Interviews in Amman Anyone??

[esmatsgirl 1]

Wow...You are good!!! How do you know all this stuff? Did you major in archaeology?

I had no idea that was a tomb....of course my husband tries to explain things to me and he uses word he thinks is the same of what is in his head but is actually a different thing altogether. I am sure many of you know what I am talking about! Its really cute..but can be misleading at times.

I do know that around my husband's village (just north of Irbid near Syrian border) there are many graves..supposedly a lot of them with money or gold buried with them. My father-in-law owns a lot of land in that area and wants an xray machine to look underground to try to find a treasure....has anyone else heard of this being done around Jordan and if so, was it successful?

Still no word on an interview date...Today marks one month and 2 days we have been approved by NVC...and still waiting for that precious little date...

The Dept of State website has all of the info that tells who schedules what for the interviews. I saw it a few times and would link it here but am short on time at the moment. You got me thinking though...I applied for K3 just after I got my NOA1 for the CR1 and never heard another peep about it besides the NOA2 for it. I wonder if they stopped it....or not. Very good question. I think the K3 is a waste of time...seeing so many CR1's approved before the K3 and its supposed to be the other way around.

I just want this whole thing with the government to be over....I realized this weekend how lonely I actually am. And even though we webcam, call all the time...its just not the same and it is some sort of legal torture to do this to married couples (keep them apart for long periods of time). Anyway...keeping it on the bright side...I did find my true love...and he will be here soon...thats the light at the end of the tunnel....

Deb

p.s. this is seriously off topic...but I have a very handsome, sweet and fun brother in law...looking for a girlfriend...any of you have a friend or relative that might be interested? Email me for a photo if so....

Hi Deb! Your cave photo is actually a tomb, can't really tell without seeing all the way inside but it looks like a single chambered tomb that still has some of the facing on it and is likely Byzantine or Early Roman (they reused anyway). Those large stone pieces, which are fractured, were part of the door. You can see a feature in the lower right which is either a bone pit, stone lined pit, or stone-cut grave (although could be an arcasoleum), or else it's a looter hole if the rock is soft enough... really can't tell without being there and excavating out the feature. Looks like they have been looting that thing pretty heavily!

Edited July 28, 2008 by esmatsgirl

[LRA 0]

I do know that around my husband's village (just north of Irbid near Syrian border) there are many graves..supposedly a lot of them with money or gold buried with them. My father-in-law owns a lot of land in that area and wants an xray machine to look underground to try to find a treasure....has anyone else heard of this being done around Jordan and if so, was it successful?

Very illegal in Jordan...don't even think about it. :-) You will get into so much trouble. The machine is illegal to even import....everyone "new" I meet in Jordan wants me to bring one of these machines with me. If you want to spend you life in Qafqafa or Swaqa then give it a shot. These stories are the things of legends...and have been passed from generation to generation. People will talk of the baab (the door) leading into a room full of loot. There are stores about the time during construction of a road and someone finding a huge treasure chests. The army sent helicopters to pick them up and cart away.

[esmatsgirl 1]

Seriously? Wow!!! I had no idea. I mean..I know its illegal to dig up graves that are on land owned by the country..but if you own the land yourself I assume you can do as you please with it...

There was a worker that found about 3 million jd on some land next to my father-in-laws land...and he kept it and now he doesn't work...just lives in Irbid....

How can an x-ray machine be illegal? And if it was, how would they even know I brought it in? (playing devils advocate here). As it would easily fit in my luggage which is "somewhat" searched in the US but not in Amman. How do archeaologists bring in their equipment if it is illegal? Maybe they get some kind of permit...??

Deb

I do know that around my husband's village (just north of Irbid near Syrian border) there are many graves..supposedly a lot of them with money or gold buried with them. My father-in-law owns a lot of land in that area and wants an xray machine to look underground to try to find a treasure....has anyone else heard of this being done around Jordan and if so, was it successful?

Very illegal in Jordan...don't even think about it. :-) You will get into so much trouble. The machine is illegal to even import....everyone "new" I meet in Jordan wants me to bring one of these machines with me. If you want to spend you life in Qafqafa or Swaqa then give it a shot. These stories are the things of legends...and have been passed from generation to generation. People will talk of the baab (the door) leading into a room full of loot. There are stores about the time during construction of a road and someone finding a huge treasure chests. The army sent helicopters to pick them up and cart away.

[LRA 0]

Seriously? Wow!!! I had no idea. I mean..I know its illegal to dig up graves that are on land owned by the country..but if you own the land yourself I assume you can do as you please with it...

There was a worker that found about 3 million jd on some land next to my father-in-laws land...and he kept it and now he doesn't work...just lives in Irbid....

How can an x-ray machine be illegal? And if it was, how would they even know I brought it in? (playing devils advocate here). As it would easily fit in my luggage which is "somewhat" searched in the US but not in Amman. How do archeaologists bring in their equipment if it is illegal? Maybe they get some kind of permit...??

Deb

I do know that around my husband's village (just north of Irbid near Syrian border) there are many graves..supposedly a lot of them with money or gold buried with them. My father-in-law owns a lot of land in that area and wants an xray machine to look underground to try to find a treasure....has anyone else heard of this being done around Jordan and if so, was it successful?

Very illegal in Jordan...don't even think about it. :-) You will get into so much trouble. The machine is illegal to even import....everyone "new" I meet in Jordan wants me to bring one of these machines with me. If you want to spend you life in Qafqafa or Swaqa then give it a shot. These stories are the things of legends...and have been passed from generation to generation. People will talk of the baab (the door) leading into a room full of loot. There are stores about the time during construction of a road and someone finding a huge treasure chests. The army sent helicopters to pick them up and cart away.

I am sure you could do it secretly (dig around on your land)..but it is so open someone would see you. And if I know one thing about Jordanians, it is they love to talk. So and so found this, so and so has that, so and so's cousin got married to an American and he took her back to the US the day after the wedding , so and so got a tourist visa and he doesn't even have money for the airline ticket. The 3 million JD find, that would have made headlines for sure. I am from the "North" as well and everyone talks about striking gold in the hills outside Irbid. They swear that hill over there has a ton of gold in it....all they need is me to bring in the detector. I also know that cigarette smuggling is very lucrative as well as are other "imports". Not saying this about the neighbor, but the gov't would have been all over it. It is national treasures after all. And people don't talk about the haram way of making money. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that a person came to the US and in two years made millions here. Yeah right!

Don't you remember when you land at QAIA that all your bags were scanned once you claim them off the belt (I also suspect when they get taken off the plane they are as well) and you are ready to leave the baggage area in the terminal. And when you leave do you remember how many times you were searched and walked through detectors and your bags scanned. Off the top of my head it's about 3. The security there is top notch...or appears to be. At the very least bringing in a metal detector would land you in an office with a big mean officer.

The acheologist for sure work with the government and the Minstry of Tourism and Antiquities.

[Nasturtium 500]

Wow...You are good!!! How do you know all this stuff? Did you major in archaeology?

I had no idea that was a tomb....of course my husband tries to explain things to me and he uses word he thinks is the same of what is in his head but is actually a different thing altogether. I am sure many of you know what I am talking about! Its really cute..but can be misleading at times.

I do know that around my husband's village (just north of Irbid near Syrian border) there are many graves..supposedly a lot of them with money or gold buried with them. My father-in-law owns a lot of land in that area and wants an xray machine to look underground to try to find a treasure....has anyone else heard of this being done around Jordan and if so, was it successful?

There is very little in any tomb. None of the cultures were grave-goods givers really... they did bury people with lamps and occasional glass items, as well as a few other things but I can tell you the treasures thing is a total myth-- just like how here in the US, especially in the South East, there are so many rumors of burried gold which are 100%untrue and it is also 100% illegal to go around digging in burials. Almost every tomb you find will be robbed anyway. I have no idea what in the world an X-ray machine is? For looking into the ground? There is no such thing unless they are talking about GPR, ground penetrating radar, which is going to cost you about as much as a house, be illegal to import, and then you're going to know how to not use it but read it... it doesn't give you a picture like people think it does and it certainly isn't going to read through stone. The only other thing they may be talking about is electromagnetic resistence, as the rest of the techniques don't make sense. it's funny when the police will call us and ask if we have a machine to come and look for a severed hand in a field... and you're like what?? there is no such thing... lol... My Xh did all the landscape archaeology stuff (yes, Xh and Dh are both in the same field lol) and worked with all these machines so I got a better idea than most in bioarchaeology about the capabilities and restrictions of this stuff. I am trained in archaeology, although when i was working in Jordan I was doing bioarchaeology which are human remains in archaeology, so i was *legally* excavating tombs which were, of course, all looted and we spent more time actually mapping the tomb types and features than looking at any remains to try to figure out general health issues of the past populations. All of our stuff is house at Yarmouk University. It was always sad when you did find someone how they were so trampled by looters, or torn to bits in the looter's odd and imaginary search for gold.. I remember several children we encoutnered who were in a very nice tomb who had been dumped from their sarcophagus and had all their teeth pulled from their head and arranged in a nice pile net to the skull as the lotters were looking for either gold or just interested in destroying something. Lots of things like that. Sad. I wish more people had respect for them, but what can you do? As an FYi it is also illegal in Jordan to dig aorund any site, not just burials, without permits, and exportation of any antiquities is also illegl which is why they are smuggled into Israel where they circumvent that law

You can probably just walk around and see a lot of tombs in his are He's like a village over from my Dh and isn't he inbetween Abila and Gadara? Which would put him on a prominent route for tombs

Very illegal in Jordan...don't even think about it. :-) You will get into so much trouble. The machine is illegal to even import....everyone "new" I meet in Jordan wants me to bring one of these machines with me. If you want to spend you life in Qafqafa or Swaqa then give it a shot. These stories are the things of legends...and have been passed from generation to generation. People will talk of the baab (the door) leading into a room full of loot. There are stores about the time during construction of a road and someone finding a huge treasure chests. The army sent helicopters to pick them up and cart away.

The latter also being a nice rumor

[Nasturtium 500]

Seriously? Wow!!! I had no idea. I mean..I know its illegal to dig up graves that are on land owned by the country..but if you own the land yourself I assume you can do as you please with it...

There was a worker that found about 3 million jd on some land next to my father-in-laws land...and he kept it and now he doesn't work...just lives in Irbid....

How can an x-ray machine be illegal? And if it was, how would they even know I brought it in? (playing devils advocate here). As it would easily fit in my luggage which is "somewhat" searched in the US but not in Amman. How do archeaologists bring in their equipment if it is illegal? Maybe they get some kind of permit...??

Deb

If he found 3 million JD.... how would he retire? because how is he going to use this money he found? I'm just curious.. because he can't sell it unless he's fencing on the black market, and you can't deposit it in the bank... it's anceint money... That's like making a lot of money selling cocaine and then retiring Even in the US you can't just dig on your own land in protected sites like graves. In Jordan a lot of things are illegal, duct tape, short-wave radios, walkie talkies, etc. I still think you're talking about GPR? Archaeologists have to have a permit from the government which involves getting a permit from the ministry of the interior, a permit form the antiquities department and having an inspector either come and visit your site weekly or, if you find something imporant/costly you have them there before you continue excavation. You are also subject to random inspection. You are not allowed to export anything you find unless it is on loan from the Jordanian government... so you do all your lab work there as well and then find some local place to curate the objects. It's basically the same procedure as here or most everywhere else in the world. Archaeological law is fairly standard.

Oh! it just occured to me, are you talking about a metal detector? Those are illegal as well.

[Nasturtium 500]

I am sure you could do it secretly (dig around on your land)..but it is so open someone would see you. And if I know one thing about Jordanians, it is they love to talk. So and so found this, so and so has that, so and so's cousin got married to an American and he took her back to the US the day after the wedding , so and so got a tourist visa and he doesn't even have money for the airline ticket. The 3 million JD find, that would have made headlines for sure. I am from the "North" as well and everyone talks about striking gold in the hills outside Irbid. They swear that hill over there has a ton of gold in it....all they need is me to bring in the detector. I also know that cigarette smuggling is very lucrative as well as are other "imports". Not saying this about the neighbor, but the gov't would have been all over it. It is national treasures after all. And people don't talk about the haram way of making money. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that a person came to the US and in two years made millions here. Yeah right!

Don't you remember when you land at QAIA that all your bags were scanned once you claim them off the belt (I also suspect when they get taken off the plane they are as well) and you are ready to leave the baggage area in the terminal. And when you leave do you remember how many times you were searched and walked through detectors and your bags scanned. Off the top of my head it's about 3. The security there is top notch...or appears to be. At the very least bringing in a metal detector would land you in an office with a big mean officer.

The acheologist for sure work with the government and the Minstry of Tourism and Antiquities.

Lulu, you are 100% correct. My Dh read your posts and he started LOling at your comment about the prisons. He said yeah, go ahead and try to bring that in and we can all visit Qafqafa He also said to ask.. found or stole 3 million JD? Because it's illegal and looting graves, which is stealing.. and at any rate reiterated how you couldn't ever let anyone know you even had that stuff let alone try to use it as wealth... it would be worthless unless you were fencing it on the black market over to Israel for export. And Yes, the government would have seized that stuff so fast and put the neighbor in prison.. no one would dare go out for years and try the same thing. It's pretty serious

I got into hot water once bringing in a flat-screen monitor. Do you have any idea how many times I had to answer those questions over and over with "flat screen monitor!!!" Also got into hot water over having "pointy" rocks, my dead sea stuff, and my friend was pulled out for her hotrollers... now... saying that I may or may not know of someone who smuggled in some walkie talkies(not me!), but that most certainly isn't a GPR, EMR, or metal detector. I almost got my Dh a short broadcast piece thingy to go with his Mp3 player to plug into your cigarette lighter and basically broadcast your mp3 to the car radio and then play through your system... but... he nixed that idea really quick. I am glad I asked. He said he was pretty sure it would be illegal like a walkie talkie or any other kind of broadcast item which is prohibited.

I don't know how much trouble you would actually get into if you tried to bring it in, but I really wouldn't want to figure it out-- you're not protected by the US government when you break laws in other countries. Also would hate to see what it could do for your in-laws when they figure out they were the ones who were going to recieve the item in question... could cause them problems as well.

Edited July 29, 2008 by julianna

[Y's_habibitk 2]

Anyone who's husbands went through the interview already, care to share some interview questions?

I read a few who said they were approved the same day.

Please share your hubby's experiences.

take care fellow jordan wives!

Lisa

[Nasturtium 500]

Ammar was approved that day, left his passport, and then got it in teh 2 weeks they said it would take to mail it back. he was only asked "why did you wife get divorced" to which he said "that is not your business, my wife's life is her life and mine is mine and what happened before us is in the past" or something like that... that was it. So Ammar's interview wasn't helpful at all to you all!

[Y's_habibitk 2]

Ammar was approved that day, left his passport, and then got it in teh 2 weeks they said it would take to mail it back. he was only asked "why did you wife get divorced" to which he said "that is not your business, my wife's life is her life and mine is mine and what happened before us is in the past" or something like that... that was it. So Ammar's interview wasn't helpful at all to you all!

heh heh, well thank you for sharing anyway. I've never been married before but gosh! that sounds like something habibi would say! lol

Thanks julianna!

I do have a question about the "mailing". I realize that mailing the passport is no biggie since he can give his PO box at the interveiw.

But, I think as most, my husband doesnt have a "street" address. I, like a dork, didnt include with our petitions; the nicely typed up attachment I had including his P.O box.

To the question lol, do they mail the "packet 3" to the beneficary or me? I think I have read different things on this. I am concerned that they wont be able to mail him that packet. any insight gals?

Lisa

[Nasturtium 500]

Ammar was approved that day, left his passport, and then got it in teh 2 weeks they said it would take to mail it back. he was only asked "why did you wife get divorced" to which he said "that is not your business, my wife's life is her life and mine is mine and what happened before us is in the past" or something like that... that was it. So Ammar's interview wasn't helpful at all to you all!

heh heh, well thank you for sharing anyway. I've never been married before but gosh! that sounds like something habibi would say! lol

Thanks julianna!

I do have a question about the "mailing". I realize that mailing the passport is no biggie since he can give his PO box at the interveiw.

But, I think as most, my husband doesnt have a "street" address. I, like a dork, didnt include with our petitions; the nicely typed up attachment I had including his P.O box.

To the question lol, do they mail the "packet 3" to the beneficary or me? I think I have read different things on this. I am concerned that they wont be able to mail him that packet. any insight gals?

Lisa

Well, I think they are supposed to mail it to him, but I and several others had it magically appear in our own mailboxes So, I think it may just come to you if his address is either difficult, present, absent, or however the mailer person feels that day.

[*Maureen* 0]

Ammar was approved that day, left his passport, and then got it in teh 2 weeks they said it would take to mail it back. he was only asked "why did you wife get divorced" to which he said "that is not your business, my wife's life is her life and mine is mine and what happened before us is in the past" or something like that... that was it. So Ammar's interview wasn't helpful at all to you all!

heh heh, well thank you for sharing anyway. I've never been married before but gosh! that sounds like something habibi would say! lol

Thanks julianna!

I do have a question about the "mailing". I realize that mailing the passport is no biggie since he can give his PO box at the interveiw.

But, I think as most, my husband doesnt have a "street" address. I, like a dork, didnt include with our petitions; the nicely typed up attachment I had including his P.O box.

To the question lol, do they mail the "packet 3" to the beneficary or me? I think I have read different things on this. I am concerned that they wont be able to mail him that packet. any insight gals?

Lisa

The embassy mailed my husband the packet, i never received anything ( this was for a K3 though )

[Y's_habibitk 2]

thanks guys. I guess we will hope for the magical delivery lol

It makes sense that if they cant mail it to him they would just send it to the me.

But thats logical, so I'll just keep my fingers crossed ha!

[LRA 0]

thanks guys. I guess we will hope for the magical delivery lol

It makes sense that if they cant mail it to him they would just send it to the me.

But thats logical, so I'll just keep my fingers crossed ha!

Takes one month to get here though. You might try emailing the embassy when you are approved to see if your husband can just pick it up from them.

[Y's_habibitk 2]

thanks guys. I guess we will hope for the magical delivery lol

It makes sense that if they cant mail it to him they would just send it to the me.

But thats logical, so I'll just keep my fingers crossed ha!

Takes one month to get here though. You might try emailing the embassy when you are approved to see if your husband can just pick it up from them.

Thank you! that is a great suggestion!

Lisa