Even though Anna and I only spent four Days in Jordan, we both felt that we really got to know the country and the people. It’s a pretty interesting place, in lots of different ways. So I wanted to take a minute to write up some general thoughts, stuff that didn’t fit into any of the individual posts, and other trivia.
The thing you have to know about Jordan is that it is almost scarily friendly. Anna hypothesized that they run TV commercials educating the populace, along the lines of “if you meet someone from another country, be sure to say ‘Welcome to Jordan!’” Such greetings were the norm, even in circumstances where it was exceptionally incongruous. For instance, as we drove up the western border of Jordan and stopped at numerous military checkpoints, heavily armed soldiers would cheerfully welcome us, introduce themselves by first name, and generally act like we were long absent friends who they would love to catch up with.
As if such effusive good cheer wasn’t enough, the vast majority of Jordan was also exceptionally clean. I don’t mean that in the “it’s a middle eastern country, so we expected it to be dirty” sense – I mean, walking around Amman, workers in orange jumpsuits were everywhere, picking up trash. It felt a bit like Disneyland, but not in that creepy Singapore way. Just very, very clean. There were exceptions, like the side streets of Madaba, but still, it was remarkable.
Also of note is the incredible amount of construction going on. When we return, I’ll have to look into that more to see if they’ve been victims of the economic bust like everyone else, but for now it seems like the entire country is under construction. From Amman’s “new downtown” that’s being built in one monolithic go to the airport to the new convention center on the Dead Sea to the Citadel historical site, the entire country seems to be undergoing renovation. I’m hoping to return in ten years or so to see how it’s changed; if all of this work is successful, it will be a pretty different place.
On the whole, Jordan was a fantastic stop on this trip, and a good way to ease into the middle eastern culture. I had known that I wanted to visit ever since King Houssein bin Talal died on my birthday in 1994 and I started to learn about what an amazing and remarkable man he was. Anna didn’t even have Jordan on her radar as a place to visit. And both of us came away touched and, I hope, somewhat wiser from exposure to great people in a country that has an amazing ancient history, a very important recent history, and from all appearances, a very promising future.