David Bjorgen (31 years old) relocated to Amman from California with his wife and young children more than two years ago. His photographs are here, here, and here. David cites the most difficult adjustment to have been “living in an honor-and-shame environment versus a guilt-and-innocence environment.”

Despite the differences between his hometown and his new neighborhood in Jabal Amman, including Amman traffic which is “extremely chaotic” compared to traffic in the US, he believes that living in Jordan has been a positive experience for his family. In fact, the close-knit family unit is the one thing David cited as something he hopes never changes about Jordan. They go to the movies, the mall, the Dead Sea, Waves water park, and give the Children’s Museum “two thumbs up.” Favorite restaurants are Reem al Bawadi for Arabic food and the new Fuddruckers.

They’ve added Arabic dishes to the wide variety of cultural dishes most Americans eat – Chinese, Italian, Mexican, and so on. On the subject of the part-time domestic help he recently hired to help around the house, David explains: “In the States, most people are a much less dependent on house help, so the concept is a bit foreign for us. In a way, I feel a bit lazy when I rely on someone else to clean up all of my mess. Jordan lacks some of the cleaning conveniences that we are used to in the States, however, so I guess a maid helps make up for that.”

David chalks up the perils of Jordanian traffic to impotent traffic police and plain old inherent human selfishness. Having taken taxis exclusively during his first year in-country he sees the quality of service on a curved scale, much lower on the whole than service found in Europe of the UAE but considerably better than taxis service in Cairo or Beirut. Drivers on the whole seems “a bit shady” a lacking in solid driving skills, but there are exceptions – like David’s friend and habibi, Mohammad.

The issue of individual rights came up several times in JOITE’s exchange with David, beginning when we asked him to name one thing he would change about Jordan. He said that he would like to see adherence to the golden rule – to treat others, even strangers, as one would like to be treated oneself. A favorite (free) free time activity, walking around Amman to take photographs, seems to be increasingly impeded by “security guards instructed to say that photographing anything, anywhere, is forbidden. While he attests to feeling “pretty much” free to practice a non-Muslim religion, he notes that non-Muslims have fewer freedoms and feels that allowances for religious minorities are dwindling.

Overall, David seems to be living the ideal propagated by his company, Middle East Educational Tours ;that “true cultural understanding can only come from healthy cultural exchange”. (We look forward to more photos in this collection / as he continues to delve into life in Jordan / ect ?)

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