What I love about Amman. And what I love less.
Danny, a German friend and coworker, has a post that has the same exact title above, giving his impressions of what he thinks is “wrong” with this country and what isn’t.
Reading his list, I realized that my list is rather different. What I love and hate about Amman has a completely different set of standards, perhaps because I’m Arab, or perhaps because I’ve lived here longer. Or perhaps not.
Things I love:
The mountains. My mind is always romanticizing the mountains. Their history: settlers in the valley, expansion upon expansion, mountains bursting from 7 to 24. Their function: dividing up the city. Their form: jewel-like at night and hypnotizing repetition during the day. Their continuity: valley to mountain, mountain to valley.
The itsy-bitsy details in a world of contrasts. It is easy to bask in the details of the contrast in this city. The signs plastered on haphazardly in one corner and tucked gorgeously right across the street. A bar smiling brightly at a store that is yelling out the Athan from its television. A hijabi chick wearing the tightest pants in the world. The smell of sahlab in a hot dog store. Although these contrasts might not particularly be a good thing, I think they are rather amusing. I like to be amused.
The colors. When I close my eyes and see Amman, I see the street of my Teta’s house, where we grew up, and which pretty much looks the same as any other street in West Amman. Gray asphalt lined with white stone speckled with green trees, covered by a blue sky spotted with red brick.
The colors of Amman may easily be my favorite thing about this city. I love how the sky is always so darn blue, all year round. I love how the mountains are always white with the stone houses (or cement painted white) that cover them, no matter where you are. I love how there are always little specks of the same exact shade of green. I love how some houses have red bricks, adding a little edge to the palette.
A lot of people will argue that the constantness of this palette is pretty dull- but I like it.
As for the thing I don’t love.
The people. I really don’t like the people of Amman. I don’t like the opinion-makers, I don’t like the opinion-followers. I don’t like the little kids and I don’t like the adults. I don’t like the arrogance, I don’t like the pessimism, I don’t like the self-imposed unhappiness, I don’t like the endless nagging and complaining, I don’t like the frowns.
I think it all goes down to how Ammanites think, judge, and talk. They force the environment to become restricting, depressing, and at most times, defeating.
They whine and complain, and never really see the good in anything. They cannot accept anyone slightly different, just because they dress differently or talk differently. They will go ahead and tell you that they must have had torturous childhoods just because they do something different with their hair!
They ogle, and if your eye ever catches theirs while you’re ogling back, don’t expect to get out without a fight, “What the hell are you staring at?” They hold on too dearly to Arab culture and tradition that has been unchanged for hundreds of years, and which is for the most part outdated and in dire need of tweaking. They cuss and diss at other cultures and traditions, thinking that ours is impeccable!
Most of the country is run on “Wasta” (ex. contacts), from the most basic thing as who gets the last item at a shoestore to much bigger issues. I will use university scholarships as an issue of mid-importance as an example. A friend of mine was a brilliant student at highschool, brilliant enough to have been able to get a scholarship into prestigious universities around abroad. He was also an ardent basketball player, playing professionally with one of the best and most established basketball teams in the country from a very young age, spending most of his free time training. For personal issues, this friend decided to attend Jordan University, as well as apply for the sports-excellence scholarships that are offered to a handful of new students at Jordan University every year. He goes to the tryouts, where dozens of students from different backgrounds are showing off the skills they have learned over years of training, and gets into a random discussion with a random guy who tells my friend that he has never ever played any sport in his life, but that he knows he will get the scholarship, because he has a wasta. A week later, he finds out that that guy was correct, none of the people with any sports experience got the sports scholarship, they all went to schmucks who know someone with a stamp, who was probably given his position by another schmuck with a stamp.
And I think that’s what’s holding this country back. Idiot people with the IQ of 0. People who do not care for honesty, not for being good people. They think that being a good person revolves around praying five times a day, fasting and covering up their hair, when being a good person is about being honest with one’s work and one’s life.
Sometimes, I feel like I am being sucked into this cycle of depression. I am smiling less and less often and I’m often finding myself being judgmental about things I don’t really give a shit about, just because I can’t help it. The people around me, even my loved ones, aren’t much better… Who are we to protect this unjust culture of ours anyway? Let it change and grow… a culture that is not dynamic enough to cater to different times and different ideas is a culture that will not hold out in front of other cultures.
If everyone put as much effort in actually working as they do in praying, talking about people who don’t cover up, and whining, then we wouldn’t have as much half-ass jobs. The streets would be cleaner, the paint on the asphalt would be done with care, and the guys behind the glass at governmental buildings would actually try to get their job done.
Then maybe, Amman would start to pull itself out of the crumbles, and we’d all have a lot more to love.
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