Four days since I landed in Amman, and after a short break by the shores of the Red Sea, I am back in Jordan's capital to start my months long self-appointed mission: to produce a documentary. Today I stepped out of my comfort zone and took the camera out of its bag, started ringing around and booking appointments for possible interviews and trips to different locations around the country.
But first things first. What is the documentary about? This is a good question that I have to keep asking myself all along the process. The initial idea is to document how ideas discussed in international forums like the World Water Week in Stockholm, the World Economic Forum, and Arab Water Forum translate in real life down at the bottom of the "supply chain". What ideas? Ideas of water management, dealing with water scarcity, waters role in climate change, and more NGO speech - do they ever leave conference halls and policy papers? Or do they translate at households, farms, and even at water ministries, management utilities, or just down at the street!
After making some calls, I headed to The Jordan Times newspaper, my employer about 7 years ago. I went there because I know they are excellent at archiving everything, including the so-called "water-beat". You won't find any other place in Jordan that has a more comprehensive archive of water stories.
I flipped through the 2010-2011 folder -- for some reason I like to flip through paper folders than search for articles on the Internet. And voila, there you go, 1 opinion piece, 3 articles with bylines from Stockholm (I work at www.siwi.org) and an article covering a local lecture on Green Water - a concept that was developed in Stockholm too by one of our knowledge leaders, Prof. Malin Falkenmark, back in 1995. Good, first stop with some achievement: a confirmation of something that I already know: many concepts like Green Water, developed at international forums, translate in many shapes and forms and end up in local newspapers and local academic lecture rooms.
Still, we're speaking NGO, intellectual elites within the water box. After all the journalist who wrote the article is very familiar with water issues and terminology, and so was the lecturer. Do politicians account for green water when they are negotiating water agreements with other countries?
I'll have to ask, and yes, I'll have to simplify this, I am still speaking NGO speech. Green water is the water that exists in nature in other forms than physical water: one example is rain water or waste water that is going into the ground - the idea is revolutionary: it means that no water is truly wasted, but is somehow recycled into other physical bodies in nature, such as land, animals, foods, etc. At least that's how I understand it!
It will be a challenge to get out of the water bucket (an inside joke which means to think outside the box in the water research world). But it is not impossible. I feel that I will learn much, and scale down, and simplify as I go along.
The shooting will take place in Jordan, Egypt, and hopefully later in Morocco, Spain and Portugal. Many maps as the ones below will be drawn, followed and explained. and you'll see a lot of faces, and hear many different dialects and languages, speaking water, not NGO speech.
But first things first. What is the documentary about? This is a good question that I have to keep asking myself all along the process. The initial idea is to document how ideas discussed in international forums like the World Water Week in Stockholm, the World Economic Forum, and Arab Water Forum translate in real life down at the bottom of the "supply chain". What ideas? Ideas of water management, dealing with water scarcity, waters role in climate change, and more NGO speech - do they ever leave conference halls and policy papers? Or do they translate at households, farms, and even at water ministries, management utilities, or just down at the street!
After making some calls, I headed to The Jordan Times newspaper, my employer about 7 years ago. I went there because I know they are excellent at archiving everything, including the so-called "water-beat". You won't find any other place in Jordan that has a more comprehensive archive of water stories.I flipped through the 2010-2011 folder -- for some reason I like to flip through paper folders than search for articles on the Internet. And voila, there you go, 1 opinion piece, 3 articles with bylines from Stockholm (I work at www.siwi.org) and an article covering a local lecture on Green Water - a concept that was developed in Stockholm too by one of our knowledge leaders, Prof. Malin Falkenmark, back in 1995. Good, first stop with some achievement: a confirmation of something that I already know: many concepts like Green Water, developed at international forums, translate in many shapes and forms and end up in local newspapers and local academic lecture rooms.
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| Green water: a concept that was mostly developed and coined at the Stockholm International Water Institute, much of the work is attributable to Professor Malin Falkenmark. This paper clip was found in a local newspaper in Jordan. |
Still, we're speaking NGO, intellectual elites within the water box. After all the journalist who wrote the article is very familiar with water issues and terminology, and so was the lecturer. Do politicians account for green water when they are negotiating water agreements with other countries?
I'll have to ask, and yes, I'll have to simplify this, I am still speaking NGO speech. Green water is the water that exists in nature in other forms than physical water: one example is rain water or waste water that is going into the ground - the idea is revolutionary: it means that no water is truly wasted, but is somehow recycled into other physical bodies in nature, such as land, animals, foods, etc. At least that's how I understand it!It will be a challenge to get out of the water bucket (an inside joke which means to think outside the box in the water research world). But it is not impossible. I feel that I will learn much, and scale down, and simplify as I go along.
The shooting will take place in Jordan, Egypt, and hopefully later in Morocco, Spain and Portugal. Many maps as the ones below will be drawn, followed and explained. and you'll see a lot of faces, and hear many different dialects and languages, speaking water, not NGO speech.
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