Jordan Post #5

No pictures of my own (the one on the right is borrowed from Mansour Mouasher's web site), but I went (with Vachon and Ed) to a country fair right outside of Amman the other night. Well, they don't call it a country fair (it's called "Global Village"), but that's what it is, if you combine it with a small World's Fair as well.

There were large tents for each of the many countries that were participating and many things went on inside. Kuwait had a tent which showed how they were developing and using their resources wisely. Syria had a tent (remember, these were really large tents -- think a circus Big Top or CARNIVALE) in which they sold you tons of stuff -- mostly cheap tourist things, but also candies and funny dolls. India also had mostly hucksters -- Old Navy leather jackets for 60JD (about 100 bucks) since I assume they actually manufacture most of that stuff. There was a hilarious area where the guy was selling slicing and dicing machines like you see on late night television. And there was a kiddie tent. Jordan's tent sold, like every other place in Jordan, bottles of sand art. Interesting, but it creeps me out whenever I realize I'm thinking of buying one. One step above "My Daddy Went To Jordan and All He Got Me Was This Lousy Tee Shirt" shirts.

The program is winding down from a chronological point of view, but it's really heating up from the editing side. The students came in yesterday depressed as hell about what they were unable to get on the set -- one or two of them had actors that left in the middle of the shoot, another one had her actor goldfish die before shooting, a third was stopped by the police, and on and on. By the end of the day most of them were feeling better about their work, as they began to piece their films together. We have first cut screenings tomorrow (Tuesday) and our final screening at 8pm on Thursday night. After that we head out to the Citadel (the picture on the left gives you a little idea about it), an attraction I have not yet been to see, though it is visible from our classroom windows.

Four more days and then I'm gone. Hopefully, I can come back and continue the work we've started here.