Today we went to the University and had a couple of very good speakers. Marta Colburn
is the area director for MercyCorp. They work with community based organizations and
in particular, the water project we went to yesterday. They are funded by private
donations and USAID. Guess what, in case you haven't thought about how much the
war in Iraq is costing us, let me spell it out for you. We are paying the cost of
troops and bombs tanks and trucks. Then we are also paying for the damage all this
CONTROLLED CHOAS costs. We are paying to rebuild infa structure, improve gov services
and provide care for those living in Iraq. We are also paying for health care, education and goverment aid to the host countries that these refugees have poured into. Now I'm not a math teacher but it seems to me that if we actually STOPPED the
war we could actually start stauching the flow of $$$ leaving the USA and actually start providing health care and new schools to us!
Next we had a speaker, Tayseer Alsumi, former minister of Planning. He is now
a consultant to the government. He has a PHD in Econ. He explained how Jordan has
lowered its debt ratio for external debt, blah blah. Cut to the chase Jordan
now has a DUTY FREE zone in Acaba (yes I went there) where business gets a huge
tax break and because the stuff is shipped (made, passed through) JOrdan it goes
duty free to the USA...do I understand this? Yes I do.. raw materials from wherever..
enter DUTY FREE in Jordan, assembled in Jordan and then sent on to the USA and other
trade partners.. sweet.. I want to open a T-shirt factory!!! Yeah! Live at the beach
yeah!
We then went to a local artists house.. I will have to get more details later as
I didn't bring my notes..he works in glue and sawdust and makes wonderful things,
some quite political as he is Palestian and quite upset about being booted out
of his home in 1947!
Tonight we are off to an educational conference hosted by Queen Noor. This is
quite a big deal! Becky is in NYC????