The Last Week

It is my last week in Amman and I have been revisiting a few of my favourite spots, wandering down Rainbow Street, filling up on felafel and revisiting the local hammam. Al Pasha Hammam is a new purpose built bath house that, while lacking in the historical characteristics of the Hammams in Turkey and Syria, stays true to the traditional architecture and manages to facilitate communal bathing without engendering the weird feeling of constant observation.

I was here about two months ago, so I know the drill. Bikinis are the attire of choice here, there are no over zealous bath attendants trying to rip them off you, and although there is the odd exposed chest, most opt for more modesty. First comes the sauna, where you sip a sweet hibiscus slushie as the steam surrounds you and you try to avoid the harsh droplets of boiling water plummeting from the dome shaped ceiling. Then, you wait in the hot hot spa until it is your turn to be laid out on a raised marble slab and scrubbed until every inch of dead skin comes peeling off in the sudsy lather. Then, you hop back in the spa to wait some more for your turn to be poked and prodded in a comprehensive massage session. I know how this will play out, so I'm calm and relaxed, enjoying my final hammam experience, for a while at least.

I step in to the sauna, armed with my cup of frozen Hibiscus. The heat that was unbearable during my last visit is now presents a challenge that I am willing to face. The steam stings and smells of something familiar, lemon grass perhaps?

As I sit in the dark steamy chamber I reflect on my time in the Middle East. Like the sauna, so many things about this trip were unbearable in the beginning, but these were things that I became accustomed to, that I gradually grew to stand, and even embrace. Just as the sauna's steam can feel torturous as it cleanses your sinuses and softens your rough skin, so too can another culture feel abrasive, as you rub up against it, as it blocks your path, but ultimately envelops you, and you become a part of it.

I emerge in to the summer heat refreshed and ready for Downtown, ready for the stares and the felafel sellers and taxi drivers intent on taking advantage of yet another white tourist incapable of counting her change.

But, I face it as the heat of the sauna, and hope to be cleansed in some way by these experiences. Cleansed of prejudices and pre-conceived ideas. It won't be long before none of these obstacles will exist, back in my own country, speaking my own language.

You take the good with the bad, the pain with the joy. And you are thankful for the little things, forgiving of the frustrating things and you move on, ready for the next adventure.

Thrilled to be back.

It's been a week since anyone has looked at me in that way, and I'm wondering if its the new hair cut, or perhaps the toll that the Israeli border experiences have taken on my previously relaxed holiday demeanour. Then, of course, it twigs. I've been in Europe, where blonde hair and exposed shoulders cause no commotion, my caucasian face is unremarkable and in the crowd I become plain Jane again. I walk the streets unnoticed, unharrassed.

In fact, London is cold and wintery and my haram shoulders stay wrapped up in layers of clothes. When the sun finally shows its face I'm so used to modesty clothing I carry my scarf and cardigan everywhere, sweating under my dark blue jeans. And no one cares.

I miss it, that feeling that I have complained so bitterly about- the stares and sideways glances. I have grown accustomed to my difference, and the reaction it provokes. This cool indifference is what I will return to when the time runs out and the plane takes off and I'm home again.

When I arrive in Amman the wind blows pleasantly warm and the temperature is a summery 33 degrees.

Against my better judgement I leave the apartment in jeans and a singlet. The sensation of the sun on my skin feels like paradise, although it's not too warm for a shirt with sleeves. A taxi stops for me, more than 100 meters away, without me even hailing it.

Screeching recklessly through the streets of Amman, unrestrained in the back of the cab, with the wind in my hair I feel the familiar adrenilin rush that comes with the joy of being back here. I can't tell if it's the perfect weather washing over me or the undeniable fact of my obvious difference- in looks, in attitude.

Either way, the blood courses through my veins as the cityscape flashes past in brilliant white.