LIVING BETWEEN IRAQ AND A HARD PLACE: Peace Corps Volunteers in Jordan, 2005-2007

By Martin Feess

Living Between Iraq and a Hard Place is a real life twenty-first century adventure. Martin and Karen Feess, an American couple, spent two years immersed in Arab-Muslim culture, participated in village life, and formed close friendship, while Martin’s thinking evolved with regard to the problems of the Middle East. His observations are at t

• Language: English
• Publisher: TOPLINK PUBLISHING, LLC
• Release date: May 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781733056014

Martin Feess

Martin Feess has been a teacher for thirty years. He earned a PhD in history in 1999, served in the Peace Corps in Jordan and Albania, and taught in Vietnam. Dr. Feess resides in Glendale, Arizona. He is also the author of American Heroes, Theodore Roosevelt’s Arizona Boys, and Living Between Iraq and a Hard Place.

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Living Between Iraq

and a

Hard Place

Peace Corps Volunteers in Jordan, 2005-2007

Martin Feess

Copyright © 2019 by Martin Feess.

Paperback:   978-1-7330560-0-7

eBook:   978-1-7330560-1-4

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Printed in the United States of America

Living between Iraq and a Hard Place:

Peace Corps Volunteers in Jordan, 2005 to 2007

By Martin Feess

Photos by Karen Feess

For the good people of Jordan who

graciously shared their lives with us.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1:   Window to Another World

Chapter 2:   Strange Salvation

Chapter 3:   Who do I Serve?

Chapter 4:   Experiencing the Wonders of the World

Chapter 5:   Adaptations

Chapter 6:   Egypt and Tanzania

Chapter 7:   Epiphany

Chapter 8:   A time of Reflection

Epilogue

Final Notes on a Complicated Problem

Recommended Reading on the Middle East

Introduction

In the twenty-first century, the world is much more interconnected than ever before, yet major cultures have considerable differences among them. Lack of understanding between the mostly Muslim people of the Middle East and the people of the west is a problem which contributes to hostility in the world. We all have a part to play in establishing lines of communication between cultures. We must learn about others, as well as teach others about ourselves. The desired outcome is mutual respect among all people and combined efforts to solve problems affecting us all.

This book is my personal account of the experiences of myself and my wife over two years as Peace Corps volunteers in Jordan. I offer the reader a window into rural, traditional Arab life and thinking. My first hope is that the reader will get to know Jordanian people a little through my experiences. If we, the people of the world, are to get along, we must try to understand each other’s thinking; we must try to see the world as others see it.

My wife, Karen, and I served in Jordan from the summer 2005 to the summer of 2007. I include our varied experiences in Jordan for the entertainment and education of the reader. I invite the reader to share the joy and laughter of our experiences. I also include my personal understanding of the problems of the Middle East as it developed over my two years of service and some personal views for the consideration of the reader. I, myself, read a fair amount while in Jordan and had many political and philosophical discussions. I also had time to reflect on my experiences, my readings, and our world. While in Jordan, Karen and I traveled considerably both within and outside the country. Jordan has many historical sites. We visited extensive Roman ruins at Jerash and Umm Qais. We also visited the Nabatean city of Petra (a wonder of the world); the Muslim castle of Ajloun; a Byzantine church at Madaba; Mount Nebo, where Moses looked over into the Promised Land; and the resort city of Aqaba, where Lawrence of Arabia won his greatest victory against the Turks. Vacations outside Jordan included London, Egypt, and Tanzania. We invite the reader to share the joy and wonder of our travels.

Chapter 1

Window to Another World

When men are unable to form an idea of distant and unknown, they judge them by what is familiar and at hand. This axiom explains the inexhaustible source of all error about principles of human nature. These errors are embraced by entire nations and by scholars.

Giovanni Battista Vico, Italian Journalist,

Philosopher (1668-1744) quoted in

Great Thoughts, George Seldes, ed.

Many people, myself included, make careful plans for the future and think that they know with reasonable certainty where they will be in five years. But one strange, scary thing about life is that we do not fully control our destiny. I was driving to work one September morning to a job that I enjoyed and expected to be at indefinitely. I made my usual stop at the convenience store for a French vanilla coffee and I listened to my radio in my car waiting for Paul Harvey at 6:30. I don’t remember what news Paul had that day except for the very end: This just in, it seems someone has flown a plane into the World Trade Center in New York. The world was suddenly changed forever. I had to do something. I know how silly that sounds, but that call to duty was real and compelling to me. I think that we all face life changing events. These are often personal tragedies or unexpected opportunities. Success in life is in how we confront our destiny and how we choose to define our suc cess.

I soon found, to no real surprise, that the military did not want recruits over the age of 50, even with prior military service. I took the next available alternative. Karen and I served for two years in the Peace Corps. We had volunteered to go anywhere in the world. Good fortune took us to Jordan, an Arab country in the Middle East and a neighbor of Iraq. What Karen and I gained and have to share is a firsthand knowledge of the Arab world and the Peace Corps and a collection of experiences unique, interesting, and, at the same time, humorous. I also acquired a need to share the experience of our service in the Peace Corps, because I believe that we (Americans and Arabs) need desperately to know each other better.

Jordan, our home for two years, is a good country in a difficult location. To the east is Iraq. Israel and the West Bank are to the west. Syria is to the north. The other country on the southeastern border is Saudi Arabia which is much more conservative than Jordan and, consequently, by western standards more repressive to women, minorities, and free thinkers. Lebanon is also nearby to the northwest. The tiny kingdom of Jordan seems to magically escape the political turmoil, wars, and repression that encircle it. A combination of wise government, commitment to education, and high level security are major components of the mix responsible for this good fortune. The late King Hussein, who came to the throne in the early 1950s and ruled for 46 years, set a high standard for what a benevolent monarchy should be in the modern era. I have heard the present queen, Rania, on television expressing the view that her role is like a job, not a position of privilege. King Abdullah II, her husband and Hussein’s son, clearly embraces this idea of service. But conflict in this region could easily engulf Jordan if a strong internal security force did not exist. Roughly half of the population consists of Palestinian refugees, Arabs who have fled Israel or Israeli occupied lands. A civil war, which lasted a year, broke out in Jordan in 1970. The government had to send tanks into the cities and Syria threatened to intervene on the side of the Palestinians.

Getting into the Peace Corps to begin with required a great deal of patience and persistence for Karen and me. The process of application for the Peace Corps was, at that time, long and frustrating. There were background checks, credit checks, mounds of paperwork, and a detailed physical. The whole process seemed to be designed so that if you had any doubt about serving you would become exasperated and give up. I had to get a considerable amount of expensive dental work done. Then Karen and I both failed the physical. My iron was low. I talked with my doctor about it. He said that it was on the low side but easily within normal parameters and should not be a problem. I started taking iron pills. I began eating food rich in iron, especially spinach. This was my own private iron man competition and I was determined to win.

The forms for the physical were long. The Peace Corps wanted to know every little health problem that we had ever had. The difficulty for people our age is, of course, that if you are too diligent in providing this information the investigation of these problems can be extensive and take a very long time. Karen had developed trigger fingers where the fingers painfully catch when bending them and her hands were swollen for some unknown reason. Her doctor prescribed prednisone to help with the pain and swelling. She reported this to the Peace Corps and she was told that she had to be off the medicine for six months before they would accept her. The eventual result was that our entry into the organization was delayed a year when we missed the start for our 2004 assignment.

When we finally did get an assignment offer for Jordan, I was thrilled and relieved. My answer was an instant yes. Karen was understandably more cautious. When the Peace Corps offers an assignment, they provide a good deal of information about the country and the job being offered. Among the documents we received was a warning about some potentially negative aspects. This came from the Jordanian woman who would be our lead trainer and supervisor. Basically it said that if any of this scares you or makes you feel uncomfortable, or if you think that you might not be able to adapt, please don’t come. After reading all the information and considering it, Karen said yes and we began to study Arabic.

We had been living in Holbrook, a small town in northeastern Arizona. We were both teachers, though hardly English teachers. I was teaching math in Joseph City, the next small town over. My degrees, however, are in history, and I had taught history at a local community college part-time. Karen taught visually impaired students and traveled all over northeastern Arizona to various schools for that. She was able to retire the year we left. I went back to teaching math for another five years before pursuing other interests.

We had been somewhat active in a church, and I had been a member of some community organizations, so the two of us going into the Peace Corps did make news in our small town. We were interviewed and made the front page of the local newspaper. We were both shocked a month later to be confronted with the article by the Peace Corps trainers in Jordan. We had been Googled! Back then in 2005 I didn’t even know that such a thing was possible. Fortunately we hadn’t said anything too foolish. Our report date was, I believe, July 6, 2005 in Washington, D.C. We came in time to spend the 4th of July there. I remember that the fireworks were unspectacular. We had been to D.C. before, so we did not do all the touristy things this time around. Karen’s sister, brother-in-law, and her brother-in-law’s cousin and daughter came down from the Philadelphia area to visit us and say good-bye. They did not say it then, but I think that they thought we were crazy. A few months later I wasn’t sure myself.

Karen and I were part of a group of thirty-two volunteers. Naturally most of the group was young. There were, however, a half dozen of us senior citizens ranging in age from forty-six to seventy-five. The younger people were all well-educated and intelligent. Many had studied the Middle East or Arab culture in college. I soon discovered that most were more well-traveled than Karen and I and sophisticated beyond their years. During training I sometimes felt like a partially educated hillbilly—but a hillbilly with something to contribute. I liked these people and I soon felt that I was on a great adventure—the time of my life.

Older readers will remember that the Peace Corps was formed in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy. When I was young and idealistic, I would have considered joining the Peace Corps, but by the time I finished high school the magic of the Kennedy years had faded under the dark cloud of Vietnam. I served two undistinguished years in the army, Lyndon’s legions. It was only by dumb luck and standing in the wrong line at the right time that I did not go to Vietnam. Now, nearly forty years later, I was where I felt I belonged—with Kennedy’s kids. Karen and I were realistic about the job ahead. Anything we would do here would really make very little difference in