Back in the Middle East

24 March, 2010

As I prepared for my sabbatical, I had been looking forward to going back to the Middle East, after more than 10 years away.  But what with the busy-ness of getting away, it was only as I watched the TV screen at my seat and saw the graphic of the plane approaching Dubai, that the reality of what I was doing began to hit me.  When I got off the plane and went into the airport at Dubai, I felt really excited.  I loved being back in the press of people of many cultures.  And it was great to be back where Arabic was spoken, too.

I waited a few hours for my plane and then flew on to Jordan, where I was met by my host, Rick Weymouth.  Although it was 31 hours since I had started my travel, I decided to try to stay up and adjust my body clock by going to sleep that night.  Like Rome, Amman was originally built on 7 hills - although it is now more like 17 hills!  Amman has the biggest refugee population of any city in the world.  The first two waves of refugees were Palestinians, but now there are another 250,000 Iraqi refugees living in Amman - out of a total population of around 2 million. 

Rick took me up to the roof of his house to see some of the sights.  In the middle of this picture you can see an old mosque on a hill.  The hill is the citadel of Amman, which was called Rabboth Ammon in Old Testament times (the Ammonites lived here), then Philadephia in Graeco-Roman times.  The mosque is from the time of Ummayad rule in the 8th century.

On the other side of the house was a girls' high school.  What a contrast with the beautiful Chilton Saint James School facilities!

I went with Rick to his work place and then on to pick his children Stephen (left) and Matthew up from their school.  Again, there was not much sign of grass.

We went home and greeted Anne, Rick's wife.  Then pretty soon after dinner I went for a good long sleep, thinking contentedly that after half a year of planning I had arrived.