Miss Sissippi

It is so odd, sitting at my little white desk here in Amman, sipping cinnamon tea to the quiet sound of my gas-stove and nearly falling asleep while trying to finish an essay on the consequences of high nutrient loads in the Mississippi Basin and who should pay for them.
But did you know that 41% of the surface of the lower 48 US states drains into the Mississippi River and subsequently into the Gulf of Mexico, where, as a result of the intensive use of fertilisers in the Midwest’s ‘corn belt’, it then causes a very large ‘hypoxic zone’ in the bottom water layers of the northern Gulf, in which oxygen levels fall to below 2mg/l, meaning that no life can survive?
Well, I didn’t either.
But now I do.
And I know a hell of a lot more about all that, but I shall spare you (unless you specifically express interest of course…).

Well, what’s so odd about that? you might ask. After all, you yourself might be sitting in Japan, writing about the devastation a storm caused in Bangladesh, or in Oxford, assessing the impacts of draughts and lawlessness in Somalia. And – granted – my situation is no more odd than that.

I’m quite happy the way I’m living now and I’m glad to be in the Middle East, where I’ve always wanted to be. I even had some almost nostalgic feelings of ‘returning home’ to this place a week ago.

The odd thing about it is that, much unlike the last 5 years of my life,
a) I live an almost completely isolated life,
b) apart from my colleagues who I see in class five days a week, I only socialise and communicate with one other person, my fellow student Marc,
c) since a few days ago, I now cut my own hair,
d) I’ve taken to listening to BBC news programs wile I shower,
e) I wash up straight away after using anything in my kitchen,
f) I regularly clean my stove and work surface,
g) before I leave my flat, I make sure it’s in a tidy state,
h) occasionally I read (or at least start) a book,
i) and since a few days ago, I walk around with a pretty bad haircut.

All of that I shall not complain about. I enjoy it.
Unfortunately, point a) and b) have lead to the fact that the only Jordanians I meet, and the only people I speak Arabic to, are shop keepers and taxi drivers. Hence my Arabic has only barely improved; but it’s ok – there’s a time and a place for everything and I know that time will come, too.

But one thing I do mind:
Apart from one trip (and excluding my fruitless attempts to cross the Israeli border) – for the last six months I have only seen the same bright 4-5 storey apartment blocks of Amman’s suburbs and occasionally the broad streets, fancy cars and Western shopping malls of its ‘metropolitan’ areas or the few old houses and trees of Jabal Amman, one of its oldest areas, although that doesn’t mean much… 100 years maximum. And if you know what Jordan has to offer, you’d agree, that this is quite a shame… there’s the famous Rose City of Petra, the incredible desert at Wadi Rum, crusader castles all along the Jordan Valley, Roman ruins abounding in Jerash, Bedouin villages dotted all over the country, nature reserves and unimaginable stretches of nothing but pristine, stony desert.
But even for that there might be a time. And God-willing, it will not be too long.