Amman vs Dubai

During the Easter weekend I had the chance to come back to Dubai for a few days, but this time I had to realise that my perspective had changed, a lot.

Indeed coming from Jordan, my experience of Dubai was quite the opposite from what I had seen and felt a year ago. Everything was so much less conservative than in Jordan. You can walk around without having all the men staring at you although last year I found Dubai quite disturbing on that point.

The traffic, I recall, had seemed to be a huge mess and last Thursday, when I arrived, I found the traffic to be slow, quiet and even boring. Where was the honking, the spontaneous lane-building and the weird (or non-existent) priority system?

Also, I really experienced the arrogance and pride that lies all over Dubai. Just to illustrate the local mentality... you don't have to go grocery shopping. You can just stop in front of the grocery store, honk and wait for them to get out, ask for what you want and get it for you. One girl told me the battery of her phone had run out, so she had just bought a new phone for 100 AED (20 €) to make one phone call. People from Dubai don't seem surprised at that attitude; personally, I am. And I hope I will never think that way - I better not move to the Emirates then, cause apparently the system sucks you in!

the view from Medinat Jumeira

One day, the black gold will run out and this country will have enormous difficulties and I really do hope that they will start using the amazing power the region also has: the sun. Solar panels are still very expensive there, but Insh'allah some powerful and wealthy people will start to think responsibly. Not like the generations before them, who were taken by the same fever: to build even higher and even more luxurious, defeating every natural rule.

But however much money they will spend, my heart will always beat for Amman!

Al-Urduniyya

I'm sitting in a taxi, driving from first circle to Yasmeen, where I live. It is dark already and the warm breeze feels good on my skin. Amman is my new home: Somehow, I have woken up one morning considering all these strange new things as normalcy... the chaotic traffic, the car honking, the staring men, directing the taxi driver yameen (right) and shmal (left) to this or that duwwar (roundabout), hearing the Muezzin at 5am, hearing the usual „Kefek?“ „Shu Akhbarek“ „Kulshi Tammam“ etc. There also is the distinct (horrible) music the gas vending car makes or the amazing food... I have grown very fond of labane ( a form of thick white cheese) and za3ter (a thyme mix) and my everlasting love for cheese finds satisfaction in Halloum!

However, for a country where you hear “No problem, no problem” (with the accent it sounds more like 'no broblem, no broblem') all day long, things are really complicated. You can't really use public transport, because they not only give the directions only in Arabic ( and although I can read the script, I am still very slow, especially when it comes to reading a sign on a driving bus...) there are no clear bus stops (I'm not even talking about a map!): a random queue of people on the side of the road is generally a good sign indicating that a bus will stop here. At the beginning, I struggled a lot with this, because for me, all this was totally irrational, as many things here. Organisation works differently, even when it just concerns a few people and their plan to meet up. You spend more time discussing how you will organise than it takes for all of you to gather in one place. But to my greatest astonishment, things do work out in the end. All this made me acquire a great deal of patience!  أصبر الجميل  (Patience is beautiful)!

When coming here, I wasn't very sure what it meant to be a woman, living by herself in Jordan. At first I struggled to see the limits of security and the limits of appropriate behaviour. I started being overly careful, and I am sometimes still not sure if I am exaggerating with my apprehension. I can walk along the streets at night in Jebal Amman without thinking of any danger, but then a random cat that comes out of a dark corner scares the hell out of you and you feel confronted with your own vulnerability, not really knowing what to do with it. People from home always ask me what I wear and whether I wear a headscarf. Although a vast majority of girls do wear hijaabs and some women with niqaabs wander the streets of Amman, I don't feel weird by exposing my hair. However, I dress modestly, which means that I try to cover my legs down to half-calf at least and my arms below the elbow. Especially when you are going around by yourself using taxis, precaution is better. When I go out with a friend who has a car, I can allow myself to wear something shorter, although I have lost the appeal to it, I must say. Long clothes make you feel protected and comfortable.

I still feel like I have a lot to learn about the culture here and I often have these awkward moments. Such as yesterday, when my friend told me to dry my hair as wet hair was a sign of preceding adult activity...

Sunrise in Wadi Rum

I haven't talked about the country's beauty yet and it is something one must talk about! The several places I have seen here have made me hold my breath. The Dead Sea offers a beautiful and calm panorama, with amazing colours at sunset! The stones in the water shine in tones of red and orange as if they were from a different planet. Of course, every visitor has to get the floating experience but I did resist the picture with the newspaper in my hands. The taste of the water is awful though. I had imagined it to be just very salty but even very very very salty doesn't get near the taste experience that water represents. It is that salty that it gets bitter! Nothing you would want to cook your spaghetti in!

When we to drove south via Wadi Musa towards Aqaba, we passed by the most impressive panorama. We didn't have the time to stop at Petra, but I will go there eventually! Instead, we went to Wadi Rum, to spend a night in the desert alongside the (local?) Bedouins. It was also an opportunity to drive a 4x4 in the desert, to see the sunset illuminate the red landscape, to eat some traditional Bedouin food, to hear their songs, to collect wood, to make fire and to freeze during the night! The silence in the desert is truly impressive and the chant of the birds in the morning was beautiful. Somehow we decided that we wanted to do a camel tour and although it was one of the shortest of the ones they proposed, the pain I subsequently felt in my lower body has accompanied me back to Amman and has stayed with me for a few days!

Coming back to Amman was really a step back into civilisation after the desert! For me, it felt like coming home...

Amman