The Abtouqs of King Hussein Camp

Walking into the dingy corridor of a small house nestled amongst the steep, narrow alleys that criss-cross the Palestinian refugee camp on Amman’s Jebal King Hussein, I’m not quite sure if I feel comfortable or not. I had met 47 year-old Kamal minutes before, chain-smoking through yellowed teeth, as he stood on the steps outside his house. Upon learning I was British he told me how he once loved a British lady he had met in Lebanon, but that was a long time ago, and nothing had come of his affection.

He invited me in to take a tea and to meet his family. Through the doorway from the hallway came the sound of the Qur’an being read on television, a channel that I had seen many times before in the restaurants and cafés of Syria. In this room his father sat on a chair at the foot of his wife’s bed; she was recovering from a broken leg and so her life passed in this room. I initially hesitated as I entered; the father moaned & beat his chest, and I wasn’t sure that I was very welcome here. My fears, however, turned out to be totally unfounded. His “moans” were actually expressing “very nice to meet you”; seven years ago he had suffered a stroke which left him paralysed down one side, and with problems speaking.

This man had trained as an accountant in Lebanon, and had had a successful job, traveling all over the world thanks to his knowledge of business and his English skills. He comes from Jaffa, near Tel-Aviv, but was forced to leave in 1948 with the creation of Israel. He has since lived in this refugee camp with his family, and what was once a good standard of living has given away to relative dilapidation.

Kamal’s brother, Mahmoud, joined us and acted as a translator for his father. His father evidently understood everything I said, but his mind had trouble finding the words he wanted, and his body prevented them from expressing them. Both Kamal & Mahmoud had inherited some of their father’s English, and when they successfully explained his slurred Arabic to me, they were followed by emphatic cries of Aywa! Aywa! (“yes” in Arabic). When he couldn’t express himself, he tried to incite his words to come-out by slapping his forehead.

On the side-table next to his chair lay a photograph of the family at a hotel in downtown Amman when his now middle-aged offspring were still children, Kamal beaming at the camera. The hotel is now out of business, and Kamal, in particular, shows little hope for his life. He is evidently depressed at having reached his age without having raised a family; he asks me “who is more beautiful? Me or Brad Pitt?”. Did I think he would have a chance with Angelina Jolie, or Katie Holmes? Hollywood hasn’t passed him by, whilst he feels his life has.

Jordan offered citizenship to the Palestinians who arrived in 1948 & 1967, as Mahmoud testifies as he shows me his Jordanian passport. But whilst he is classed as a Jordanian citizen, his family still lives in the UN Refugee camp that was created here as a result of the huge waves of immigrants who fled Palestine during the wars there, and the quality of life is fairly minimal.

The Abtouqs are still suffering from the double-dealing that the British undertook following the Balfour Treaty, from the repercussions of the failed British mandate in Palestine. But the welcome they afforded me in their little house in Amman didn’t show any rancour of my nationality. The most important thing I could do, Mahmoud told me, is to tell people I know that “We Palestinians don’t hate Jews, like the media says. Our problem is with the Zionists. Jews & Arabs have lived together for many years.” They just need to get back a quality of life, one that cannot exist whilst they are still living as refugees.

Seven Hills

I love cities built on hills. Amman’s Jebel Hussein appears as a mass of haphazard grey or ochre, concrete buildings, each piled upon another. I can’t help but compare it to the ordered rows of red-bricked terrace houses of Sheffield’s industrial-revolution period, working class houses. A similar demographic, but a very different aesthetic.

Yet rather than being attracted to the city with the promise of work in the factory, the people here were forced from their land in what-was-then Palestine. Push-, rather than pull-, migration, I suppose.

The New Downtown of Amman

Crossing any border involving Syria seems to also involve smuggling. The driver of the shared taxi I took handed me several packets of duty-free cigarettes to stuff into my jacket as we were waved through into the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Maybe he felt I owed him one for the wait that was incurred once the staff issuing the visas saw the Iranian stamps in my passport. It promptly disappeared out back for half an hour before they granted me leave to enter the country.

Arriving into Amman from Damascus initially came as quite a culture shock. The place is undergoing a huge amount of construction. The skeletons of buildings take form, cranes dominate the skyline, and everything seems all very new. I had grown used to the absence of occidental chains in Syria. McDonalds, Starbucks, Toni & Guy; Amman has it all, so to speak.

The military also reflect the Western dollars in the country. The army & guards in Syria are usually quite a scruffy affair, brandishing tattered old machine guns, and often in an equally tattered old leather jacket. Not so in Jordan. The army here keep their boots shined and their fire-power reflects the $464 million of US economic assistance they receive. (2006 figure.) The machine guns were of the M-16 variety (as opposed to that of a Kalashnikov), and it wasn’t unusual to see a jeep with an oh-my-god-look-at-the-size-of-that gun bolted to the roof. No messing here.

The place is full of contrasts, and there is still a lot of poverty. These new developments I speak of sit on one side of the hill, and the other side houses the pre-fab buildings of the refugees and the poor. Somewhere in the middle sits Downtown, where its older buildings house (fake) DVD shops, jewellers galore and some pleasant little humus joints & narghile cafés, along-side the odd Roman ruin.

In Search of Solitude

Another reason for wanting to spend some time up in the monastery was to retreat from the bustle of the city a little, and to reflect on the coming months. Some people take this as far as taking residence in one of the numerous caves that are carved into the cliffs above the monastery, for meditation & reflection.

Me, I ran to the hills. Escaping with my thoughts and deliberation on what I was doing, and what I would do. But at times, it was a physical escape I sought, and so found myself running down the ridges of the mountains, and scrambling up the rocky outcrops. Several times, this involved some fully-fledged climbing, which turned-out to be a little more than I had bargained for, particularly in hiking boots.

At one point, around ten metres up, a piece of rock came away in my hand. I tried not to think of what would have happened had I fallen with it. I vowed not to take any more stupid risks like this.

An hour later, I reneged on my promise, and found myself bouldering again. This time, a whole slab or rock—from which I was hauling myself up with both hands—came away. I fell along with it, but managed to push myself away from under its path.

Had I found religion at Mar Musa, I would have said that He was definitely looking out for me that day. Instead, I put it down to luck.

Community Service

The monastery at Deir Mar Musa dates back about fifteen-hundred years, to 586 AD. In the 19th century, the place was abandoned, and it stayed this way until its refoundation in 1982 by Fr. Paolo.

The monastery receives so many visitors now that a new monastery is under construction, the other side of the river gorge. Parts of it are already inhabited by the community there, but there is still work to be done.

Due to its location, several hundred metres up from the road, the materials are transferred up to the monastery by a sort of téléphérique. During my time there, I spent a morning with one of the workers, shifting a couple of tons of rocks to be transported up to the new monastery. A bit of manual labour felt good.