My last few days in Amman were perfect. Savannah and I had a
glorious Friday: brunch with Amira, the royal spa treatment at the Turkish
bath, watching “I Love You, Man” and lazing around. By about 10:00pm my stomach
was giving me one last go of Arab tummy…or so I thought. Savannah and I had a
teary goodbye (I MISS YOU) and then, 34,000 above the Mediterranean, I was
clutching the airplane bathroom and puking my brains out. Lovely, I know. The term for this sort of thing after a
trip to Latin America is Montezuma’s Revenge…can I say that this time around I
had a case of Mohammad’s Revenge? That is SO not PC...By the time I reached Frankfurt I was
exhausted and felt so lucky when I found a terminal filled with dozens of rows
of cots. I snoozed for a couple of hours before my next flight. The 11:40 hour
flight to LAX was easy but odd…a flight attendant actually prayed for me to
feel better. I told him I would take all the help I could get. Touching down in
LA felt surreal – almost like I had left Amman only minutes before. My parents
were there to greet me – of course my dad had drawn a sign for me.
For the past week since I landed at LAX I’ve been settling
into life in Santa Barbara. After a whirlwind experience of interviewing for,
being offered, and accepting a position to teach art at an international school
in China my visa application was denied by the Chinese government. That was a
huge disappointment. So….on to plan B…the details of which have yet to be
determined. So, for now, I will be in Santa Barbara. I’ve spent my time
unpacking from Amman (this really only took an afternoon) and unpacking from
college (this is turning out to be an ongoing process). I’ve done a lot of
babysitting (part of plan B), a lot of walks on the beach with a friend, I
started a batch of kombucha and have turned my early morning runs into a habit.
Amazingly, I haven’t experienced any jetlag but my highs and lows of reverse
culture shock have definitely been weird. I’ve been thinking about Amman quite
a bit – what it was like to live there, what I learned, and what I miss. There are only a few things that I miss
about living in the city, but those few things I am really, truly, deeply
missing.
I miss the way the first call to prayer drifts throughout
the wadis and lingers on this hills, gaining intensity and volume as each
phrase reaches its predecessor until another call from the mosque on the
opposite hill suddenly soars out and they meld together, the sound exploding
skyward. I miss the ever-present soft breeze that made the unbearable heat
bearable. I miss the thrill and confusion of seeing a lazy, clearly lost cloud
floating over the city in the mid-afternoon. I miss smiling and waving at the
owner of Awni, the corner store, and his two store helpers. I could always
count on a smile and a wave from them.
