It started with a mad idea (as most of my ideas tend to be): let’s go on one last big adventure before Dawa starts school after the summer. Let’s ‘live’ in Jordan for a bit. Just the two of us.
It is so much harder now to get away and just be somewhere else now that kiddo is at school, so this really seemed like the last opportunity to do something different and travel like I used to before I had a child. And so we booked flights and packed our bags…
Well, not quite.
Because as soon as those flights were booked, panic set in. ‘What the hell was I thinking?’, ‘where will we stay?’, ‘how am i going to stay sane without all these beautiful people in Berlin that help me raise this child?’.
But we didn’t choose Jordan on a whim. Initially I always wanted to go to India with Dawa because that’s where this child’s story started. Not only would that have been much more of a mission to get to and get around in, but we also would have had to start without any connections. All of my friends from my time in India have moved away or the connection has been lost. And this is why Jordan made so much more sense. We didn’t have to start from scratch.
Over the last few years, especially through the work at Give Something Back to Berlin, I have met so many people who are either from Jordan, have lived there for a bit, or at least have friends living there themselves. So it felt closer and much more accessible than India.
And all of them sprung into action as soon as our flights were booked.
We ended up getting to rent the spare room at my close friend’s best friend’s house. Jad and I started messaging about how to get ready for the trip weeks before we even left, so by the time we arrived (especially due to the highly entertaining video instructions on how to find the house), he felt like a completely familiar person. Dawa immediately started ‘redecorating’ the house and we had moved in. I’m still so sorry about all the chaos, Jad! I’m sure there’s a few toys under the couch to this day.
Three weeks later, another close friend Saeed, also from Jordan, came to Amman for a few weeks. So not only did we have the best tour guide for the city and beyond but I also had people there that would devote their attention to Dawa and give me some much needed breathing space. And in this perfect constellation we went on some of the most beautiful adventures. But it was more than just the little breaks I got in those weeks. I had people there who I could talk to about all the experiences we were having; people who would put these experiences into a wider context for us. People who know me back in Berlin, know roughly what our life there is like, and whom I don’t need to explain myself to. People who get it. Who get us.
One of those spaces that reminded me most of home, or my life in Berlin that is, was Jadal, a wonderful community space in the heart of Amman. Jadal for Knowledge and Culture is a space that focuses on critical reflection, knowledge sharing, artistic expression and discussion. It was recommended to me by several friends in Berlin independently of each other because they all had such great experiences there or had heard of it from their friends. There are a lot of similarities with how we approach community building at GSBTB. They host regular language cafes, dance workshops, talks, musical performances and community dinners. The space is open, accessible, affordable and everyone is welcome. There’s a beautiful rooftop pavilion that was built by community members, a little similar to the one at Refugio where we used to host some of our cooking sessions in Berlin. I am still subscribed to their whatsapp newsletter because I love still feeling connected to the place right now and finding out what’s going on there.
The first time Dawa and I attended one of their dinners in the rooftop pavilion, it immediately felt a little like being at our Open Kitchen sessions, only that this time we are looking out over the rooftops of downtown Amman, with its many levels and layers, and not the flat skyline that is Berlin. Fadi, the founder of Jadal, introduces himself to all the guests and we get to talking about the work that we do and how it’s very similar in many aspects. At which point Fadi tells me that last time he visited Berlin he attended a project very similar to what I was describing. It turns out he had been to one of our backyard BBQ sessions last summer! And it was the one day I couldn’t attend myself. So we missed each other in Berlin, only to meet in Amman. Needless to say, we are still in touch now.
And still, even with all the support and reassurance we received from folks in Berlin and Amman it was definitely not an easy transition. Or maybe I should rephrase that, the transition seemed really easy. But the day to day reality was hard at times. Going from reliable, daily childcare for a few hours every day, to absolutely nothing was hard. Despite the ease with which we settled in and met new people, there were many days where it was just the two of us. And I definitely underestimated that. Luckily. Otherwise I might have changed my mind and not gone.
But that would have meant missing out on all the highs of this journey. All those conversations we got to have, meandering the streets of Amman. About how everything feels different but really safe and familiar at the same time, and why that might be the case. About the food, the language, the daily rhythms. We wouldn’t have gone to Petra, which has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. We wouldn’t have gone to the Dead Sea, the Red Sea. We wouldn’t have adopted all those street cats (again, sorry, Jad!)
And we wouldn’t have been in Amman for the gathering at Saeed’s house, the memory of which fills my heart with love and joy to this day, months later. He had invited some of his closest friends in the city and we gathered over molokhia and tea. I baked a cake (the recipe for which will be on the website soon as well) and people brought instruments. Dawa was hanging out on the rooftop, observing the birds circling above the buildings as they are being called home by a person on a rooftop nearby. The music continued until late into the night and Dawa fell asleep in my arms.
Being invited into a community like that isn’t only about the shared joys however. It comes with a heaviness at times. And being in Jordan, with a population that is so predominantly Palestinian, the heaviness was ubiquitous. Even in the smallest interactions sometimes, it was so clear that our minds were elsewhere, in Gaza, a mere 300 miles away. It was noticeable in the streets, with all the flags, stickers, posters; in the spaces and in the conversations. And Dawa noticed it too. We had our favourite stickers at specific street corners, we had those conversations in the car, driving through the desert, we happened to be in Downtown during the Friday demonstrations.
Talking to a child about what is happening, not just in Palestine, but everywhere in the world, is hard. How do you stay true to the facts without overwhelming them? How do you use the admittedly still quite short attention span to answer their really valid questions about injustice without painting an unnecessarily bleak picture of where we stand? And I am constantly challenged in my own privileges. As a white person, living in the Global North, I have resources and rights afforded to me that others don’t have access to in the same way. The right to move wherever, the right to speak one’s mind, the right to clean and safe water, the right to live in dignity and self-determination. My mother has accused me of taking my child’s sense of ‘Geborgenheit’ (security) by talking to Dawa about racism, sexism and all the other fun ‘isms’ but to be honest, I feel this is mostly coming from her own fears and insecurities because she is realising that the world she tried to raise us for, never really existed. This kiddo however grows up in spaces where people have vastly different experiences in all aspects of society and therefore gets to shape a much more complex view of the world much sooner. Also, as a child growing up in diaspora, with a father who is a Tibetan in exile, colonialism, occupation and displacement are part of this child’s identity. And I see my child. I see how confidently they navigate this world, in Berlin, in Amman, anywhere. I see how they question the status quo, and most importantly, I see how well they know themselves and I think that comes largely from letting them figure it out. Not just with me, but with so many other beautiful people around us who hold space and provide a nourishing environment.
And with that comes a huge sense of connection and love. Raising a child in a community is inherently and collectively joyful. When you raise children in community with others, you have people around you, reassuring you that you are raising a beautiful human. A person that will live true to their values and will try to make a difference with the people around them. A person that will acquire tools and resilience over the years. Together, we are working towards something that we know is worth working towards. And that’s what still gives me hope. Because hope is active. Hope is built, maintained and nurtured. Hope lies in the connections, the experiences, the joy.
We want our children and all the children in the world to live in a better, fairer world and we are not sitting here waiting for this better world to arrive but we gather, we dream and then we move towards this future.