Jordan Beyond the Sites
Going to Jordan was Sean’s pick; to be honest, I felt very little enthusiasm towards travelling there. I mostly wanted to get it over with to get on to the Asia part of our trip. But as things usually turn out on this trip, even if I couldn’t say it was always fun to travel there, it certainly was fascinating.
I knew very little about Jordan before we travelled there. I knew it is in the Middle East; it is mainly Muslim; and they have a very pretty Queen (who I once saw on 60 Minutes).
Looking at Jordan on a map, it doesn’t seem like it is very safe place to travel. It shares borders with Israel, Palestine, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. Despite its position in an area of turmoil, Jordan has managed to maintain good relations with both its Middle Eastern neighbors and the Western world. Jordan’s permissive policies towards accepting Palestinian and Iraqi refugees have left it struggling to figure out how to bear the burden of the additional people it let inside its borders. There are actually more Palestinians living in Jordan than native Jordanians.
Although Islam is the country’s official religion, Jordan is tolerant of other religions and generally keeps religion and government at arm’s length. Jordan has one of the largest Christian populations in the Middle East. Most of the Christians live in Madaba, a small city just south of Amman that we visited for a few days. We arrived in Jordan during the tail end of Ramadan, a Muslim holiday that involves fasting between sunup and sundown for a month. It is one of those holidays that never have a set date, so we asked the owner of the hotel we were staying at in Madaba when Ramadan was ending. Um, I don’t know, I’m not sure when it finishes. Hmm, I thought to myself, is he a heathen or something? How does he not know when it ends? After rifling through the calendar, he responded, Yeah, I think they finish celebrating on Thursday. After a pause, he continued, I’m Christian, so I get to eat, drink and smoke whatever I want! I felt ashamed for automatically assuming he was Muslim just because he spoke Arabic and was from a Middle Eastern country. The first of many lessons I learned during our 10 days in Jordan.
Like many developing countries, Jordan has the usual frustrations and curiosities: busses that do not leave until they are completely full; cities that look like they are either perpetually unfinished or falling apart due to empty lots filled with crumbling rubble, giant holes in any paved surface, and steel rebar sticking up from buildings; an ever-present layer of dust and litter; constant exhaust fumes filling the air; and accommodations that make you cringe if you look too closely. Noticeably absent were aggressive people looking to make a buck at your expense. Unlike Morocco, no one hassled us, no one followed us, no one tried to scam us.
Noticeably present, however, were the differences in the way that men and women are treated. Jordan does have a more liberal attitude towards women, but more liberal is relative, of course, to the Muslim countries that don’t give women any rights. I was never uncomfortable travelling through Jordan, but certain things stood out to me. I refrained from wearing my shorts, dress or tank-top for the most part, and do not consider my v-neck shirts to be particularly low-cut, but I could feel eyes gravitating toward what little skin I showed and often chose to wear a scarf around my neck just to avoid any extra attention. Time and time again, we were warmly greeted by Jordanians, with a welcome, welcome. But sometimes, it seemed I was more welcome than Sean, because the phrase and their eyes would be directed at me as if Sean wasn’t there.
Early on in our trip, a well-travelled Jordanian man told us that he was embarrassed by the way that Jordanian men acted because they didn’t know how to act around women. Other than the porn display in the desert, we saw this most clearly when we went snorkeling in the Red Sea. Taking a break from snorkeling, we watched all of eyes of the Jordanian guys sitting under the shelter near us follow a French girl wearing a bikini walk to the shelter from the water. While the rest of them stared, one of them struck up a conversation with her. You have great skin, one of them said, never removing his eyes from her. Um, thanks, she mumbled. Need help with your suntan lotion? The whole scene was awkward, to say the least.
I was curious what exactly people wore to the beach in a country where most of the women still wore at least a head covering. I wouldn’t get my answer at this beach, which was located outside the city close to a cluster of dive centers. At the public beaches close to downtown Aqaba, however, women went in the sea with the same attire they wore on land, while the men wore swim trunks or perhaps a sleeveless t-shirt as well.
Frolicking in the Red Sea in Aqaba
This reminds me of that song, Long Black Veil
There are lots of young children in Jordan, almost always being cared for in public by women
Perhaps this is why it struck me as odd, later, when a woman who was essentially covered from head-to-toe pulled out her breast to breast-feed her child on a public bus. Her child was wailing at the top of his lungs, and everyone on the bus – mostly men – glared in disapproval. I took a chance and turned around in my seat to play peek-a-boo with the child. His cries turned to laughter. The woman smiled at me, and I smiled back. A few minutes later, when I turned around again, I noticed her breastfeeding. Perhaps Jordan views this activity as something that is necessary for a child’s well-being – I see that they have breast-feeding laws protecting working mothers – but this didn’t seem to mesh with the sight of woman after woman completely covered up, some head to toe.
I know the women’s dress in Muslim countries is a complicated subject, and I don’t even present to understand the intricacies behind wardrobe decisions. It was continually jarring for me to see how much most women covered up even in a supposedly liberal country like Jordan.
A women in a hijab at Petra
Women smoking the shisha; a rare site except occasionally in Amman
For its small size, Jordan has lots of interesting and beautiful sites. But even beyond the sites, it is a fascinating country with a distinctly Middle-Eastern culture. In the end, I was glad we made a foray into the Middle East and got to know Jordan more than we did at the beginning.
Jordan wasn’t on our original itinerary either…but I’m super glad we went. I, too, covered up all the time (in fact, one day I had no dry long pants and so holed up in the hotel all day waiting for them to dry!). Traveling in Jordan made me want to also visit Syria and Israel and even Iran…and I think it’s doable too. Glad you liked it in the end!