Field Trip

It has been a few weeks since I have managed to post anything.  A combination of things have kept me away.  Busy at work finalizing the first draft of a plan for the city of Amman.  An Eid trip out to the amazing eastern desert with its endless tracts of sand covered with black basalt boulders stretching as far as the eye can see toward Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia.  (There are amazing Roman fortresses out in the middle of the desert, built from the black volcanic boulders, that demarcate the edge of their empire.  It is amazing to imagine how they inhabited the landscape 2 millenia ago.  Those Romans were tough.) After that, a weekend at the dead sea to relax.  And then another weekend spent camping in the Dana biosphere reserve with a dear friend who was visiting from Vienna.  In short, life is good.

Despite long hours spent in the office during the work week, working on all the last minute things that go into releasing a government document - fact-checking, proofreading, briefings - I did get out of the office last week to do some field verification.  My favourite part of the job.

This time a colleague and I were verifying the mapping of agricultural lands in the city of Amman.  For reasons too complicated to explain, the mapping of agricultural lands is a tricky business and the lands themselves - which are scarce in this arid land - are constantly under development pressure.  I realized, in fact, that a lot of land I would have dismissed as sand year ago I can now identify as arable.  My eye has been trained to see farmland where I once would have seen desert.

Of course, as always, we came across wonderful and strange sights.  In addition to the endlessly fascinating (to me, anyway) bedouin tents and flocks of goats, camels and sheep camped out at the edge of the city, we saw new things as well.  In the middle of a completely rural landscape, in the heart of fertile olive groves, we stumbled upon a vast, newly built, utterly deserted social housing project that is a the result of a government housing initiative.  Completely isolated from any services, you cannot help wondering how and where the inhabitants will buy groceries, access employment, take their kids to school.  Another stark example of bad public policy at work.

Later, driving through a village at the south end of the city, our driver, Mansour, announced to us that we were passing his family's shop and that right behind it, there was a gold souq - would we like to see it?  Sure, we said - not quite certain what to expect.  Some cheap gold for sale?  So he drove us down a couple of dusty narrow laneways and past the requisite group of guys fixing a car, to pull up beside a Roman ruin, columns and intricate scrollwork intact, giant limestone foundation blocks still in place.  There were chickens scratching around and kids playing in the dirt.  Turns out  this was a Roman gold treasury - hence 'gold souq' - and the village has built up around it, just taking the ruin for granted as a part of the landscape.  My colleague had never heard of the site before - it was entirely new to her.  I went back to the office and double-checked... yes, we had identified this on the major antiquity map.  So that is a step in the right direction.  Now, perhaps, someone will pay attention to the site?

And so it goes.

Time keeps sliding by here.  It is October 2nd and the weather still feels like midsummer - 30 degree days and 20 degree lovely starry nights.  Except for the dust.  Mad dust storms, completely out of season, have been sweeping the city.  One came through this afternoon - something that looks suspiciously like a storm cloud, sudden wind, all at once zero visibility with sand swirling everywhere.  30 minutes later it's gone.  This time, mercifully, I had the foresight to close my windows!