Year Abroad

Multiple Personalities

/ 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

/ 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

Bureaucracy is a Terrible Beastie

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Go to the Police Station over in Sweileh, they said. It’ll be a simple procedure, they said. Simple my arse. This is more old-school bureaucracy than an entire flotilla of ICPCs.

If I didn’t appreciate the orderly British queueing system before, I certainly do now. Arabs, it must be said, don’t do queues. It’s a total free-for-all here in the visa extension office of the Sweileh Police Station. Behind the crush for the three front desks, of which only one is currently manned, a Syrian woman is snoozing in one of the chairs whilst two of her excitable children race around the pram of a third. That Sudanese guy who keeps pushing in front is wandering about with a cheeky grin on his face. Half of the staff behind the glass look as if they’re somewhere far away – Fiji, perhaps – and Andrew is at breaking point, cussing and swearing at every wrong turn. What with the amount of wrong directions, backtracking and blue-stamping we’ve had to go through to get here, I don’t blame him. No, you need the blue stamp, right corridor, last door on the left. Yes, we need to renew our visas, not buy exit ones. No, you don’t need to wait. ‘You just have to keep asking,’ says Samir, an electrical engineer turned maths teacher with flawless English. He, like almost everyone else in this room, is waving a passport that is most certainly not Jordanian; in his case, it’s Kenyan, though I’ve seen examples of Thai, Philippine and Tanzanian as well. Immigrant labour, I don’t doubt; I’m told that cheap household workers are often brought here to pitiful salaries. What a world…

Yalla yalla yalla. At least the guy in the back of the room is actually looking at our passports now, albeit with just about the same interest a five-year old might show to an issue of The Economist.

Gah! Just as it looked like we were done here, our visa guy just dropped the passports face-down on the desk behind the glass and sauntered back to his desk. Very helpful of you, bud. Samir has left us, leaving us to face this sulky crowd of office workers and timid maidservants-to-be on our own. Come to think of it, we really are alone; everyone else seems to have concluded their affairs. The last African woman left the room a minute ago. It can’t take more than five minutes or so to sign a form or two, right? Especially when we’ve already filled out half of it… What the hell is taking our guy so long?

My bad. Our passports have been ready to collect for the last ten minutes. Turns out all we had to do was ask – just like Samir said. No papers, no waiting, not even any additional stamps required – just plain human interaction. Oh, bureaucracy. BB x

Zulu Dreams

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

We’re into the third day of recording this wedding present for Grace’s friend and that means the bedroom’s been turned into a makeshift recording studio once again. If that doesn’t raise a few eyebrows, try to picture it: we’ve opened the cupboard and rested the two mattresses against it, draping a duvet over the top as a mock-up boom and shut all the windows and doors. The result is actually pretty decent – as far as mattress-fort recording studios go. Grace is in the cupboard recording hers now so I’m in the next room with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade in my ears, trying to quell my recurring bouts of city angst. Replacing one noise with another can only do so much good, but I think I found a better solution.

Bit by bit I’m building a clearer idea of where I want to make my next adventure, and funnily enough it’s not a remake of Archie’s enviously-exciting Central American backpacking adventure. That ship has sailed. If the chance arises again one day, I’ll take it of course, but somehow I doubt it will. Lightning never strikes twice. As for me, I have my eyes on somewhere else, a place I’ve been orbiting, as it were, for the last seven years: South Africa.

Did that come out of left field? Probably not. The more you know me, the more rational a conclusion it is. For starters, this Cairo to Cape Town jaunt I’m so obsessed with was always going to end there. The only stage I’ve ever really been able to envisage is the last leg, cresting the veld and staring, at last, at the crystal waters of the Indian Ocean after a year or so on the road. I see myself throwing off my rucksack and racing into the water to fall, knees first, in the sand. That would be worth all the mileage, border bullies and nightmarish bureaucrats that’ll plague me along the way. It’s a scene that’s been playing on-and-off in my mind’s eye for years. That’s one reason.

I’d like to say Haggard started this. I’ve been reading one book of his after the other and I’m hooked. But it goes further back than that. My first girlfriend was half-Afrikaner. That’s where it really all began, I guess. Yes, it must have been; I remember talking to her aunt about her time as a game driver and falling in love with the place through words alone. Sure, that didn’t all pan out so well in the end, but like a flower in the ashes, I stumbled upon Bryce Courtenay’s The Power of One (the film) a week after the breakup. No other film has ever affected me so strongly. It could have been the music, it could have been the red-haired heroine, or just as easily the people and the places. More likely than not, a combination of the lot – but especially the music. There’s something otherworldly about it. Amazulu – from the Heavens. How about Ukuthula, the Zulu spiritual that never fails to move me to tears? Or Miriam Makeba’s African Sunset, which is playing in my ears right now? Don’t forget the Circle of Life. I put so much of my heart and soul into the Zulu solo with the Northern Lights that I go weak at the knees whenever I hear that one, too. Fun fact: I was born just four days before The Lion King came out. It’s a sign, baby! At least, I’d like to think so.

I could point the finger at so many other reasons: a family connection to Steve Bloom; the film, Zulu; the Drakensberg; the Zulu language itself. Yeah, by this point I’m pretty damn-near decided. The main question is when and how. I reckon I should have saved up enough after next year’s teaching. If only I were going to Morocco and not Jordan next summer; I could save so much money towards it (quit complaining about Jordan and just deal with it, kid). It also means I can dedicate myself to learning Zulu on the side next year. I’ve always wanted to learn an African language. Arabic is just a means to an end. Zulu – now we’re talking. We’re talking Africa and talking Africa is the surest way to my heart. And it always will be. BB x

Humdrum

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

‘Hope you’re having a lovely time, I know Amman has been less than ideal.’

I tire of city living. I guess having my three-day escape to Egypt pulled out from under my feet threw me off target, but I seem to have sunk back into one of those despondent ‘I could be doing something so much better with my time’ moments. Maybe if I set a few things straight, the affair might make a little more sense.

I never really wanted to go to Jordan. I didn’t have much of a say in the matter – you can blame international politics for my limited options – so I just went along with it as a necessary next step in my language degree. I had my eyes on Syria way back when I started my course, before al-Assad, the civil war and the chaos that ensued. I then turned my attentions onto Egypt, and then there was all that palava was Morsi and the army shooting people on the street. One more magical destination to be crossed off the list. I guess I fell in love with Morocco shortly after that, it being the only other feasible North African destination; doubly so after two weeks’ travelling in the kingdom over the Easter Holidays. So when I was told I had no option but to spend four months in Amman, bookending my assistantship with the British Council, it was a bit of a bombshell. In my department’s defence I didn’t put up much of a fight – what could would it have done? There’s not a lot I can do to solve the political cat-fight of the Arab world, if just so that I could spend a couple of months in a country of my choice. Whatever the weather, that’s all I have: two months apiece. So it’s not so terrible a loss.

The primary concern is the apathy that this place instils me with. Had I been able to go to Damascus, Cairo or Fes, places I’d hungered after for years, I might have been able to overcome my city angst – maybe. The trouble with Amman is that I just find myself wanting to be somewhere else all the time, and that does no wonders for my Arabic. I can’t even say it’s a general problem either, since it doesn’t seem to be affecting Andrew, Kate, Katie or Eloise in the slightest. Maybe they’re just hardier human beings than I. But I’m seriously feeling the absence of a green space. Andrew asked an hour ago whether I knew if there was anywhere outside we could go and sit to read/study in peace. The truth is, there isn’t. The cars are always blaring. Music’s always playing. People are always shouting. The peace I’m looking for is to be found far out of town, and at this time of year, that comes at the price of dry, dusty emptiness. That’s the biggest problem of all; the countryside around Amman isn’t even worth escaping to because it’s a dust bowl.

Whinge whinge whinge. Andrew’s right, I’m not exactly in the best of moods today. I want to be in Spain already, settling into my job in a location that’s not more than a stone’s throw from open country and mountains – mountains. Rivers. Life. None of this city nonsense. Town mouse, field mouse, remember? One of the main reasons I set myself to the study of languages was to challenge myself to overcome one of my greatest fears, and that’s talking to people. In retrospect, that was a very costly challenge. I could have done an all-essay subject and come off the better – perhaps. Similarly, I tried to console myself before coming out here that maybe a couple of months of city living might cure me of my disdain for that kind of environment. In truth it’s only consolidated my belief that, whatever happens to me in life, I will never be living in a place like Amman – by choice or by force. Somewhere that can sap me of even my desire to travel can be doing me no favours.

On the plus side, I’ve discovered that if I sit on the end of my bed with the window open, I can access the WiFi from the school across the road, so I won’t need to pay to go to a cafe to send emails anymore. That’s a plus.

Chin up Ben, life’s not so bad. I just find myself wishing, as ever, that for something as important as the year abroad, which is supposed to be a life-changing chance to throw yourself into the culture of a different part of the world, I’d had a hand in the throwing part, rather than being sent out here.

But there’s a silver lining to every cloud. All of this has convinced me (along with all the reading I’ve been doing of late) that I want nothing more from life than to be a writer, and I’m arming myself at long last with the reading to better my craft. Per ardua ad astra, and all that jazz. BB x

Deliverance

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

My heart’s soaring. Not least of all because I’ve got my Africa playlist on full blast, but that’s not the real reason. Eights months and x days after submitting my paperwork to the Year Abroad office at Elvet Riverside, I finally have a destination. Next year has a name at last and it’s VILLAFRANCA DE LOS BARROS.

I’d love to dive right into an entire evening’s worth of trawling, if just to get a real feel for the place and its environs, but that’s easier said than done with a murderous-looking Arabic comprehension in for tomorrow. Even without that, Ali Baba shuts at six o’clock, at which point Andrew and I go necessarily radio silent until ten o’clock the following morning. (It’s a liberating existence, being completely out of contact for half a day, every day – I highly recommend it). So no aimless surfing tonight. But according to Wikipedia Vilafranca de Los Barros is known as the City of Music, which means the wizards at the British Council know what they’re doing. I owe them that much. It’s also in a very decent spot indeed, in a town large enough to have most convenient amenities, a lively atmosphere and possibly a good range of accommodation options. It might not be as small a town as I wanted, but that might not be such a bad thing. At least it’s smaller than Amman. At any rate, it’s close enough to a serious mountain range to keep me satisfied. As expected, Google Images isn’t swimming with material, even in a town of some 14,000 inhabitants, so Villafranca de Los Barros gets to keep a little mystery from me for the time being. And that’s no bad thing either.

Andrew zoned out a couple of minutes ago. He’s still waiting for the Versailles branch of the BC to get back to him with similar details. Trust Spain to jump the gun for once and beat France to it! We’ve been working flat out as usual (and working out flat to boot, every morning – my limbs are getting mutinous) so he’s taking a well-earned nap. The air con’s on and it’s going to stay that way for a little while longer. As for me, I’m going to spend the next hour or so finishing King Solomon’s Mines and then learning as many animals and birds in Arabic as possible after finding myself at a loss in this morning’s Arabic Alphabet game. Sure, osprey might not exactly be a word you use everyday, but who wouldn’t want to drop iqāb nisārī (essentially, Judgement Hawk) into a conversation? They might not have been very inventive at naming the swan, the cormorant or the manatee, but the Arabs sure knew how to put a name to a bird of prey. BB x

Thick as Mince

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

The beginning of another week in Amman. I’m sitting in my usual spot by the window, watching the cars racing by and recovering from four straight hours of Arabic before this afternoon’s language assistant session. My guy’s a professional photographer, which means we have at least one common interest, but he’s also a race car whiz – in his own words, the smell of diesel and the sounds of screeching brakes are two of the most beautiful things in the world – so in reality we’re sitting on opposite sides of the fence. But he’s keen, so I’ll give him that. I just might not be chomping at the bit to go drifting at the city racecourse anytime soon, much to Andrew’s chagrin (though I’ve told him he’s more than welcome to go in my stead).

Compared to last week’s whistlestop tour of northern Jordan, this weekend was more of a sequence of minor misadventures. We got to the citadel at last, timing our arrival with the middle of the day (not my idea). The agamas were loving it, sunning themselves in their droves atop the crumbling ruins of the Temple of Hercules and the Umayyad Palace, but the heat was a little too intense for us. I found a relatively quiet spot in the heart of the ruined palace to sit still and meditate for a bit, but if I could find a nearer spot that doesn’t have an entry fee, that’d be grand. We also ended up in a five-star hotel in downtown Amman which was a strange experience indeed, and one that I don’t think I’ll be repeating anytime soon. There’s something about luxury that I’ve never been all that comfortable with. Oh wait, here comes Adnan. I’ll be back in an hour, folks.

Taxi rides are getting a lot more entertaining than usual, the clearer ‘Amia becomes. Most of the drivers are Palestinian, and if you can get by their thick accents, you’re in for more than one ride. On the way into town in search of reasonably-priced vegetables, we get talking about the difficulties of travel in Jordan and beyond, and because I’m in the car, talk turns to finding a way into Syria. The driver takes his hands off the steering wheel mid-speed and wields an invisible machine gun at Andrew. ‘Takka-tak tak. You die. You go Syria, you die.’ That puts an end to that matter. For now. I’m not giving up on Damascus that easily.

As for the vegetables, we found ’em. Two dinar for the lot: carrots, aubergines, tomatoes, onions, garlic, courgettes, ginger, pepper… You name it. Health in a bag and doesn’t it feel amazing! Time to rustle up something decent that doesn’t contain eggs, and none too soon neither. I wonder why everything’s five times the price in our neck of the woods?

Also, Arab DVD shops. I’d plum forgotten just how jammy they are. Seven films for a couple of quid. If we’re still uncomfortable with the idea of video piracy in the West, the Arabs got over their scruples long ago. The result? A monstrosity of a Nicholas Cage film, so indecipherable that it was actually really quite entertaining – in a watching-Inception-whilst-drunk kind of way. Still, it’s about time we had a mascot. If Dolly Parton was our Ugandan celebrity, why not tout Nicholas Cage for Jordan? (I should really get out more often…) BB x

  

Sunset over the Promised Land

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Ten minutes in the Dead Sea and I’m more alive than I’ve been in days. If that’s not a most bizarre oxymoron, I don’t know what is. It is a hackneyed one, though, so I’ll be as original as I can.
After yesterday’s city-induced nervous breakdown, I was a little apprehensive about my ability to face a whole day of sightseeing in high spirits. A seven o’clock start, mid-thirty degree heat, one car and twelve people with very different attitudes toward travel adds up for a pretty hectic road trip. But you must know my mind half as well as I do now; travel, especially the stressful kind, is deeply cathartic. Adventure is all about facing your fears, being more than a little reckless and having bucketloads of good and bad luck in equal measure. It beats case-marking and paperwork any day. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.

Mon dieu, but it was good to hear silence again. And a very new silence at that. Of course, traveling with twelve meant that it was never truly silent, but perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing. Silence in the desert is otherworldly. It’s not just an absence of sound, it’s an absence of life. It’s oppressive. I guess I went into it in the mindset of ‘one of those desert-loving English’, but Alec Guiness’ Faisal has a point: there’s nothing in the desert. Stand with me atop the crumbling remains of one of the desert castles east of Amman and tell me otherwise. It’s just mile upon sun-scorched mile of hard, grey earth, dusty and pockmarked with black in all directions. A silence that smothers. After the endless bustle of Amman it felt almost wrong to be surrounded by such emptiness; like I’d stepped off the edge of the world into the void. I’m told this place was once lush and green, filled with game, and not too long before our time. Perhaps as recently as thirty years ago. Looking at it now, it’s almost impossible to believe, like the first dinosaur bones. Each castle had its own sad tale of grandeur, decline and the ravages of a world running out of time. And all of that for just one dinar. Moroccans, for all their smiles, have a lot to learn from the Jordanians about fair pricing.

After gazing longingly across the ten kilometre distance to the Syrian border, we returned to Amman to make a brief pit-stop before setting out once again, this time for the Dead Sea, to capitalize on our hired twelve-seater car whilst we had the chance. Getting down to the shore itself was a little fiddly; our first venue tried to charge us twenty dinars each for entry. We fought our way out of that to find another option fifty metres down the shoreline at just five dinar a head. Whether it would have been wiser to give ourselves more time is doubtful. All I can say is we timed our arrival perfectly; as everybody raced for the water, the sun was just beginning to set over the mountains on the other side of the sea, over Israel. I volunteered to stand guard over the bags whilst everyone else went for a float. Being in the water for sundown must have been pretty neat, but I reckon I had the killer view from further up the beach, watching the oddly slow waves slush against the shore in golden ripples. I guess I felt like Moses for a moment – not least of all because I was wearing a Turkish bathrobe that might have come from the set of Exodus itself – watching the sun set on the Promised Land. I’ve never been particularly keen on visiting Israel – the visa complications and Africa have always stopped me before – but looking at it then in the dying light I was transfixed. It was beautiful, like no land I’d ever seen before. Is it any wonder it’s caused so much trouble, like the similarly captivating forested mountains of the Congo? It might well have been the magic of the moment, but it’s definitely going down as one of the most memorable sunsets I’ve witnessed. Period.

I’m not done with you yet, Israel. Not even close. BB x

    

Alone in a Crowd

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Cars. Cars everywhere. Screeching tyres. Blaring horns. Shouting. Don’t understand. The language and the heat. The expense. Can’t stand it. Need silence. Need it now.

Five days since we rocked up here in Amman and it’s finally getting to me. All things considered I’ve held out well for as long as I could, but I’m no town mouse. This is all a bit much for me. There’s simply nowhere to run, no quiet, shaded wood, no bubbling river or creek, nowhere to hide from the noise. Our apartment is next to a building site overlooking the main road. Because of the heat, work starts early, so I haven’t been sleeping well. All I want is ten minutes of silence, but it’s impossible to find. The city stretches for mile upon mile of dusty, swarmed roads in all directions. I can’t even see where it ends on a good day. It just disappears, vast and white, like a scummy wave over the hills into the middle distance. I don’t hate it here, but it’s killing me slowly.

Perhaps I’m overreacting. Cities are supposed to be exciting places to live. But right now I feel trapped, imprisoned by my own choices. I long for the green fields of Sussex and the birdsong in the oak trees like I’ve never done before. I used to think England had lost its natural beauty. Here in the desert I understand. The only animals on the street are the house crows that flap lazily overhead like miniature vultures and the hordes of scabby cats that patrol the streets, frequenting every bin and dump site in town. Nothing here is truly wild; nothing but the taxis, racing madly from end to end with no regard for the road or anybody walking on it. And if you can’t hack the walk, you’ve no choice but to hail one down. It’s the only way to get around. How could I ever live in such a place?

We’re thinking of heading out to the desert castles in the Azraq plain tomorrow with the other students. It’ll be the first bit of traveling we’ve done since we got here and I’m dying to get going. Not to see Jordan beyond the city walls, but to escape. I need air. Time. Space. And I’ve been living on borrowed time trying to get by without it. Nine months in an isolated Spanish village gets more appealing by the second. I hope my heart can bear the wait. BB x

  

Permit Number A38

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

All this admin will be the death of me. It’s by far the most difficult task of the entire Year Abroad and I’ve hardly even started. Throw into the mix that I’ll be out of the country in five days’ time and it just gets even more needlessly complicated. Erasmus, ICPC and Placement Agreement forms… They’re all well and good, but it’s the little complications they entail that screw over the whole business. Scanned copies of hand-signed signatures, for one. Only one file allowed per application, for another. Try a passport-sized photograph that must be signed by a relevant public official from a list of possible professions, excluding teachers, lecturers or just about any other convenient notary. My parents are both music teachers. Whilst our family scope is (in this case alone) fortunately minimal, the rest of the social circle I’ve grown up in is filled almost entirely with musicians, artists and other ‘vagrants’ of that nature; those not deemed in a ‘reliable’ position for affirming my identity. That, and they must have known you for at least two years in order to confirm you are who you say you are.

Then you need a chequebook to pay for the whole shebang which, unfortunately, I have not had in my possession for almost five years now. Another unnecessary complication. Admin just makes me go to pieces. As I said, it’s not the idea of it, but the little tasks that make the whole thing nearly impossible. And because there’s that shred of possibility, it makes it all the more exhausting. Oh, and did I mention a deadline? I didn’t need to. It was obvious. Never mind the fact that my application gave details and addresses of two previous teaching positions, the government still needs proof that I’m safe around children. Which is fair enough, I suppose, but it doesn’t half drive me up the wall in frustration. Oh, I’m going to look back on all of this in a few years’ time and laugh, I guess, but right now I’m screaming.

There’s worse: this is only the beginning. At the end of the day, all this is British administration. Spanish administration is notoriously impossible to navigate. It’s almost as bad as the French passion for paperwork, and of course, it’ll all be in Spanish. And I’ve all of this to look forward to! Asterix and Obelix, I feel your pain… BB x