last night the world flooded.
this is probably because amman has literally ZERO drainage systems, and because it rains a bit here these days. so it will rain kind of hard but for not that long, and the streets will be flooded and i will be walking in water up to my calves. like serious wading to get to taxis because the water has flooded over the curb- this is impressive because amman's curbs are unreasonably high to keep people from driving on the "sidewalk", if you could even call it that. and this in a country with a water shortage? we could maybe be more effective in this area.
we went to a rap concert? strange i know. though i am not an expert, i suspect that rap concerts are more fun when they are in a language i don't understand. there is this swiss rapper called greiss (or something) who was playing a free show here- his flight and concert were sponsored by the swiss embassy. pretty serious stuff.
the opening act was more interesting, actually. they are a group called share3 (means street) 962, and they consist of like 15 rappers and breakdancers who call themselves a hip hop movement. as far as rap goes, they were off and on. sometimes they were great, there were times when i could have laid down a better beat with my personal gangstaskillz, ma3lish. but it was a really interesting experience, because the content of their songs (as translated by my friend, who was coincidentally the only girl there wearing a hijab and SO proud. we told her she was badass, and then had to explain that that was a good thing... oh i love her.) anyway the content of their songs was really beautiful. it was all about loss and violence and palestine and hope and the future. and there was a little boy who did one song, and the chorus was "it's our decision. we are ourselves". it was really powerful to me to hear their stuff, because when people talk about their past, and street violence, and all that, it's just different here. because you hear this boy talk about bombs going off and his friends killed in guerilla wars and how his mother still has the keys to their home in palestine, still hoping someday her kids will go back. not that street violence in the states isn't bad, obviously. but here it has affected such a huge segment of the population... there are half a million iraqi refugees in jordan. there are 1.3 million people in jordan who consider themselves palestinian. i can't even imagine what that must be like. and so they write songs, and the chorus is salaam, ya salaam (which means peace, peace).
if i could see a big guy in a hoodie and a sideways baseball cap shout about peace every time i went to a show, i would be much more confident in the world. jordan is good for me in that way.
life is beautiful. people are beautiful. i can't get over it.
this is bad, i'm feeling hopeful. better go watch the news or something, yeah?
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