Jordan's Water Shortage - A Grim Reality

   ‘Paul, we have found new ways to gain access to deep water resources that will help to rebalance Jordan’s position on the water map of the region. We’ve been using some of the most sophisticated deep geophysical mapping systems in the world, systems developed to explore for oil and gas in the Gulf. Because of our partners, we can combine that ability to see further underground than ever before with cutting edge French micro-boring technology. We know where the deep water is and where it flows and that it flows through Jordanian land. We can tap into those aquifers before they rise across the border. You see? We can keep our water, we can seize it back from them.’
   I was taken aback by the fire in Daoud’s voice. ‘Can you make it work? I mean, you’ve not only got physical constraints but political ones too.’
   My question merely fanned his passion. Daoud’s hand was on my shoulder as he leaned forwards, his eyes locked on mine and his fervour drawing me in.
Olives, Page 136

As I’ve said before, the Jordanian water shortage aspects of Olives – A Violent Romance are based on reality. Daoud’s aquifers idea was sparked by the existence of a network of Roman aquifers in the country to the north, the ‘Qanat Romani’. There are also a number of deep underground springs that do, indeed, rise into Lake Tiberias. So why not drill deep and tap these springs before the water leaves Jordanian territory?

Of course, the scheme would not meet with approval from ‘next door’, which is core to the events in Olives – Daoud’s scheme is either brilliant or criminally irresponsible, depending on your point of view. Certainly, such a scheme would never be endorsed by a reasonable government. But then we’re looking at a government with its back to the wall here, the water shortage so compelling they’d grasp at any solution that addressed the drought.

The Jordanian water shortage is a very grim reality -the Fourth World Water Development Report (WWDR), recently released by UNESCO, projected that by 2022, Jordan's population could exceed 7.8 million, raising water demand to 1,673 million cubic metres (mcm), and pushing the water deficit from the current 457mcm to 659mcm within a decade.The report itself is linked here and it's a grim read for many Middle Eastern countries - Jordan being one of the most deeply affected by the heady combination of a growing population and diminishing resources.

Here’s a slice of the evidential ‘back story’ from Olives, the introduction to a news feature filed in the Jordan Times under a pen name by one Paul Stokes at the behest of Ibrahim Dajani.

  When French geologist André Sillere started to map the locations of ancient Roman aquifers, the Qanat Romani that dot the landscape in parts of North and Western Jordan and Syria, he little realised that his actions would lead to a tragic chain of events that culminated in the infamous Amman night club bombing in which fifteen people lost their lives.
  Sillere had evolved a theory that there were previously unrealised deep underground water sources in Jordan and he approached Jordanian businessman Daoud Dajani with the idea of tapping them. It was Dajani’s funding that allowed Sillere, supported by technical experts from French water company AquaPur and Jordanian company Jerusalem Holdings, to put his theories to the test and prove the availability of significant new water resources that could provide Jordan with critical relief in its search for solutions to the country’s water crisis.
  But the scheme, part of Jerusalem’s upcoming bid for the Jordanian Water Privatisation, potentially means that Israeli water resources would be depleted. And Israel’s reaction has been both swift and deadly...

In fact there is a an extensive system of well-documented aquifers in the North West of Jordan, the 'Basalt aquifer' shared between Jordan and Syria. Daoud's aquifer scheme is actually surprisingly possible.

Byzantine Bidding - Jordan's Government

‘Paul, we’re going to be fair to the bidders, but the Jerusalem Consortium has some big innovations to bring to the table, including ways of recovering water that will benefit both Jordan and our friends in the West Bank. It’s hard to compare the two bids as apples to apples. One is visionary and brilliant and one is professional but doesn’t address our longer term needs.’ He tapped the desk for emphasis. ‘But these bids will be treated fairly and openly and honestly by a committee tasked with evaluating them.’
Olives, Page 128

I have been involved in such processes myself, responding to tenders, presenting to evaluation committees and the like. It’s a skill in itself and rarely less than entertaining, particularly in Jordan. On one occasion I remember the bid evaluation committee starting to argue with each other, our team presenting our bid in Arabic increasingly ignored as the argument raged with increasing heat until one member of the committee left the room, red faced, his hands sweeping the air as he shouted ‘Ana falah! Ana falah!’ ('I'm a peasant'). I never managed to quite work out where that all came from.

The red tape involved in dealing with government entities (including NGOs and semi-government organisations)can be choking and I often find myself wondering quite whether the process is quite as ‘fair, open and honest’ as the process was originally intended to ensure. Part of the issue is that the process itself favours those who have mastered the arcane art of actually managing the process. There are people in Amman who exist pretty much on their ability to scout these contracts out and negotiate the many, various and occasionally incomprehensible hoops that you're expected to jump through.

Permeating it all is the ever-present spectre of 'wasta' or influence, contracts being awarded to companies owned  by cousins and the like.

It can get pretty Byzantine.

Arab Hospitality

 Chai Nana - image:Nicholas Malfait

Abdullah Zahlan had arranged my meeting with the Minister the next day, so I found myself sitting on the leather sofa outside Harb Al Hashemi’s office, drinking a little gold-rimmed glass of thyme zaatar tea as I waited for the big panelled doors to open. When they did, a little grey-haired man in a blue-grey suit shot out, a pile of papers clutched in his arm as he paddled a fussy wave of effusive thanks and effendi’s to Al Hashemi’s crisp, efficient secretary, who ignored him.
   ‘You can go in, now, Mr. Stokes.’
Olives, Page 127

Formal meetings in the Arab World often still involve little gold-edged custard glasses of ‘chai’ in various forms, from ‘chai suleimani’, a sweet bronze-coloured infusion of tea, almost certainly Lipton to ‘chai nana’, tea with fresh mint steeped in it. And then there are the herbal and fruit teas you come across, most frequently ‘zaatar’, or thyme. I remember ginger tea waiting in Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s majlis, deep-pile carpets and mirrored walls all around me. And long, painful waits for short, painful meetings at the Ministry of Information in Dubai filled with a variety of teas brought to me in a procession of diuretic little delights. Those were the meetings back in the early ‘90s when I had fallen foul of someone with wasta, something that can’t, thankfully, happen in the same way to writers in the UAE today. Or to their kidneys.

In Saudi Arabia and Kuwait you’re just as likely to be offered ghawa, green unroasted coffee flavoured with cardamom and served in little cups from a long-necked brass coffee pot or, more likely these days, a long brass-necked coffee pot shaped thermos. It’s polite to accept a refill or, at most, two and then pass the cup back with a little waggle to signify you’re done. Two fingers over the cup will do instead of a waggle.

It's a little ritual that's tied into the age-old Arab traditions of hospitality that still dictate how you're received as a guest, whether it's sitting in a Jordanian government minister's waiting room or encountering a family while offroading in the Omani mountains and being invited into their home to share coffee and dates. Coming from a culture that's instinctually distrustful of strangers, it never fails to amaze me.

How It All Started

‘We are already soaked. How can you get wetter than this?’ she retorted, pirouetting in the rain and laughing, her face held up to the sky so the droplets glistened on her cheeks in the streetlight. She span, dancing to her own rhythm, laughing and beckoning to me. I grabbed her hand and tried to pull her towards the house. She held back, her face radiant with laughter.
Olives, Page 125

This is where it all started. Listening to George Winston’s stunning Winter into Spring one night made me think of a girl dancing in the rain. Why a girl, I don’t know but the track, either February Sea or Rain brought the image clearly to my mind (both of the tracks are linked above - take a listen, they're really worth it, believe me). And somehow I knew she was walking down a street in Amman’s First Circle, or Jebel Amman, area.

The next morning I had a book in my head, all laid out like blacktop in the desert, possibilities snaking out of sight among the dunes and shimmering in the sunlight. I dashed it all down in four weeks and then started the long haul of learning how to write books (which, you could argue, I have by no means finished), rewriting Olives as I went, adding bits and taking bits away as I added and deleted characters and whole scenes.

The book was always around the core theme of Paul and Aisha and his journey to discover whether she and her brother are the good guys or not – and it always had that core element of Paul trying to find out if he was somehow linked to the outbreak of terrorism that seems to follow him around. But it was in many ways, and has been through several iterations, a very different book.

All the way through the changes, that girl dancing in the rain has been in there – not on purpose, but just ‘there’. It wasn’t until the book was finally done and I started to think about its genesis I realised how important she was to the book and also discovered that her dance takes place pretty much in the middle of the book – a complete coincidence.

Why would you dance in the rain? Because perhaps you’re happy, just a little crazy or just too wet to care anymore.

And, of course, in so many ways Paul and Aisha have also reached that point in their lives...

Jordan's War for Water

 ‘It’s in the Israeli’s interests to stop us exploiting new water reserves. They need us struggling with inadequate resources while they get fat on the water they’ve taken from us over the years. As I told you before, Paul, I mean to take our water back. And as you can imagine, they’re not going to be happy about it.’
Olives, Page 204

The struggle for water resources underpins Olives, a privatisation project is in place and two consortia are bidding to take over the country’s water network. The privatisation is a fiction, of course, although Jordan has undergone a number of highly successful privatisations, not least of which was the privatisation and liberalisation of telecoms in the country, resulting in the most competitive and sophisticated telecommunications market in the Middle East.

Why would you privatise the water network? Because Jordan’s lack of water is compelling and ever-worsening. A massive, and somewhat visionary, project to pipe water from Wadi Rumm up to Amman is underway but it once again depends on tapping known – and finite - natural water resources. The Dead Sea is receding at a rate of up to four feet annually, the huge lake losing something like two billion gallons of water a year as the torpid Jordan and the rivers, streams and rills that feed it upstream are diverted to meet the needs of the increasing populations of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel.

The Dead Sea problem alone has triggered enormous efforts to find some way of remediating the damage – quite apart from environmental impacts, a significant tourism industry has grown around the huge saline lake that sits at the world’s lowest point. There’s a lot of talking going on, but they’ve been talking about it for years.

Across the board, Jordan simply doesn’t have enough water – estimates vary as to when the country will hit crisis point.  In reality, the government is acting where it can, but you can only do so much with what nature’s given you.

That’s why the fictional Daoud Dajani’s water scheme in Olives is so divisive. In tapping underground aquifers that feed into Tiberias, Daoud will bring fresh water to Jordan but his proposal will mean Israel’s water would be depleted and turned saline.

Is that an act of terror? Or is Daoud guilty of other acts, driven by his conviction that Israel has ‘taken too much’?

Arabian Nights

   His voice was matter-of-fact. ‘There are many blue cars in the world, Paul. There are many meetings between men at night in Palestine, because the Arabs love the night. They like to plot and scheme, to talk about ideals and the perfection of the world. Now and then their talk turns to action, but rarely. Mostly they talk and dream, drink tea and smoke argileh. It’s their tragedy, the Palestinians, to dream like opium eaters while their leaders fail them. They leave it to others to act and build better houses around themselves.’
Olives, Page 193

“The Arabs love the night.” I do like that, Father Vahan the Armenian Orthodox Priest being perhaps a tad harsh in his assessment of his neighbours and countrymen. It’s true, though – the Arabs do love the night, a time for families and gathering in places such as pleasure parks and corniches, small children staying up until all hours, running around and squealing as they play.

It’s a habit born, in part, of the hot summer months, when the evenings are cooler. And perhaps it’s a habit accentuated by the customs of the month of Ramadan, when the day is given to fasting and, properly, religious contemplation - as is the night, with prayers through the early hours. But the night also becomes a time of house visits, of food gifts and gatherings, the breaking of the fast at sunset giving way to the ‘suhoor’, a meal that takes place at varying times from about 9pm onwards, depending on who’s throwing it. Here rich foods are eaten, argileh smoked alongside endless custard glasses of chai suleimani and games of tarneeb, the card play that is a passion for so many across the Arab world, battles fought, won and lost every night. Some play for money, but We Don’t Talk About That.

In Jordan, Ramadan nights also become the occasion for performances – I shall never forget walking with friends into a burlesque by Lebanese female impersonator Bassem Ferghali in Amman, entranced by the sheer naughtiness of it all to a boy used to Ramadan in the Gulf, where the evenings are perhaps a tad less riotous.

I thought Father Vahan’s summary of the Arabs would get me into more hot water, but so far it’s just elicited rueful head-shakes. Then I hadn’t predicted any of the elements of Olives that would be controversial in the Arab world (never intended as the book’s original target market, I must say), so what would I know? The name of a fictional family, the morals of a fictional girl and actually talking about the alcohol that is so frequently consumed behind closed doors – these have been the biggies, not passages like the one I quote today.

Which, I suppose, is part of what I love about the region. It’s so bloody Quixotic...

An Orthodox Greeting

 I sat down on a cold wooden pew, my fingers tracing the worn lines, the smell of wood and frankincense in my nostrils as my breathing slowed.
    ‘Pari lou is.’
   A deep voice. I turned to my right and saw a huge white-bearded figure dressed in black, an olivewood crucifix around his neck. I looked at him, opened my mouth to speak, but couldn’t make the words come out.
   He spoke again: ‘Sabah al khair,’ and, when I still didn’t reply, ‘Good morning.’ I nodded.
   ‘Welcome to our Church. I am Father Vahan.’
   He smiled, his hands held together either in prayer or greeting.
   ‘Forgive me, but you appear troubled.’
   I looked at the richly decorated altar and around at the classical images, glittering Madonnas and Christs on the wooden panels around me.
Olives, Page 191

The Levant is at the core of the three ‘Revealed Religions’, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The latter of these, in every sense, was born in Mecca and Medinah, but it was in Jerusalem Muslims believe the Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven.

As a consequence, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria are crammed with memories of these religions over the past two millennia and more. There are places sacred to each and to all three. There are places of syncretism and, of course, of conflict and sectarianism.

This is also the land of the Eastern Empire: Byzantium. I have long been fascinated by the ebb and flow of the Eastern and Western worlds as they flowed and clashed around the Eastern Mediterranean, the collapse of Rome, the rise of Constantinople and then the fall of the great city to the Ottomans. Behind it all, the thread of religion is wound around everything, but the Christianity of the Levant is very different to the somewhat pusillanimous, slightly embarrassed and rather, well, British version of Christianity I grew up with.

The Orthodox Churches of the Levant are rather richer than the protestant churches of England, it has to be said.  As, indeed, are the Catholic ones – Eastern Catholicism is beholden to Rome but in aspects of rite and practice is notably more ‘eastern’. So Paul, wandering into an Orthodox Armenian church in Amman would be rather stunned by the splendour of it all even, as he is, beside himself with horror and self-doubt...

Olives - Reading and Signing in Beirut

There’s going to be a talk about, reading and signing of Olives in Beirut, at the highly salubrious Librarie El Bourj at 5.00pm on the 29th March 2010. The event will also showcase Lebanese artist Naeema Zarif’s work on the book’s cover and there’ll also be a display of more layered, polymesmeric images teased from the Zarif brain.

I’ve long planned to do this event and, thanks to the support of my friends over at Levant Distribution, especially Therese Nasr, as well as Michel Choueri and Chantal Sfeir over at Librarie El Bourj, it’s now on the cards.

I had always planned the Middle East edition of Olives would be on sale in Beirut and Amman. Finding I can’t get the book onto bookshelves in Amman was something of a blow, particularly as the book’s set in Jordan. No such problems existed next door, though, and Olives is loud and proud on Lebanese bookshelves.

You’ll find Librarie El Bourj on the Place Des Martyrs behind the Annahar building.

There’ll be more information about the event, you can be sure, closer to the date – but if you’re in Beirut, mark your diary and we’ll maybe have some fun together...


Here's the Facebook event page!

First Routes to Publication Panel at Emirates Airline Festival of Literarture

I had come to do harm. I admit it. There was a tyre lever in the leg of my jeans, the cold metal a comfort to me as I readied to meet The Evil Gatekeeper. Literary agent Luigi Bonomi was responsible for at least one of the 250-odd rejections I have pasted up in the wall of My Shrine with candles lit all around them.

And now I had him, in front of an audience. On stage. A rejected author who had finally, after ten years, thrown up his hands with the publishing industry and gone it alone. An Agent. One Of Them.

Luigi Bonomi is a charming, charming man. We chatted backstage before we went on. I had also interviewed him earlier that day for Dubai Eye Radio. We quickly found we had more areas of agreement than disagreement. By the time we were ready to take to the stage at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, I had shamefacedly slipped the tyre lever into a side-cupboard.

We were joined by Dubai-based author Liz Fenwick, who is publishing her first book, The Cornish House, as part of a two-book deal with Orion and the charming Sarah Hathorn, who at thirteen self published her first book, Alexandra's Mission: Teenagent. I thought Sarah was wonderful, poised, articulate and intelligent - all qualities I know I was utterly lacking in when I was fifteen.

We talked about our stories, how we' each approached getting published and the hurdles we'd faced, the advice we'd give. The audience was clearly peppered with wannabe authors and when Q&A came, Luigi got hit with loads of 'how do we submit to you?' kindof questions. His workshop session on how to submit your work and get it published sold out and a second session had to be quickly cobbled together, showing just how popular this topic was.

And so contrary to my expectations, the session was jolly, funny and sparkled, in no small part thanks to the skills of moderator Paul Blezard. We all shuffled out and sat in our signing chairs, little pennants with our names on them. Sarah and I chatted (we bought each others' books) as the occasional person came up to us to have one or the other book signed. Liz didn't have a book to sign, hers launches on the 15th March. We gazed wistfully at Darren Shan's long, straggling queue next to us.

So that was that. All I can say is if I ever meet Luigi again, I swear I'll be unarmed...

Talking Of Books

publish #01 (Photo credit: mediamolecule)

As usual, my fears were unfounded. I had a blast yesterday talking to pupils from the Dubai American Academy. I took them on a quick run through some proofs of 'McNabb's Mantra' (TM), the Book of Kells vs Caxton's first print; 'hot metal' typesetting vs DTP and CDs vs the iPod. The Mantra?

Quality becomes irrelevant where technology improves access.

I frequently argue with people who say they want to 'curl up with a good book' and couldn't imagine reading without the sensual quality of a book, the feel of the paper, the smell etc.As you may have guessed, I think this is twaddle. I have read more books in the year since I acquired a Kindle than perhaps at any time before (65 books bought and read in 2011). Because the Kindle gives me access to any book I want, when I want it. Instantly. And because it's the words that transport me, not the carrier medium. The quality of a book is in the words and as long as they're legible and the carrier is convenient and pleasant to use, I don't really care what the carrier medium is.

We then segued into the transformation of publishing, how disintermediation is looming like a Balrog over the publishing industry - and how I'd picked this time of Fear and Loathing to try and get published. And then we moved onto self publishing and, inevitably, Olives.

There were no questions at the end, then one timid hand went up. And then they came thick and fast. How had I researched the book? What made me want to write a book in the first place? Is there any money in it? Why did I pick the Middle East? Why 'a violent romance'? My favourite question came last: "You mentioned you hated school. Why?" I got my first belly laugh with my impersonations of my schoolmasters who were, in the main, a thoroughly eccentric lot, but it was an impromptu impersonation of a Sikh crane driver that had 'em howling...

I came away impressed with the Dubai American Academy. It has a massive library and a keen librarian. It's a big school, some 2,400 pupils, but there's a happy, busy vibe to the place I liked instantly. The kids were fun, much more engaged than I'd feared (and nobody threw anything at me) and bright as buttons. During my introduction onstage, I learned that last year they'd had Jefferey Deaver in to talk to 'em, so no pressure there. But I think I'm safe in saying Deaver didn't use the word 'masturbate' during his talk. Know your audience, Jeff. Know your audience.