My first visit to Middle East - Jordan

Introducing Japanese culture
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My first visit to the Middle East, Jordan! It was one of the ports I was really looking forward to it even before I disembarked on the boat, so I was very excited since the ship left India. Port of Aqaba is located in Jordan, but it is very close to the Israeli border so that we could see Eilat, coastal city in Israel.

I was assigned to take part in a joint programme, field trip to the Palestinian refugee camp and a sightseeing in Petra, as I had strongly wished. We left Aqaba around 8am and headed up to Amman, a capital city of Jordan. After 5 minutes since our bus left the port, stretch of dessert appeared in front of us - the world of Aladdin, Ali baba or Sindbad the Sailor!

the Palestinian refugee camp, Petra, Aqaba...

Very colourful jordanian dishes
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4 hours of driving took us to Amman where we had a lunch break. Jordanian dishes were very delicious even though they were a bit heavy (a bit oily...) for lunch. We could easily find McDonalds, Pizza Hat, Starbacks... these restaurants even looked fascinating with Arabic signs (the food must be the same though).

We arrived at the Baqaa Refugee Camp situated outside Amman. We first went to the regional office of DPA (Department of Palestinian Affairs), then went to walk around the camp with officers from UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency), who gave us more information about how the Palestinian refugees live in the camp. Even though the Palestinian refugees in Jordan were said to be treated so much better than the ones in another Middle Eastern countries, we could tell that social, welfare and educational service were not adequate enough after 5 minutes walk and visited some families' house in the camp.

Houses inside the Camp
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However, people living there were absolutely kind and welcomed us and the kids had glint in their eyes. We got to spend a time with kids at school playing sports and introducing Japanese culture. Back to the regional office of DPA, the cultural exchange programme started with Jordanian dance, Japanese drums etc... It was a good 6 hours of visit to the camp, the atmosphere was completely different from any places I have ever been.

We stayed at a five-star hotel in Amman. Luxury hotel and the refugee camp in a day... such a contrast! It was hard to believe the life can be so different after 30 minutes drive. What is even worse, I saw some participants putting 10 kinds of desserts on their plates even though they knew that they could not finish all of them. They just bited each of them and 80% of desserts were still on the plates. Very disappointing... What have they learned or felt during the field trip and speeches made by refugees?

The 'Treasury' in Petra
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This tour was a hardcore one so that we even had a study session after dinner, which myself and my colleague had to interpret. My blain was not even working properly at the time though! A Palestinian peace activist gave us a brief introduction about the Palestinian issues and the life of refugees, and Q&A session followed. Interesting questions were come up among participants and that the session went well. It was at 23h30 when we went back to our hotel room. Very very long day.

Sunrise in Amman
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However, a long day never finished until 1am. Some participants came to our room and started complaining about their room etc... Hotel staff rang our room because they wanted us to interpret. I had to take a cold shower at five star luxury hotel at the end of the night, haha!

We left the hotel in the morning and headed to Petra, where the film 'Indiana Jones' was set in. The site remained unknown until the early 19th century, and it was said that the only 1% of the excavation was progressed so far. We had a nice wee walk in Petra for about 3 hours. The 'Treasury', 'Siq' (the shaft), the Theatre, tombs... there were so many to see!

teaching Origami
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Back in the port of Aqaba, four of us decided to head to the city centre in Aqaba to get the most delicious Jordanian Kebab. We grabbed a taxi and asked a driver to take us to the place where we could get it. The driver was so kind that he stayed at the take away place for us and let us walk around the city centre until the food was ready. We got our food and headed back to the port. We sat in a open-air bar in the deck, had beautiful Kebab while enjoying the view of Aqaba and Eilat by night.

Jordanian dance
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'We are afraid of being forgotten (about the existence of the Palestinian refugees) by international community as the time goes by, but we are glad that a lot of Japanese people came to visit us today and become more interested in the situation we have been facing with' - Unforgettable speech I heard in Jordan.