Good Thing It’s Not Hot

This has been my mantra over the past few days as the temperature has soared to 115⁰F here in Amman. I learned that you can tell when the outside temperature is over body temperature (~99⁰F) when the breeze feels warm as it passes over your skin. But when it’s 115⁰F it literally feels as if someone has pointed a hairdryer at you as you sit inside a sauna. It saps your energy, all but eliminates your appetite, and at least in my case, makes you wicked irritable and ill-mannered.

Friday was the first day of this heat wave and before I knew what I was getting into I ventured out to do some exploring. I started at the 1^st Circle where trendy Rainbow Street (lined with coffee shops and eclectic boutiques) heads down Jebel Amman (Jebel is Arabic for ‘hill’) into the old downtown. I came across an artisan market with stalls lined up one after another selling handmade beaded jewelry, funny and interesting t-shirts (I ♥ Amman, and the like), and antiques. I decided to buy a 100-year old hand crank coffee grinder from Turkey. The guy told me that it grinds nicely; I just hope he wasn’t lying. If not it’s still an interesting find, but it would be great if I could actually use it to make Arabic coffee when I return home. I wander around a little more, head into downtown to compare prices of argileh’s at different shops and find out it’s going to be best to find a shop where I can create my own, and then buy a sweet fedora (grey with a pinkish-red band around it) for 1JD at the used clothes/junk market that I had visited the week before. This comes in handy later in the day.

I realize at this point that it’s got to be 1,000 degrees and things are starting to move in slow motion. I’ve done the right thing, drunk plenty of water and replenished salts and sugars but it’s just not cutting it. It’s around 1:00pm at this point so I take an air-conditioned taxi to the district of Shmeisani to find some lunch. I walk into a place called Tarweea, tucked in behind a traditional café, in a neighborhood full of American fast food joints (KFC, Popeye’s, Burger King, Subway, Chili House, Boston Chicken) and discover quite a gem. I walk in with my newly purchased, second-hand fedora and am greeted by a man, who turns out to be the owner, wearing a snazzy suit. In fact, all of the waiters are wearing suits and I’m worried this lunch will set me back more than my per diem allows.

I must have looked like I might pass out at any moment as they hand me a bottle of water before I even sit down. Once seated I peruse the menu and realize that it won’t be too expensive, but also not the 1-4JD meals I’m used to for lunch. I start with a platter of tomato, cucumber and green and black olives. Ajloun (a town north of Amman) olives to be exact, the best I’ve ever eaten. Seriously. Sorry Italy, no offense, but wow, these were amazing. Then I order stuffed grape leaves (nothing overly special here), a thin bread spread with za’atar, and layered, and then baked in a wood-fired, brick oven, and a ‘sandwich’ (a wrap really) with minced lamb mixed with scrambled eggs. It really is a fantastic and different kind of meal (I’ve been getting tired of all of the falafel, shwerma, hummus, kebobs, etc.) and I take a few photos.

I guess the fedora made me look like a writer or journalist or something that combined with the photos) and the owner came over to ask me what company I was writing for. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity so I simply said that I was writing for a food and travel blog in Amman. He thanked me graciously and offered me a refreshingly cold, lemonade with mint drink to cool me down further. I ask him how it’s made and get the recipe.

After lunch I headed across the street and down a block to the famous el-Farouki coffee shop where they roast the finest coffee beans from Brazil in their in-house roasters. I go against my instinct and ask for an Arabic coffee made with beans that are literally black. Good, dark coffee does not necessarily need super dark roasted beans. In fact, usually beans roasted this dark are bitter and terrible, but these were not. I’d been told and also read that the guy here is a magician when it comes to roasting coffee beans and it turns out all that I’ve heard is true. An amazing cup of Arabic coffee, with freshly ground cardamom of course, to finish off my afternoon.

The next day was just as hot but I had learned my lesson and planned to finish my adventures outside by noontime. I first went to the Roman amphitheater with my friend James. We tried out the ancient acoustics by squatting along either side of the stage (80 feet wide), next to the parabolic wall that separates the stage from the first row of seats, and easily had a conversation, even with people talking around us. Amazing engineering for a structure built in 130 AD with the ability to hold a crowd of 6,000. The climb to the top afforded views of the Citadel up on the hill and the old city downtown. Since this is the largest Roman amphitheater in the world it goes to show the importance and distinction of Philadelphia (the original name of Amman during Roman times) in the Roman Empire during the 2^nd century.

I helped James do some shopping as I know the downtown quite well at this point, and he returned the favor by helping me design my own argileh. I’m going to use it as decoration in my condo so had a color scheme in mind. I went to a store where I could mix and match different pieces to create my own design. You are able to pick out a glass base, body, ash plate, tobacco holder, and tubing/mouthpiece to suit your taste. It was a fun experience and I ended up with something quite striking. I also purchased the sticky and wet tobacco (peach flavored) to bring home. I must

try it out and show it to friends first before retiring it to decoration-only status. You must believe me when I say that it’s not like smoking actual tobacco. Every one of the ex-pats has tried it at some point on this trip and even people who have never smoked anything in their lives have no trouble with it at all. Since the tobacco is so wet in the first place; it burns not by being stoked with actual fire, but rather by hot coals that sit on top of aluminum foil over the tobacco holder; and furthermore since the smoke passes through a bowl of water, the resulting smoke is flavorful and soothing. If you’re reading this blog and want to give it a shot, let me know when I return and I’ll hook it up.

It’s so hot that we have to get out of the heat, but feel bad that we’d be wasting the entire afternoon on our day off, so we get a hold of two other colleagues and attempt to go to the art museum. Although the guide book says it’s open and the sign on the outside of the building says it’s open, it’s definitely not. Standing there in the skin-boiling sun we look up and see the King Abdullah Mosque towering over us not far away. It’s the largest mosque in the city, with a beautiful teal and green dome (I used it as a photo for my blog about religion earlier in this diary, see below), and the minarets have just started screaming the call to prayer. None of us have been brave enough to venture into a mosque, but there’s strength in numbers.

We head over to the mosque and it’s a tourist friendly place. We are asked to wait in the cultural center downstairs and not even directly connected to the mosque, while the afternoon prayers are taking place. They give Catherine a full-length, hooded black nylon robe to wear as women must be covered up when entering a mosque so as to not distract the men from the importance of prayer. We hang down there for 15 minutes or so, making sure to stay in the shade, until they tell us it’s okay to enter. They hand each of us a pamphlet that describes the construction process of the mosque and a very fascinating book that talks about the Islamic faith and the challenges that it faces today with extremism being associated with and dominating the minds of people all over the world.

I take off my shoes, leave them on a shelf outside, and walk in. It’s not like a Christian church. The main room is a giant circle, carpeted, with no furniture of any kind. There are no religious symbols on the walls (i.e. churches have The Cross everywhere, and candles) either; just a clock on the southeast facing wall (towards Mecca), with a digital board below it showing the date in both the Christian (2010) and Islamic (1431 A.H.) calendars, and the upcoming times for the next five calls to prayer. These times change daily based the rising and setting of the sun. To give you an idea, the times now are approximately 4:30pm, 9:30pm, 12:30am, 4:45am, and 12:55pm.

Sitting down on the carpeted floor towards the middle of this enormous circle I read the literature that was provided. The fascinating ‘Amman Message’ talks about the values of Islam with reinforcement through passages from the Quran. As I read this I realize that it’s very similar to passages in the Bible and I’m convinced now that all of these religions are basically the same. Be kind to one another, respect life, help the poor, etc, etc. Why there’s so much fighting about it all I don’t think I’ll ever understand; especially now.