Visit to Ancient Jerash

We had set today aside for a trip to the old Roman city of Jerash, but when we woke up this morning and looked at the threatening clouds we were rather discouraged. Walking around in the rain is bad enough, but trying to hold a camcorder steady while holding an umbrella over your head is nearly impossible. Be that as it may, we decided to go anyway because part of the trip was to gain experience getting around outside of Jordan.

So, we took our normal stroll down Jebel Natheef, through the Baled, caught a servis taxi to Abduli bus station where we located the bus to Jerash. Now this was a surprise. We expected one of the 20 passenger minivan type buses, but this was a Greyhound size bus. We set down in the second row just where we had a good view of the ceiling mounted television which was tuned to Jordan TV. So, for the low price of 75 cents each we not only got an hour's ride to Jerash in comfort, but we also had the opportunity to hone our Arabic comprehension skills. The 30 minute comedy designed to teach three particles of modern standard Arabic was the most interesting. Most buses in Jordan leave when they are full so we enjoyed these programs for 45 minutes before even starting the hour's trip to Jerash.

In Jerash we followed our strategy of riding the bus all the way to its termination at the bus station. This way we know where to find it for the return trip, but it usually means we have to walk back a stop or two through areas where tourists are not normally found walking alongside the road. Even though we attract a bit of attention we prefer to walk because we usually don't really know where we are going. Today was no exception, especially since we had to walk past a long string of car repair shops which includes alot of the associated clutter and muck that is hard to avoid on streets without sidewalks. Remember, tourists would normally take special buses that unload directly in the parking lot next to the ticket office.

So we eventually found our way to the south entrance at the site of the old city. Some say it is the largest, best preserved example of a Roman city outside Italy. Finding the actual entrance amid the maze of tourist shops clustered around the gate was another challenge. It was raining and shooting video was indeed difficult, but about half an hour after we got there the rain stopped and the clouds began to part. The benefit was we had a variety of lighting effects, with everything freshly washed and still dripping. The tourists were out in abundance as well as numerous groups of Jordanian school kids extremely excited and almost all of them wanting to practice there English "Hello", "My name is...", and the very nice " Welcome to Jordan." The last phrase is very common and quite appropriate for a country that is serious about maximizing its tourist resources.

It was all very impressive, but three hours of intense focus on finding just the right angle to try and capture the experience with enough variety that we can put together an informative and interesting program was quite tiring. How many ways can you shoot a stone stairway, paved road, birds, clouds, poppies, mustard fields, ants, floating algae, the modern city and minerets, and green hills in the distance. Finally, late in the afternoon we decided to quit for the day, get some lunch and head back to Amman. All in all it was a great day. Tomorrow we are back in the classroom and in the evening we will be sharing at another home meeting somewhere around Amman.