The Trip to Amman (Not w/o my Satellite)

On my way back from Dubai to Jerusalem, I ended up spending 2 days in Amman because of border issues. On the first day, we decided to go to see Petra, which is, masha Allah, a beautiful place. In the middle of rolling hills, there is an area of mostly limestone and it seems kind of odd just there in the middle of all those hills. We didn’t have much time there, but saw enough to get an idea of what the entire city could be like. It is amazing that the Anbat (people of Petra) could have built such a city, with such efficient systems, like water is through aqua ducts and hydrolics, about 5 thousand years ago. The carvings in the rocks where the people lived, prayed, traded, etc. is just beautiful.

On the second day, we went to the area where the People of the Cave hid out and are buried. There is beautiful masjid next to their burial site, but the site itself is pretty run down and I thought, since the people are mentioned in the Qur’an, that they would have taken more care of it. Also, Jordan is populated with little shanty towns with 20 or 30 houses that are basically just metal walls put together. You can tell that the people living in them don’t have much in terms of things inside just from where they are located, usually outside of town in a very dilapidated area. Anyway, one thing of interest that we noticed in some of these small run down shacks was that they had Satellite dishes on top of them. The funny thing was that from the looks of it, the satellite dishes probably cost more than the house itself!!!! In the new age, amongst the poor, it is not about spending your life savings on a house, but rather, on purchasing a TV and satellite dish so you can be in touch with the rest of the world.

Amman itself is very metropolitain. And frankly speaking, I was very disappointed. In fact, I actually didn’t like it much. One of the main reasons is that it reminded me too much of Pakistan. Great class differences amongst the people and everyone is out to make a buck. For example, many times, even if you didn’t want any help, people were willing to hold your bags, give you directions, or many other things. That in itself, is great, but afterwards, they would ask you for a tip. Personally I hate this and as such, my entire two days was tainted with this feeling and action.