176.
Amman, Jordan:
Six young Palestinian men meet me on the street my first night in town and invite me to share a good chicken dinner with them at one of the nice restaurants.
After dinner we adjourn to a teashop for conversation. They all speak excellent English. The stories they tell me are more than interesting. One thing is perfectly clear. They want to return to the land that they consider theirs but which is now the State of Israel.
Next morning, when I visit the ruins of Amman’s old Roman theater, I meet a pair of congenial young Canadians, Sandy and Rob, who are making their way, very slowly, to Australia. They are staying at a cheap hotel and I move my things into the same hotel.
Since today is the final day of the Moslem holy month of Ramadan, the hotel owner invites us all to join him and his family for an after-sunset dinner of mutton, rice and a powerful alcoholic beverage called “arrack”. Of course, drinking alcoholic beverages is forbidden to Moslems, but not all Moslems obey this law.
Later the same evening a Palestinian guest in the hotel takes Sandy, Rob and me for a drive around the city. We visit the university and then a large permanent settlement of Palestinians. He completes his free city tour at a disco on the edge of town where we dance to American rock and roll. When the DJ plays some traditional Jordanian music, a local girl does a belly dance that knocks me out!
The next day, after much talk, joking and even some chess, the Palestinian drives us over to the ancient Roman town of Jarach.
On the stage of the ruined theater, we perform an imaginary scene from my unwritten drama: “The Map of Edge City”.
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