between the lands

**(please excuse the overwhelming redeye–its why i dont like using the flash)

Reesheh(Risheh?) is a Bedouin town of less than 2,000 people in the middle of the desert in Southern Jordan. We’ve been here for the last few days along with the Prometheus Radio Project to help the people in the village build their own radio station, and teach them how to operate it.

If you haven’t heard about Prometheus, they are dope. They do ‘barnraisings’ where people get together and build a community radio station in a few days. They’ve done it all over the states, as well as in Africa, Latin America, Katmandu, and elsewhere.

Click here for a movie showing some of the progress in Reesheh so far——the station should be done by the end of the week.

All of the out of towners helping build the station were at the AMARC conference which just finished up in Amman. It was quite inspiring, meeting people from all over the world who are making great radio, or fighting to be allowed to do so. It was kind of like being in a subway car in NYC, except everybody was excited and talking to each other.
You can hear a report about the conference, which I contributed to, at this page.

—Nuff props to Jackson and apologies that I didn’t do more to help.

It’s really the desert out here by the way…..

And for those who feel we haven’t commented enough on our accommodations along the way, here’s a traveler tip: Aqaba, Jordan is home to a hotel where they fold your towels better than anywhere else—possibly in the world.

I should have a report on the radio next week about the completion of the station—ill let ya’ll know soon….

***update***– you can listen to the report by clicking here its the last story in the half hour show

i think I got at least one movie up...click here to see some really old ish..

well, as I was warned, the old stuff in Europe is put to shame by the old stuff in the middle east. Check out Petra is the best advice i can give. It was a city hidden in a valley, which was ‘re-discovered’ in the early 1800’s. The place is totally beyond words–heres some pics:

There are still at least a dozen bedouin families living in these caves.

Most of the bedouin have been moved to a nearby village. We stayed in the park after sunset, and some of the locals invited us to their house for some tea and nargeeleh. We rode donkeys across the desert as the stars came out. At their home, we met Amal, an 18 year old who left school when she was 10 to sell trinkets to tourists. Shes damn smart.

I have a video of her and the rest of the crew, who were very hospitable, which i would like to post but im still figuring out how to do this movie editing stuff, and its too large a file. stay tuned…

We are back in Amman now, attending the AMARC worldwide community radio conference. People from more than 100 countries are here. For those who dont know what community radio is, we spent an hour trying to define it–basically its radio which is produced by members of the community, and addresses issues important to the members of the local community.
The first day was spent on community radio in North Africa and the Middle East, which is rare because of government refusal to allow it. Often even if there are laws permitting these stations, they still are stifled. The second day was discussing womens roles, how to increase their participation, and how the stations can be used to benefit women in particular. We will largely be in the conference bubble for the next week or so..other than that Jordan is great and everybody is really nice.

Oh, and of course–some people have written to me asking about reaction here in the arab world to the US elections.
In a nutshell, people were indeed watching closely, they are happy with the results, and they hope that its the end of a very dark era.

On a side note, I won an award this week for a radio story I did last year. Much props to my old school homie Ellerie for picking it up at the ceremony in Chicago. It was an excellence in radio award given by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. The story was about when the Hillsborough county commission banned any government participation or acknowledgment of Gay Pride.
You can listen by clicking here its the second to last story in the newscast.

JESSICA SEZ:
we arrived late last night in amman, on a flight from paris.

spent today wandering around downtown. hey! they speak arabic here! and they have a totally different alphabet!

were like 2 lost kittens, but it’s pretty cool.

tomorrow : ancient city of petra

peace, yall!

ANDREW SEZ:

but first….at least some pics from Paris, oui?

Paris reminded me of NYC in its pace–people crossing the streets whereever they want, as opposed to amsterdam, where they always cross at the crosswalk, and Florence, where they have to drive 1 mph to avoid running over tourists on narrow streets.

Lots of great street life as well:

we were eating a gormet feast by one of Frances best kept secrets–chef Tony, when a half-of-europe-wide blackout occured. So we had to eat our cheese in the dark.

A special thanks to our esteemed host Salil! Au revior..until we return to europe in 3 weeks.

We’ve been in Italy for 1 week, now and we have been stuffing ourselves silly!

We started in the Cinque Terre, and then moved on to Florence (Firenze) where our friend Christina had been lent a spacious and comfortable apartment by her friend Banditto. It was us, Christina, and Signor Paolo, the gracious occupant of the apartment.

Since we did not have to rent a room, we felt somewhat free to eat the amazing food available in the restaurants of Florence. Pizza, lasagne, pasta bolognese, grilled chicken, steak florentine you name it! And of course, the wines are wonderful. One goal has been to eat gelatto every day, and for the most part, we have been successful. Florence is a beautiful city, with many gorgeous plazas, churches, sculptures, and even just really pretty details on the buildings.

Then, we moved on to Turin (Torino). Here we have friends that Andrew knows from his J-School days in Bolivia. Manuela and Fabio have introduced us to the wonder that is aperitivo of Turin. It\’s like Spanish tapas: you go to the pub, buy some drinks or a bottle of wine, and help yourself to a generous spread of delightful italian snacks. You eat as much as you want, or until they run out. It is good to arrive early! ***APERITIVO PICS UNAVAILABLE–CENSORED ON ACCOUNT OF GLUTTONY***

Then we went to the Big Eating Event: the combined conferences of the Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre.
ANDREW SEZ: well have pics on the food festival later, but it basically it was like the UN of food. Farmers and food producers from 120 countries, meeting(and offering free samples) to discuss the obstacles to their growing and producing it themselves. one of the major issues facing some of the attendees is that they cant sell unpasteurized milk and cheese to the US and many european nations, even thought theyve been making it for thousands of years.

We checked out the museum of the history of cinema today, a really cool experience in a great old building(actualy a synagogue that was never finished)
***the lights along the side are numbers–its the fibonacci sequence for all you math nerds

we spent some time this morning being interviewed on radio blackout, a long running community radio station where kilia and elettrico are volunteers. well get some pics up soon, but we just wanted to give a shout out before we head up to paris…see yall on the banks of the seine..

5 towns that is…Cinque Terre. On The north part of Italys west coast are 5 little towns that are somewhat frozen in time. All of the stereotypes of “the old country” as they say, are in full effect. the old women hanging out their wash to dry:

Men picking olives in the fields and making fresh olive oil(and pesto–oh yeah!)

men and women sitting on benches and talking smack all day long:

The towns themselves are amazingly beautiful. there are no cars allowed in them, so you really have to take a train from one to the next, or hike along a centuries-old path which is mostly made of steps carved into the mountain, or stone paths made by hand.
[jn sez: until the railroad in the last century, these foot paths were the ONLY way in, out, or between the towns. all the crops were grown out in the countryside terraces and carried on the people’s backs into the the towns. HARDCORE!!!]

Each town is a few miles from the next along cliffs that overlook the ligurian sea.

We hiked from town to town through terraced fields where people have been growing food for a long time….

We stayed in the town of Riomaggiore, one of the quieter ones, but it also had a beach.

The daily menu in Cinque Terre for us was basically tomato, mozzarella and foccacia(invented in this region), with pesto smeared all over it.

And to end, in a sense, one leg of our journey, we swam in the Mediterranian sea.

heres a video, featuring that famed body of water, which was still quite warm in late october. there are some pics in the movie too..

We are in florence now, along with 8 hundred million other tourists. We’ll be here for a couple of days, then headed to Turin, where well be checking out the International slow food festival, and a worldwide gathering of food producers who want to be able to control the production and distribution of that food. Salone Del gusto, and Terra Madre.(click for info)

Meanwhile, a couple of radio stories I produced in Iceland were on the air in your hometown last week.(well many of your hometowns). one about the US military base that recently closed there, and one about the giant dam/smelter project thats being built in the last wild land in Europe. You can listen to them by downloading the programs linked here, Ill put the individual stories up here on the site soon.

we are now in the south of france, and it is SWEEEET!

we pretty much had to tear ourselves out of amsterdam, that place is so freakin COOL. but we had already paid for the euro-rail passes, so it’s not like we could just chill in the dam until it was time for our radio conference in jordan.

Aix-En-Provence was conquered by the romans back around 100 BC, so it’s pretty old. and it has LOTS of cool fountains and OLD buildings.

more old roman stuff, this time in a church dating back to the 6th century AD. there’s a fragment of mosaic flooring, some fresco fragments with a cool horned cow sporting a halo and wings (what’s THAT all about??), and then me & andrew sitting in front of it all.

but the best part is, it’s france so there are amazing bakeries (chocolate croissants), patisseries (pear & peach pies), and of course numerous cafes with amazing coffee. plus, we get to practice our french. i (jessica) have to do most of the talking, but andrew understands pretty much everyhting that’s being said.

we had a hotel room with a kitchenette, so we could save money by cooking in rather than eating out. i have gotten pretty good at beef stew and ginger pork chops!

one of the reasons the romans liked this spot so much (and its previous celto-ligurian residents as well liked it) was because there are lots of underground waters AND geothermal waters. the roman emporer sextus had a famous bath built there using the geothermal waters, and several of the town fountains, still running at dozens of plazas throughout the city, had warm water from underground as well. there is now a fancy-schmancy spa at the site of the former roman bath, and a tiny bit of the old roman vestiges are visible there.

more fountains in Aix-En-Provence:

this being “provence”, the south-eastern region of france, they have their own regional dialect called “provencau” (”pro-vahn-so” or thereabouts). we ate this pizza and got this box demonstrating the provencau “joy of life”. (the waiter told me it was italian. he was wrong. i guess he was french and not provencau!)

here’s some pretty countryside from when we took a grueling (ok, i just about died from the hills; andrew was barely winded) 18 km bike ride out of town:

one day there was a fun romanian gypsy band playing in the central square. they were very entertaining, and although i couldn’t give them any cigarettes, they were happy to accept my 2 euro donation

TAPE WITH AUDIO WILL BE POSTED SOON!!

ok, that was provence, next stop: Cinque Terre, ITALIA!!! (we leave for the train station at 5am, and i’ve been blogging instead of packing. sigh!)

amsterdam is…well lets just say we’ll be back here some day. TICAL!

to be blunt, its been one of the high-lights of the trip. from one 400-yr old building to the next, the joint is jumping. Im chronic-ly adjusting my sense of history, as this is my first time in europe, the depth of of what has happened on these streets makes us just that much more of a speck in the ointment.

not to get too philsophical, its a great bike city too–click here for some video evidence of the mass proliferation of bicycles in the city, set to music from New Orleans that jessica recorded, but we just figured out how to get it up online. there are some pics in the movie too..

We checked out anne franks old hiding spot, the history museum, the heineken brewery tour, which turned out to be more like a heineken commercial with beer at the end, and the museum of torture.

jessica has been eating lots of street herring (JESSICA SEZ: its SOOO gooood).
And just walking around at night over all the canals is pretty sweet. to sum it up, the city goes down smooth, not corny.

***updated along with the pics–on our last night in amsterdam, we went to a 25th anniversary party of an amazing squat, called the Tetterode.(click for info)

were headed to the south of france tomorrow…

yes of course its chilly in iceland–but according to the locals, global warming is taking care of that problem. So were getting to witness some of the beauty in sunshine and 50 degree weather.

more importantly, its is indeed expensive. witness below. 1 bowl of lamb soup that cost about $15. we had been surviving on fish jerky and our left-over bulk food from the road trip, having hunger pains, and it looked so good, so we split a bowl.

Meanwhile, heres a movie of a giant waterfall, and a geyer exploding–its located a few yards from the original “geysir” –the one which all geyers were named after:
gulfoss and geyser.mov

weve also been checking out the Reykjavik film festival, and soaking in some of the countrys 10 zillion thermal baths…tough life right? Im interviewing folks for a story about a controversial dam that was just built in the east part of the country–ill post some links when the story is done. Much love to my NYC people–it was great to see you and be home.

Were headed out for amsterdam on Monday…see you all there..

jessica here with the update:

we’re gearing up to go. NYC is the launching pad. not sure if i’m gonna accomplish everything that’s on the agenda before we have to just drop everything and get on that plane, but i’m doing my best!

i sold my car. only got $2000 for it but it was cash money. woo hoo! it was not without incident, but then again, how much fun would it be if everything just happened the way we expect? to celebrate, tonight we’re taking some time for entertainment. we’re going to see a romanian gypsy band. i’m pretty excited!

i got myself a nice warm coat and hat. iceland might still kick my ass, but at least i feel ready for it. what i haven’t even started is taking my giant pile of clothes and toiletries, and whittling it down to just the stuff i can actually carry on my own back. that’s probably the hardest part for me of the whole trip so far.

and andrew & i got ourselves some train passes so we can run around western europe wherever our whim takes us for the month of october. we know we’re starting in amsterdam, and we’re ending up in florence, but that 2 weeks in the middle is all TBA. it’s all very exciting!

a couple days after i got here, i found out one NYC friend had tragically died in the days right before my trip began. you never know what’s around the corner. friends are people you squeeze out a few minutes for and connect with once in a while. if you can’t manage that, or even just make the phone call, you’re not a friend. cherish the time you get to spend with one another, and don’t waste your opportunities to spend it.

andrew has made contact with several old friends while we’ve been here, and it’s been really cute meeting them and hearing some of their stories about him.

well, i hope you will read this and keep checking on our blog. we’re slowly getting a little bit better at this html-css coded language crap. or at least we’re getting better at faking it. please email us or leave comments on this blog so we don’t think everyone has forgotten about us!

sincerely,
jessica