Chapter One
Back in the City
After a seemingly never-ending odyssey from Dulles back home through King Khaled in the Saudi capital, I had never been as grateful finally landing at Queen Alia International, for yet another summer in Amman.
After being picked up from the airport by Riyad, my point-person and soon to be office guide and co-worker, gathering a few groceries—the most important of which being water for suhoor, the pre-dawn meal to prepare for the the day’s upcoming fast—and a luxuriously long and hot shower, I cracked my patio screen door open, and fell asleep to the all too familiar sounds of the clamor of the city below.
To say to my first day back in Amman was a recovery day would be putting it conservatively. My team lead, Hala invited me over for iftar at the house of her mother, and it wasn’t until then, sometime around 7 pm, did I leave the solace of my apartment.
Iftar at Hala’s mother house was perfect in every way possible. Full of great food and even better conversation, discussing everything from regional politics to life in America, along with the family’s personal stories of old Amman and their relationship to the former King, Hussein ibn Talal, over tea, coffee, and sweets, I could not think of a more pleasant way to inaugurate my stay here in Amman.
Work
I began my first day on the job on Sunday morning (in Jordan, as in many other Muslim-majority countries, the weekend falls between Friday and Saturday, to accommodate the weekly communal Friday Prayer for Muslims) at the Jordan CITIES (Cities Implementing Transparent, Innovative and Effective Solutions) Project Office, and immediately felt a rush of both excitement and nervousness, a refrain that remained with me the rest of the week.
A bit of background: In August 2015, the Jordanian government passed the Decentralization Law and the Municipalities Law, a display of the Kingdom’s desire to focus more on the integration of local and municipal councils into the larger vehicle of governance in the country, in an effort to solve the increasingly difficult political and economic problems facing not only Jordanians, but other residents of the Kingdom as well, chief among them upwards of 1 million displaced Syrians.
In order to ensure continued stability in the Kingdom, and the region at large, USAID has decided that decentralization, and supporting increased agency to local and municipal governments was a paramount need and mandatory focal point in Jordan, which is where CITIES comes in.
Jordan CITIES is one of USAID’s largest missions and addresses six areas for the furtherance of the aforementioned development, with each area being tasked to a team within the project. These areas are:
1) Improved Service Delivery
2) Sustainability of Local Governments’ Operations
3) Community-Government Engagement
4) Community Cohesion and Resilience
5) Gender Equity and Social Inclusion
6) Decentralization.
(the latter two being crosscutting and dabble across the previous four areas to varying degrees)
The goal of the project is to strengthen local and municipal institutions in an effort to afford the people and residents of Jordan a bigger stake in their government through higher citizen-government engagement, an increased sense of belonging and ownership, more access to economic opportunities, and better government services, all of which require a keen eye for sustained development. The line of thinking is that when there is significant and properly done decentralization, that the average layperson will be able to seize opportunities in their home locales and regions as a result of an empowered municipal framework of governance, all resulting in a more productive and increasingly transparent society, a hopeful example to the rest of the Middle Eastern region.
For my internship I will be working alongside both the Community Cohesion team, and the team for Community-Government Engagement. To say I am honored would be putting it lightly. The CITIES office felt more like a home-space than an office, and each and every single person I’ve encountered has been unduly welcoming and hospitable, even when they’re making poking fun at my Arabic for being too Syrian or Lebanese sounding and not Jordanian enough ;)
Through the whirlwind first-week of orientations, meetings, and adjusting to non-regular Ramadan work hours, accompanied with a bad case of jet-lag I have yet to shake off, I can confidently say I am grateful and privileged to have been so warmly received at CITIES, and personally cannot wait for what is to come.
Contentedness
Back at my apartment, I spent periods of the day reading the project’s quarterly reports, given to me by Hala, and a slew of documents on topics ranging from potential legal issues surrounding territorial jurisdiction vs. subject-matter jurisdiction in Jordanian governorates and reducing the conflicts between them in, to analyzing the current progress of Jordan’s decentralization efforts, given to me by the Advisory team.
On my balcony, I break my fast at sunset. In between spurts of reading, staring at the goings-on of the passersby on the street, and taking sips of Qamar ad-Din, a Syrian apricot beverage popular across the Levant and Arab world that’s most commonly consumed during the month of Ramadan, I take a deep breath and smile.
Despite knowing the next nearly 3 months are going to be a challenge, both mentally and emotionally, I’m truly glad to be back in the city that I’ve grown to be rather fond of. From the nervousness of tackling the projects my nascent internship is sure to bring, to the excitement of seeing all my local friends again, I look down at the kids on the street playing soccer in between the gangs of friends coming and going, laughing and seemingly having a good time, and can’t help but to feel part of their joy. Knowing that I have a strong support system here, both in and out of the office, makes everything all the more easier.
I take one last look at the street beneath me, beautifully lined with date palms, olive trees, and jasmine, before returning inside to call it a night, leaving the screen door open. Amman was built on seven hills, making the nights breezy and air conditioning thankfully often unnecessary. I cross my fingers, hoping that the flurry of activity of a city that has awakened from its daytime fast beneath me won’t hamper my efforts to sleep (quite a change of pace from quaint ol’ Williamsburg, if I do say so myself), and laugh, eager to begin what promises to be a summer of contentedness.