Tololy's Box

Oy, She's Back!

I’m back.

Now dance.

New York, New York

People,

A whole lot has happened since I wrote properly in this space. In fact, so much has happened that I don’t think I’m the same person anymore. Fortunately for you though, I don’t feel the need to share the minutiae of my drama-drenched life. One day all that will go in a book, and if you buy it, you will be privy to the details of the struggle and whatever follows it.

To make a long story short, I am now in New York. I got here just a couple of days before election day and will be staying until mid January. So, to the three readers I have, if you happen to be in New York and want to meet up, drop me a line so we can arrange something.

Continue reading…

Note

1…2…3…Testing.

If you can read this, then Tololy’s Box migration has succeeded and my obscure technical abilities are, once again, validated. Hurrah!

This is a technical note, and not a regular post. I am still on a sabbatical –the sabbath never ends for lazy people, you see. Hurrah!

Going on a Sabbatical

Dear you,

I have found that I am too absorbed in my own condition to deliver much of value to the world, and for that reason I decided to take a break and reorder my priorities. Lately, I have been feeling that the quality of my posts has deteriorated, that I have lost my focus (if I ever had any), and that I yearn for something that I have not delivered yet. Some restructuring, shuffling, condensing, or toying must be done to pacify these feelings.

I will not be blogging for some time, so the box will get a bit rusty. If you want to communicate with me, drop me a line.

Do not despair though (hah!), I haven’t quit blogging yet. I’ll be back like the devil that I am.

Until we meet again, adieu!

Even Bigger Change

She was supposed to give birth today so…

…we arranged to go out last night.

I was excited and planned to wear my favorite satin pencil skirt.

It was supposed to be her last pre-maternal hangout.

At around 6 PM, I got an SMS.

“I am in a lot of pain. I don’t think I can go out. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Woo hoo! I’m gonna be an aunt again! You’ll make a wonderful mom. Love you :* ”

I then sat in my room wondering what will happen next.

At 1:20 AM I got another SMS.

“I did it! I gave birth to a baby boy at 9! His name is Laith and he is SO cute! It was OK!”

I stared into space.

Continue reading…

Jordanian Women vs. Nationality

The Jordan Times published a revealing first-person account of the sheer sexism of Jordanian law with regards to Jordanian women married to non-Jordanian men. (Reverse the situation: Jordanian men married to non-Jordanian women, and you shall have a smooth sailing). Read:

A Jordanian family of men?

Nermeen Murad

Almost two years ago I wrote my first column at The Jordan Times and expressed my incredulity at my family being denied membership of the Jordanian family.

My husband and children have not only been denied citizenship, they have also been subjected to a series of what I would call xenophobic legislation and directives that certainly ensure they could never claim that they belong here.

Two years on, I have become resigned to the fact that Jordan, with its current social and political mindset, will resist any attempt from my side to add my small family’s imported name to the list of Jordanian family names. This I do with regret for my children who will never comprehend why their mother’s country rejected them outright and without compromise.

But this doesn’t mean that I will give up the fight, at least for reduced bureaucracy in dealing with the affairs of the spouse and children of a Jordanian woman, regardless of their nationality.

Hence, here I go again.

Two weeks ago, the Jordanian Ministry of Education saw fit to allow the foreign children of a Jordanian woman to enrol in public schools. I don’t want to go on about how shocking it is that they had been kept out of these schools for so long. I will instead concentrate on welcoming the positive and calling for even more movement in that direction.

Let me please describe the situation. The husband of a Jordanian woman is treated exactly like any foreign labourer and has no special categorisation that even slightly improves his standing with the authorities in the country.

In plain Arabic speak, he has no wasta! He and every other menial worker who enters Jordan are given the same treatment.

So, therefore, when he buys a car, he needs security clearance. When he buys a house, he needs security clearance. He renews his driver’s licence every single year and every year he pays the fees again. He renews his visa every year and, of course, has to go through the same procedure as the domestic helper, registering his address at the local police station and then taking all his documentation to the different departments associated with the Ministry of Interior. My children carry an iqama, exactly like the contracted workers, and my husband has the added pleasure of also carrying a work permit.

The husband of a Jordanian woman cannot simply decide to live in Jordan without work because it is the work that allows him to have a residency and not his marriage.

I look forward to making arrangements for retirement in any other country in the world that will be happy to allow my husband and I to retire in peace without an annual hassle; my country has so far not made allowances for that possibility.

In fact, an anomaly appeared the other day when we began procedures to employ a domestic helper under my husband’s name, only to find out that he has to put JD2,000 deposit as a guarantee against the import of a house helper.

This is the same treatment allocated to passing foreigners in the country and does not begin to allow for the fact that he resides here in Jordan because he is the lifetime partner of a Jordanian citizen, albeit a women.

I asked the other day at a brokerage firm whether I could create small investment portfolios for my minor children only to find out that the law had a relapse against me in this regard.

Apparently I, their mother, cannot be the guardian of my minor children, because that is the father’s prerogative and therefore any funds invested on their behalf by me is under the control of their father.

If Jordan cannot bring itself to welcome our husbands and children as honoured citizens of the Jordanian family, then let it at least welcome them as honoured guests.

Directives such as the one that allowed the children of a Jordanian woman into schools are to be commended and encouraged. But they must be followed by other such steps that recognise the special status of this sector of society and seeks to make its members welcome in their adopted home.

One-year residency should be replaced with five-year residencies, followed by permanent residency for the relatives of a female Jordanian citizen. Sale or purchase of personal property, i.e., houses and cars, should be routine for the spouses and children of a Jordanian woman.

Irregularities in the law which favour male members of the Jordanian family over female siblings should be reduced and in time, removed. Then, we can honestly claim to be home to the one Jordanian family.

Nermeen34@aol.com

Source

This is truly a slap on the face of justice.

Monsieur le Marquis

The second oddest thing to happen within this quarter is that after I watched Quills, the movie about the Marquis de Sade which I enjoyed tremendously, Monsieur le Marquis de Sade kept appearing to me in various and unexpected places.

I was googling Simone de Beauvoir the other night, and what did I find? I found that she had written a book titled Must We Burn De Sade?. Very well, I thought, and didn’t dwell on it.

Today I came home from the library with six books, one of which is titled Mishima: Vision of the Void, and is written by Marguerite Yourcenar. I opened the book on a random page, and read “I am Donatien-Alphonse-Francois, Marquis de Sade.” I must say that this momentary happening felt extremely strange. What are the odds of my bringing home a book from the library I have never read before but picked because it had an interesting title, and opening this book on a random page, to be greeted by de Sade’s name? Is there any order in this chaos?

A friend of mine believes that when someone occupies your thoughts and you think of them the whole time, you are bound to see them or hear from them or get in touch somehow by cosmic coincidence. He says that the harder you focus on one thing/person, the more likely the universe will respond by bringing them your way.

This is not to say that I have been “occupied” with de Sade. While I am currently reading one of his works, 120 Days of Sodom, I can’t say he’s on my mind. Two other issues occupy my mind entirely and there is no room for any diversions. What makes it all the more bizarre is that before I watched the movie, I didn’t know anything about de Sade, let alone run into his mentions in random books.

This must be a curse!

سيكون رداً كافياً: الجزء الثاني

Et tu, Brute?

I really don’t need this right now.

Mosquitoes have acquired a lot of nerve recently. They now come in two varieties (traditional slim and extra petite), they attack in groups, and they target different body parts. Not only that, they also bite me while I am still awake. Have some decency, at least wait until I sleep.

Exploring the Citadel

A friend of mine took me to the hill of the Citadel this morning to see the various gods on display over there. I haven’t been to the Citadel in forever, really, as I can’t even remember when I last went there except for the detail that it was at night and that I could see the lights of Amman from the hill. So, it was a refreshing and a thoroughly amusing trip this morning…not to mention that I discovered that I have a statue fetish.

One of my, and my friend’s, favorite items in the museum at the Citadel were jars where ancient peoples in Tlilat Al Ghasoul (a place in Jordan) buried their dead. This is a picture of a child’s skeleton in one of the jars, and after that there is a picture of bigger, adult jars. Two to three corpses were placed in a single jar.

And I also liked these Roman “tear glasses:”

And, oh, the head sculptures. There were many heads and other sculptures, as well as bits of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The broad historical spectrum represented through the items was very informative. You can click here and see a collection of pictures I took today, and hopefully go to the Citadel yourself and explore a bit.