Mideast Diaries

The frustration is through the roof.  Actually, that’s not even true anymore.  I’m not frustrated, I’m just sad and disappointed and angry at myself.  A couple weeks ago I had this panicked feeling that Jordan was just the wrong place to be to cover this war.  I thought about going to Kuwait.  But I didn’t do it.  Part of it is just I have so many friends in Jordan, made so many contacts, and I like it better than boring and crappy Kuwait.  But now I’m so sad.  I’m back in Amman, feeling as far from the story as I would feel if I were in New York. (more…)

Ruwayshed is the town in Jordan closest to the Iraqi border–which is still another hour away.  It is such a miserable place: dirty, small, kind of angry.  THere are two really bad restaurants (I’ve barely eaten in days).  Me and a few friends rented a big house and decided to share it with others to help get the cost down. But the landlord freaked out at the fact that everyone else in town has rented their houses for much more money than he got from us, so he used the excuse of us having more guests to raise our rent.  Which means that we are now paying more money for a crappy house with lots of people and one toilet that is now stuffed up because it can’t handle so many people.  It’s really gross.  Another reason not to eat for days. (more…)

It’s five in the morning here and I just heard the loudest military airplane over my hotel.  There is such mad nervous energy around this place.  After months of sleepy, lazy life here–where I got obsessed with bureaucrats keeping my DVDs from me–the place is on fire.  This young Jordanian guy who I wrote about visited me the other day and said that he just felt so anxious walking around my hotel, everyone seemed so anxious. (more…)

Things are changing here, people are getting ready for the war.  After a few months where Amman has, overall, felt like this sleepy, lazy place with few stories to do, few of anything to do, it’s now in a sort of near panic.  For the past few days, most reporters are going on massive gear hunts.  The experienced war correspondents are telling us the things we absolutely need to have, things I’ve never heard of. (more…)

This whole week seems to have disappeared into a black hole.  There was a massive two-day snow storm in Amman.  It shut the whole city down.  There don’t seem to be any plows or shovels in this country.  The snow was thick on the sidewalks and the roads until today’s and yesterday’s hot weather started melting it.  I didn’t leave the hotel for two days.  Nobody did.  Well, I walked a block or so to another hotel at one point and my feet were wet and freezing.  I wish I was able to do a lot of work while trapped in the hotel.  (more…)