Spring Break
Common ground found
on unfamiliar soil
Dina Baslan
Issue date: 5/5/08 Section: Opinion
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One, two, three.
"Ze, 'tu, sh'e," and the anxious 6-year-old kid I was couldn't wait to learn how to count to 10 - to count in Circassian like si nana did. Her shiny, little eyes would smile back at me behind the yellow-shaded glasses that rested on her nose.
"Mumtaz," she would say in Arabic, the official language of Jordan. "Excellent."
My mother also used to recount other Circassian phrases in the day, some of which I still use frequently. But mostly, I was surrounded by the Arabic language at home and English at school.
Despite the fact that every childhood memory I possess resides back in Amman, the capital of Jordan, my childhood wasn't of any typical upbringing of a Jordanian family; the rituals weren't quite the same.
I was so overtaken by my connection to the Caucasus that, at one point, I felt lost sitting with a Jordanian group of kids.
I came back home to my mother and asked her: "Mom, what's the difference between Jordanians, Palestinians and Arabs? Two of my friends had an argument about it at school today."
Si nana was my window to the Northwest Caucasus when I was a kid; in her, I saw a world that fascinated me. She led a simple, giving life based on respect and honesty.
She was born in Jordan to a father who migrated from the Northwest Caucasus, a mountainous region situated between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, which made her one of the first generation of Circassian-Jordanians.
The first Circassians arrived to Jordan in 1878. After the end of the Russian-Circassian war, which lasted more than 100 years, a mass deportation by Russia carried more than 1 million Circassians out of their homeland - a number of whom died of the raging epidemic of typhus and smallpox, according to A.P. Berge, a Russian researcher of the Caucasian War.
However, being born in Amman with an Arabic mother-tongue never made me feel less of a Circassian. I was, and am still today, surrounding myself with a "Circassian world" that acts as my comfort zone and feeds my passion - a world I call Neverland for its unlikely existence except for in my mind.
As I was trying to create a more Circassian association in my life, I enrolled in a Circassian folkloric dancing troupe when I was 14.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
D.
posted 5/05/08 @ 9:46 AM PST
I was doing a random search when I came across this article. Just wanted to say it was well written. I am a Circassian as well and I can say that a lot of these emotions you write about are things I came across myself throughout my life. (Continued…)
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