Amman - City of Stone

Greetings from Jordan!

I flew from Washington DC to Paris, where I met 2 friends who were on the same flight from Paris to Amman. The whole trip was flawless. On my way to Amman, I sat next to an American man who was working at a school in the desert, educating Iraqi refugee girls... his whole family moved to Jordan about 3 years ago for humanitarian work.

Flying into Amman was absolutely stunning. Only about 4.5% of Jordan's land has been cultivated, most of it being desert and scraggly brush. We flew in over the Arabian Desert which was foreboding and intimidating, landing in Amman - a congested, urban oasis overflowing with construction and humanity.

The first thing I noticed upon landing was the men wearing their keffiyeh - the red and white cloth indicates that they are Bedouin, and black and white checked cloth indicates that they are Palestinian. Many men also wear a simple white fabric, but I don't know what that implies. The cloth is held in place by a black rope, or agal. Female garb ranges from a simple headscarf, to a hejab, to a full chador worn with or without the purdah - the veil that covers the face. I should note that Amman seems to be a very modern city, and that many people dress in the western style as well.

The next thing I noticed, when leaving the airport, was the air quality. I've grown so accustomed to that familiar smell when leaving the airport in a developing country - the smell of fire and diesel - and the air here is noticably cleaner. Things are dusty, simply because the wind is always blowing sand in from the desert, but I've discovered that Jordan takes great pride in keeping their country clean, right down to maintaining strict emissions on their cars.

In the last few years, Amman has been flooded with refugees from Palestine and Iraq, creating a crossroads of many cultures and traditions from all over the Middle East.

In the last 36 hours all activities have showcased the bride and groom. Nearly 25 people came together for a 4-hour lunch yesterday, where we ate and talked and met people from all over the world. The days here are very long in that we get up early, and everything simply takes a long time - traffic is omnipresent, meals take hours, people move slowly, all peppered with the call to prayer 5 times each day. It's this slow, long pace that I love sinking into when I travel. At 10pm, I took a cab to outside of the city, where 60 or 70 people came together for a huge party, on the roof of a club, overlooking the desert with Amman in the distance. We danced to Arabic songs, ate hummus and cheese, drank wine and talked until the early morning, as Salma and Basel, the bride and groom, were lifted onto chairs, hoisted onto shoulders and celebrated through music and dance.

I've been asking many Arabs their thoughts of me traveling to Syria on this trip. Almost unanimously, their response has been to look at me strangely and say "Of course. Why not?" I've been reminded of my time in Indonesia, a country I was warned about endlessly, which caused so much concern from people at home... when I arrived, however, I saw that the American media blew so much of their social strife out of proportion, and for 3 months I traveled throughout the country with no problems at all. In many ways, it's the same here. Arabs get shafted in the American media, and we are veiled with a subtle, intangible fear of Arabs and Islam at home. The reality is that people here welcome Americans and make a very clear distinction between Americans (whom they like) and the American government (which they don't). I haven't experienced even the slightest anti-American sentiment, and I must say, people here stare less than virtually any other country I've ever visited. You can move through the streets smoothly, without any hassle. --- Don't get me wrong: the recent bombings in Turkey are a somber reminder that there is hatred of the West, but these attacks are relatively rare. These terrorists are to Islam, as the KKK is to Christianity.

I am now in Amman alone, as all of our friends have left for a 2-day trip to Petra in the south. I've decided to wait until Jane arrives on Thursday to visit all of the sites outside of Amman, so today I will wander the streets of Amman, in search of the local bazaar, the Citadel and the King Abdullah Mosque. I'm happy to be solo, as I find traveling in large groups to be quite taxing.

So there are my thoughts for the day.

I hope you're well....