I woke up this morning a bit bleary eyed - the 2 hour time different from London is enough to make having a wake up call from the mosque at 5am seem a bit bewildering. That being said, I don't think I've ever been so pleased to wake up so early. The call to prayer is something I absolutely love hearing and so when I heard this morning it was a metaphorical wakeup call too - it brought home that I really am back in Amman.
Got tucked into a beautiful traditional breakfast - I used to love Jordanian food, so having za'atar this morning was like a food orgasm that I've been waiting for for the last eight years. I know taking photos of food is so cliched, but I had to.
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| Yum |
After a stint on the eliptical and a spot of Al Jazeera, I had a bit more za'atar and headed on my way to City Mall, a twenty minute walk away from where I am currently staying, as I wanted to buy a Jordanian phone. Making the error of going at half 12 when the sun is unrelenting, I was hot before I'd even left home. Having taken great care to wear conservative clothing and take an extra cover with me, I still stuck out like a sore thumb on my walk to City Mall. A crude estimate of how many times I got beeped at by cars driving past me would be something around 80. Cars slowed down with Jordanian guys hanging out the window, staring at me and beeping their high-pitched, girly horns at me every single step of the way. It was actually very funny as they are completely unthreatening and just seem like pillocks. This behaviour, although not something I got when I was 11, is perhaps to be expected to some extent when you come to this region. The icing on the cake was having a Jordanian police car slow right down next to me as I walked (seeing heat waves by this stage). This policeman cruised next to me for about thirty seconds, staring at me and being completely silent as he did so. What a pillar of the community. Nice shots of Amman to be seen though - these pictures are taken in the general direction of the old ICS building, an area I got to know well when we took Bus 4 to school every morning.
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| Towards the ICS area |
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| Fairly typical Amman scene |
What struck me when I finally arrived at City Mall (which for any Amman buffs out there is on King Abdullah St., not far from the King Hussein Medical Centre) is that how much Jordan has been influenced by the West since 2004. Back then, the highlight of the year was when a BHS opened up. That was the highlight of sophistication back then - perhaps the only time in recent history BHS can make such a claim. There were some European shops such as Pull and Bear and Mango, but that was generally it. Now, it's a completely different story. I walked into the Mall and could have stopped at either a Starbucks or Paul, the French boulangerie. If I was hoping for a new wardrobe, I could take my pick from H&M, Berksha, Aldo, Debenhams, Promod, and Monsoon. There's even a Clarks shoe-shop for God's sake. If it hadn't been for the people in City Mall you could very easily believe you were somewhere in Europe. There was a real mixed bag of people in City Mall today. From women covered in Burqa's and headscarfs, to other Arab women who are really pushing the boundaries of what, in a Muslim country, could be considered 'appropriate'. At aged 11, tank tops at a British International School were only reserved for the cool girls with liberal parents. I was actually shocked by quite how much flesh was being bared by local girls. Even the girls with the headscarfs on were wearing pretty revealing clothes. Seems that a set of different rules apply. Certainly the clothes that a lot of the shops I went into today cater for the frivolous, unseen side of these women - see-through lace tops, crop tops and mini shorts were all over the hangers and being snatched up by women in full burqas.
When it came to the men, there were a few of them dressed in the traditional dish-dash, but most of them were wearing generic jeans and t-shirts. A small minority of , that generally have very slicked back hair and a bit of a prowling gait to their walk wear their trousers up so high that it borders on the ridiculous. Those are the guys that can make you feel a bit uncomfortable. But, by and large, everyone went about their sweet, Western-inspired way and ignored me completely. I managed (just about) to buy a phone in the GINORMOUS Carrefour (can't believe Jordan has one of those now) and so now ready to go and text both my mates in Amman. And walking back wasn't nearly as bad as the traffic was considerably less. So I was ready to conquer the world at this stage.
After a delicious supper, the Bakir's and I headed out for a walk around the local park. It's about five kilometres all in all, and was a great opportunity to see Amman and it's people out and about at night. People love to stay up late in this city, so there's always families roaming around with their kids, young couples on dates, a couple of boys playing football, or just groups of men sitting around chatting. On our way back we walked past the newly constructed King Hussein mosque, which is absolutely stunning. It's one of the biggest in Amman (being rivalled by the King Abdullah mosque downtown) and has got lovely terracotta coloured domes. The call to prayer from this mosque is especially melodic, and it's the one I can hear at prayer time from my bedroom.
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| Sunset over the Wadi |
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| The King Hussein Mosque lit up at night |
Fairly uneventful evening after that - watched a bit of a film and talked about the Israel-Palestine question. Great hearing the facts outside of a stuffy Al-Qasimi room in Durham and from a Palestinian whose life has been affected by it. Definitely food for thought.
Tomorrow I'm going to head downtown and check out the area where I'm going to be living. I'm going to walk downtown from the house that we used to live in on Uqbah bin Nafe St. It's quite a walk but I'm looking forward to retracing many previous (car)journeys. Also having my first taxi experience tomorrow, which is going to be interesting. I'm sure I'll have another rambling blog post ready by tomorrow evening.
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