On the first of March 2018 I headed to Jordan, for a second Habitat trip. The only thing of note about the trip over was the connection in London. They were having a major snowstorm, and on the approach to Heathrow I flew over a snow covered Windsor Castle. That was beautiful!
About ten hours later I was in Amman and the weather was very different. It was hot and dry. But it was cold at night. I point that out simply to say, be careful when pulling a blanket out of the closet in a small hotel if you’re cold – I got bedbugs that way, in this hotel. That was a fun background to this trip, and thankfully I had a friend brief me on what I needed to do once I got back to Atlanta so they would not become a lingering problem.
The rest of the team arrived at the hotel in Amman, before my checked baggage I might add, and we had a team meeting. (My bag arrived the next day – I’d packed a bottle of vitamins in the bag and that required a detour through additional screening.) I think the room in which we had the meeting doubled as a wedding reception hall:
We left Amman and heading north to the small village of Pella in the north Jordan River valley. From the house, looking across the valley, was Israel. Just a little north was Lebanon, and over the hills behind the house was Syria. And I think they said we were ~600′ (183m) below sea level. This is house we stayed in:
There was a family living on the ground floor, and they rented out the upper floor to Habitat. We also had roof access, which was a spectacular place to have coffee in the early morning hours or to watch the sunset over Israel:
The location of the house was pretty cool. It was on a hill outside the main town. On one side were the ruins of a 6th century Christian church, and over the hill on the other side were the remains of an ancient Roman village
And truly, I cannot think of a more relaxing view from the house:
This trip is also noted for how much time we spent with the locals. And together. Normally we have our own rooms in a hotel – We stayed in two rooms in this house, men in one room women in another. And normally we eat at restaurants in the evenings – This time we went to peoples homes for dinner. More on that last part in a bit.
This is another time in which the build team would not complete the house. We were there to put up the walls. The construction was a solid concrete frame with cinderblock walls, double thick with insulating foam between. The roof, to be added later, was poured concrete as well, and it was designed to capture rain water for use in the house.
I did not take a picture, for whatever reason, of the concrete pit. But we had to mix our own concrete, by hand, for the house. It was really really really hard work.
Every day around 10AM we had a tea break. It was served hot, and very very sweet – But it was also served with the most delicious bread I’ve ever had!
The meals were something to behold! Lunch was served on site, in the front room of the house next door. I didn’t take any pictures of that. But each night for dinner we would go to another persons home to eat. It was a completely mind boggling spread:
One night in particular stands out. The Habitat host staying with us was named Mohammed. He would work a few steps of a dance into the various things he was doing, and we all asked him about it. He told us it was the dabke, and said he would show us how to do it. Well, after dinner one night the elderly couple hosting us invited their kids in to teach us how to dance the dabke. So there we were, in a small house in Pella Jordan, having a dance party. It was awesome!
Another day stands out, too, but for a different reason. All day at the build we kept seeing large military planes high in the air making u-turns and heading back east towards Syria. That night as we sat on the porch, about to leave for dinner, we kept hearing loud booms from far away. Our host said it was a village being bombed over in Syria, and the planes we saw all day were mapping out where to bomb. It’s so easy to not realize the difficulties that exist elsewhere in the world.
We finished our build, and had a great cookout to celebrate. We danced some more, ate a wonderful meal, and passed around the hooka.
My trip to Jordan was just for the build – I headed back to Atlanta the day afterwards. Hopefully I will make it back sometime to see all the attractions in the south. But it was still a great trip. I met some wonderful people, a few of whom still reach out from time to time to see how things are. And it seems pretty universal the ideals young families have – They want to make a better future for their kids, and they see home ownership as an important step.
So I’ve got one more Habitat build to tell you about, and that is in Cambodia. Plus I also have side trips that I’ve not yet mentioned. I’ll get to those.
Bottom line though, I cannot wait to get back out into the world and explore more – Either through Habitat or not.
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Will's GenX Adventure 