Bog # 7
AMMAN AND JORDAN
HOSPITALITY
After a 7-hour trip from Muscat via Dubai on Fly Dubai we
arrive at 11 pm in Amman. We hail a taxi at the airport and our driver
immediately demonstrates Jordanian hospitality by offering to take us for
coffee. We decline saying “no thanks” trying not to sound rude. Throughout our ride into town he seems
honestly interested in talking to us and making us feel comfortable. He jokes
with us about our one star hotel and makes recommendations of where we should
visit. He repeatedly says, “Welcome to Jordan” and we thank him in English,
wondering whether “shukran” is the right response. We arrive at the beautiful Four Season’s Hotel and our taxi
is inspected by guards before we are allowed to enter and my purse and camera are
scanned separately as well as our bodies. I set off the buzzer twice but finally they decide to allow
me entry. We didn’t experience any of this safety checking in Oman but remember
that in Cairo and in Delhi it was much more militaristic as our car was scanned
as well. We are greeted with
smiles and genuine warmth by many hotel staff. The Jordanians clearly put energy into social interactions
that makes me begin to feel ashamed of our Western indifference.
We breakfast the next morning with an incredible buffet –
John relishing his bowl of hot fuul
(boiled fava beans mashed with lemon juice, olive oil and chopped chilies) and
mopped up with flat bread. He is
commenting that he is already on his Mediterranean diet by getting his 4
tablespoons of olive oil and hummus and fish. The waiters serve him a round Middle Eastern pizza cut into triangles,
called “manakeesh” and are told these are traditional in Jordan. The waiter
brings him a Turkish coffee. This is made from boiling cardamom-flavored grounds
in a long handled pot. Then they let it cool and reboil and this may be done as
many as 7 times. John drinks it and looks at the mud in the bottom of the tiny
cup and asks the ever-present and attentive waiter if there is supposed to be
water in it? The waiter responds by bringing him another cup of Turkish coffee
and this time adds boiling water. I am not sure that John likes it but when the
waiter asks again if wants anything else he orders a double espresso. I have
since learned that one is supposed to let the grounds settle before sipping
Turkish coffee and to leave the mud in the bottom of the cup behind. As for me, the waiter has carefully
explained the huge array of foods including pastries, assortment of fruits,
olives, runny yoghurt, chicken sausage, cheeses, pancakes, omelets and so many
other choices that I can hardly decide. I hate to confess (or disappoint the waiter) that I resort to
what is my habit of granola, fruit and de-caf cappuccino. Maybe tomorrow I will
be more adventurous with breakfast. I am disappointed in myself.
We meet our new guide for the day named Abed. Turns out he
is not an authorized guide but rather a driver who is very friendly but does
not have nearly the breadth of information that Don provided. It is hard to
detach our allegiance to Don who was a great guide to a new guide. We warm up
to Abed and he tells us how concerned he is about all the Syrians arriving in
Jordan because they are taking all the jobs. He explains that normal shop
workers make 350 dinars a month but Syrians will work for 150-200 dinars a
month and will do double shifts. Unemployment is already as high as 26% in this
country. We have read in the Jordan Times that 54,000 Syrians arrived last
month and up to 500,000 could be admitted by the end of March. They are
building refugee camps of up to 50,000.
We drive through the old city and since this is Friday, which is
comparable to Sunday in our world, there is a bustling market going on ~
clearly a men’s market. There seem to be thousands of men of all ages pursuing
the street stalls of used shoes, shirts, pants, and household goods and
greeting each other with hugs and kisses.
Rarely can I glimpse a woman here and I notice the clothing is not for
women either. It is an amazing spectacle … men shopping! I wonder why John didn’t get this gene.
We visit the
Roman Theatre, a hugely impressive 2000-year-old ancient area cut into the
hillside like a gem in the middle of a rough Amman. The theatre is a bit like a
Shakespearean stage and was built for an audience of 6000 people. John stands
in the middle like an Emperor and then we take the steep climb to the top to
see what the view is like for spectators. Afterwards we visit the small museum,
which displays traditional crafts, jewelry and amazing mosaics. Next we go to Jabal Al Qal’a Citadel Hill,
which sits on a summit overlooking the city center, including the Roman
theater. It has been a site of human settlement for over 18,000 years and there
are amazing columns and ruins from Roman times and a spectacular view of the amphitheatre
below. Abed says he will take us into the rich residential area where all the
embassies are housed. He asks us to guess what the next building we see will be
but warns us we are not allowed to take pictures. We laugh as we see the
American flag and like most of the embassies has guards with machine guns positioned
outside.
I think about how different this city is from Muscat in Oman
that seemed like such a modern, perfectly groomed, and peaceful city. Amman on
the other hand has a 3rd world quality to it ~ but not as poverty
stricken as Delhi or Cairo. In fact, unlike these historical cities, Amman is actually
a 20th-century invention as it was nothing more than a muddy farming
village when Emir Abdullah chose it to be the new capital in 1921. It is a kind of displacement city – most
Ammani people identify themselves as originating from somewhere else. Abed tells us with delight that his
father is Jordanian and his mother Palestinian just like the current King
Abdulla II. In addition to the native Bedouins, the population consists of
large numbers of people voluntarily or forcibly exiled from other countries
such as Syrians, Iraqis, Egyptians, Libyians and above all Palestinians who
have arrived in this city in large numbers. Amman is a mixed salad bowl of
different cultures and personalities. I see very few women in black abayas or
burkas and men are dressed in suits. Those women who are wearing head scarfs
have their faces exposed and also have on tight jeans and tall boots or high
heels and are walking hand in hand with boyfriends. We enter a small coffee
shop which reminds us of a Starbucks near a university in some ways because
young 20’s looking students are sitting at small tables working on their
computers. But unlike Seattle, the air was thick with smoke as over 60% of the
population smoke in Jordan. We didn’t think we would see men and women working
together like this in Oman.
While walking down the Rainbow Street we met a group of friendly
college age boys who asked if they could take our picture. Why would someone
want to take our picture? Bilal Swaiseh and Laith Falahat were two of these
boys and they said they were taking pictures of people’s faces for a project
called the Humans of Amman.
They took our picture and then I asked to take their picture
and they laughed. We shared facebook and email addresses and I told them I was
writing my first blog on Jordan and would put their names in it. (Their blog is
f.b.com/Hussain.c.ahad)
I started writing this first blog to talk about how
hospitable the Jordanian people are and while I described the helpful waiters
at breakfast and our taxi and tour guide drivers and the boys on the street...
let me give a couple of other examples. In fact I was sitting in the hotel lobby
trying to type this blog when the computer battery was flashing time up. I
tried to plug the computer into the lobby outlet but I could not get it to
work. Over the next 30 minutes 5 different hotel employees persistently and
happily tried to figure out how to get it to work, including bringing in an
electrician to check the outlet. Eventually they took my computer and could get
it to work in their office and offered to keep it there until the battery was
charged. I was struck by their eagerness to want to help – it was not a
resentful helping like I was imposing on their valuable time but a genuine
caring. Even when I got up to take
the computer and power cords etc to our room a staff employee offered to carry
my computer for me! (I’m not that weak!) I couldn’t imagine this happening in America. Then later
coming out of my room, there was a man vacuuming the hallway, and he turned off
the vacuum noise until I entered the elevator. Finally tonight, John and I were
trying to hail a taxi to take us to dinner at Al Tanoureen, a restaurant
according to John to have the most authentic Arab food in Aamman and we were
having trouble explaining to the driver where we wanted to go. A young man
asked if he could help us because he spoke English and Arabic. He said he was
being picked up by a friend who he was sure would be willing to drive us there.
So we went with them and they stopped several times to ask people where this
restaurant was. Our driver was an Arabic man and the other man who originally
offered to help was from South Dakota and teaches special education in Amman.
John admonishes me, “Who says Americans aren’t friendly or helpful?” because I
have been complaining all day about American’s indifference compared with
Jordanians. Well as some of you
know this past year I wrote a new program about attentive parenting and I would
definitely say that the people we have met on this day have taken this concept
to a higher level than parenting ~ their hospitality is certainly attentive.
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