*** Will add pictures of recent trip to Petra and Wadi Rum soon*** This blog explains why I don't blog as much in Jordan:
It is true that Amman is a city of refugees. Every soul has been swept by all encompassing change, and altered their existence. All beings in this place are searching for a home… Some, the Bedu and Gypsies, were driven from their wandering by the fierce economics of the “modern” state. Others are Palestinians or Iraqi’s broken by violence and fear. Some are Westerners, going to the East to find meaning. All, call Amman home, all call Amman their refuge and sanctuary. Truth, in this place, is a matter of memory and a contrasting matter of survival. Everyone is pulled by false Eastern traditions and impossible Western futures. And so memory balances with sanctuary. The future balances with survival.
In this city of limbo, only the cats truly survive. For the month that I have been here, I have yet to spy even one dog or rat. Like the refugee-citizens, the felines are clever and abandoned. Dirty but not savage, and completely alone, they are fighting to survive amiss the unforgiving cement of the city.
Here, all are scared by visions of a darkened past and a cloudy future. Its strange, because by the mere fact of being here, I feel myself swept into this multilayered system of being. I am stuck in a strange limbo sanctuary where the sweeping pattern of my existence lays broken in a knot. Its all unchanging and in conflict. I’m double-minded, unwilling to look for solutions and dwelling hapless on the problems.
This isn’t to say that I’m unhappy. I am stuck. I am stuck on unchanging happiness and unchanging problems. I’m stuck on a cloudy future and a false history. I’m stuck in a limestone city with so much to offer but few open doors. I’m stuck searching for a future under relentless blue skies that stay the same azure.
This weekend I went to the Wadi Rum – an ancient landscape, the Bedu call the face of the moon. It was beautiful, it was stunning, but completely empty, overwhelming unchanging. That’s where I am. A place of monotonous joy and colorless pain. Everything is the same and everything is beautiful.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Monday, September 10, 2007
Two weeks and it's hit me.
We sat there that night in that café up on the hill... Eyes glassy over the shisha smoke, throwing stories into each other’s mouths. We were filled to the brim with explosive possibilities of brilliant conversation and dreams of expatriation. Studying abroad is like that… exploring who you are as you invent yourself for a new set of friends.
I have to say, Amman has become a strange hallucination for me… I find myself retreating to expat hang outs much more than I ever did in Spain… Everything is so brilliant and new and englightening but… simultaneously not knowing the local dialect makes things impossibly frustrating and overwhelming. To top it off, I’m not in a walking city. I’m bound by psychological blocks against dirt cheap taxi cab fares and minimal distance.
The physical appearance of the city is everything I hate: post-world war two industrial mayhem in an white and dusty boxy urban sprawl of interlaced car driven suburbia. The culture is something completely comprehensible. As much as I may appear to be 100% American, my father’s side is arab and I understand a fair amount of the culture backdrop. The difference is… I empathize with arab culture rather than fall into it. Certain traits in me I see reflected in this place but others are complete opposites…
So amist this internal backdrop, I will return with my new friends over shisha or mint tea and we will contemplate the next few months. Contemplate our news lives. Discover our surroundings until our new lives become our old lives. And our surroundings disappear as we venture off to where our lifelines may take us.
I have to say, Amman has become a strange hallucination for me… I find myself retreating to expat hang outs much more than I ever did in Spain… Everything is so brilliant and new and englightening but… simultaneously not knowing the local dialect makes things impossibly frustrating and overwhelming. To top it off, I’m not in a walking city. I’m bound by psychological blocks against dirt cheap taxi cab fares and minimal distance.
The physical appearance of the city is everything I hate: post-world war two industrial mayhem in an white and dusty boxy urban sprawl of interlaced car driven suburbia. The culture is something completely comprehensible. As much as I may appear to be 100% American, my father’s side is arab and I understand a fair amount of the culture backdrop. The difference is… I empathize with arab culture rather than fall into it. Certain traits in me I see reflected in this place but others are complete opposites…
So amist this internal backdrop, I will return with my new friends over shisha or mint tea and we will contemplate the next few months. Contemplate our news lives. Discover our surroundings until our new lives become our old lives. And our surroundings disappear as we venture off to where our lifelines may take us.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Vintage suburbia in West Amman
I know I haven’t updated as much or often as I did in Spain… However, perhaps that is a good thing. I could tell you of the ruined villas and secret hideaways of Jebel Amman or I could relate the eccentricities of my cousins. Though both these topics have elicited some degree of interest to me, the revolving allure of Amman occurs indoors.
Gardens is the improperly named dusty district where my friends are housed. From the outside it looked no different than the tiny boxy villa rowhouses, however the inside proved to be a complete break from 21st century realities. The walls were plastered with 60s stylized amber wall paper, as artfully spotless vintage couches dotted every room. The lighting was that dim honey that commonly cloaks antique Polaroids. They sent me on a tour of avocado coloured bathrooms and James Bond stylized beds equipped with built an antique radio…
The bubble of lost time extended itself not only to the interior design but also the very actions of the inhabitants. Coffee was served out of a French press, as everyone ate cookies and talked of how our respective families were doing. A girl was knitting in the corner as 50s stylized French pop drifted from hidden speakers. We found ourselves sucked into the past, and I felt oddly right at home.
Gardens is the improperly named dusty district where my friends are housed. From the outside it looked no different than the tiny boxy villa rowhouses, however the inside proved to be a complete break from 21st century realities. The walls were plastered with 60s stylized amber wall paper, as artfully spotless vintage couches dotted every room. The lighting was that dim honey that commonly cloaks antique Polaroids. They sent me on a tour of avocado coloured bathrooms and James Bond stylized beds equipped with built an antique radio…
The bubble of lost time extended itself not only to the interior design but also the very actions of the inhabitants. Coffee was served out of a French press, as everyone ate cookies and talked of how our respective families were doing. A girl was knitting in the corner as 50s stylized French pop drifted from hidden speakers. We found ourselves sucked into the past, and I felt oddly right at home.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Week one
So much has happened, its truly impossible to recapture it. I decided pictures would do it best. For those of you that don't know, I got terribly ill and had to go to the hospital. I was well within 24 hours but hte medicine has made me absurdly thirsty and ADD. Therefore, I'm not going to write much expect explanation for the pictures.
One is my bedroom.
Some are just general pictures of Amman.
One is a photo inside of a cafe I will likely frequent a lot.
And the rest... seem explanatory.
cool.
*****UPDATE PICTURES WON"T LOAD****
One is my bedroom.
Some are just general pictures of Amman.
One is a photo inside of a cafe I will likely frequent a lot.
And the rest... seem explanatory.
cool.
*****UPDATE PICTURES WON"T LOAD****
Week one
So much has happened, its truly impossible to recapture it. I decided pictures would do it best. For those of you that don't know, I got terribly ill and had to go to the hospital. I was well within 24 hours but hte medicine has made me absurdly thirsty and ADD. Therefore, I'm not going to write much expect explanation for the pictures.
One is my bedroom.
Some are just general pictures of Amman.
One is a photo inside of a cafe I will likely frequent a lot.
And the rest... seem explanatory.
cool.
One is my bedroom.
Some are just general pictures of Amman.
One is a photo inside of a cafe I will likely frequent a lot.
And the rest... seem explanatory.
cool.
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