Jordan Diary
July 28
through August 4, 2005
by Victor
Kubik
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My perception of the Middle East has been greatly enhanced as a result of a week-long trip to Jordan I was able to make with Cory Erickson from July 28 through August 4th.
Cory
Erickson has lived in Amman from 1989 to 1995 (minus 1990 due to the first Gulf
War). He and his wife Colene managed a private foundation no longer in
operation in which more than 150 undergraduate students participated. Students came to spend an entire school year working with the
Young Muslim Women’s Association Center for the Mentally Challenged, the Al
Hussein Society for the Rehabilitation of the Physically Challenged and other
organizations. Because Cory and his wife Colene lived here and have such
personable natures, they were able to establish solid relationships that
transcended organizational changes. These relationships will be the key to our
continuing to work successfully in the future.
One of the missions of our trip was to start again to work with the YMWA and the Al Hussein Society. Cory has wanted to team up with LifeNets and use its resources for the continuation of the work. Earlier in March, Cory Erickson and LifeNets did a fundraiser in St. Paul, Minnesota that raised $11, 207 for the YMWA.
What follows is a diary of our Jordan Journey:
July 28, 2005
I met Cory Erickson at Chicago O’Hare’s international terminal where we waited in a lounge for our non-stop flight to Amman, Jordan. We rehearsed the mission of the various facets of our work in Jordan. Its success is highly dependent on relationships that Cory has forged with a kaleidoscope of people at various levels. This includes the Royal Family of Jordan which includes Princess Sarvath Al Hassan, patron of the YMWA and Princess Majdah Al Ra’ad, the patron of the Al Hussein Society. I might say here that Cory Erickson’s family is very dear to me personally. His parents are Don and Colleen Erickson of Burnsville, Minnesota whom we have known for more than 35 years.
An interesting development is that Damar, an Indianapolis-based center for developmental disabilities has taken an interest in helping with either or both of the Jordanians centers we work with.
July 29, 2005
We landed in Amman at 4:30 PM after an 11 and a half hour flight. The landscape is barren – reminding me of Las Vegas terrain. In Roman times Amman was known as Philadelphia.
Immediately I was struck by the modern buildings, fast-moving traffic and seeming prosperity. Amman is only 50 miles from Jerusalem and only a two hour car drive from the border with Iraq. Amman is cosmopolitan. You see most every face of Islam. The air punctuated with the call to prayer coming from the minarets throughout the day. You see burkas to the most modern western dress.
To every direction there is military conflict – north in Lebanon and Syria, to the West Israel, Egypt to the south and Iraq to the east. In all this Jordan maintains a precarious course having to please its Arab neighbors, Israel, and the United States.
We were met at the airport by Nihad Safieh, president of Blue Bell Tours. Immediately I could see the special friendship between Cory and Nihad that has spanned 16 years. Nihad met us at the plane being given a special security pass. He took our passports and whisked us through passport control and customs before we knew what was going on. In short order we were in his car on the way to the Le Meridien hotel where we were to stay the duration of our Jordan visit. The Le Meridian is one of the principal hotels in Amman. The Arab League held their summit here a few years ago.
He then took us by his home where we met his wife Tessia and son Joseph. Tessia, short for Anastasia, is half Greek and half Cypriot. She was born in Jerusalem and lived in the Greek Quarter where her father owned a shop. Joseph has just finished University in Brighton, England and works with his father at Blue Bell Tours.
Nihad and I found commonality as we are both the same age and both members of Rotary. We found communication easy. After a while we went to the Tanoreen Restaurant a hundred meters away for dinner. People eat late here. The Tanoreen was the former home of the mother of Prince Ra’ad with whom we would meet the next day.
The weather in the evenings is perfect. Being a desert climate, the evenings turn to a pleasant cool after a hot day. We had our Lebanese dinner outside,. Falafels, lamb, the best humus I have ever had. Our conversation was entertaining and pleasant.
The value of real estate in Amman is unbelievably high. However, I am told that once you get outside of Amman that the average Jordanians are poor.
King Hussein who died in February 1999 is highly revered. Even with his son Abdullah as king, the picture of King Hussein is everywhere.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Today we meet with Prince Ra’ad, Princes Majda, her assistant Amira Juma. Princess Majda is also the President of the Al Hussein Society for the Physically challenged. The vice president is Amira Juma. The new executive director is Annie Medzhagoplan Abu Hanna. Her parents emigrated from Armenia but she is a native born Jordanian.
Pricess Majda is Swedish. She and Prince Ra’ad have five children, four boys and a girl. One son is the Ambassador to the United Nations. Another is with the World Bank. Their daughter was just married.
Prince Ra’ad is the Uncle of the late King Hussein. Below is a simplified chart of the Hashemite family.
Hashemite King Hussein -- caretaker of the Holy Places that included Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem.
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Abdullah….given Jordan. He was assassinated in about 1951. He was father of King Hussein’s father who had mental problems
Son was King Hussein who named his son and current king after his grandfather who was his role model. |
Ali |
Faisal…given Iraq. Baghdad was a cultural capital of the Middle East |
Zeid, the youngest not given any particular territory and went with Faisal in Iraq. Son was Prince Ra’ad who was born in Baghdad…and lived there for 23 years. |
We had lunch with Royal Highness Princess Majda and her husband Lord Chamberlain Prince Ra'ad.bin Zeid. Bin means “son of.” Um is “mother of” and Abu is “father of.” The Lord Chamberlain is the special helper to King Abdullah and the uncle of the deceased King Hussein. I was fortunate to be seated next to Princess Majda at lunch. She was very gracious and we had a wonderful conversation. We talked about our mission in Jordan, our historical relationships, LifeNets, Estonia....she's very knowledgeable. They took us to the Tanoreen restaurant in Amman where we had been the evening before. Both Princess Majda and Prince Ra'ad are very down to earth and genuinely love Jordan....they love Cory and you can see that his living here for five years had a lot of impact on them.
She spoke about how Jordan has to please so many governments, mostly the United States. They want to remain friends with Israel, yet not be so friendly as to aggravate the other Arab countries. She mentioned that the biggest issue to resolve in the Middle East is the question about the Palestinians, many of whom still live in refugee camps and have done so for decades. Jordan has given Palestinians citizenship; other countries such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have not done so and have thereby exacerbated Palestinian problems.
Attitudes towards Saudis and Kuwaitis are not positive. These people have come into great wealth gotten through oil and think that they can buy anything they want with their oil money. In some ways, not having oil has been a blessing to Jordan. Jordan is becoming a safe haven in the Middle East and foreign investment is coming to this country. You see signs of the prosperity in the new hotels and office buildings.
Some Arab nations have undermined Jordan. For example, Gamel Abdul Nasser, the president of Egypt during the days of the United Arab Republic was known to do this.
After our lunch with Princess Majda and Prince Ra’ad. we went to Nihad’s office – Blue Bell Tours. He spoke about other groups that he hosted…such as 250 people with James Baker who he had arranged with US congressman’s wife. Nihad arranges all sorts of pilgrimage tours, some quite large.
Nihad spoke about how politics affects them every day. He said how the day begins by watching CNN to give an indication how the day will go. He said that Americans should appreciate that they have “heaven on earth.” in comparison to the Middle East where armed conflict can occur at any time. There is military or internal turmoil on all four sides of Jordan in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, violence in Egypt and of course Iraq. The Iraqi border is just two hours by car to the east.
The talk about American involvement in Iraq is generally negative to American involvement. American forces have spawned new contentions as seen by Iraqis turning on the special forces who they consider collaborators with the Americans. The consensus of opinion from those with whom we have discussed this subject is that the Americans should leave Iraq as quickly as possible.
In conversations we found that they liked former US president Bill Clinton; they do not like President Bush. Clinton was called in one account a “dancer” who invested a lot of himself to bring peace the Middle East. Clinton gave Arafat a lot of credibility. Arab women like Clinton’s wavy hair.
In the afternoon Cory and I went out to Mount Nebo located in old Moab from which Moses was able to see, but not enter the Promised Land. This is a 45 minute drive south from Amman. From this point you can see the northern part of the Dead Sea. It was fabulous. The distance to Jerusalem was less than 30 miles from this point.
In the evening we went out with one of Cory's friends here, a husband and wife by the name of Waddah and Patricia Daoudi. They have twin girls and a son. We drove throughout Amman in the evening. Most interesting was driving by the Israeli and American embassies which on the outside had Jordanian tanks on alert.
They invited us to a barbeque at the Intercontinental Hotel. A wedding was taking place there, as well.. At the restaurant it was interesting to see people puffing on hubbly bubbly which emanates a vapor of apple juice, spices and tobacco. We did not participate.
The weekend in Jordan is Friday/Saturday Sunday is a regular work day and all businesses are generally open.
Sunday July 31, 2005
We drove out the YMWA Centre in the suburb of Bunyat. For Cory this area changed a lot in the past four years. We were met warmly at the Bunyat Centre by Ghusoon Al Kareh who is Director of the Bunyat Centre for Special Education.
Present was Khadijeh Siraj Al Tall, assistant to Princess Sarvath in relationship to the Centre and other activities.
Also present was board member Widad Khalifeh, who is vice president. Her son was ambassador to both Saudi Arabia and Canada in times past.
Also present was treasurer Nujoud Fawzi. Through LifeNets, Cory Erickson donated $11,207 the Bunyat Centre mostly from the fundraising done earlier in March.
We had a very animated discussion and get-acquainted meeting for over an hour and then had a tour of the Centre. The children are not in during the summer months. We were impressed by what the school has been able to accomplish. The wood shop and ceramic shops were well managed and the children have done some impressive work with ceramics. There was an exhibition of crafts produced by the children. I brought home a Ramadan candle along with a set of coasters.
In the afternoon we went the Nihad and Tessia’s home for Mansaf, a Jordanian dish of lamb, rice and goat yoghurt. A delicious meal! All of the Safiehs’ children were there. Sunday is family day. Their son is Joseph whom we previously met. They also have a married daughter Christine whose husband is Farouk, a landscape architect. They have two children, Natasha and Gabriel who is only two months old. It was wonderful to share an afternoon with a Jordanian family and see all the family interactions.
In the evening we went to the Hyatt hotel where we had a clear view of the King Abdullah Mosque built by King Hussein in honor of his grandfather Abdullah who also became the namesake of his own son, the current king of Jordan.
Monday, August 1, 2005
We left at 8:00 am for Petra. We drove through inhospitable-looking desert towards the port city of Aqaba. There were many trucks carrying containers to and from the port. We also followed the famous railroad that at one time connected Damascus to Saudi Arabia. It was south of here that it was blown up in the days of Lawrence of Arabia in World War I.
We arrived in Petra a little after noon. The temperature was unseasonably cool…being about 80° at midday. It was a perfect temperature to start our four and a half hour hike into the narrow Siq and all the wonders of caves and carvings of the Nabatean Arabs going back 2200 years.
Petra is in Edom and the Israelites came by it on their wandering during the exodus journey. Also, it was the on the crossroads of an important trade route from East to West. We hiked to the High Place. The walk was strenuous, but we made it just fine. We stayed in the comfortable Crowne Plaza Hotel and had dinner with Nihad and his son Joseph later that evening.
Tuesday August 2, 2005
The day began with our driving back from Petra to Amman. We have a noon appointment with Executive Director of the Al Hussein Centre for the Physically Challenged, Annie Medzhagopian Abu Hanna. Today King Fahd of Saudi Arabia died and government offices are closed. An Arab burial must be done in one day. The hotel we stayed at in Amman, the Le Meridien, was the official condolence center for Jordanians wishing to offer their sentiments. The hotel was filled with Arabs with red checkered headdresses going to condolence hall which is adjacent to the hall where the Feast of Tabernacles will be held.
We arrived to the appointment on time and met with the personable Annie Medzhagopian. Cory directed the conversation about continuing our work with LifeNets. We discussed some of the needs of the Centre and what we could do. The Centre is doing some expansion work and there are some capital needs such as the installation of two elevators for the physically challenged children to get from one floor to another. They also need computers for vocational training and a vehicle for transporting rehabilitation workers for their in-home program as well as the never-ending need for inkjet ink cartridges and a small refrigerator. They also need microscopes for a simple medical lab.
We also discussed the possibility of working with Damar in Indianapolis. Annie was quite enthusiastic when I showed her the Damar letter of introduction and explanatory information. As with Damar, Annie would like the Al Hussein society to be a model rehabilitation center for their country. She will discuss possible working suggestions with the board and with the patron Princess Majda. Afterwards Cory and I drove to the upscale Shmeisani district of Amman, Jordan for a tasty chicken charmer.
In the evening we went out the Le Royale Hotel and had dinner of fish and chips. The makeup of our group was most interesting with Nihad Safieh, a Palestinian, his wife Tessia who is half Greek and half Cypriot, Waddah Daoudi, an Arab, his wife Patricia a native born Venezuelen, with a pure Irish mother, Cory, an American with Swedish roots and myself an American with Ukrainian and Russian roots. The conversation certainly was animated and fascinating. We all thoroughly enjoyed the evening.
Today is our last full day in Amman. One cannot fully
appreciate the Middle East without coming to see what the people and country is
like.
At 1:30 I went to the Raddison/SAS hotel for a meeting of Rotary. There are about 6-7 Rotary Clubs in Amman; this is the only English-speaking club. Annie Medzhagopian Abu Hanna from the Al Hussein Society picked me up as she was coincidently invited to come visit this Rotary Club.
I was greeted warmly and seated at the head table next to the President of the club. His name was Captain Jme'an who was one of King Hussein’s personal pilots. He also was an airline pilot for Royal Jordanian and was captain of 747’s, L-1011’s and earlier 707’s. He is planning to come the United States later in August to do a promotional tour for Rotary projects and we discussed him coming to Indianapolis. I offered for him to stay with us as Rotarians regularly do this. He was very enthusiastic about doing so and we may possibly have him as a guest later in the month.
The program was presented by Stellan Lind, who is the organizer of the Roman Army Chariot Experience (RACE). It is an authentic re-enactment of Roman Chariot races and Gladiators in Jerash, about a one hour drive north of Ammon. Jerash was one of the cities of the Decapolis. It is one of the best preserved Roman cities anywhere. Stellan Lind, it turned out, is Swedish, a resident of Amman and the brother of Princess Majda. What a small world.
At the head table, the woman seated to my rights was Sirene M. Kurma. She was formerly the wife of the Jordanian Ambassador to several countries. In the 80’s she spoke about how her husband narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in India.
The Rotary Club had representative of the British Embassy and several doctors and educators.
After the Club meeting I met with Peter Omran, a Palestinian from Ramallah who now lives in Amman and does with an American NGO called Heart of Mercy, International. They specialize in education material and health issues. In our conversation he mentioned that they were shipping containers through Counterpart. What a coincidence! LifeNets uses Counterpart for its shipments to Ukraine. Jordan is on the same list for government funded containers! Perhaps this can be an avenue of shipping some bulk or heavy items for both the YMWA Bunyat Centre and the Al Hussein Society. We shall see, but it certainly was fortuitous to make these connections.
The day ended with dinner with Ghusoon and Khadijeh of the YMWA at the Intercontinental Hotel. We have been treated so wonderfully by so many on this trip. We had dinner and talked about everything: .personal family subjects, working together, Damar cooperation. The two ladies presented Cory and me two fine books about Jordan. Cory had to see his friend Waddah again afterwards. Ghusoon and Khadijeh drove me back to the Le Meridien.
It’s been a wonderful trip. I can’t say enough about how much it has expanded my thinking about this part of the world. I wish that more people could see the mainstream of the Arab world and not judge all by the acts of extremists who take all the attention.
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