view) to tick the ‘small town’ and ‘rural’ boxes on the application form instead of the horrendously oversubscribed ‘large town/city’ option. A bit of fishing around other BC assistants’ blogs has thrown up the same story time and time again, so it’s obviously nothing new. Every year over two-thirds of applicants choose to be sent to the cities and every year the BC sends out a desperate plea, asking everyone involved to consider a less urban post. The way the email was written made the ‘rural’ option sound even more of a dangerous move. If well over two thirds of the applicants asked to be put in cities, how many were left over for the small town option, let alone rural?

Amongst the reasons the BC gave for leaving the cities was the total immersion thing. Oh, don’t worry, BC – I’m game for that. Just how severe that immersion is remains to be seen. In all my blog-trawling I’ve only found one post about a rural BC assistant and her main issue was the total lack of people her own age in her post. That’s a very real risk and I accept it. But Spain is Spain and I’m not throwing myself into the mix to spend a year in pubs and clubs. Look at Durham; I mean, if it’s nightlife you’re after, you wouldn’t apply here… There’s so much more to Spain than the nightlife. Just you wait and see. Only, don’t wait on my account. I still haven’t finished waiting.

Apologies for the slightly bitter first post. I was a touch disappointed, that’s all. I’ll let you know when I hear anything further…