Tidbits on Amman

While I was in Amman, Jordan for almost 10 days, I didn’t get many opportunities to roam around in the city. However, during my travel in taxi-cabs to various meeting venues, around the city, I observed the following –

People: In Amman, I found people to be very warm and friendly, at least to visitors. Every time, they get to know that you are out of the country, they will say “Welcome to Amman, pleasure to have you here”. Almost everyone speaks English and is very courteous and ready to help with directions, locating the address, speaking to the cab driver in Arabic to explain where to go, help you recharge your phone etc. People generally wear western clothes and local women always wear an elegant head-scarf. While women dress up in modern western clothing, the only skin which is visible is face and hands. I don’t know if it was winter effect or that’s how generally they dress up. One irritating part is that smoking in public spaces is not prohibited yet, and lot of people smoke here. We had several situations whereby people were smoking in an air-conditioned space. This reminded me of my stint as a student-trainee in Ghaziabad in 1994 at a company, whereby almost everyone used to smoke in that small air-conditioned office, making me feel choked very often.

Food: Only one word to describe food in Amman – awesome. Middle-eastern food which is tasty and cheap, is available everywhere. We went to one place called Hashim where only falafels are served. Six of us had dinner of unlimited Pita bread with 2 types of Hummus, salad, tea and falafels only for JD 10. There are many fancy restaurants all over the city, which would serve non-stop delicious food. Our last meeting was in one of these restaurants, whereby they kept serving the starters / appetizers of various kinds, and since it was all vegetarian I kept eating, only to realize that there is main course as well. Similarly, there was a huge variety of desserts as well, followed by tea/coffee. For someone like me who is used to of drinking tea, Amman is a blessing – tea without milk and with mint and honey is available almost everywhere. Lot of major US food chains – McDonald, Burger King, Hardees, Starbucks & Costa Coffee – are present in Amman, though of course, I didn’t step into any of them, so no idea how good / bad they are.

Roads: Amman has very good tarred roads all throughout the city, including connecting highways - no potholes and no filth on the road. Road signs are clearly marked and  roads are lit properly during night. Flyovers dot the main city, which, probably, were constructed to ease the congestion, which by the way, still exists during peak hours in morning and evening. I think, the reason for congestion is the fact that roads are narrow and there is no separate space for parking, which results in vehicles being parked on the road-side which contributes further to the congestion. The highway exits are generally steep turns, though two major highways are connected with a typical butterfly. While I didn’t see anyone jumping traffic signals, people try to squeeze in and don’t follow lane discipline always.

Taxi-cabs: Traveling in cabs is very cheap in Amman. By meter, it was only once that our fare went up beyond JD 2. Though, lot of times, cab drivers look for a fixed fare more than JD 2 than go by meter, for the obvious reasons. There are plenty of tax-cabs available in Amman, though on some streets one may have to wait for a bit before being able to flag down one on the street. Fares to/from airport are not fixed or metered, though most commonly asked fare is in the range of JD 20-25.

Skyline: Amman has very few high rises, and almost all of them are newly built and house either major international hotel chains or offices. I think only a couple of them are residential units. People typically prefer houses than apartments. A lot of buildings have used an elegant looking off-white stone / tile as external façade which gives the skyline a very nice look, especially during day time. Since Amman is on hills, the skyline, in general, is quite beautiful on a sunny day, though there weren’t very many sunny days during my trip.

Reaching Amman

Two weeks ago, I packed my bags to go to Amman, Jordan to attend a conference, hosted jointly by UNICEF and MobileActive.org, on mobile technology and its usage in social development. I was very excited about it since I had never been to that part of the world, even though I had heard a lot about it. Though, it didn’t start without any hiccup. I was supposed to leave on Sunday, and on Wednesday I received a call from Jordan Embassy in Washington DC that my visa is approved and I should go to embassy to get it stamped. I was in NYC at that time, so had to change my flights and rush to DC to get the visa. Fortunately, I reached in time, and I got the visa. Sunday, I took the flight to Amman, Jordan via Istanbul, Turkey on Turkish Airlines. Flight was quite uneventful but when I reached Ataturk airport in Istanbul, I was pleasantly surprised to see the modern and comfortable airport.

When the plane started to descend in Amman, it was evening and cloudy so I couldn’t see the skyline of the city. The plane went through the clouds, and as soon as things became visible, we touched the runway. I was surprised to find that clouds were so low in Amman. It kept me thinking all the while until I started talking to the cab driver on my way to the hotel. He told me that Amman is situated on 6 hills, and then I understood why clouds were so low. Amman’s Queen Alia International Airport is a small but decent airport. Though, I noticed that even though the air-bridges were empty our aircraft didn’t get any, and we had to get into a bus to get into the terminal. This reminded me of the Bangalore's International Airport, where same thing happens. The cab driver was quite a talkative person and he told me lot of things about Jordan including countries around it and how far the borders are. When he told me that Dead Sea is just 45 min drive, I couldn’t believe it, as I wanted to visit it quite desperately, and here I was so near to it, and I didn’t know about it at all. I was very surprised to realize that it is the first time that I was coming to new country without checking what all is around it and what are the visitors attractions, wondering what’s up with me …

Trip to DC

Recently, I traveled to Washington DC to visit Jordan Embassy to get a visa for Jordan. It was quite an interesting trip in lot of respects. I traveled in Amtrak Tesla from NYC to DC, and it made me go to famous Penn station in NYC. The journey reminded me of the movie Unbreakable, which is one of my favorites, and in my opinion, shares the best movie rank of Knight Shyamalan’s (along with Sixth Sense). The journey was quite comfortable and I could easily continue with my work, thanks to good GSM coverage all along the track (except couple of tunnels). When I reached DC, I took a cab from Union station to the embassy. The cab driver was a middle-aged African-American, and he was driving leisurely and completely focused on some political talk-show on one of the FM radio-stations. From what all he said, it was very clear that he was quite involved in city level politics and neighborhood development. I was quite amazed to hear him, and I felt happy that people are involved in civic affairs of their city.

Experience in the Embassy was quite an interesting one. I went through a metal detector and baggage x-ray check. The lady at the counter recognized me as soon as she saw my passport because it was her who called me up earlier to intimate me about the approval. She took my passport and the visa fee but didn’t give me any receipt. I sat down there to wait for the process to complete, as I didn’t have elsewhere to go. While sitting there, I observed that none of the visitors walked through the metal detector – everyone got in from the sides. Though, it was also true that most of the people were either embassy-staff or courier agents (who collect forms & passport and then deliver at the embassy for visa approvals), who are all well known to the security guard on the post. After a while, I opened up my laptop and started working on it, and no one objected. It was quite a pleasant surprise for me since in US Embassy at Chennai one can not even take a mobile phone inside. Then, I decided to use my GSM dongle to connect to internet and check my emails etc. I thought someone will come and ask me to shut everything down but no one did. It was exciting to be sitting in an embassy and working on the laptop which is connected to the internet. After 2 hours or so, I got the visa stamped in my passport, and I left the building.

On the way back from embassy, I flagged down a cab to go to airport. The cab driver was a white man, and he started having a conversation with me. He asked me if I am from India, where do I live and why I am in US etc. Then he used the Hindi word “daldal” (marsh in English) and I was shocked because it is not a word which westerners typically learn. Astonishing part was that he used it very appropriately in the right context. When I asked him about it, he started speaking in Hindi ! I was stunned as this was the first time that I met a white person speaking Hindi so fluently and with such an ease. It turned out that he has traveled within India quite a bit and then he stayed in Karachi for roughly 4 years. He told me later on, that one of his grandparents was from Afghanistan. He appeared to be in love with the subcontinent and said that he is very sad about what is going on in Afghanistan.

Being a BA

Last week, I went to New York City to help out a team, which arrived from India office, to kick off an Inception/Discovery process. This was the first time, I was actively involved in such an exercise, and to be frank, I was not very confident about my ability to add much value to the exercise. The week started and apart from a very stringent security check while entering the building, there wasn’t anything else which provided enough challenge. In fact, the building security was very helpful but it was the client’s security desk which was more painful. I also didn’t protest too much because it is client’s work place and I was there only for few days. As the work started, I found that I was able to plan things, guide the team and navigate through the client organization. At the end of the week, it became clear to me that I could play a Business Analyst role and figure out high level problem definition and identify epics / stories for the problem.  I also could identify various users of the application, and come up with possible scenarios in which these users would interact with the application. Though, in order to be very effective at this role, I know that I still need to learn more tricks of the trade e.g. 5 Whys exercise, Ice Breaker exercise, Hopes and Fears session, Futurespective exercise etc. Nonetheless, this was very exciting for me because this could be one mechanism for me to contribute effectively in a project team. I had this feeling that I could do this, but this was the first time that I was doing it and could prove to myself that I am capable of handling it. Wondering why I didn’t try it earlier?