[Vision2020] A Clearer Cultural Lens

[Tom Hansen]

>From the May 22, 2006 edition of the Army Times -

Here is a very upbeat article reflecting that not all people from the Mid
East are as terror-filled as Comb-Over Courtney's BLog would lead you to
believe.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

A clearer cultural lens

By Major Jay R. Adams
Special to the Army Times

Serendipity is a great word. It sounds like a cross between a Mary Poppins
song and a frozen confection you might get at Disneyland - or maybe some
kind of hair gel.

The word "serendipity" derives from the Persian tale "The Three Princes of
Serendip." The aforementioned princes were always blundering their way into
good fortune and rewards. 

Now, I am certainly no prince. I'm just a common soldier and, in this case,
a traveling soldier. But, like the princes, I am certainly capable of
blundering my way into good fortune and rewards. That was the case as I
ended up on the tour nobody else wanted during Senior Leader Cultural
Awareness Training in the kingdom of Jordan.

I arrived in the same lands traveled by the mythical princes of Serendip
hopeful that the cultural training I would receive would entail more than
just PowerPoint briefs. By the way, whoever decided to call them "briefs"
must have had a morbid sense of humor.
 
They are not brief, nor are flights to Jordan. Someday I hope to find a math
professor who can calculate how long it actually took to get to Jordan. I
vaguely remember showing up at preflight manifest at 5 a.m. for a 10:30 a.m.
flight and arriving in Jordan sometime during my natural life. 

Once there, we were to be given our choice of tours after dinner. I was sure
I hadn't eaten since yesterday or tomorrow. At any rate, I was among the
first in line for chow. Therein lay the blunder.

As I waited for what would be my nightly choice of lamb or chicken, the
cadre brought in the tour signup sheets. The smart soldiers made a beeline
to sign up for tours while I mulled whether to take the pita bread and make
my own lamb or chicken gyro. 

Tours one and two were identical but in reverse order and featured stops at
Maqdas, believed to be the site of Jesus' baptism; Mount Nebo, the presumed
site of Moses' death and burial; Madaba, the city of the Mosaics; and the
Dead Sea where - uh - things go to die, including the Jordan River. 

I am no biblical scholar, but that's big stuff. 

The last tour was to Jerash, a trip that soldiers rejected like Angelina
Jolie at the Aniston family reunion. 

As they say in the Army, "Sometimes you're the bug and sometimes you're the
windshield." Well, sometimes you think you are the bug right up to the point
of impact, when you discover you are still the bug, but the windshield is
merely a window with a remarkable view of history and geography.

We headed for Jerash the next morning. Somewhere between the
sand-rock-sand-sand-rock geography around Camp Zarqa, the terrain gave way
to a lush, green valley in the mountains of Gilead. 

We hopped off the bus right into a pool of Arab cultural immersion training:
the bazaar.

I was intercepted by a local merchant who took one look at my shiny head and
saw a sure sale. Before I could say "Shlonak?" - "How are you?" in Arabic -
I was sporting a red checkered shumagg, the traditional Arab headdress,
complete with an ogal, the black band that holds it in place. Nobody on the
other tours got shumaggs or ogals. 

Serendipity.

I discovered that American soldiers make great training aides for Jordanian
schoolchildren to practice English. In fact, interacting with the kids
proved to be one of the highlights of the tour. In the South Theatre, a
group of Arab men played drums and bagpipes while the children sang and
danced. It was here that I learned a universal truth: Kids like to get their
picture taken. I knew that American kids liked it. I have even had some
experience with Brazilian, Panamanian, Mexican, German and Bosnian children
and their love of the camera. But these kids were on me like I was driving
an ice cream truck.

For a while, I felt like a Backstreet Boy at an all-girls middle school.
Students would flock around me, tugging at my shirt until I took their
picture and showed them the results on the tiny screen.

Any cultural divides between the West and the Arab street are lost on
children. There is probably a lesson in that.

Pipers piping, children dancing, soldiers touring, photographers .
photographing - we had a real Jordanian fiesta going on in Jerash. I'll bet
there was no fiesta on Mount Nebo. Serendipity.

As we finished up the tour, our guide offered us a proposition. We could eat
the stale, mayonnaise-less sandwich they gave us in our brown-bag lunch or
we could eat at a local restaurant. While the other tours choked down
something that may or may not have been bologna, we chose the Green Valley
Restaurant and Rest House. 

The aroma of kiln-baked flat bread filled the garden restaurant while
soldiers sampled tea and Turkish coffee. The flat bread was served with a
variety of spreads. The protocol involved tearing off chunks of the bread
and scooping up a healthy dose of the various dips. I might have recognized
hummus. Everything else looked really bad but tasted really good. I tried
everything on faith and a burning desire to be a good guest in Jordan. I am
happy to report it was all excellent. Kebabs followed and I was back in my
element. After several iterations of make-your-own-gyro, I was stuffed. 

Our final stop was along the River Jabbok in the Gilead Mountains, where an
angel reportedly appeared to the prophet Jacob and told him henceforth he
would be known as Israel.

I returned to our dusty compound at Camp Zarqa strangely content. Yes, I
would still like to see the Dead Sea. It does have great brand recognition.
But from a cultural awareness perspective, we probably got the most bang for
our buck and, ultimately, that was why we came.

Jerash was not the first time my service has rewarded me with serendipitous
travel opportunities. I once got stuck for two weeks in Germany on my way to
Bosnia. I spent another two weeks in Utah during the Olympics. 

And sometimes - if you are lucky - you end up in Jerash, Jordan, when you
really thought you wanted to go to the Dead Sea. 

The author is an Army aviator who recently traded in his flight suit for
duty as a public affairs officer for the 13th Sustainment Command at Fort
Hood, Texas. He is preparing to deploy to Iraq with the command this summer.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Seeya round town, Moscow.

t hansen
Moscow, Idaho

*******************************************************

"If the law is to be respected it must first be respectable.  There will
never be respect for our laws without enforcement, equal enforcement."

- dick Sherwin (May 3, 2006)

*******************************************************