Midterm Break in Jordan

It’s been a long
A long time coming, but I know
A change gon’ come
Oh yes, it will
Sam Cooke, “A Change is Gonna Come”

In the six years that I have been working and living in Qatar, my university has never had a midterm break during the fall semester. Normally, the semester is 15 weeks of endurance teaching—starting off at the tail end of the summer when temperatures average between 38-40 Celsius, and the work week is 5 days a week for an unrelenting 15 weeks. However, this semester the university scheduled a break after the midterm exam, and not wanting to waste my employer’s generosity, I booked a plane ticket to Jordan.

Jordan would be the 47^th country that I visited, and I would be three countries away from my goal of visiting 50 countries before the age of 50. When I told my work colleagues about my trip, many of them had either traveled to Jordan before or were from there, and all had their recommendations of where to visit and what to try. However, I only had a week in Jordan and would need another week or two to visit all the historic, cultural, or scenic recommendations that I was offered. In the end, while in Jordan, I planned on visiting the Dead Sea, Petra, and Wadi Rum.

After booking my plane ticket, I paused the planning of the trip. Usually, I arrange the logistics of my trip well in advance of my travel; I create an itinerary, book Airbnbs, make transportation arrangements, and investigate the sites that I plan to visit more. However, maybe I was overconfident in my abilities to travel semi-spontaneously or maybe I was hedging my bets in case the universe decided to interfere with my plans. After all, my weekend trip to Lebanon ended with the country spiraling into civil unrest and other economic woes; my trip to Singapore and Malaysia ended just as the COVID tsunami made its way west and enveloped the globe for two years; and my trips to Turkey, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, and Peru were all during the pandemic lockdown requiring me to flaunt my American passport and access to vaccinations. Things had been going smoothly for me recently, so I was overdue for some travel complications—maybe I was sensing vibrations in the electromagnetic fields of the planet.

A couple weeks out from my trip, I waited as long as I dared waiting and started making arrangements. OK, I was now committed to my trip.

Then October 7^th happened, and I began to pay more attention to the news. Then the reprisals began, and I became more concerned more about my travel plans. Then President Biden announced his unanimous support, and I was extremely frustrated with the position this put me in here in the Middle East. Then US State Department announced a travel warning for all Americans trekking around the world, and I had to rethink about my trip to Jordan.

In the end, I decided to follow through with my travel plans. I was gambling only with my safety in a country that was relatively safe and where the family and friends of my colleagues resided. If I ran into problems, I would reach out to people or to the US Embassy. Maybe I was being foolhardy, but you never know how things will wax and wane in life, and there goes your one chance to visit Petra.

Once in Jordan, I did not experience any difficulties or encounter any hostility. Tourism is a crucial component of the Jordanian economy, and the country seemed very welcoming. Despite being empty of Americans, the country had a fair share of Italian, French, and German tourists. When I did hear English, it was coming from the mouths of Brits or Canadians. Throughout my trip, I was wary and mostly kept to myself, yet there were police positioned throughout the area and checkpoints along the highway, so I was quite safe traveling throughout the country despite the conflict neighboring Jordan. Still, Jordan shares a border not only with Israel but with Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Syria; the country is no stranger to neighboring conflict and knows how to keep itself safe so that tourists don’t start cancelling their plans.

The importance of tourism to Jordanian economy was vividly reinforced as I walked along Rainbow Street in Amman and noted the closed shops in prime real estate, as I drove south on the road that ran alongside the Dead Sea and observed half-finished resorts, as I checked into my lodgings and observed places partially filled with occupants despite it being peak tourism season in Jordan. COVID had decimated tourism in Jordan, and the country was only starting to climb out of its economic doldrum. Now, the neighboring conflict was going to disrupt the tourism uptick.

While I had a memorable time in Jordan, the shadow of conflict cast itself over my trip. An acquaintance of mine in Gaza, thankfully, responded to my private message and informed me that she was safe, but ended our brief chat saying that the world was unfair. A colleague from work informed me that his uncles were staying in separate parts of Gaza so that they wouldn’t all be wiped out by the same rocket. As I drove back from Wadi Rum, I listened to songs on the English radio station that were being appropriated for solidarity with Palestine: “The Times They Are Changin’” by Bob Dylan, “A Change is Going to Come” by Sam Cooke, and “One” by U2.

Somewhere during my trips to 47countries, I came to the realization that all travel, good or bad, becomes story. Some trips become collections of intriguing anecdotes or narratives of self-discovery, while others unfold against a backdrop of intricate geopolitical struggle, serving as a stark reminder of one’s privilege and agency in a world that can be undeniably unfair to some.

The following are pictures from my week in Jordan.