Amman stopover
by gracedaisy
It felt like quite a long journey to Amman – 3 hours stop-over in London Heathrow, and a delayed wait on the runway for one hour while the crew refuelled. The flight was going on the Addis Ababa after Amman, and carried an eclectic mix of British ex-pats en route to a reunion in Jordan, and families travelling on to Ethiopia, some having travelled from Canada, and other locals of Amman. We spent the journey reading, learning some Arabic and speaking to a man from Oxfordshire, who is heading for the reunion party. He seems fascinated by our trip, and very interested in the reality of life in the West Bank. We speak about the sham that is the “peace process”, the loss of homes and livelihoods in East Jerusalem, the great false hope that Obama embodied for so many, and the extremist settlers in Hebron who have made the city itself a no-go area for many of its residents. I find myself getting animated and outraged just retelling some of the things I’ve seen – in particular the kidnapping and internment of hundreds of young teenagers by Israeli armed forces from the homes in the West Bank. This seems particularly pertinent to bear in mind, when the Israeli state makes such a show of negotiating over the release of 1000+ Palestinian prisoners in the coming weeks. I recall the number of young men of my age I have met in my travels in the West Bank, who have spent periods of detention in Israeli prisons, often from their teenage years, for no or minor offences (throwing a stone in a protest at a soldier). I recall how every night during “operation cast lead” as it was known by the Israeli state, teenagers were snatched from their homes in the villages around the West Bank, without charge or crime. What shocked me most at the time, was how ordinary this seemed to many people from the West Bank, though they conceded it was worse at this particular point. I can’t help but question how great a gesture it is to release thousands of prisoners from Israeli jails, when it seems so many of them have been detained without legitimate charge, and often are minors. Could this possibly be the reason Israel is so keen to keep the number of Palestinian prisoners up – that and of course blatant intimidation of the population of the West Bank? But I hope to write more on that later.
Despite our late arrival, our pick-up from the hotel was waiting, a friendly man with not much English, called Ahmed. We communicated in my pigeon Arabic, and his pigeon English, and it turned out he was a Khalili, or came from Al Khalil, Hebron in Palestine, 15 years ago. He displayed the usual Palestinian hospitality, stopping in a café to buy us a large plastic cup full of steaming hot, silt-laden Arabic coffee that no doubt will have me lying awake into the small hours. We stood on the side of the road, surrounded by cars with spoilers, full of shebab or local youths, with tight jeans and oiled hair, loud Arabic pop playing, being reminded of boys of the same age in any housing estate in Ireland. The street looked over Amman, where the streetlights, the green lights of the minarets, Christmas lights and neon signs illuminated the vast expanse that is the city, and our breath formed on the chilly night air. Onwards to our hotel, we parted with Ahmed, with his business card, offers for more driving, and an invite to come to his home and sample his mothers cooking if we returned to Amman again.
The Hotel Toledo itself is a sterile, but plush affair, largely empty it seems, with small clusters of local men sitting and drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes on the terrace. We walked a little way down the street, to get our bearings, and grab a falafel, met with empty streets, and the odd flash of activity around cafes or fast food joints, where more shebab huddled in their cars outside. This part of Amman at least, seems to sleep, so we will do the same and wait for the imminent roar of traffic or the voice of the Muezzin early in the morning to rise us again. Tomorrow, we begin our journey, and I do what millions of Palestinians in this country cannot do, cross the King Hussein Bridge and return to Palestine.
