I have been in Jordan for just over 24
hours now. My first proper visit here since 1999. I don’t count the total of 16
hours in Queen Alia airport in 2008 on my way to and from a Jerusalem
wedding (I was living in the UAE at the time; direct flights are not available),
nor a couple of nights in 2007 chewing the cud with some colleagues with little
focus on Jordan other than its hospitality).
In Amman snow still lies on the ground, while
I walk around in little more than my clothes for the Saudi leg of the trip plus
a woolly cardigan purchased in Jeddah. There are times when this trip to the
region has reminded me of being stuck for three months in the California Hotel
in Dubai (see March-May 2007 entries). Staying in middling hotels, pounding my
laptop, trying to make sense of barely legible notes, perpetually on the
outside of things, never hitting a stride, speaking bad Arabic. At least in
Jordan my bad Arabic has a point – for one thing it is actually spoken to
Arabs, and they appreciate it, but mostly speak back to me in English. I
arrived at the Jordanian weekend – being exhausted I was delighted to take
Friday off, and after a desultory nap I headed by taxi to the Downtown area. A
sweet laid back old guy (probably my age) drove me there. He told me the
upcoming elections were important and a duty to take part in (an East Banker
taxi driver?).
After dark the wet, cold streets should
perhaps have been full of foreboding but were strangely welcoming after the
stultifying blandness of Saudi (aside from Batta’ – see below). Downtown Amman
feels like Ramallah pre “peace process”, but writ large. An incredible warren
of life where probably anything can be bought, even if it mostly appears to be
mobile phones, cheap clothes and cigarettes. I found a hole in the wall and
enjoyed a great meal of kebab, homous and salad where, despite being the only
Inglayze in the place, nobody gave a tom tit about me (which is how I like it).
Washing hands afterwards – an obligation that I often don’t feel in London –
was the Deira/Bur Dubai recognisable fair of cold tap and grease-proof paper to
dry your hands. To the streets and a ride with a younger driver whose surname,
Abu Ghosh, spoke to his family’s roots in a pretty Jerusalem village that he
will never see. He, however, is more desperate to get a visa to the west. He
has never voted, and won’t be doing so this time.
Back at the hotel I relaxed, enjoying the
warmth and a well-fed and pleasantly tired feeling, at least until I muffed it
and started stressing about the next day and ended up speaking to an old
contact with whom I then made a cocked up arrangement that I spent the
subsequent half an hour trying to rectify.
Today has been a damp squib – a pleasant
time in the gym, although talking to an Iraqi about the war is not an easy
thing to do (his second home is Australia, he told me, although most of his
family escaped Iraq for Jordan after the war and he is studying in Amman).
Nothing has come through this afternoon by way of a meeting. A walk to a local
shop for an alternative to the tap water allowed me to take in a street full of
car show rooms. My repeated calls to a local Muslim Brotherhood official have
unsurprisingly not been picked up or returned. Tomorrow will be a more
structured day, in sha-Allah.
