Accreditation, the basalt ruins of Umm Qais, an Arab wedding, the ancient citadel of Philadelphia, and what may have been my last weekend in Amman.

An accreditation team from the states or Europe or something were here this week to spy on us as we worked to make sure everything was as it should be, so that the school could get accredited again, or for the first time. I didn’t really know the details, all I was told was to smile, look busy, and if they asked me anything I was to tell them that I am an intern and direct them to somebody who could answer their questions. I didn’t actually deal with them much at all. I wore a little plastic name tag around my neck that would snap in pieces on contact with any hard surface, and did my work as usual. I did run into the head of the team once when I was walking out of the library after my Arabic class, and in a funny accent (he’s Scot-Swiss) asked me where the international section of the library was. I thought I was being tested and froze, I stumbled to think of the international room, and I had no idea where it was. I smiled nervously and pointed to the librarian who helped him find the room. I snuck out of the library and briskly walked back to work. 

Black Columns at Umm Qais

I asked for a trip to be arranged for the Junior Fellows to go to Umm Qais, an old Roman in northern Jordan right on the edge of the Syrian/Israeli border, and so we went on Friday morning. It’s about a two and a half hour drive to Umm Qais. I love staring at the landscape when I go on long drives in Jordan. Driving south, vegetation slowly disappears, and massive jagged mountains and red sand appear. But drive north, and large green mountains covered in olive trees, and low valleys line with palm trees appear, as well as snow capped mountains in the distance. We got off the bus at Umm Qais, and were immediately surrounded by young kids selling random items, and welcoming us to Jordan. It was cute three and a half months ago when I first got here that random people would yell “Welcome to Jordan!” with a big smile on their face, but now it’s almost getting annoying, but with my broken Arabic I am no where near being able to respond with “Thanks, I live in Madaba, and have been for almost four months, I know Jordan very well.” So we responded to the kids with a simple “la shukran” which means “no thank you” and after we obviously showed no interest in purchasing whistles, flower necklaces, or fresh almonds, they drifted away to await the next group of tourists. The ruins of Umm Qais mainly consist of the Roman city, but also of a small Ottoman city on the outskirts that was abandoned a couple of centuries or so ago. What makes Umm Qais different from the many other Roman ruins that I have been to, is the rock that the city is carved out of. Unlike the beige stone that the ruins are usually made out of, Umm Qais was built using basalt, and there for all of the columns, buildings, and roads are black, with the exception of a few columns carved out of the typical beige stone. Not only are the ruins beautiful, but the location is stunning, especially in the spring. The mountains are covered in yellow and white flowers, olive trees dot the sides,  and the roads are lined with palm trees. From Umm Qais, looking north, you see the Sea of Galilee in Palestine on the left, the Golan Heights of Syria in front of you, and the  snowcapped mountains of Lebanon behind the sliver of Syria. After walking around the ruins for a while we went to a restaurant up a hill from Umm Qais and sat underneath the shade of some stone arches overlooking the ruins and the mountains of the neighboring countries. 

View of Palestine, Syria and Lebanon from Umm Qais

The Wedding

The Roman Amphitheater in Downton Amman

When I arrived back on campus I was pressed for time as I hurried to get a haircut and get ready for the wedding. As I have probably mentioned in past blogs, my co-worker Ala’a was engaged and invited me to her wedding a while ago, and this past Friday was finally the day. We got a cab at around 8:30pm but got lost on our way so it ended up taking us about an hour to get there. I think we were the last ones to show up, but there were hundreds of people so we were able to sneak in un-noticed. Muslims usually have the religious ceremony weeks, sometimes months before the reception, so the couple is legally married, but they don’t actually get the rings or move in with each other until after the wedding reception. So unlike Christian weddings, there is no long ceremony to wait through, instead it is only a celebration. When we got there the Arabic music was blasting and many people were on the dance platform dancing surrounding the newlyweds. There were cycles of dancing, sitting and eating, and after the eating a group of twenty or so men, presumably from the husbands tribe walked to the center of the room dressed in the traditional white dresses that the men wear, with Jordanian scarves on their heads, and swords on their belts. The men formed a line through which the couple walked though, with the swords forming an overhead passageway, and once the couple reached the end, the men surrounded them in a circle, clapping, singing and dancing to the music. The bride eventually stepped into the circle as the group surrounded the groom, picking him up and throwing him into the air. After a few short hours we left the reception and headed back home. Although I would have liked to stay longer, the wedding most likely lasted until two am, at which point taxis are harder to find to take us back to school. 

Saturday was a parent visit day so I had to go into work to greet parents, and hold down the fort I guess. There wasn’t actually any real work for me to do, because all of the counselors were meeting with parents, and the head counselor was out on vacation, so I spent my time reading up on extra details for Beirut. Today I took a trip down to Al-Balad, the old center of Amman, and walked the never ending steps to the old Roman citadel of Philadelphia located on the top of a hill in the center of Amman, overlooking the whole city, and the ancient Roman amphitheater. Though beautiful, the Roman ruins weren’t particularly impressive because they weren’t in very good shape, but another part of the citadel were the Umayyad ruins, which had an amazing old mosque that was opened to tourists. I’m glad I finally got to see these sites in the city, because I think this was the last time that I would be able to make it out to Amman. I head out to Beirut next Friday for 9 days, then the weekend after I head south to the King’s beach resort in Aqaba, for a mini Junior Fellow vacation, and I leave the following Thursday. My time in the Middle East is coming to an end. 

At the Jordanian Archaeological Museum

Dome of the Mosque

The Umayyad Era Mosque

Citadel Hill