There are some travel destinations on the globe, like Amman, Jordan, that rarely feature on most tourists’ bucket list.
When the executive director of an NGO in the media industry asked whether I would be interested in flying to Amman to attend an international media conference in mid-2012, what came to my mind immediately was to say a big no! Why? Because Jordan is an Islamic state on the East bank of Jordan River in the Middle East and was always in the international news, literally, for all the wrong reasons such as terrorism, bombings, anti-American demonstrations, clashes between Israelis and Palestinians, and Islamic fundamentalism.
The other reason was the Kingdom of Jordan shares a border with Israel, which is surrounded by hostile neighbors starting with their cousins the Palestinians. The neighbors are Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south-east, and Palestine (the West Bank) to the west.
Hostile Neighbors
On second thought and as a journalist with passion for travel and adventure, I accepted the invitation by African Woman and Child Feature Service Executive Director Rosemary Okello, and visited the Jordanian Embassy in down town Nairobi, in a building next to Jamia Mosque.
The visa application was processed on the spot by a jovial officer who wished me a safe trip and fruitful deliberations at the four-day biennial Forum for Media development which was to be opened by the King of Jordan.
The following day, which was a Thursday, I packed my clothes and took a dawn ride in a taxi to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for the flight to Jordan. While checking in at the Kenya Airways counter after I was cleared by the security and immigration officials, I saw a familiar face, looking closer it was David Makali, a fellow journalist and editor.
We shook hands and shared some general information of our respective families, work and mission at JKIA. I was glad to hear from him that we were both headed to the same conference to join fellow media defenders, activists, development partners and trainers. Within the next hour, we joined fellow passengers and boarded the KQ plane and were ready for the 3,529-kilometer flight in 4 hours and 52 minutes.
Stop Over in Cairo
We later had a two-hour stop over at Cairo International Airport where we were herded like sheep into buses and those who had connecting flights, were ferried to different destinations to alight and board our flights to different destinations in North Africa, Europe and Middle East and Asia.
It was during the bus ride that I bumped into ‘The Hyena’ (Makali) again armed with his rack sack and hand luggage heading to the Royal Jordanian Airline’s departure counter, like me.
The flight took the 1 hour and 20 minutes for the 879-kilometer trip which would take about 12 hours by road through Israel or Syria.
On arrival at Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, there was a sea change as far as security, language and culture was concerned. The formal language was Arabic, majority of the passengers and staffs were Muslims, going by their mode of dress, especially the ladies.
Makali and I stood out like a sore thumb in the airport as the handful of Africans dressed in suits and agbadas for the West Africans among others. It was intimidating and we switched to speaking in Swahili throughout our four-day visit to Amman. From the airport to our hotel in downtown we were assisted by protocol officers from the conference to board taxis to our hotel; they spoke broken English with an Arabic accent.
Cultural shocks
Another cultural shock was that contrary to my expectation that Jordan being in the Middle East and next to Saudi Arabia, the strict Muslim dress code of women wearing hijab over their heads and bui-buis (veils) was quite a rarity along the streets around the hotel. Some were spotted mingling freely with the guests and even smoking shisha pipes.
I engaged our driver during the 32-kilometer ride in a luxurious air-conditioned taxi in chitchat, and he revealed that: “I am not an Arab, but a Palestinian. We are on both sides of the border, in Jordan and in Israel, which we believe is our home by right. They (Israelis) are our cousins, though we never see eye to eye on anything!”
I was grateful to have asked that question which had been bothering me for many years, especially as a Christian and as a journalist, seeking to understand why the feud between the two was so deep and vicious.
Later during one of the sessions, I bumped into an elderly male delegate from Israel who introduced himself as an editor of a Tel Aviv-based newspaper, but gave me the impression that he was on a spying mission, most likely for the dreaded Mossad, the Israeli intelligence police service.
According to records, the director of Mossad answers directly to the prime minister. It has an annual budget of a whopping $2.7 billion and employs around 7,000 people, men and women, making it the largest espionage agency ahead of the U.S.’s Secret Service and the British government’s Secret Intelligence, commonly known as M16.
It reminded me of the Six-Day War, also referred to as the June War, in 1967, between Israel and her Arab neighbours which ended in the humiliation of the latter and victory of Israel. I was seven-years old in Standard two in that year.
From the airport to our hotel I was impressed by the beauty of the environment along the highway, clean streets, beautiful trees, shrubs and flowers along the highway.
Tight and discreet security
Unlike in Kenya where police were visible armed with their rifles on foot patrol, in Amman they manned the highway and the city discreetly wearing specialized sunglasses which we were informed have x-rays to scan through clothes and vehicles for weapons or explosives.
The same security precautions were applied at the hotel, where most of the over 500 delegates, like us, were accommodated.
For the next three days we attended the conference in one of the biggest halls I had ever seen. It was hi-tech with each delegate provided with a head set to follow the discussions translated by the professional team of translators.
The grand opening was by a prince who arrived in style, dressed in the official Muslim gown and surrounded by hawk-eyed bodyguards and aides. On the eve of the closing of the conference all the delegates were given a treat of dinner on the banks of the Red Sea where alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks flowed freely, thanks to the royal family.
We were entertained by a cultural troupe of horse riders who danced and sang along to Arab jazz in one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever witnessed. The bus ride took us through biblical sites of The Baptism Site among others, to the venue, a five-star hotel on the banks of the Dead Sea overlooking the Israeli border, was very enjoyable and relaxing after the hectic sessions in the conference.
During the memorable trip in hired vans, we also saw some of the scrolls mentioned in the Bible; splashed our feet in the salty water, which according to Christian mythology, cleanses the person of all sins or diseases. To the other side of Jordan River was the Red Sea, where Moses is reported to have parted the water so that the Israelis who were living as slaves could cross over from Egypt and head to the Promised Land during biblical times. Some of the delegates went and sat on a stone on Jesus’ baptism site and made a special prayer while others carried a piece of stone as souvenirs and bought sacred bottled water.
Dead Sea night visit
The joke among the delegates was: “How can they save the best for last by organizing the lavish dinner, refreshments and entertainment on our last day by taking us on a tour of the Dead Sea in the dead of the night!”
The return flight from Amman through Cairo to JKIA had a hitch when some of the airport officials misled us in their broken English at the airport to use a bus to the wrong destination.
Makali and I had to spend a night and day in Cairo after missing our flight. We felt like prisoners if not refugees. We were honestly glad when it was over and we could catch the following day’s KQ flight back home in to Nairobi after a very frustrating forced stay in a two-star hotel next to Cairo airport, where everything seemed to have been bad or poor quality from the hotel room, meals, refreshments and even service.
So when time came to board our flight to Nairobi, it was a big sigh of relief and joy to read the “Karibuni Nyumbani” sign at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
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