Short Story: Jordan

Short Story: Jordan

Jordan was wonderful. It may still be but when we were there in the time of the Old King it had a very special feel. It was financially poor. There are refugee camps, displaced Palestinians existing in appalling poverty. There are problems of course there are. To Quote King Hussein “they live in a difficult neighbourhood.” There’s much that is wrong but for all that it was a super place to live.

There are places where we stood on the mountains, spinning in a circle. Behind us was Amman, away to the left Jericho and the Moses Memorial. To the right the Golan Heights and below us near but yet unreachable for most of the people Lake Tiberius, or if you will The Sea of Galilee. The Jordan River is no longer deep and wide but it is The Jordan River nonetheless and the border between Jordan and The West Bank and Israel.

We travelled the length and breadth of the country during the five years that we were there. To Petra and down the Siq at Dawn and then on to Aqaba to swim in the Red Sea.

Many weekends we drove on the snaking rode through the mountains to Amman, passing through two or more seasons in one day. Past the banana plantations and the Cypress trees and on up through Salt, clinging to the hillside in the setting sun, with Foreigner belting out I Want to Know What Love Is on the cassette player. I can’t hear that tune but that it whisks me back to the salty tang on my skin and the slimy feel of Dead Sea Water in my hair.

Jerash though is the great treasure in my memory. Now that Hussain is gone I don’t know whether Queen Noor still arranges the Jerash festival but when we were there it was an important highlight in the cultural calendar. Jerash is a Roman city but nothing like Bath or Chester. In Jerash you walk along the roads grooved by chariot wheels and ramble around the buildings untroubled by guides and fences. We visited often and marvelled every time, not least at the tiny Arab houses tacked onto the old walls like limpits on the hull of a great ruined liner.

During the festival we went to see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform The Taming of the Shrew. In the amphitheatre we rented cushions just as the Romans would have and we sat beneath the starry sky and my behind was in the same place as a Roman behind would have been centuries before and I watched the play and was enthralled just as the Romans would have been at their equivalent. Incredible.

Afterwards we walked back through the town stunned by Shakespeare and accompanied by a chorus of crickets and frogs with the neon of the glow-worms illuminating the verges. It may be poor, it may have hidden horrors but Jordan had magic all of its own. I loved it.