On Impressions

I was at the home of Mohammed this weekend (the weekend in the Islamic world is Friday and Saturday because Friday is their day of prayer) where an episode of “Cops” was on. He mentioned that if anyone was planning to go to the United States, their mothers would beg them not to go. Without fail the mother would believe that her son would get shot in the street by an African American.

In Washington DC, before I left, when I first mentioned to the teenagers and African-Americans who regularly hung out on my block that I was going to the Middle East, the first reaction for a few of them was “Shit, you think it’s dangerous in DC, over there everyone’s packing.” They were definitely joking, and another soon spoke up and said he thought I would be fine because as long as a person greets people with respect and interest you make friends easily and are welcomed.

For all the reasons you might imagine, my mom didn’t want me to go to the Middle East. The specters that some Americans (especially worried mothers) might imagine in the US are easily laughed off here. The likelihood that someone would get kidnapped or seriously hurt are extremely slim unless you consciously put yourself into a dangerous situation (by that I mean Gaza or non-Kurdish parts of Iraq. There really isn’t any place in Jordan that I wouldn’t feel safe). I sometimes joke with her that I do whatever I can imagine that would worry her the most.