travel writing
jordan

This is another post-Kuwait episode. I went to Jordan to retrieve a suitcase of my stuff and a Senna kilim which were taken there from Iraq in 1990. An Iraqi friend had taken all the "valuables" (clothes, jewelry, carpets, other kitch, papers, etc.) from my flat in Kuwait up to Baghdad "for safe keeping." Well, it's presumably still snug and safe there, unless it's been buried in rubble from an American bomb. But this one suitcase and kilim (flat weave carpet) were taken to Jordan by a Jordanian acquaintance of my friend.

So I bought my ticket to Amman in January 1991, shopped for perfume to take as a gift, and was met at the airport by a man I didn't know who took me in his car far out of the city up a mountain road on a 2 hour journey to Jerash. I stayed alone with him in his cold stone house, which was probably unwise, and certainly improper in Arab culture--except that I was the close friend of his Iraqi friend. That was the point of honor upon which I put myself into this stranger's power.

But it all turned out all right except for the black tea, smoke, and looted suitcase. First, I was taken on a tour of the deserted ruins of Jerash--deserted because the rain had just stopped, which was great because it meant there were no other tourists there except me (not one!), and there were also gorgeous conditions for viewing the place. The sky was clearing a bit, but still loomed with dark clouds which made a dramatic backdrop to the towering Roman columns of the Central Colonnade Street and the Temple of Artemis. The old stones had been washed clean of dust by the rain, which brought out their color and somehow made the structures seem more alive. I climbed up the steep steps of the Roman Auditorium and from the top greatly lamented the fact that after 5 or 6 shots, the battery of my camera went dead so that I had to actually look at the monuments with my naked eyes and record the images on my brain, rather than look through a camera lens and depend on the photos for memories. The lighting was perfect for photos that afternoon, though, damn it.

After this archeological view of life in Jordan, I got a look at modern life too, in a Jordanian house. And I'll tell you what it's all about: tea, talk, and smoke. I was taken by my host to the home of one of his family where I stayed the rest of the evening. This was an exercise in endurance but was memorable. I was given dinner which I ate while sitting cross legged on a diwaniya cushion on the floor. (I was quite used to this because I'd had the same kind of seating in my flat in Kuwait.) There were cushions along all the walls of the small sitting room, and as the evening progressed, they were filled by a continuous stream of arrivees who came to partake of the warmth and company. Warmth was provided by a paraffin heater upon which sat constantly brewing a kettle of tea, the strongest tea I've ever had, which could have passed for coffee by its color. And people drank glass after glass of it, perhaps to moisten their throats from the clamorous talk and the smoke of their cigarettes. The packages of cigarettes and the sheesha (hubble bubble) pipe never stopped circulating, along with the tea glasses. By mid evening the room was like a cartoon of a smoky room: I could barely make out the faces of people sitting 6 feet across from me. I must have smoked about 20 cigarettes without one ever touching my lips.

Fortunately, the evening finally ended and my host took me back to his lonely cold stone house, and this is where the looted suitcase comes in. He brought out an enormous, ripped and severly scuffed suitcase which had a broken lock and noticebly concave sides. In fact, it was about 2/3 full, and what was left in it amazed me. Well, my Iraqi friend must have been in a bit of a rush when he packed it because it contained raggedy clothes I never knew I had (though they were mine-no one had been so devious as to actually put in bad clothes!). I was embarrassed to realize that the people-no doubt the very people I'd sat amongst in the smoke that evening-who went through that suitcase and picked it clean, had held up those holey underwear and said "Shu Hatha?" ("What the hell are these?"). Chagrin! Actually, I left most of what remained in that flattened bag of treasure in the garbage in my Amman hotel room, to which I was delivered the following day.

june 10, 1999