A Week In Jordan
My first trip to Jordan left me with barely enough time to breathe. Between traveling to different parts of the country, attending lectures for a MidEast studies class and reporting abroad for the first time, all while trying to learn about the Jordanian culture outside of protests and Syrian refugees (what I was focusing on), I was lucky if a got a handful of hours to sleep at night.
This time around, there are no obligations to meet for lectures or travel excursions. There is no requirement for daily blogging, though on the days I don’t, I am haunted by my former journalism professor’s emails…”Don’t deny them…” It’s up to me how busy I should be, and getting work depends entirely on my personal motivation. Though it is entirely different being here without much structure, some things are the same, such as my struggle to balance work (finding stories, reporting stories, pitching stories, keeping up with the news, and learning Arabic) with enjoying the hospitality and company of the people, which is what convinced me to come back in the first place.
Never Forget.
It’s hard to feel connected to New York City today.
The Freedom Tower, August 2012
Here in Jordan, it’s not an issue that concerns the handful of people I’ve asked about it. They are more concerned with what’s happening now, such as the conflict in Syria. They aren’t worried about what happened 11 years ago, but what has happened in the past 18 months, and what the United States role is, and will be, as the fighting continues to the north with no end in sight.
At a cafe last night, I sat with a friend whose family is still in Syria. We talked about his brother, who is traveling to Homs today. The men sitting at the two tables on either side of us were talking about Syria as well.
First Friday! (Take Two)
September 5, 2012
ISTANBUL – 17 hours into my trip, 7 hours to go.
I took off from John F. Kennedy International Airport after midnight on September 4. Security, shoes off, shoes on, hurry up and wait. After a long, sweaty flight, I am in the Istanbul Atatürk Airport in Turkey. It’s crowded, hot, loud, and smells like chic perfume that I can’t afford to buy. I have yet to spot a person yet that looks more disheveled than me. No one else in this airport seems to be sweating, other than a pale, red-faced man I passed while I was searching for a place to sit with a T-shirt that read, “Irish Boys.” I am sitting on a worn leather seat in a row of nine in front of a swanky duty-free shop. It’s cooler here by the entrance than being amidst the swarming crowd passing by.
I wish I had a shirt to change into, but due to a last-minute packing crisis, I forgot to put a spare set of clothes in my backpack. Amman will just have to welcome me the way I left it last time I was there: a sweaty, exhausted mess…
Smugglers Support Syria
I was perusing TimesCast this morning, and I stumbled upon this video produced by Ben Solomon featuring smugglers based in Turkey who are transporting supplies into Syria, as well as moving injured Syrians out. Solomon also filmed activists that are bringing equipment into the country and returning with videos documenting what is happening inside the country.
It was so well done, I felt the need to share. It needs no introduction. Just watch.
Jordan in the Bing
I don’t hate Binghamton. I certainly don’t love it, though. It’s where I grew up. Coming back feels like home and yet, most of the time when I’m here, I feel like a foreigner in a familiar place. The juxtaposition unsettles me. As distasteful as the bus rides can be, I’m always happy to climb into the ol’ rage tube and head back to Boston.
Just looking at this photo makes my blood boil a little.
Last night, I met an old friend for tea at Starbucks. I expected the usual – a couple of hours of conversation about books, movies, writing, libraries (Ben is a librarian), Jordan and journalism, while sipping overpriced green tea and overlooking the stunning adjacent view of the Vestal Parkway. But last night was different. I was wearing a red kufiya, wrapped into a ring around my neck. And two men noticed.
Foreign correspondents for the summer
I’ve Gotta Get That Shot!
Holy shots!
Thank you to Anthony, for getting a shot of me getting a shot in Salt, Jordan.
Nostalgia Already?
It has been a little over a week since I returned from Jordan. I should be back into the swing of things by now. My body should be adjusted to Boston time. I should be working out again. I should be looking for new projects and opportunities. I should be looking for a job. I should, I should, I should…
But I’m not, I’m not, I’m not.
I’m restless. I can’t seem to move onto something fresh. I miss the sense of purpose I had in Jordan. While I was reporting on displaced Syrians, I felt like I was chasing something prodigious. I spent so many days and nights listening to horrific stories from astonishingly strong people. It was inspiring. It was life-changing. For the first time since I chose this journalism path, I felt beyond passionate about what I was doing. I was electrified and consumed by the story.
Now I’m back in Boston. I should be elated to be back in the land of long showers and air-conditioned coffeeshops, right? Instead of elation though, I feel more like I’m wandering through some far-flung woods without a compass (scratch that reference – compasses are so passé) Google Maps to guide me out. Am I experiencing my first reporting hangover?
I know I should move on, but all I want to do is go back.
Help a girl out, Google.
The World We Live In…
After back-to-back and incredibly long days of reporting, writing and editing with my professor — the hard-working Carlene Hempel — Matt Kauffman and I have finally finished our multimedia package on displaced Syrian families. It was the most intense reporting experience I have ever had. Actually, it was the most intense experience I have ever had, period.
As I was working on this story, I thought daily of a quote from my favorite book, The House On Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros:
“The world we live in is a house on fire and the people we love are burning.”
Syria is on fire. Its people are burning. Please continue on to read and watch below, if only to briefly meet some of these people who are fighting for their lives on the other side of the world. Thank you for taking an interest in their stories.
Journey to Jordan: By the thousands, Syrians are risking their lives to find refuge across the border
Story by Matt Kauffman and Melissa Tabeek
Photos by Matt Kauffman // Video production by Melissa Tabeek
Editor’s note: Reporters Kauffman and Tabeek put together a multi-media presentation of video and photography to show another dimension of what displaced families from Syria have been through on their journey to Jordan.
- Click here to watch a video of the impact on Syrian children forced to flee their country with their families.
- Click here to view a gallery of photos depicting life in Jordan for those who fled in terror. (Click the “Show Info” button at top right to read the captions.)
AMMAN, Jordan – Sameer Ahmed Darraj thanks God that his family of six made it safely to Jordan after suffering a siege in his hometown of Homs. He’s also grateful he found an apartment in Madaba, a small village southwest of Amman, to shelter his wife, two young children, mother and nephew.
But the trip to their second-floor flat is a struggle for this former Syrian chef-turned-rebel fighter. His legs were blown off by a rocket in April as he fought against President Bashar al-Assad’s army.
“We try to remain strong and try to have a very strong heart,” says Sameer Ahmed Derraj. Despite the horrors they’ve witnessed, the Darraj family finds solace in each other’s company.
Derraj wages a battle still, but now it’s from the flat’s only bed where he recovers from the loss of his legs, severed above the knees and marred with deep, rough, vertical scars.
“When we were crossing the border, we couldn’t speak, we couldn’t make any sounds. When our daughter cried, we had to cover her mouth,” said Sammer, Derraj’s 39-year-old wife, of their escape. “We gave the other [daughter] medicine to make her sleep.”
As Derraj talks about the four-day journey to Jordan carried by comrades across the border, about how his wife kept falling as she lugged their youngest child, about the death of his friend by that same rocket, he speaks for thousands like him. Together, he and they form a new sort of army: Syrians who have fled to fight for their safety and their lives.
Let The World Change You, Then You Can Change The World.
A comprehensive post about what I’ve learned as a person and a journalist in 33 days in Amman Jordan: go.
The words that first come to mind: sweat, hospitality, love, exhaustion, horror, maturity, disgust, stress, shame, pride, anxiety, hilarity, deadlines, fear, frustration, filth, cabs, awe, peace, nostalgia, despair, helpless, cigarettes, triumph, welcomed, overwhelmed, family, hope. Reading through my blog, I see these themes interwoven in my posts.
But the heart of my experience lies in my first assigned story of the trip: Syria. The morning after I landed in Amman, Jordan, I received an email from my professor requesting a pitch by 11 a.m. about Syrians. With more than a slight bit of panic about reporting in a country I’d known less than a day, so began my classmate Matt Kauffman’s and my journey into the underbelly of the Syrian humanitarian crisis in Jordan.
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