The Pastor

So I met the pastor at the bookshop; a steady handshake and a million-dollar smile. He had agreed to be interviewed – I had told him I was doing my Masters in anthropology yada yada – and he was now pulling out a chair for me.
Let’s cut right to the chase. The man (corpulent, in his early 40s) drew the following picture for me when asked about how it came he had settled in Amman ten years ago and founded a Biblical Institute. He was around fourteen years old when he one day was walking on a sidewalk in the al-Hamra district of Beirut (which is where he originates from). A car pulled up next to him and the middle-aged man inside flung the passenger door open and offered to give the young, impressionable Das Kapital-reading-but-still-searching-boy a ride to the Ashrafiyye neighborhood. “How do you know I live there?” the boy replied. “Everything I know comes from this book. Let me take you home and I will tell you all about it” said the man. Having been brought up in affluent Christian-orthodox environment with (over)protective parents, warning bells rang in the boy’s head: don’t follow strangers – even if they offer you candy, perhaps especially if they offer you candy.
Stop right there, Omar (not his real name)
But no; the young boy was so impressed the man knew he lived in Ashrafiyye (although I can’t for the love of God understand why, since that place is where most well-off Christians live). Any who: he stepped in. And it changed his life. But – according to me – in a far worse way than had he been tied up and…well. The man was a Jehovah Witness.
After a three-year stretch with the witnesses, he had a theological argument with the “elders” and left (or got thrown out; the story didn’t say). He wandered the streets of Beirut yet again, literally as well as metaphorically. No more alluring strangers in sight. He decided to open up his own theological shop after brief stints at various ecumenical denominations, of which no responded well to his personal conviction. But this episode was preceded by an amusing, yet somehow disturbing, story of how he met his wife, a Jordanian: He’s speaking to her on the phone; they have never met, he’s sitting at his house in Beirut, she in Amman. It’s eleven at night; it’s in the late 90s. How they got to have that phone call in the first place, I don’t know, but kick is this: saying good-bye, she said it would be nice to have coffee (a common invitation amongst Jordanians). Yes, he replied, and immediately after hanging up, he called a taxi, paid the driver 150 dollars – and off they were, to Amman, to his future wife, to his habibti.
Somewhere outside Zarqa (about 30 min from Amman) at around 3.30 in the morning, he called her, saying he was on his way. “Are you totally insane?” was the answer he received. “Well, you offered me a coffee…” Her mother had also woken up by the phone and was standing next to her daughter. Somehow she took the phone, and understanding that this could be a maniac or just a foolish boy in love, she told him to stop by the house at 6 am – not a minute earlier. And so he did, after having circled around Amman a number of times. After a rather quick and surely bizarre cup of coffee, Omar got back into the car (the driver had waited outside the house), paid the driver another 150 dollars and speeded back to Beirut, arriving just in time for him to start his day’s work at the bank (just a tad late).
They got married the following year. Arguably the most expensive cup of coffee ever, but a very successful cup indeed. (The story was revealed to me as an example of how great yet blind love can be; why sometimes we make crazy decisions that don’t seem logical at first (and perhaps never, I wanted to ad, but never did. Instead I shook his hand, excused myself, and called T: my own great love).

Loosers

The two best Jordanian football teams Fasaili and Wihdat lost Sunday their respective matches in the Arab Champions League. The male population of Jordan is in grief. My language partner (see below) loves his Faisali so much that he abruptly ended a relationship (well) with a girl who bad-mouthed Allah, sorry Faisali. By the way; if you want to know if a Jordanian has East Bank or West Bank (Palestinian) roots, just ask what team he/she roots for: Palestinians root for Wihdat (unity) while Faisali is supported by everyone else. That question never fails, and shows, inadvertently, the lack of unity still existent here.

Cell scribblings

Since absolutely nothing happened in entire the Kingdom today, I thought I’d share with you the reason I am in Jordan and not, as was originally intended, in Palestine. I have skipped the parts where I was interrogated for seven hours at the airport, and jumped straight to the fun stuff:
Scribbled in notebook on November 2nd, 2008: Once in the cell, I take a deep breath – and regret it immediately, detecting that there is a gut-wrenching smell coming from the fuzzy, gray quilts lying on top of the bunk beds. The cell is about 10 square meters (feels like 2 square meters and shrinking) and my quick round-tour renders a bathroom (well, a toilet with crushed, decomposing bugs and a floater); a shower with three soaps, oddly enough, pressed stuck to the tiling neck high. There’s one chair next to a small wooden table. Very Spartan, as one might expect. Those are my surroundings for the night.
After I have gotten my new bearings, I go to the lone window, a small, steal barred opening facing a road, noise from airplanes, and a windless and warm November night. I don’t look at the stars, though – I smile to myself as I consciously don’t look to the stars pondering freedom and a quick escape. In the movies, the guy (or the occasional woman) who looks up towards the stars from a prison window, is without exception the hero. Perhaps he has shot the local war lord in a bar brawl and now the town sheriff wants to set an example of framing the recently arrived loner. Big mistake. Always a capital mistake that serves as an endless pit of nourishment for the lone ranger. This loner, especially in a cowboy movie, always has the quickest gun in the final scene, always the most trustworthy horse that in the end rides off with him on its back towards the horizon, to the desert – to the Wild West.
I am not, however, a lone gun man. I am rather innocent anthropologist from the cold north who tried to embark on his field work. In jail we all ended up anyhow. I tell myself that it is only the beginning though. My Wild West is the Middle East (sorry for the pun), and my field has just been altered, since I find myself still in this cell, alone. And even though some distant noise creeps in through the window, I feel like the last man on earth. I drag myself to the bed, lie down and start reading the scribbling on the wall. Here is a selection of what it read:

“I can do all things through Jesus Christ who strengthens me”
(Philipias 4:13 [?])

“GOD’S TIME IS THE BEST”

“If Jesus says yes, who can say no”

And perhaps the most disturbing:

“I am covered with the blood of Jesus Christ”


At the same time as I am lying in the bunk bed reading this, my bones shiver when my eye fix on a murky, red stain on the steel railing of the bed over me. Perhaps the guy really tried to commit suicide here. Right here – in this bed. Who knows. All I know is that my addition to the wall scribbling was more profane: “Free Palestine”.
Enter Antawn. The cell door opens and led inside by a police officer, is Antawn, a black man with rugged clothes. At the time, I am lying down on one of the filthy bunk beds trying to sleep. He sits down on one of the other beds. Our greetings are almost undistinguishable head nods. I ask him (I always wanted to ask somebody this): “So what are you in for?”
“I don’t really know,” he says “Maybe ‘cause it ain’t allowed to spread the word of Gawd [God] in this country. Maybe ‘cause they don’t agree with the teachings of our lord Jesus.” Even as the first syllables left his mouth, I knew he was American. He had a poor man’s dialect. And after a few moments of silence where both of us secretly study each other, he asks me what I am doing here. I tell him the brief version. And I ask him where he is from and all other vital questions we ask people to make a good impression pretending we care. He was from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (although, when I mentioned the Three Mile Island nuclear accident of 1979, he looked like he wasn’t sure of what I was talking about); 51-years old, unmarried. The reason he constantly kept mentioning Jesus, is explained by the following story: He had just served four years out of a five-year prison sentence for armed robbery, when he responded to the calling of Jesus, mediated by an older inmate. It changed his life – drastically. He swore off drugs, drinking and cigarettes –all bad things, he told me. Only the voice of God through his son Jesus counted nowadays, and ever since he got out of prison, he had been traveling throughout the United States, and then crossed the ocean – to Europe and Africa. His choice of proselytism is rather odd: he recites the King James Bible onto old tape cassettes. Now, since the holy book is a fairly large piece of text, the whole procedure is captured by no less than forty-eight tapes. And to the present destination, Israel, he had brought two filled suitcases, totaling six volumes (almost 300 tapes). His plan with this myriad of tapes, was to strategically place them, one by one, in different public locations, such as phone booths, or perhaps half-tucked away in the backseat of a bus. A public bathroom, right inside the metal toilet paper holder, was his favorite spot, he said. In such a place, people don’t expect to find anything, he continued. They are alone. They have the time to think, to ponder their existence, or whatever they do in there. They are vulnerable. Jesus can reach them there.
“The thing is”, he concluded, now sitting on the edge of the bed: “you never know when Jesus will talk to you. First time he spoke to me, I waddn’t ready to listen. Now I am.”
Here I am, in an Israeli airport jail, getting my ears filled with messianic messages by a fellow cellmate. He was just about to describe how Jesus would punish all the sinners of the Day of Judgment, when the iron door is opened, and a guard tells us to get our stuffs: we are being moved to another cell, a sleeping cell. In this dark 5 times 5 meters room, bunk beds are piled against the walls. I pick one of the few empty ones, and lay down. Except for some snoring, there is utter silence.
Two hours later – I hadn’t been able to sleep – the door is opened and my name is called. A plane is waiting for me to leave. After driving me to the plane, they literally put me on it, and exchange courteous greetings with the pilot. The plane takes off at 5.30 am, November 3rd 2008: I had just spent 14 unofficial hours in Israel.

Eavesdropping at Books@café

I know it’s bad to eavesdrop, but today I couldn’t resist. Sitting and devouring a gigantic pizza toppled with canned, smoked turkey, I happened to over-hear two Italian photographers in the midst of taking flashy photos of the Books@café. They asked a couple seated at a table next to mine if they could recommend some other places that represented the “new” Amman; the chic- and trendy Amman, overflowed with money and bling-bling. The Jordanian couple seemed very happy to comply, and began telling places that they “must see”, also buying them coffee which was happily excepted by the Italians. The latter were also exalted by the fact that one can still smoke in bars here in Jordan. They lit up and sipped their coffees with expressions on their faces as only Italians (and perhaps French) can give when drinking coffee anywhere outside of Rome.
Then, out of the blue, they switched to talking in French, and my eavesdropping was effectively ended. Fucking French.

Salt and bitter lemon

My language partner is a skinny 21-year old boy from the town As-Salt (and no; Salt doesn’t mean “salt” in English). Let’s call him Musa. It’s a bright and fairly warm day, so we decide to sit down on a wooden bench in the middle of the busy University of Jordan campus. Musa tells me he wants to be a lawyer (because they make money) but now he is studying English, because it’s useful. Musa thinks English sucks, in fact, he thinks studying sucks, period.
He is a rather shy young gentleman, which, however, doesn’t stop him from constantly scanning the area for girls; during our conversation, his eyes constantly wander off towards groups of passing ladies. And when his prayers are heard and a girl finally looks back at him, he immediately looks the other way. And I swear: even blushes.
So what about the ladies Musa? Well, he’s never kissed one, but he’s dying to. Like most 21-year olds, that’s pretty much what occupies his mind. When asked about marriage, he says that when the time is right (in a couple of years, maybe next year) his mom will round up a fine selection of goods, sorry women that he could then choose from. He trusts his mother. Now, isn’t that nice?
I think I am going to have to switch language partner.

Books@café continued

Last Ramadan the café found itself in the middle of a scandal. Now, what the scandal actually consisted in remains a matter of disagreement. There are two sides to this story, as there usually is. Let’s get marinated in the facts first: during Ramadan it is normally illegal to sell food during the day in the Kingdom of Jordan. The owners of the café had, however, attained a license from the local government to serve not only food, but also alcohol to its patrons. How they managed this, I don’t know. Nevertheless, one day in the midst of Ramadan, police barges into the place and shuts it down.
A lively debate followed, particularly on various blog forums. Let’s name the two sides the “I-do-as-I-want”-folks and the “You-should-do-as-I want”-folks respectively for reasons of simplification. Amongst other things, the latter state (probably correctly) that Jordan is a Muslim country with about 95% Islamic coverage, and hence non-Muslims (and non-practicing Muslims) ought to respect that The former say: So what? What happened to personal freedom? Why should anyone care if a few people have a few beers in a few isolated places? How sipping a beer inside a bar, far from any practicing Muslims automatically means that one disrespects Islam, they say, is just a matter of hypocrisy.
Let it simmer for awhile. Wait for it. Let’s now imagine it’s boiled down to this: Where is Jordan going? Almost all commentators seem to agree on the fact that this case has wider ramifications than being just about one place, in one month. The million dinar question is, in fact, a question about Jordan’s role in the world (and perhaps foremost about its own self-identity) with forces wishing to drag it south, towards its Saudi borders and brothers, and forces desperate to keep feeding Jordan deep-pan pizzas, washed down with slurps of Starbucks vanilla-flavored coffee.
Ah, it doesn’t get more old school than this. The ol’West vs. East enigma. That West Amman just happens to be West of East Amman (if you know what I mean) is only a geographical coincidence, a fluke.

Water world

Arabs are not the most prolific swimmers. Today I went to to swim at a upper-scale gym in the equally upper-scale Abdoun area, and there I witnessed the following: In the gigantic pool are 8 middle-aged men, half of them sporting huge but neatly trimmed mustasches, all of them overwight. They all look like they are struggling to stay afloat. But then I realize that the petite, twenty-something woman standing at the poolside, holding a whistle, is actually giving them intructions - or screaming would be a more fitting word; in her nasal voice, she shouts (in English mind you); "Move your arms! And you; move your feet, higher, higher!".
It was so surreal I forgot to put on the obligatory shower cap I had been given when I jumped in. It only took 20 seconds before she started screaming at me. The matriarchy has perhaps not come to the Middle East yet, but in West Amman it is darn close.

Books@café

It’s impossible for a foreigner between the ages of 20 to 40 to visit Amman and avoid ending up grabbing over-priced beers at Books@café.
The bookshop with its restaurant/bar upstairs has become the epitome of the crowd of young and not-so-young, but nonetheless hip Ammanites (the term they themselves actually prefer since it connotes “parasites”…) and actually was the one place that started the whole gentrification process that’s currently unfolding beneath our very eyes. It was opened by two artist brothers in 1996; one openly gay (as open as you can get in Jordan), the other I have no clue about, although he wears a fez. The new thing about this bar (aside from its very gay friendly ambiance) was that the waiters were as cool as – if not cooler – than the patrons. And they were all aspiring writers, musicians, painters, whathaveyous. Now, for reasons I still haven’t excavated, these waiters all rented cheap flats in the surrounding neighborhood, hence up-ing the hip factor.
Oh, and they do still sell books downstairs, believe it or not. More to follow, soon.

Introduction

Last night I met some of the “original” books@café (see above) guests. Sitting opposite of me was Omar no. 1; to my immediate right Omar no.2; and on his right was a New Yorker fittingly named Aura (but spelled Ora). Apart from the latter, who joined the gang in 1999, these characters have frequented the bar/bookshop/restaurant since its inauguration in 1996. They have all, at one time or another, worked as bartenders/waiters there, and still hang out there to the extent that, I presume, they could be considered part of the furniture. They all share the view (not uncommon amongst people who see themselves as the original gallery) that the atmosphere of the place has imploded ever since the early twentieth century. And I also painfully realize that ethnographers working with, say, purist Muslims get away with a cheaper bar tab.

Vickan

Eftersom vår kära drottning nu har fått sitt val av gemak betingad, bevingad och något ord som jag inte kommer på men som ska betyda, ah, nu kom jag på det: nagelfarad, i den svenska pressen, kan jag glädja svenska rojalister och idioter med att även på ett litet fuktigt kontor i Amman, Jordanien, fascinerar Viktorias val. Den joviale direktören för JARA (se nedan) blir alldeles till sig när jag nämner att jag minsann kommer från Sverige (”Ah, Crown Princess Viktoria is getting married! Congratulations!” Och så tar han min hand och skakar den uppriktigt. Sedan följer en bisarr föreställning (eller föreläsning) då han undervisar mig om Sveriges kungalängd och dess politiska följder genom historien. Själv sitter jag på framkanten på stolen och gör mitt yttersta för att inte försöka se ovetande ut. Dra på trissor – han vet till och med vår nuvarande kung är dyslektiker. Resten av vad han berättade om kungar och drottningar och annat löst folk har jag redan glömt. Men det var definitivt underhållande.

Why Rainbow street REALLY is Rainbow street

Today I had an informal meeting with the executive director of JARA (Jabal Amman Residency Association). Over a tiny cup of Turkish coffee he told me, among other things, this anecdote from last year: The JARA had proposed a meeting at a nearby restaurant for all shopkeepers on Rainbow street, which was by then congested with loading trucks and various debris from the ongoing reconstruction/modernization. The shopkeepers were worried that they were losing customers since the street was virtually inaccessible to anyone without a yellow helmet and jack-hammer. The JARA played one of their finest card and invited them to a get-together with the mayor of Amman. All seated, the mayor asked if they were happy with the current and official name of the street (Abu Bakr as-Saddiq street) or if they wanted him to tap some pencil pusher on his shoulder down in the Greater Amman Municipality’s (GAM) office to magically rename the street to the colloquial name: Rainbow street.
Everyone stood up and shouted. Rainbow street! Except one. Still sitting down, partly due to old age, but mostly due to a more conservative outlook on life, an older gentleman who owns a small book/newspaper shop on the middle of the street raised his voice: Abu Bakr as-Sadiq was the prophet’s friend and hence it’s the proper name for this street!
Showing who’s in possession of the magic wand, the mayor silenced and satisfied the man by promising to name a new street in the ever-sprawling city Abu Bakr as-Sadiq street. Maybe even two.

En annan sorts taxichaufför

Klockan är ett på natten och jag hojtar. Taxin tvärnitar och efter hur-mycket-till-Rainbow-street?- hagglande nöjer sig både chauffören och jag oss med 2 dinar. Efter de sedvanliga hälsningsfraserna och kommenterande om vädret (som jag tagit med mig från Sverige) ställer jag någon allmän fråga om Jordanien, glömt vilken. Svaret kommer snabbt: ”Fuck You Jordan! Fuck YOOOOOOU Jordan!” - samtidigt som mannen ler. Jasså? svarar jag. Men tyvärr kan han inte mer engelska än dessa tre ord, så resten blev en osande kaskad på arabiska riktad mot hans hemland. Av det lilla jag förstår är kungen dum i huvudet, parlamentet snika vargar, folket i allmänhet och palestinierna i synnerhet slöa i huvudet. De senare är också aggressiva och obildade åsnor. Här sviker dock min arabiska mig. Han kan också sagt något helt annat än jag här återgett. Men att döma av alla Fuck YOU Jordan inslängde lite här och var, och att han sen ville utforska hur det var att bo i Sverige – ”Good Sweden, good city, very nice people, very buoootiful!”. Han log lika mycket nu som när han sågade av Jordanien längs fotknölarna. Jag gav honom en extra halv dinar. Det var trots allt sent på kvällen och han hade fortfarande några timmar kvar av sitt skift. Mina tre öl tidigare på kvällen kostade mer än han skulle tjänat om han kört mig hela vägen till Syrien.
Jo absolut får man lite dåligt samvete. Men...nej förresten, inga men.

Taxichaufför från Rinkeby

När jag svarar på den ständigt återkommande – men dock trevliga – frågan om varifrån jag kommer, brister taxichauffören Ahmed ut i ett stort leende, släpper ratten och tar min hand med båda sina; bilen tekniskt sett förarlös eftersom han samtidigt tittar på mig. Oj, oj, oj, skriker han, från Sverige! Va rolit! Jag bodde Rinkeby 3 månader!
Ahmed al-Jiddi gillar Stockholm – Gamla stan, vad fin! – men älskar Amman. Han är jordansk palestinier från Lod (nuvarande Israel) men har aldrig varit där. Han kör egen taxi och kan på en bra dag tjäna in 50 JD (ca 700 kr). Dessutom har han en liten supermarket (det spelar ingen roll hur liten en affär här är – alltid heter de Ahmed’s supermarket eller så, trots att torrt bröd, tonfisk på burk och några ruttna påsar med chips är allt de har att erbjuda). Han bor på Jabal Hussein som ligger några kullar bort från Rainbow Street. Ogift. 30 år. Inte bra (säger han). Jag lovar att hälsa på i hans supermarket en vacker dag.

Ingenjören

En liten episod från min flygresa hit: bredvid mig (stilla sovandes halva resan; högt snarkandes resten) halvligger en ihärdigt sminkad kvinna från Amerika. Mitt emellan två sjok av sömn, frågar hon lite försynt mig om det möjligtvis var första gången jag flög till Jordanien. Nej, svarade jag, och här kan man inte gärna bara vända sida i boken man läser och fortsätta, så man anstränger fram ett leende och motfrågar. Gud nej; sjätte gången. Eller sjunde kanske, svarar hon och skrattar: More than I would have liked!
Eftersom jag då slipper fråga om det är business eller pleasure, frågar jag ”i vilken linje av arbete” hon är. Och här följer ett ungefärligt utdrag ur vår 3-minuters dialog.
- Contractors.
- Aha…
- Well, we work with the American government, I am an engineer.
- Oh, that sounds interesting. What kind of an engineer?
- Mostly we fix problems with Humvees.
- (nu börjar jag ana vart det bär hän). Ok…so you work for the Pentagon, or…
- We are independent contractors, but we mainly do work for the State Department.
- Aha…
- Sorry, are you gonna eat those pretzels? (hennes hand smyghugger mot min platsbricka där det ligger ett paket oöppnade och förmodligen oätliga ”complimentary pretzels”).
- No, please, go ahead (hon tar dem med ett blygt leende). But, so why Jordan? Why not Iraq, ’cause I would assume that’s where they break down?
- (skrattandes på ett flickaktigt sätt, precis som jag sagt något lustigt men liksom ba’ guuu’ va konsti’): But that’s where we all go – except me! They think its too dangerous for little me!
- …
- My colleges go (hon pekar hastigt och diffust några rader längre fram). The men (och så himlar hon med ögonen, liksom för att visa, titta hur knasigt det är med förlegade könsroller hit och dit, va, här har vi inte kommit längre. – And they let me stay behind and do all the boring paperwork!

Ja, så knasigt det kan vara. Här sitter man och språkar med en lätt överviktigt, tjejig amerikansk ingenjör som tycker att det konstigaste med hela grejen, är att hon – ”because I am just a little girl, hihhi” – inte får åka och fixa sönderskjutna Humvees i ett av de själva sönderskjutet land. Snart snarkar hon igen. Och jag vänder försiktigt det tunna bladet i min bok.

Rainbow Street, part II

The grand opening of an upscale coffee shop (Tsche Tsche) took place the other night in a for-the-purpose-built house, strategically erected where the pot of gold would be located if indeed Rainbow Street was a rainbow. It surely looks impressive, even by Abdoun, (or why not Stockholm) standards. Flocking around the minimalist décor were the not-so-bold and the beautiful, sipping pricey moccas and nibbling away on prefabricated sweets. I hate to sound working-class nostalgic after living only two weeks on this street, but that’s what we Western bohemian bourgeoisie always are. Alas, I miss the days where the menus here weren’t displayed with graffiti font in English, boldly asking for 2 JDs (3 Euros) for basically the same black shit you get 10 meters away, from the chubby but cheerful guy and his frail coffee wagon on the 1st circle – for a quarter of the price. It tastes like camel piss and it’s usually tepid, but at least it’s served without any exchange of words in stupefied English.

The Good Bookshop

No, it’s not a religious bookshop, although they sport a selection of Bibles and Korans in all types and colors, children's version as well. If it, in fact, adheres to any religion, it would have to be the modern Western lifestyle cliché; bookshelves stuffed with titles such as “How To Make Your First Million”, “Your Boyfriend Left You? Get back at him! 10 best tips” and you get the point. Naturally, they offer you a Colgate smile and a quite tasty café latte as soon as you arrive to make use of their wireless internet connection, just like (it seems) the rest of Amman’s expat community.
According to the two guys working behind the counter, the Rainbow Street Project cost 3 million JD (4 million Euros) and one of the major points was to make it traffic-free. I guess someone (or everyone) protested and what I walk up and down every day now has more cars than ever. That they made it into a one-way street doesn’t seem to have changed that fact. “They should have given the money to every Jordanian instead”, one of the guys says, “45 piasters to each citizen. Then he could have bought a decent shawarma and all would have been well.”
A thwarted version of socialism where everyone gets his or her share of public funding? This coming from a guy with designer jeans working in this bookshop, I don’t think so.
Now, why is this interesting? Well, I have started to nurture a hypothesis that goes something like this: Rainbow Street is (wants to be) the future of Amman, and perhaps Jordan. It offers the mix of Western culture and a few sprinkled remains of Arab culture. Most people who live in the area are educated middle-class, and perhaps because of this, it exudes an air of cosmopolitanism, indeed very different from the rest of West Amman with its Starbucks, mega malls, and diamond clad women (and men). Here on Rainbow Street– if you were to get a whim of a diamond – it is much more likely to be pierced in some Jordanian hipsters’ nose as opposed to around the neck in Abdoun (the most affluent neighborhood in West Amman).
The street really breaths a casual, bohemian feel, like a place that at least outwardly welcomes diversity, be it in nationalities, level of education, or denomination. And if Jordan ever adopts a more leisured attitude towards homosexuality, it’s a no-brainer where the first open gay club would be located.

Rainbow Street, part I

Taxi drivers hate it. Foreigners and high-flying, bohemian bourgeoisie Jordanians love it. The recently cobbled street with its new cosmopolitan name “Rainbow Street” stirs up emotions here in Amman. Or at least within me. Situated on top on the old Jebal Amman (mountain of Amman), the street formerly known as “Abu Bakr as-Saddiq” (and still according to some official maps) has gone through substantial changes the past few years, much like Amman itself. Now there are wooden benches neatly placed along the street for the intrepid pedestrian – a rare phenomenon in the Los Angeles-like West Amman.
Oh yes, I forgot to mention: Amman is a divided city. Not in the now classic Middle Eastern way with barbed wire or concrete walls, but more in the American other-side-of-the-tracks sense. The rich West vs. the impoverished East; the West with bars and restaurants lining the roads with Humvees parked outside and the East with shouting shop owners and Arabic coffee off the guy with the funny fez hat; noses covered in bandages vs. heads covered in hijabs. The Rainbow street area is (or at least wants to be) what Södermalm is for Stockholm, what perhaps the 6th and 7th districts are for Vienna, i.e. gentrified working class neighborhoods that have gone through an extreme makeover, whilst at the same time trying to remain their lure as “genuine” outposts of a disappearing culture (for the benefit of us foreigners?).
A difficult juggling act indeed.

Kungen

Han är ju inte direkt ful, kungen. Men inte speciellt vacker. Efter några dagar i Jordanien har man haft tillräckligt med tillfällen att studera hans ansikte på ganska nära håll; meterhöga posters överallt längs vägarna, och mindre porträtt av honom i varenda affär och privata hem, ibland i militäruniform, ibland i club blazer. Alltid leendes, ofta blickandes lite åt sidan, lite uppåt, dvs. framåt, som alla män i liknande positioner tenderar att göra på bilder. Lite knubbig kan man nog säga utan att få den ökända jordanska underrättelsetjänsten över sig. Rösten går ner en oktav varje gång jag frågat någon om honom. Visserligen har de bara gott att säga om honom. Förstås. Visserligen skulle man då kunna undra varför de talar lägre. En taxichaufför svarar att nej, an är inte palestinier, vilket nästan alla chaufförer är. Och alla, fortsätter han, icke-palestinska chaufförer jobbar för ”mukhabarat” (säkerhetspolisen), blink blink. Jaha, säger jag. Resten av resan pratar han bara om hur fin, vacker och fantastisk kungen och dennes familj är, så man undrar ju samtidigt som man nickar och instämmer till fullo. Kungen är inte ful, faktiskt riktigt vacker. Blink, blink.