Modified House Arrest

       I have been asked to include more pictures in this blog, so I am starting things off with a photo of the BYU Jordan 2012 mascot! This is Bissa (the Jordanian word for cat) or Aladdin. We found a tiny, 4-week old kitten on the street by my friend's house one night--3 baths, a vet visit, and several weeks later, the rapidly growing feline is firmly installed at my classmate's apartment. (He is going to our Jordanian professor's home when we leave). He spent several days at my apartment, though.
   This post might be a bit political, but it's mostly Jordanian politics, so I don't think I can offend anybody too much. Yesterday (Friday/Sunday) was an interesting day, and we were put under a sort of modified house arrest for security reasons. Church in the Irbid branch was cancelled, and so was the Arabic-speaking branch, so we all went to the ex-patriate branch at 8:30 AM. Here we are in front of the church building in Amman (that's my new Jordanian dress--it was so difficult to find something that would fit me! The poor salesman had to go back to storage to find a shirt, and he only had one in my size.
 
  The reason was this: The Arab Spring has not really made its way to Jordan (my professor says it is because Jordanians remember the horrors of their recent civil wars too well to want to do it again), but the combined weight of a bad economy, the new pressure of 200,000 Syrian refugees on Jordan, and the usual complaints about the government are causing political stress. They pushed some new laws on Parlimentary election through last summer, to be implemented some time this year--nobody knows exactly when. (I would try and explain Parlimentary election laws, but I have recently concluded that no one actually understands them, and they make the electoral college look like the most logical and democratic system in the world).
     Everyone was quite worried--the US embassy increased its security (again) and shut down for the day, the Arab Greek Orthodox church cancelled services, and we were confined to the neighborhood. (I was rather disappointed, as we had to cancel our dinner engagement with a nice investigator family up in Irbid.) The police set up a perimeter around the downtown area, complete with machine guns, some of which we saw. The King also dismissed the Parliament yesterday morning---I still don't quite understand that political move, and I am trying to imagine the American response if President Obama told Congress that they could just go home.

Eating authentic chocolate chip cookies at Taj Mall in Amman on Thursday night

   Of course, it was rather frightening, and we all gave special prayers for the people of Jordan in church. At the same time, it was rather interesting to be here for it. And the news has been encouraging--the counter-demonstration was cancelled at the last minute, and only 10,000 people showed up to protest. We heard some things coming from loudspeakers, but didn't see anything (I live in the suburbs, so to speak.)

     Meanwhile, the BYU students had a group dinner together at another apartment. This is the view off of their balcony, looking out over Dahiat Al-Rasheed. Despite portents of doom, our day of modified house arrest was actually quite lovely.