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Arab World Perspectives: Day 1

Two years ago, I visited Jordan and Palestine for two months with my family and only managed to share two of those days on this blog. This year's journey is a little different though. I am going on this month-long journey on my own, and I intend to share every day with you all. I have one expectation for this trip: to leave after 30 days with people's stories. Everyone's stories. To see life. To see the difficulties of life. I have 30 days to allow people to take a difference in my life as much as I hope to make in theirs one day. However, everyone knows that to affect and change people's lives, you have to understand their lives first. That is what I want this trip to be about.

After 11 hours and 45 minutes sitting on a plane, I arrived at my uncle's house in Amman, Jordan. Since I am a Palestinian citizen, I am unable to fly directly into the Tel Aviv airport into what is considered "Israel" and instead must land in Jordan and make my way across the Palestinian-Jordanian borders in the middle of the desert by bus. I decided to spend a few days in Jordan before going to Palestine for reasons I will write about as each day comes. After my plane landed, I spent the few hours left of that day relishing in the evening breeze with a cup of freshly made mint tea. I woke up for Farj prayer at 4 AM to the sound of prayer call echoing in the silent early morning sky. I remember as a child, I always wanted to go out, play with my cousins outside, go on trips in the area, and just be outside of the house. The older I've gotten, the more I cherish the little things about my visits, from the scents to the sounds and the simple smiles of people. 

My first full day in Jordan was accompanied with high summer temperatures and dryness. So after spending the afternoon hiding behind the walls of my uncle's home, we finally took on the city. We drank freshly made juice, did some shopping, found multiple Arabic bookstores (one even called "Manara Bookstore"!!!!), and just took in the city's culture. Due to the high temperatures during the day, the city wakes up at night and families go out for walks and spend time with friends.

In the middle of the awoken city, honking cars, and people spending their time in coffee shops and restaurants, I noticed a silent tragedy lurking in the background. I noticed the mother sitting on the broken sidewalk with her sleeping child in her arms, begging for money or food. I almost walked into a little boy who was cleaning the outside of his family's store, a boy who looked so thin that the bucket of water he was splashing may have weighed more than him. I saw the multitudes of young men working in little shops or sitting next to wagons selling things like scarf pins and children's toys, probably at the age where they should be starting their own families but most likely without the means to do so. I heard about the lack of educational opportunities due to high college costs and no grants or scholarships for anyone except the top few students. There is no encouragement to chase dreams but to chase better means for living. 

I always credited the Arab world for feeling like everything was alive, that the people were going out and living. One day of really looking made me realize that we may all be given the same life but not everyone is actually, truly living. 

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