that) had some really breathtaking views. I saw beautiful mountains and valleys and some greenery which was a nice change from Amman which consists of similar looking tan buildings throughout the city. Outside of Amman we passed a city that was created for Palestinian refugees which was interesting and sad to see. Many Jordanians are actually not natives of Jordan and a large part of the population is made up of Palestinian and Iraqi refugees. As we drove to Jerash pictures of the king still lined the road but as we entered poorer areas the pictures changed from shots of the king by himself to the king hugging a poor, elderly Jordanian woman. Unprompted, Samir mentioned that it is easy for the king to take pictures like this, to hug these old, poor women. When I asked him to clarify, he said what I thought he meant: that it is much easier for the King to take these pictures and present an image of caring for the downtrodden, but the fact remains that poverty and unemployment are major issues in Jordan and Samir feels as though the King's concern for these people is mostly feigned.
When we arrived in Jerash I was immediately struck by the ruins but my attention shifted as soon as I met a group of young boys who were trying to sell me chewing gum. The boys in this first group were 8-10 years old and they spoke English so we talked for a little bit. I gave them some money but I didn't take their gum because I wasn't going to chew it and I figured that they could just sell it to someone else and make more money. When they boys heard that I spoke English they started to say "Viva America! Viva America! George Bush!" which I thought was pretty amusing. One of the boys took to me and we started to walk through Jerash as he started to sell me more chewing gum and flutes that he had made as well as ask for more money. I gave him a Jordanian Dinar as well as a Dollar and we started to talk more about where he was from. Having just passed through a city made of Palestinian refugees and aware of the large Palestinian population in Jordan, I asked the boy if he was Palestinian. He said that he was and when I asked him why he left he made his hand into a gun and said "boom boom at night, boom boom". This hit me pretty hard. As a Jew I am constantly fed the idea that Palestinians are evil and the enemy. The image of this little, friendly, English speaking 8 year old kid who is selling chewing gum to feed his family and had to leave his home to get Way from gunshots whizzing by his house at night shatters that idea in every way. We walked together for another 10 minutes or so just making small talk until he decided to go back to his friends. A few minutes after he left I turned back around and saw that a group of older boys had come over to the younger boys and were kicking and punching them. It turns out that there is a network of boys who work inside of Jerash and many are brothers and cousins. After hearing the boy's story and befriending him in a way, I had a stake in the affair and I decided to ask the boys why they had been beating up on the younger boys and their reply was "it's just business". I decided to end my inquiry there and I let them take me on a tour of the site that we were standing next to even though I knew that they would ask for money in exchange for the tour. I decided that the money meant so much more to them than it does to me so I gave them what they asked for. I continued to see the sites which were pretty remarkable but to be honest I was too focused on the people I just met to be paying complete attention to the ruins. I walked up to the Roman theater there where I met a Jordanian boy named Ali and we made small talk. He looked my age and I asked him if he went to university and he said that he did but that he dropped out after two years because there was no point in going. When I asked him what he meant he told me that where he lives there is no future after college, that regardless of if he went to a university he would be working the same jobs and these jobs do not require a college education. He said that in the US "there is business after college, you have a future with business but in Jordan you do not have that future". Instead he said that they have very high unemployment where he is and poverty. On my way out of the site I saw a woman sitting down and I decided to practice my Arabic by greeting her with "asalaamu alaikum" which means hello (literally it means peace be upon you but it's a common greeting). The woman invited me to sit down next to her and she started to talk to me in English. She told me that she was a Palestinian and that she moved to New Orleans when she was very young and had now moved back to Jordan with her sons. She was kind, welcoming, friendly, and even partly American. Once again, she was everything that the traditional image of Palestinians I am fed is not. Meeting and talking to Palestinians really made me reevaluate the image that I had of them and I am sure that being in Israel will provide me with similar experiences.
On my way out of the site I said goodbye to my little friend who had been hanging out at the entrance and walked to the restaurant next door to get some lunch with my driver and his friend who had already been sitting at a table outside. I had a traditional middle eastern meal and his friend told me some Arabic dirty jokes which were pretty funny. On the way back the driver took out his phone and showed me that he had changed his background to a picture of the king even though I had not asked him to see his phone or asked him anything about the king. I think that this was similar to what happened a couple of days earlier when he told me that he supported what was going on in Egypt and Syria and later showed support of the Jordanian king by telling me that they have no problems in Jordan. It's important to know that what happens here is not some 1984 situation or even what's going on in Thailand, but I find these short moments very interesting.
Side note: I'm pretty sure that I have pictures of the kids on my computer but I don't have access to it at the moment to when I get back to the hotel in Amman I will try to post them.
Nice post man, I enjoyed it.
ReplyDeletethanks moose glad to hear it
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