Rihla ala Jenub (Trip to the South)

After a busy three weeks of finals combined with a whirlwind excursion to the south, I am quite happy to say that I've finished all my classes, and am now in the eve of starting my ISP. There is too much for me to catch up on, but to briefly describe my trip, I first went to Karak, the site of an old Crusader castle, one of a chain that stretched from Turkey all the way to Aqaba and could communicate by matter of light signals. The castle sat high upon a hill surrounded by deep, cavernous gullies--I imagine it must have been near impenetrable in its heyday. To hang our hats, we ventured to Wadi Dana, one of several nature reserves in Jordan that have been groomed for eco-tourism. Resplendent with majestic mountain ranges covered in greenery and humongous scarab beetles the size of  bottle camps, our group spent the night in pristine white tepees, which were quite comfortable, albeit a bit cold. I relished in the quiet of Dana--although Amman may not be a very large city, there is never a morning when the adhan, or call to prayer, does not blare out from the mosque down the street around 5 am. 

The next day, we embarked for Aqaba, a place that had been hyped up as the tourist destination in Jordan, an oasis of white sandy beaches and luxury hotels on the Red Sea, an intersection of borders where Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, and Egypt all have coastlines. What I found in Aqaba, however, did not match the Tourism Bureau's description. Aside from a very pleasant yacht and snorkel ride we took, the town was not particularly developed, rather dirty (the problem of littering is rampant in this area--everyday, people will blatantly drop their trash in the street with no qualms whatsoever; it can also be hard to find trash receptacles in any given area), and didn't have the basic infrastructure I had expected. In fairness, the area is highly competitive--the Israeli resort town of Eilat glitters across the bay, and Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh is fairly close down the coast. According to an economic specialist I met, the  development of a solid tourism industry in Aqaba has been very challenging due to the indigenous tribes of the area, who are deeply conservative, and even shun fellow Jordanians from Amman for leading impious lifestyles. Not surprisingly, a sudden influx of Western hotel chains and European women topless in thong bikinis has been out of the question, and there exists an entire office devoted to the ongoing process of convincing and involving the local community in the development of tourist opportunities in Aqaba. 

The last two days of the trip were undoubtedly the best, as we went to Petra and Wadi Rum, two of Jordan's most famous sites. Despite having been settled to some extent continuously dating back before the time of Christ, Amman, or Philadelphia as it was once called under the Romans, is a relatively new, developing capital, and was little more than a small town before the huge influx of Palestinian refugees in 1948. It cannot compare to its Arab brethren such as Cairo, Damascus, or Baghdad in terms of lore. Jordan's countryside, however, is filled with pockets of history, ranging from Nabatean sites, famed Biblical areas, relatively intact Roman ruins, such as those of Jerash, and sweeping desert plateaus like Wadi Rum, which is thought to have originally been the base of the Red Sea thousands of years ago. While you can find Nabatean inscriptions high up on some of the rock formations that date back to around 4000 BC, the former presence of water is evident in the smooth, elliptical shapes that characterize the massive boulders in the area that may as well be mountains. 

After spending the night in a Bedouin encampment, on the way out of Wadi Rum, our tour bus pulled off the road alongside a long stretch of barbed wire fence, enclosing an inexplicably green field. After our group had unloaded, our tour bus immediately pulled back onto the road, driving at full speed ahead into the distance, becoming smaller and smaller until it reached the horizon. Apparently, the government didn't like tourists stopping at what we were about to see, and if the large tour bus drew attention to our group, the police may  have come to kick us out of the area. My academic director began explaining that he had brought us to the edge of a private hunting reservation built by a wealthy businessman from Dubai who had married into the royal family. Though he was only known to frequent the reservation once a year, the establishment of such a facility was completely upsetting the natural ecosystem of Wadi Rum and overtaxing the precious water sources that lay in underground wells. Though it had onlyl been up and running for two years, the imbalance in the water supply has taken its toll on the local livestock and agricultural industries, with the majority of Bedouin tribes in the area switching to tourism as their major source of revenue, hosting Western groups, like ours, for a night of "authentic" Bedouin food, camping, and entertainment.

In a country that is so destitute of natural resources, it is a significant challenge to develop any industry that isn't dependent upon foreigners, in one way or another. As it became clear that Jordan's agricultural industry could never compete on the world market, the government has switched its strategy towards developing human capital, educating the population, and focusing on finance, healthcare, and IT industries, as well as tourism. What has ended up happening is that the vast majority of items used by Jordanians are things imported from the outside, while the vast majority of products and services created by Jordanians are catered to foreigners, either through export or tourism, inevitably tying the fate of the Jordanian economy to the continued interest and involvement of outside powers, the US being a major player. This situation has many ramifications, one of which being that the government, as a result, must always stay within the US' good graces for fear of an economic collapse. However, this also means that there will always be an ideological gap between the government and the people, the majority of whom disagree with the foreign policy decisions that the Hashemite regime must make to stay in America's favor. 

Given its unique location in a conflict zone, Jordan tends to receive the aftershocks of all the regional turmoil, which usually comes in the form of refugees, inflation, and the like. With a large percentage of the population hovering right above the poverty line, the government is always trying to find ways to economically empower the lower class and provide them with extra income in anticipation of future upheaval. These buffer funds will minimize dissent and instability during times of political volatility, and thus is in the best interests of the government to facilitate. Why then, is a member of the royal family allowed to build this gratuitous hunting reserve in one of Jordan's sacred spaces, not to mention a major tourist destination, upsetting the ecosystem and lives of the local community? Is there no EPA to put a stop to this type of thing?

The answer, sadly, is not really, and even if there was, they wouldn't be able to do anything about it, because their wasta is no match for a member of the royal family. Wasta, which is more or less social connections, is a concept that guides almost all interactions in this society, often at the expense of others as well as the community at large. Yes, Jordan is no meritocracy. Unlike simple networking that we all sometimes take advantage of in America, wasta is often discussed as a quantitative measure, as in, "Oh, well he got the job because he had bigger wasta than me"--perhaps not with the specific person who was offering the job, but as a general measure of their social position within society. Young Jordanians I have spoken with acknowledge the downsides of this system--that often, deserving people are shut out of opportunities, and vice-versa, and claim they initially try to obtain jobs through merit, but at the end of the day, will use wasta if they need to. Surely, everyone in America uses networking as well, but there are a multitude of programs and institutions set up to provide opportunities for the underprivileged or those from disadvantaged backgrounds; moreover, Jordan is a very small place, and the number of people vying for a dwindling number of good jobs are all fighting within the same network. America, conversely, is much larger, with many different cities, opportunities, and networks that individuals can prosper within. Your wasta is not the end-all and be-all.

Jordanians recognize this amazing opportunity for socioeconomic mobility in America that is so rarely found in other parts of the world, and it is this that drives their deep desire to come to the US, aside from any adoration or misgivings about our culture. There is a palpable desperation in some of the people here who know that no matter how hard they work, they will always be poor. I had a cab driver the other day who struck up a conversation with me on the way to school--I typically will never start conversations with taxi drivers, but will give brief responses if they begin to speak to me. Upon learning I was American, he immediately began talking about the wonderful job opportunities in my country and how desperately he wanted to go there, and could I help him get a visa. After explaining quite calmly that I had no power to give visas, and was merely a student (my school is right near the British Embassy so maybe this had given him some idea that I was part of the diplomatic community), he launched into asking me whether or not I was married, did I want an Arab husband, etc. etc. Regrettably, this type of thing is pretty common here, and I always go with the surefire answer that I'm engaged to a nameless American, end of story (I'm looking into buying a passable "engagement ring" for show.) Undeterred, he began suggesting that he speak with my father (the first step in any engagement around here), at which point I decided it was prudent for me to stop understanding what he was saying, feign ignorance, and end the conversation through the erection of a language barrier. Luckily, we pulled up to school a minute later, and I quickly exited the cab. So many men desperately want to come to the US, yet are completely ignorant about the social customs of our culture, and assume that all American women are frantically looking for a husband (as most Jordanian women are), and accordingly view marriage more as a logical arrangement than anything having to do with love.

I'm off to a farmer's market, but have much more to post later...