The first noticeable building I saw as I was driven into the capital from Queen Alia Airport was the large Ikea by the side of the highway. Its yellow and blue edifice, evoking the dream of an urbane fantasy built around Scando-minimalism at affordable prices, is part of the wannabe middle classes of all the world’s medium-to-large-sized cities. Yes, Amman. Peaceful with a largely functioning infrastructure. This majority Muslim, Middle Eastern city with all the trappings of Western modernity is a multinational’s growth market wet dream. What was I getting myself into here?
As we sped down the smooth tar-seal, overtaken by BMW and Prius alike, this arrival on a humanitarian aid contract was unlike any I had experienced. This was not the usual violent dysfunction and adventure I was used to and had even come to crave. There is nothing quite like the feeling of travelling into a disaster full of danger and corruption. The anxious exhilaration of not knowing if you will make it safely to your accommodation or ever return to the avian gateway which acts as a portal back to the safe, the known. The delightful discomfort of these uncertain moments only really lasts until the lights of the terminal fade and then you are into the reality of the journey. The flight is like getting high. The time in country mirrors the ups and downs of drug-fuelled experience as they work their way through your system for good or bad. The initial rush never lasts and the trip seems more often something to be endured. Arriving in Jordan I mostly felt the latter. This city is what is known as a family posting. I had chosen the easy option and as I lay my head down to sleep that first night, it spun with the other options I had avoided for the sake of comfortable self-preservation. The questions and doubts spiralled like dancing DNA strands on amphetamines until finally something familiar sounded out across the neighbourhood; “Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar”. With that call to prayer - its beautiful, gentle incantation and melodic recitation washing over me - a peacefulness entered my mind and spread throughout my tired limbs. Sleep descended quickly and I dreamed of Afghanistan.
Awaking to the sound of busy morning traffic and a strange room, empty but for impersonal furniture and my bags by the wall, I find myself considering my choice to be here in the new day’s light and from the inside looking out. This is not Kabul and like the view from my window, I feel cluttered, confused, the horizon or what lies beyond unknowable. On that first walk to work I am most powerfully struck by the smells at street level. Men on their way to work smoking cigarettes as they drive. Cutting down a side street the fragrance of cologne is pungent but there is nobody nearby. I notice a man fifty yards away with his window down and it’s not until I pass him that I realise the source is him. The smell of fresh bread wafts from a local boulangerie and I step inside to buy breakfast. Perhaps we always make sense of the new and unfamiliar in reference to our own cultural reference points and past, even something simple like fresh bread in the morning. The poppy seed-covered croissants filled with local cheese are delicious, their crust flaky like those produced so beautifully in France where the quality of this bread would not be out of place.
Walking to work I notice the pavements are somewhat ridiculous here. Time and money has been invested into them but zero thought it seems. You can barely walk ten yards in many places without encountering an obstacle to be navigated. Sometimes this is just a curb where access of vehicles has been prioritised for easy access or egress. There are trees - perhaps half a dozen of them, quite tall and sturdy - near my house which stand centrally in a 4-foot-wide sidewalk which to pass you have to squeeze by between a wall or parked cars. Then there are the sections which have been converted to miniature green spaces or dumping grounds of affluent fly tippers. There are also sentry boxes for security guards of police in the richer areas which will take up the entire width of the pavement. In short, when folk walk here they use the road. As I turn onto Paris Street where my offices are located and compose myself for the day ahead. Stepping into the smoke-filled stair well I am reminded of when I loved to smoke. Those days are long gone but that still familiar aroma comforts me and puts me at ease. Upon reflection it seems I am forming touch-points for engagement with new people, in a place and speaking a language, none of which I understand. But I understand this work and that most people, most of the time, hold good intentions toward others, even strangers, especially in majority-Muslim contexts where hospitality is taken very seriously and is largely heartfelt. Things tend to work out somehow and I’m sure this Middle East adventure will be similarly full of rich experience. I turn toward the Medair sign and step across the threshold. Here we go again.
Heading back from work that first week I came once again to a busy four-way intersection with no traffic lights, stops signs or even guidance about who yields (see photo). The pedestrian crossings traversing this junction are faded and on foot in rush hour you enter at your peril. Jordanians step out with confidence trusting that the driver is always held culpable if someone is knocked down. Presumably there is local etiquette that ensures a degree of safety before entering the hazardous melee. I treat it more like an obstacle course and I’m sure my approach appears comic to bystanders. I also find it funny but am mostly trying not to die. Amman is many things but it is decidedly not built for those who travel by foot (or bicycle for that matter but that’s a separate matter). The roads are big, smooth and fast. People behind the wheel regularly speed and are openly impatient with each other. The beeping of horns from six cars back begins the moment traffic lights turn green even though it is impossible that the honker could be moving any sooner or gain anything (other than venting) by doing so. Such is life in these large conurbations where there is competition for space and progress in almost every sphere.
As I head towards relatively quieter streets near my apartment, I wonder about the crossroads in my own life and how I will navigate my way through another humanitarian contract, the distance from my girlfriend in America and the feelings of exile which I have carried ever since my first aid mission in northern Afghanistan. In the words of Bob Dylan ‘no direction home’ is how I feel and yet here in Amman I will have an apartment to myself, mostly, and that’s the closest I ever get to a stable physical base; when I’m away and working. I dream of a cabin somewhere, with space all around, a place of sanctuary and simplicity where I can lay my head and put down my burden and bags, unpack this life in boxes. The alternative is to embrace this nomadic lifestyle I’ve come to live over the years since I became an aid worker. Sometimes I think if I could accept that home is where the heart is, or simply where I happen to be, then I wouldn’t worry about having a place of my own to lay my head and house my possessions. Never putting down roots but instead travelling light, doing away with bags and boxes I never see but always carry somehow and simply trust that anything more is not needed, heed the bedouin’s beckoning call. I step through the doorway and head up to my apartment, as much of a home as I’ve ever had over the years. For the next four months this is my base and I am grateful for this contract provision.
