05.11.2007 — A few days ago I got tired of eating at home and went down to the souq, (market) for a late breakfast at my favorite restaurant. A medium size bowl of hummus, topped with spicy salsa, laced generously with olive oil, scooped up with pita, and washed down with hot fragrant sage tea.
 
Almost at the same time, six people were killed by a suicide bomber who walked into a popular restaurant in Baghdad's International Zone, formerly known as the Green Zone, according to the NY Times on-line which I read every day. There were no headlines about it, but most days about a thousand more people flee Iraq for the neighboring countries of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Jordan's refugee population from Iraq is now estimated to be 15% larger than four years ago. The Iraqi refugees tend to cluster in and near Amman, so it's remote at least in feeling, if not in distance from where I am, less than two hours by car.
 
But here in my little Switzerland of the Middle East, Jordan, life goes sweetly on, though always tempered inwardly by the satellite TV which we watch every night while eating dinner (just like the US), by the internet, and by conversation with my friends and neighbors.
 
Yesterday's work in brilliant sunshine and mild temperatures was exceptionally sweet. Somehow a group of little kids have discovered Suzie teaching English at the girls center. Four girls and two boys have been coming from the third grade and fourth grade. These boys are being allowed to come because they are SO young and SO obviously innocent. A couple of fifth grade boys who attempted to come were summarily sent home as too old to be coming to the girls center. I am reading their English homework with them and attempting to improve their English accents. It is the most amazing and really humbling experience to see these little kids struggling and succeeding with a foreign language at such an early age. Their text is a little story in a cartoon format, and I let them puzzle out the words before I bail them out.
 
When they arrive they all shake hands with me, very shyly, but they step right up to the plate. I try to make them laugh a little because I can see they're very frightened to be taking such a bold step as to seek help from the formidable foreigner. When they were finished yesterday they all shook my hand again, and gave me the traditional cheek kisses, one on the left and three on the right. I was exceptionally pleased with them, and they apparently with me, because they gave me the third kiss. Twenty four kisses in less than a minute.
 
Then I scared them by insisting they come to Dema. I could see them start to quake. My Arabic is not up even to their English, but I had Dema tell them that they all are wonderful students and I'm very proud of them. They positively beamed themselves away from the center.
 
Following that my long-suffering Arabic tutor, who's incredibly gifted at English, showed up with seven older girls to practice singing and dancing. At the end of May we're heading to a cultural festival in a town near Amman, where performance groups recruited by a couple of my fellow volunteers will be strutting their stuff.
 
She is teaching them an advanced form of dubkha, an Arabic traditional dance which is frequently done by guests at weddings, men and women separately. (YouTube has samples). We're also at my instigation learning a song in English, and they're working hard, and really looking forward to meeting kids from other towns, a rare treat.
 
The news from the outer world is very challenging. It's not possible to be oblivious, and I don't want to be. To keep doing my work and remain hopeful that it "makes a difference" as the phrase goes is another layer of challenge.
 
I have a number of personal coping strategies to try to keep my boat afloat: using the internet to remain aware, and music and poetry to remain hopeful. Recently I downloaded and installed Stephen Foster's Hard Times on my iPod, the version by YoYo Ma, Edgar Meyers and Mark O'Connor.
 

 
Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears
 
While we all sup sorrow with the poor;
 
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears,
 
Oh hard times come again no more.
 
'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
 
Hard times, hard times, come again no more.
 
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door,
 
Oh hard times come again no more.
 
While we seek mirth and beauty, and music light and gay
 
There are frail forms fainting at the door.
 
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
 
Hard times come again no more.
 
May it be so.