Saba Imtiaz: Everyday is a winding road..

I'm like the Grinch who stole Eid. No seriously - I've developed an antipathy to the holiday years ago (several issues that you can read about in a psychiatry textbook somewhere); and so everytime I mention not liking Eid to friends here, I always get dumbfounded looks.

These past few days might actually change that. I've slept enough to literally make up for a month of minimal sleep, I went to Hashem and Jafra with friends from work, and I celebrated Eid and St.Nicholas' Day with Oksana - both of which involved us leaving chocolates on each other's pillows. This morning we woke up to text messages from Momo and ended up going on a treasure hunt set up in our house by him (with rather difficult and cryptic clues!!) to end up at a big basket of gifts and candies!

Our house looks like such a Christmas postcard - Momo got us a Christmas tree which looks gorgeous decked out with fairy lights, and Oks and I are knitting! (Technically, she's knitting and I'm learning how to). And after years it actually felt like Eid as Oks and I went for Eid lunch to a Pakistani restaurant (our Indian friends would disagree cos its called Kashmir ;)) and had actually well cooked Pakistani food! :)

Oks and Momo - thank you for an awesome couple of days, and helping me rediscover a holiday spirit of sorts.

Labels: jordan journal, random musings

Anyone who has been in a leadership role in AIESEC knows that a large part of your everyday agenda includes meetings – strategy, weekly team updates, coaching, sales – the list goes on. This week has had me doing all of those; but I’ve also spent a large part of it as Saba, the person. Whether it was meeting up with a fellow nomad, or with editors of Jordanian magazines, or even the random chat I had with the guy who runs the repairshop near my house (in Arabic, and on Pakistani politics!) or the time I took out of AIESEC business meetings to chat with CEOs on doing business in Jordan and how my integration has been into the culture here…after a long time I felt like I was talking like Saba, the individual and not Saba, the AIESECer, which dominates so much of my identity now, even when I meet people outside of AIESEC.

Despite the fact that the news from home is anything but pride-worthy; I feel more and more connected to being a Pakistani. After months of being in Jordan I start speaking in Urdu phrases before correcting myself. And yesterday, I was filling out an application and for the first time I had to write my address in Jordan as ‘home’; and it was looked unfamiliar and out of place; and yet right somehow

As I look at scanned pages of the travelogue series I am writing on Jordan for The Friday Times, I miss the familiarity of buying TFT from the same hawker every week on my way back from university, or the excitement I used to feel seeing my name in print. A scanned page isn't the same as trying to read TFT in a rickshaw while desperately holding on to my paper, handbag and books.

As a last thought - the intense pain in my back or the fact that I am catching up on sleep by resting my head against elevator walls in myriad office buildings, means that I am finally, finally tired enough to not be able to think about anything at all - especially the things that upset me. I miss my random day-long update chats, and I miss being able to share the everyday-ness of things, but at least I can still try and be there for those who matter.

Labels: jordan journal, random musings

Total number of hours of sleep since Friday night: 14
Total number of hours worked since Saturday*: 26 (that I can remember)
Total number of resumes downloaded and EP forms reviewed from Insight: downloaded - around 170 / reviewed - who knows how many I looked at..
Songs of the week: Feel - Robbie Williams / Secret Garden - Bruce Springsteen

Anyway. The flight back to Amman was great (RJ's food is awesome, funnily enough the steward who I briefly talked to on my flight into Jordan 6 months ago recognized me 'you're Pakistani! you traveled 5 - 6 months ago!', and I saw Tel Aviv from the plane!) Being back in Amman is awesome, and being able to speak (read: repeat the few words I know) in Arabic. And I had yet another identity crisis, yay!

So at the airport..
Two queues. One for foreigners. One for Jordanians.
Me: 'I have a Jordanian residence card, but...I am a foreigner. Oh crap, where the hell do I go!?'

Thankfully I asked, and I got to be in the Jordanian queue! They even wrote 'muqeem' (translation: resident) on my passport stamp this time. And then - because the bus outside the RJ terminal wasn't leaving anytime soon for the city, the bus driver drove me to the next terminal and got me into the right bus..yay for me :)

And here's a collage from rainy Rotterdam!

Labels: jordan journal, photos, travel