Arrival

My first night in Amman has been peaceful. I am staying in Hashem Shemaly with Iraqi friends. Although they fled the war, they do not like to be called refugees- and I can understand why. It's a bleak word.

When my friend picked me and Habib up at the airport today he noticed twenty or so Iraqis who had just made it through passport control. The reader board above baggage claim listed an afternoon Iraqi Airways flight from Baghdad. On my last trip to Amman, about seven months ago, I learned from credible sources that sometimes Iraqis were not even allowed to disembark from the Iraqi Airways planes. These flights often returned to Baghdad full of refugees who had been turned away. So it was interesting to learn that these days Jordan might be admitting some new Iraqis - I will keep my ears open for more on this. It's possible that the twenty Iraqis we noticed had diplomatic passports, or were just in town for business.

After dinner my friends and I sat out on the patio and watched their kids play. The son started school last Sunday, in part thanks to a decision from the Jordanian government to allow Iraqi kids into public school. Their daughter, the youngest, should be in kindergarten but she refuses do go. She does not like to be separated from her mother.

I remember speaking to this family a little more than a year ago, when they were in Baghdad. It was the last day of the school year, and the parents were relieved the kids were going to be cooped up at home for the summer months. Sending the children off to school in the morning and waiting each evening for their safe return was torment.

We stayed on the patio until midnight, speculating about what life could be like in America for this family, which has applied to the refugee program. I told the mother that I ride a bike to work, and her face lit up. She's looking forward to riding a bike in the U.S.