The Day of Exceeding Strangeness

Yesterday was just one of those crazy, slightly unbelievable days. To begin with, we were scheduled to go on a field trip to a waste water treatment plant and King Talal Dam with the water politics class. Alright, so far so good, we all met at the bus at 9 AM to set out. From there, events just sort of progressed.

Step one: Drive to Samra wastewater treatment plant near the town of Al-Hashimyya in northern Jordan, about an hour from Amman. Stop at several points outside the town to take pictures of the oil refinery and power plant, earning more stares than normal from the local population.

Step two: Tour of the Samra plant. There were too many of us to take a walking tour of the plant, but they showed us a video (followed by a coffee break), a explained the process using a model, took us up to the plant overlook, gave us a guided bus tour of the plant – we were only allowed to get out at the last stop, between the final settling pools and the chlorine purification – and finally they took us to where the water, now clean enough to be used for irrigation, is released. The smell in certain parts of the plants is incredibly horrible, but remarkably almost nonexistent once you reach the final stages of the cleaning process. (If you want more information about any of this, let me know. I have to write a report on the entire trip so I have lots of notes about it all..)

Step three: Board the bus. Eat whatever lunch you had packed. Drive for an hour to Irbid, where we stopped at McDonald's for more lunching. Then back on the bus headed for extreme northwest Jordan (we'd wondered when he said it, but yes, we really were going to go look at the Golan.)

Step four: Our peaceful bus ride towards Syria is interrupted by texts from several people's friends claiming that there is no class Thursday or Sunday. After some initial confusion about whether this refers to one specific class or all the classes, Stewart (our academic director) is called and he confirms that ALL classes are canceled on account of an outbreak of the flu, giving all of us an unexpected four-day-weekend. Casual ideas about extending trips to Wadi Rum or Aqaba quickly spiral out of control into wild speculation about the possibilities of hopping on a plane to Kurdistan or India.

Step five: Plotting is semi-interrupted by our arrival at the “highest point in Northern Jordan” where some government official wants to charge us three dinar to enter some old ruins so we can try to spot Lake Tiberius. A helpful local says he knows a better place where we won't have to pay, so we get back on the bus and proceed through a series of military checkpoints towards the border. Our student IDs are checked, and we are forbidden from taking pictures.

Step six: Arrival at a rocky overlook near a cave where Jesus allegedly hid when he was fleeing from Nazareth (we can see the mountain from where we're standing. We are surrounding by olive groves and litter, leading to questions about who, exactly, is being permitted to come out here to create so much garbage. Below us, we can see the path of the Yarmouk River, and on the other side, Syria-as-occupied-by-Israel – the landmine fields of the Golan Heights. Our teacher points to the vehicles traveling along a road on the other side of the river and tells us, “Those are Israelis.” A little further away, we can see the clean waters of Lake Tiberius and on the other side, the town of Tiberius. The contrast between the greenery of Israel proper and the arid land of occupied Syria is stark. After the view, stepping into the sheep-poop carpeted cave is kind of anti-climatic.

Step seven: Head back toward Amman and King Talal Dam. Stop by the side of the road several times in order to, respectively: see a large dead snake near one of the checkpoints; take pictures of cows standing near some cacti; have the teacher buy us all a pomegranate from a roadside stand (ie a collection of boxes of fruit set next to the highway).

Step eight: Continue the long busride back. Weekend plotting continues, but reality increasingly forces its way in. Numerous phone calls and texts are sent to friends in Amman in attempts to facilitate plans.

Step nine: Attempt to stop and see the King Talal Dam. The bus driver asks for directions from several locals, but the closest we are able to come is a hillside that overlooks the lake but does not actually permit us to see the dam. Our bus pulls up next to a lone couple leaning against the from of their car. The woman shoots us one of the evilest looks I have ever seen, but its hard to blame her. The sudden arrival of a busload of American students would be a mood-killer for anyone. We all dutifully take pictures, then wearily pile back onto the bus to return home.

Step ten: Arrive in Amman, finalize weekend plans (I am going to Aqaba, just as I had been planning before we got school off), check email (I will have to translate my resume to French for my spring internship in Morocco) and of course get on Facebook (first live interaction with Jackie since I've been here!), then finally at 8 PM get a taxi home. Arrive, eat dinner, watch a little TV, then fall asleep at 10, before my host father has even returned from his job at the airport.