Jordan Addendum

The Jordanians have a strong fondness for the late King Hussein, but his son King Abdullah, not so much. It was explained to me that "real Jordanians" only come from four places, one of which is Petra. The rest are Palestinians. When King Abdullah (then just a prince) was studying at University, he met the beautiful woman who was to be Queen Rania. She is very popular in the Muslim world, but not amongst "real Jordanians", which may be another way for saying Bedouins. It seems as though this group is not happy with Abdullah's choice of his queen, as she is Palestinian and some think that the Palestinians in Jordan are now getting special treatment at the expense of the Jordanians.

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The Bedouin feel more culturally closer to Saudi Arabia than to Lebanon and Syria.

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I bought a men's abiya as a gift for a family member. It is a traditional Bedouin robe, black in color and made of light cotton. I tried it on in the lobby of my hotel just for shits and giggles and I showed one of the managers, whose family is Bedouin. He said, "If my father see you wearing this, you would be shot by M16". I thought about joking that at least I would not be killed by an AK47, which is Russian made, but I kept it to myself. The manager then went on to explain that his father was a respected man in the tribe, some sort of a judge. If there was trouble, such as a dispute or "like some deaths or something like this", the police would be summoned to make a report, but then they would be sent off, leaving the resolution to the tribal judge, this man's father. He said the judge would put on a robe like this and travel to the scene where he would make a fair judgment that the people would have to live by and respect. This has two purposes: it maintains tribal stability and keeps the government out of tribal affairs.

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Waiting in the security line at the Amman airport, I heard the lady behind me singing softly. She was wearing a hijab and she was serious-faced and grandmotherly. I flashed her a smile and immediately her face changed and she returned it without saying anything. After I got through security and immigration, I headed towards the men's room before finding my gate. As I was walking I heard this tiny voice behind me asking me to stop. It was the lady from the line. Apparently, she has seen me take my watch off and now when she saw me I was not wearing it. She had deduced that I must have left it at security. I am not sure that I have ever been this sharp on my sharpest day. I thanked her profusely, telling her that the watch was very special to me as my parents had given it to me for my 17th birthday. I said that she must be a detective and she blushed. Amazed and pleased with the world, I went back to security and retrieved my watch.

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I was talking to the cab driver on the way to the airport. He said that he had been to America many times. He said he used to be a sailor on a Greek cargo ship. He spoke Greek, English, Spanish, Russian, and Italian. I asked him if he missed the sea and he said that he did very much. He asked me where I was from and he said that he had been to Boston many times. Then he confided that the first time he was in Boston was in the 1970's. He was a young man who came from a traditional family and he didn't know much about the world. When his ship docked in Boston harbor, he went ashore to have a walk around. During that time, Boston had a thriving but seedy "Red Light District". He said he was walking along the streets and everywhere were stores selling "naked women books and plastic penises". He said that someone grabbed him off the street and told him to put a quarter in this machine and have a look inside. Inside the machine was playing a movie which showed the man things he hadn't yet seen before. Its strange that the first time this guy- all the way from Jordan and not speaking a word of English at the time- saw a naked lady was in a porn store in Boston. I told him that Boston had changed greatly since then, and that this part of town was gone. He seemed wistful and disappointed at the news.