The adolescent phase of anthropology

This is like middle school, all over again.

I'm in this agonizing phase of crafting my elevator pitch, figuring out who I want to be to strangers, and struggling to find a good way of presenting myself. See, when you're an anthropologist, you basically hang out and try to talk to people, and then build relationships with them, so that you can understand where they're coming from. I feel like a junior high school kid, asking people to be my friend. So I've been going to art and cultural sites here in Abu Dhabi and basically talking to strangers.

On Friday, I decided to visit the Abu Dhabi Heritage Village and see what they had going on. It was surprisingly like the heritage constructions in Oman: Bedouin tents, weaving, falaj systems, and frankincense burners. And of course, displays of sailing ships in their various incarnations throughout the history of the Indian Ocean.

Empty vending machines - you shouldn't be eating during Ramadan anyway!

Abu Dhabi Heritage Village: the "Desert Environment" section

Giant frankincense burners! A Khaleeji (Gulf) staple

 Then on Saturday, I attended an art workshop at Manarat al Saadiyat. The workshop was entitled "Metal Etching," and was specifically targeted to adults. I signed up because I wanted to see what the workshops were like, and gain a better sense of the offerings on Saadiyat. Who goes to them? What are they like?  I had no idea what I was in for, and on top of that, I'm not good at art and have no previous experience with metal etching. But...gotta get started somewhere!

Manarat's workshop room

 We began by taking a piece of carbon paper, a picture of our choosing, and a metal plate covered in a blue varnish. Taping the carbon paper on top of the plate, and then the drawing on top of that, we used pencils to trace over the drawing. When we removed the papers, penciled outlines of the drawing appeared on the plate. From there, we used nails (really, long metal sticks shaped like pencils) to etch the penciled outlines into the plate. Our instructor, Fatima, explained how to do shading: essentially, with etching, you're creating an mirror image. So what you etch into the metal, even though it shows up light against the darker blue of the varnish, will actually show up in the print as black, and any text you write should be backwards.

After we finished etching our designs into the plates, we washed it in a chemical bath (you can find recipes for how to make safe, nontoxic varnish and the chemical bath here). As the plate sits in the bath, you use a paintbrush and swirl over the plate. As the chemicals interact with the plate and the varnish that's coming off, they start to rust and create these little brown flecks. You use the paintbrush to get rid of these, and to prevent the chemical reaction from corroding so deep that it ruins the metal plate. After ten minutes, you remove the plate and use bathroom cleaner (no joke!) to clean the plate.

My plate post-chemical bath

 After the plate is clean, you cover it with black ink. Then, you put it into a press with a piece of cotton paper. Fatima told us if we don't have a press handy (clearly, most people have them in their homes, what cretin wouldn't), we could "run over it with your car in your driveway." Unfortunately, we had to make do with the printing press...I'd like to try the other method sometime soon!

 I started with the far right image, of the Hindu God Vishnu, and traced that onto the metal plate (middle) and then printed it out (far left). I definitely have some work to do as an artist, but it didn't turn out half as badly as I expected. In addition, I met some of the other workshop participants, got some valuable observational data, and made some friends who work here in Abu Dhabi and in culture. All in all, I'm counting it as a success.

Art Hub's Ramadan tent

Yesterday, I went to Abu Dhabi Art Hub to attend an artist talk. They have a Ramadan talk series. I got there five minutes before the talk was supposed to start, and sat down in the Ramadan tent on the roof. About half an hour later, I asked the girl setting up the a/v and serving me coffee if the talk was still happening. Long story short, the speaker never showed, and I ended up meeting the staff of Art Hub and chatting with them for an hour...and they asked me to give a talk on Saturday!

It's been a completely uncomfortable week. I feel like an awkward teenager again, stumbling all over everything, but I've been lucky enough to meet and speak with so many key people in the art scene here and they've been open, supportive, and welcoming. A week ago, I was really afraid that my project wouldn't be feasible in the long run. But now, I have some new contacts and some openings to work with people here in the future.  I might just be able to pull this off after all, and I'm growing up as an anthropologist. Slowly, painfully, but growing up all the same.

I definitely feel like I live a blessed life. 

Lessons from Jordan & Musings of an Anthro-in-Training

Memorial to Moses at Mt Nebo

On Saturday after the Dead Sea, we stopped at some Christian holy sites on the way back to Amman for our final night in Jordan. First, we drove up to Mt Nebo, where God showed Moses the Promised Land (it must have been a clearer day, that day; I couldn't see much land for the haze). We also went to see the Madaba Map, at St George Orthodox Church in Madaba. It's one of the oldest portrayals of the area, and as such is an important map of Jewish and Palestinian sites.

Guard of the Mt Nebo mosaics

The Madaba map

After we dropped our suitcases off at our hotel, we returned our rental car with great relief and decided it was time to relax with a discreet cocktail at the Intercontinental. Jordanian rules about food and alcohol during Ramadan have been spotty and inconsistent, which means every time you ask if you can get food or alcohol during daylight hours you feel super awkward and vaguely like I imagine alcoholics feel. Our hotel in Petra didn't serve beers after Ramadan started at all (the day prior, we tried Philadelphia beer, a local brand - can't recommend!). The Movenpick resort only served alcohol on their roof deck, not at any of the indoor bars. When we had lunch in Karak, the Jordanian owner responded to my question "Are you open despite Ramadan" with an "of course" like my question was crazy. "Some people eat, some people don't eat, but all are welcome." And our hotel at the Dead Sea opened their restaurants for breakfast, lunch and dinner (after nightfall) but didn't serve alcohol. You could order food and alcohol at any time from room service, but you couldn't consume alcohol anywhere but your room. And at the Intercontinental Amman, you could order alcohol indoors or in your rooms but you couldn't take it to the terrace, for example. The Intercon served food regularly. I found this interesting - at some of the other places we ate, like the Movenpick and the Dead Sea, our servers were non-Arab, which makes sense why they would work in food service during Ramadan. But the places that were the most open or unrestricted were staffed by Arabs.

I had an incredible vacation in Jordan, thanks mostly to Rob. We learned a few tougher lessons, though. Before I share them, know that in Jordan, a dinar is the basic unit, and 1000 fils make up a dinar. So 500 fils is half a dinar. $1 = 700 fils, so each dinar is like $1.25.

Lessons from Jordan

1). There is no such thing as "too short to merge," "too steep to drive up," or "too intense of a hairpin curve" in the minds of Jordanian civil engineers. This makes for funny jokes afterwards, but a harrowing driving experience at the time.

2). Sometimes speaking Arabic puts you at a disadvantage. It doesn't always win people over. I think sometimes it makes you seem condescending.

3). In Jordan, you're ALWAYS negotiating. Even things like bottled water - which should be 350-500 fils - were quoted at 1 dinar (2-3x value) or even 2 dinars (4-6x). It was such a relief when gas station attendants scanned water bottles, and the price came up instead of having to haggle. Cab drivers would say their meters weren't working, and ask for ludicrous fares. For example, one driver asked
for 3 dinars, and our actual cab fare - with another driver - was 158 fils. That's 3% of what he asked! Then, that driver, who had agreed to the meter, argued that 158 on the meter actually meant 1.58 dinars, after I gave him 1 dinar to pay (and didn't ask for change). That means I gave him ~8x in tip what the fare actually cost, and he still pushed to cheat me me. The Lonely Planet, usually reliable, says that most Jordanians wouldn't dream of cheating you...but that wasn't our experience at all. It was incredibly frustrating. As an anthropologist, it's also really hard - in the US, I am always advocating for Arabs and and trying to tear down prevalent and crappy tropes about them. Westerners ask me weird and oftentimes ignorant questions about the Middle East, but I'd rather answer them than have people continue to believe in the stereotypes. In some way or another, by my profession I often serve the role of ambassador or cultural-explainer or advocate, whether I want to or not.

But when I come to the Middle East, and have experiences like some of the ones we had, or have experiences like that of being a woman in Oman, it's hard for me to negotiate...I can't lie and say that we didn't get cheated 80% of the time in Jordan, and that the only people who were really nice to us were those in fancy hotels or resorts. I can't say that it wasn't really hard to be a youngish woman in Oman or that it was comfortable to be in my own skin. But I don't want to contribute to these ugly tropes...which puts me in a really awkward position. Not all Arab men are creepers and cheats. These boxes don't contain the entirety of a culture, and can't...this is what anthropology is all about. It's about the realness and the messiness and the way things don't fit in boxes or do or occupy a space that straddles or overlaps or destroys or touches or talks back to stereotypes and accepted ideas about the world, often in ways that are difficult to comprehend.

I recognize that this is the messy part of doing fieldwork and being in this profession is dealing with people, and that social sciences is considered a "soft" science because the facts of life and human experience are too varied and divergent to offer comforting and consistent predictions or explanations. Lila Abu-Lughod wrote about the difficulty of anthropologists "writing culture," and how writing about culture can create a consistency that isn't there in real life. So here, I've tried to write an honest depiction of all of it, the good and the bad, and not cover up where the edges don't line up. It's not easy, but it is an honest portrayal of my experience and my understanding of it. That is a contribution that I can make.

Missives from Muscat: Life in Translation

Hmm...how does an anthropologist interpret this?

Missives from Muscat: On gluttony, estranged English & PFs

Arabs always tell me I will lose weight when I go to the Middle East. What they fail to understand is that I love Middle Eastern food so much that I inevitably consume 3x what I usually do, because it tastes so good - little matter that it is healthy food, in these quantities! Tonight, I had moutabel to die for. And lemon with fresh mint, again. I maybe have had it every day since I've been here...

 Unfortunately there are other dining options in my neighborhood, including a "Baba Johnz" (see above). I will not be eating here, partly because I don't really like Papa Johns anyways, but also because I learned in Thailand, the hard way, never to eat food that the local people don't know how to make (ie, don't eat hamburgers in Thailand or you'll get the runs. Just order some more pad thai & tom yum soup).

One of my favorite things is Menu English. I'm not sure what cheese paste is, but I'll be honest, I'd probably eat it. After all, it has cheese in it. I'd also eat 'pizaa', assuming that's just pizza with a little less pizazz.

Yesterday, Sunday, was a flying-high day. I placed into the most advanced level of Arabic the Center offers, and I was feeling rather invincible (a sentiment that was deflated by today's classes, proving unfortunately short-lived). We had a half day of classes after the placement test, and then we met with our "peer facilitators" or what the staff insist on referring to as "PFs." PFs are Omani college grads or current students who meet with us for two hours every afternoon and make us talk to them. It's terrifying. My PF, Ayman, is really sweet and (alhamdulileh) very patient; she wears a long black abaya with embroidery around the wrists and neckline layered over her jeans, which peek out underneath when she walks. She wears a big black gauzy veil in what I call the "beehive style," which is very common here - women put their hair up into big buns or ponytails to create a kind of beehive do over which they tie their hijab, with none of their hair visible. Ayman also wears colored contacts. Yesterday, she and her friend, Adra, who is my roommate Julia's PF, took us to "Seetee Sender" (City Center) mall. As we walked around the mall, she had me tell her about the things we saw. It was a really good idea - after all, we are complete strangers. Starting a conversation with, "So what do you want to talk about?" doesn't give you a lot of traction. But touring the mall, and talking about the objects and people we saw, gave us ground to start from. Today Ayman and I talked about weddings in Oman: she told me that they are three day affairs, that the bride's dowry is a matter of public gossip and status-making, and most Omani women get married after high school, at age 17, to men usually 10 years or so their senior. I asked her what was the most important characteristic of a potential groom, and she answered immediately, "Whether he is a good man and comes from a nice family." Then she confided, "And after their parents agree on the match, they are allowed to talk to each other on their cell phones and even meet each other." Sometimes you have these moments where you are shocked at how different your life is from another person's, and all your choices and theirs fall into relief and you realize a) how your beliefs, expectations and lifestyle is in no way natural or inevitable, but that you have been socialized to find some things normal and others odd, which means that b) you realize how important anthropology is! Yep, I'm closing with that shameless plug.

Days 243 - 253: Notes from the Field

For Sunday, February 12 - Wednesday, February 22

So first, I apologize for being very behind. But I hope I can offer so much goodness and gratitude to make up for my incredible tardiness. And in my defense, I had to travel to Chicago for crazy stressful interviews, I was sick, I have jury duty, and my grandmother is on her deathbed.

Last week (February 13 - 15), I was in LA and I really valued being able to take some time to process what was happening. I appreciate the ability and the discipline of learning to make time for myself, whether that be swimming in the rain because I needed time to think and meditate and exert myself, or sitting in an intensive meditation the night before I went to Chicago to really sit with and own myself prior to such an important and influential, pivotal, life-changing experience.

In Chicago, I was delighted to meet some new friends and fellow travelers. I was drawn to their stories and their work, and so ecstatic to be on the road with these people in the fall - to be able to get to know them better as I embark down a new road.

And as always, I am excited for the culinary possibilities of a new place!


I had a really great time poking around at the Field Museum. Curator Alaka Wali let us poke around the anthropology collections room, relatively unsupervised! More photos coming, when my phone starts working. I can't wait to start working with the collection!


I am also incredibly grateful to receive an offer from Northwestern. I have worked for this for so long. And I am proud of what I have accomplished, happy to be where I am and beginning this next phase, and looking forward to what's around the curve.

And yesterday, Day 252, my cousin David became a father. Welcome to this gorgeous crazy life, little Annabella!

I also came across this gorgeous project, which I thought you'd like:

Seconds Of Beauty - 1st round compilation from The Beauty Of A Second on Vimeo.

And I leave you with this:
"Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day."
— Benjamin Franklin

May your days be filled with moments of beauty, and your eyes anointed to truly see them.