I spent a lot of time pre-departure ensuring friends and family that Jordan is a safe and stable part of the Middle East and that they needn’t worry excessively about my safety. The staff here spent almost as much time convincing us of the same thing during our Day 1 orientation. All the pre-departure research I did seemed to validate what we were told and a little careful thought about Jordan’s history and current economy reinforced this. One of the three major industries in Jordan is tourism, making up a large segment of GDP. In order to protect this revenue source, Jordan must be able to guarantee visitors security and stability, and my experience so far suggests that it succeeds in this responsibility.
During Day 0 (prior to orientation), a fellow Tar on the trip with me and I went walking about Amman to explore the surroundings of our hotel. We found armed police at every other street corner and security kiosks at frequent intervals. Though they seem unconcerned with traffic safety and vehicle flow, police are very welcoming and helpful. My colleague and I were able to have some limited, but meaningful, exchanges with the officers meeting their intermittent English with our intermittent Arabic.
During Day 1 (yesterday), a group of us decided to visit Rainbow St. close to downtown Amman (which is a very youth-focused, Westernized part of the city) after orientation to soak in that part of the culture. The primary means of transportation for tourists is taxis (which are ages cheaper than back home). The police officers at the corner of the street we chose to hail our taxis on greeted us as we walked by and helped the first chunk of our group hail a cab (there were 9 of us, so we had to take 3 cars). I broke off from the second group with a friend so she wouldn’t ride in the 3rd taxi alone and we tried to hail our own cab a few meters away from the police post and the rest of our group. Noticing this and realizing the (wrong) type of cab that had answered my hand gesture, the officer whistled at my friend and me and waved us over to him, offering “you don’t want to take that taxi; please, take this one” as he pointed to a different car in front of him. He got the taxi door for us and said “welcome to Jordan.”
I couldn’t help feeling like a stereotypical tourist after that, but I also felt safe and looked-after. Certainly, the fact that we were American tourists influenced the officers’ demeanor–we have been told and have noticed that police are not quite so warm towards Jordanians–but it doesn’t detract from the fact that the segments of Amman we have seen so far do seem to take safety seriously and want to ensure visitors to Jordan feel secure (and eventually desirous of returning).
I learned today (after starting this post) that police in downtown Amman and other parts of the city away from our hotel and the embassies are less concentrated, but equally professional and helpful. I won’t spoil the orientation for future SIT students, but today involved asking for a LOT of directions from Jordanians in different parts of the city, and everyone we spoke with, from the student to the shop owner, was polite and seemed truly willing to help us.
I can say with firsthand experience now: Jordan (Amman) is not dangerous.