First Night in Amman

I have to admit to a little bit of the jitters just before I left. The unknown loomed ahead. But as soon as the plane landed I realized I was back to yet another “home” of mine, one that is experiencing extraordinary development, and growing and expanding at a seemingly exponential level. Palm trees now line the road leaving the airport and billboards proclaim that Dubai and Jordan are partnered in some way. Huge condos, both new and under construction, fill the cityscape. One massive hole we passed – and I mean massive in both depth and breath – is being readied for yet another construction project. In the dark of night, a new expansion bridge lined with rectangular lights connecting in a long streaming line all along its cement guardrails, gives one the feeling of gliding along on an indoor Disney ride.

I hope to re-connect with the bright young Syrian Kurdish man I sat next to on the plane, if and when I get to Damascus. Moving from Syria to Pittsburgh when he was thirteen years old, Kawa (“like ‘Kawasaki’” he told me) flew on to his homeland to marry his childhood sweetheart. He will bring her back with him to his new home in Pittsburgh where she will go to school and he will continue working on his doctorate in child psychology. We talked at great length about the human rights abuses perpetrated on the Kurds by the Syrian government. Last time Kawa visited Syria, he was prevented from boarding his flight to the US and not allowed to leave for two months. A lengthy process of meeting with officials - sometimes 3 in one day - and the paying of a bribe each time, finally bought him his freedom. A fan of American psychologist/psychiatrist, Milton Erikson, Kawa is an extraordinary positive thinker, and although a little trepidatious at entering Syria once again, he is convinced that no matter what happens, all will be for the best.


After settling in to Anna’s enviro’s NGO office/apartment, I went with Anna and her American-born Iraq coworker, took a taxi to my favorite Amman restaurant. Amal (not her real name), now thirty, was born in Nebraska and lived there for one year before her parents moved back to Baghdad. She arrived in Amman yesterday from Iraq and is beginning the process that will hopefully allow her Iraqi-born husband and two children to migrate with her to the US for the purposes of attending school and working. Not only did she get royally ripped off today by a slick Jordanian taxi cab driver who obscenely overcharged her, Amal’s effort to begin her family’s US immigration process today was somewhat stonewalled by folks at the American Embassy. Tomorrow Anna will accompany her. Amal speaks excellent English, is an American citizen and carries an American passport and it will be interesting to see if Anna’s “American” presence tomorrow will help facilitate Amal’s immigration process.

Once at the restaurant, I ordered ouze, a boiled and delicately seasoned lamb shank served over a bed of raisin-filled spiced white rice smothered in a curdled yogurt. Yum. Kathy Kelly, a long-term peace activist working in Iraq since the early 90s under the now defunct Voices in the Wilderness she helped to found, joined us for dinner. It was good to see Kathy, who helped me (and Anna and many others) enter Iraq that first time back in February of 2003, and who has kept her finger, as best one can without entering the country, on the pulse of the situation in Iraq. We mostly reminisced, caught up on the whereabouts and activities of Iraqis and others we had met and/or worked with and around, and began to compare notes on issues facing Iraqis today.

I asked Kathy what she thought were the most pressing issues regarding the Iraq refugees in Amman. Education topped her list. “Education matters very much to [the Iraqi] people who know they will be here a long time. They want their kids educated. Health care is another issue. There is a lot of neglect regarding health care. People come here with huge trauma. Within Iraq, it is very, very dire regarding food, water, transport, and insecurity.” In Kathy’s opinion, the UN should declare Iraq an emergency zone, but the US is blocking such efforts because if the UN were to declare Iraq an emergency zone, the US would have to accept responsibility for the war.

I asked Kathy if she thought the health care here in Jordan was any better for poorer Jordanians than it was for Iraqis. Her consensus was that it was probably about the same.

Tomorrow I will visit with Mazen, the manager of the dilapidated, 5-blanket hotel (I named it so due to the fact that 5 heavy wool blankets are needed in order to keep warm in bed during the colder months) where many of us independents, peaceworkers, internationals, NGO staffers, Iraqis and others have frequented over the years. I also hope to meet with an Iraqi videographer friend and an Iraqi interpreter recommended by Mazen, and go off to the Iraqi refugee neighborhoods and interview people living there.

It is good to be back. There is much more happening here than I having been hearing about in the media. So many stories….so many angles and views. And I have been here less than 24 hours!