Graydon, Master of Arts in Political Science, 2nd year
Internship country: Jordan
Canadian NGO: WUSC
Local NGO: WUSC
It’s just after 9 in the morning in Amman, February 28th. I’ve just hung up a FaceTime call with my girlfriend who, like all my friends and loved ones back in Canada, is drifting off to sleep. Being a Saturday, I’m just now tucking in to my usual breakfast I’ve become accustomed to here in Jordan: a yogurt bowl and a fresh cup of stovetop coffee. I’m about to sit down to watch an episode of The West Wing. Taking in the scent of freshly ground espresso, my phone vibrates. It’s the New York Times; Israel and the United States have attacked Iran.
Being a close follower of global politics and living in Jordan at such a tense time for the region, I saw the writing on the wall for weeks upon weeks leading up to today. Vague, inflammatory rhetoric; military buildup effectively just down the street from me; jets tracked on FlightRadar – I had felt for some time that this was imminent. I discussed the possibility briefly and discreetly with colleagues and friends, many of whom reassured me that things would be okay. I do not blame them, nor are they necessarily wrong, even with hindsight. Jordan is an exceptionally safe and highly respected state among its neighbours – a safe pocket in an otherwise unruly neighbourhood, one could say. I love it here. It feels like home now, as I’m approaching the halfway point of my four-month stay.
Much of this goes out the window, even just for a moment, at the sound of the first air raid sirens. They go off within minutes of that Times notification, conveying the precarity of mere existence for some countries; owing to Jordan’s positioning, it was involved by default, albeit passively. I and my friends would now be subject to the whims of the powerful in distant places. Frantically, I dart about my apartment – from window to window, from room to room (okay, there are only two rooms), from thought to thought. But beyond that initial shock, I am brought back down to earth, and I begin to piece together my feelings about what I’m experiencing.
Like I said, I’m a global politics junkie. And though like a former professor of mine once said, political scientists should never deal in predictions, I can’t help but feel as though I long expected this day would come. Does this make it easier to rationalize what’s happening? So begins compartmentalization, I suppose. My own understanding of my safety from moment to moment and of the potential for things to get very out of hand very quickly are butting heads, but I’m doing my best not to let them. Best to keep them separate and cross any bridge when we come to it.
To a certain extent, my efforts are successful. Even as further sirens wail, I find that with time my panic dwindles. In other ways, I am acutely aware that this is not a normal situation, most certainly not for me. Diplomatic failures, military escalations, geopolitical crises, these are all things I have studied for years – but I had never felt that they were on my doorstep. So, I study some more, but this time without the luxury of peer review… social media and quick-updating news outlets will have to do. All I have is all I have, but I feel the urge to keep myself posted on the latest to rationalize the situation and get ahead of it. Perhaps it’s why we don’t like doctors operating on their family members (not to compare myself to someone with a medical degree) – my immense familiarity with every dimension of this situation and those similar to it might not be the advantage it’s made out to be. But for now, I keep at it.
Though my friends at home remain in deep sleep, blissfully unaware of what has unfolded in the wee small hours of their nights, those I know in Jordan are scrambling to inform, inspect, and engage. It’s funny – just a few weeks ago, I felt entirely alone here, yet here I am checking up and being checked up on, without a second thought either way. It highlights just how close-knit and caring your circle can become right under your nose as you navigate life abroad, and it makes the stressful times that much easier to tackle. A burden shared is a burden halved, after all.
Knowing I am safe and knowing my friends are safe (and having quickly run out to grab non-perishables and water), I turn to the intangibles: wait, that huge meeting was tomorrow… hold on, I was participating in an event this weekend… thank goodness I didn’t book that trip to Egypt! But where does my brain stop? At what point on my calendar can I feel confident that everything will be okay again? And it’s here where, even as I know we are safe, and even as I keep on top of the news, I notice that underlying sense of unease has yet to slip away. It’s the uncertainty. With every successive notification, every new round of sirens, every loud bang that may or may not have been something but is most likely a garbage truck or maybe some kids unsupervised, I am reminded that at the end of the day, the situation is this: we are caught here at a crossroads of conflict, and at this intersection, uncertainty reigns. We cannot do anything about it.
Or can we? Reflecting on the early hours and days of the war, I notice patterns that reflect how we conduct ourselves in regular life. In an entirely abnormal situation, somehow our responses to stressors emerge from our everyday routines. Checking in with friends can bring us security. Keeping up with personal hygiene can bring us calmness and order. Making a meal can bring us comfort. For me, who in those early days was lucky enough to remain safe enough to do so, I found myself doing all of these things and more with little to no thought. Sure, you could say that this was all necessary, that it was nothing special. But I think there’s more to it.
These seemingly everyday behaviours mimic those I found myself longing for when I first arrived in Jordan, when I had no idea what to make of the things I was experiencing. Despite my extensive research and my perceived familiarity with the country I was newly a resident of, nothing seemed to work but those very mundane human behaviours that took some time to form into habits. Essentially, what I found was that in that time of great uncertainty, I was best served by developing and maintaining a routine. Any routine. That is the secret sauce in mastering your life abroad. Start journalling, have that breakfast, do those exercises, check in with that colleague, go to that market – anything to make it feel as though you’ve carved out a space for yourself within this new environment. It’s menial, yes, but in many ways it’s an essential coping mechanism; it’s all we have.
Those same principles apply amid the uncertainty that comes with regional conflict, or so I’ve found. If routine is the enemy of uncertainty, then you’ve got to weaponize it however you can, against whatever form of uncertainty you may face. It’s why when I woke up on March 1st, I had a FaceTime call with my girlfriend, made myself a yogurt bowl and fresh stovetop coffee, and watched The West Wing. That’s how I got through.
It brings me back to what I was told when I spoke to locals in the market in Ramle as part of an assignment during an undergraduate trip to Israel and Palestine. When asked how they coped with the looming threat of war and the omnipresence of conflict in everyday life, one typical response I received was that “life carries on.” This was something I held with me, and still do, as I described the experience to friends and family. How could one possibly carry on through such a stressful experience? Does one’s world not effectively stop, even for a moment?
To be honest, I am not the one to answer those nor any other questions. I am merely a student who got caught up in Jordan as a war kicked off in the region. My story is not special, nor is it unique, and I cannot in good conscience project that I understand the lived experiences of those who have endured conflict. What I experienced is but a fraction of a fraction, and I know how lucky I am to have had the luxury to leave as things became less safe. But what I will say is this: having done my best to keep myself going as the conflict evolved, I understand just that fraction of a fraction more how “life carries on.” It is imperative that it does; it is all that one has.