June 16, 2002

We made a last round of visits to each of the churches to say our goodbyes and to worship at the Anglican Church before leaving town. Before we left home, we downloaded some wonderful news - our dear friend Dr. Fahed Abu-Akel (from Kufr Yasif) was elected Moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Alf mabrouk (a thousand congratulations)!

We took our roundabout taxi to the town of Jalame, walking along the settler road up to the checkpoint. We approach checkpoints with a lot of caution these days. The soldier who stopped us spoke very little English, but was very good at pointing and shouting. He flipped through our passports, and looked at our cellphone, asking, "you have in Jenin?" With his middle finger he then thumped Marthame's throat, on his clergy tab, saying, "What this?" How fresh! Finally, he handed us our passports - "take...go." It takes all kinds.

We caught our second taxi to the Sheikh Hussein bridge, breezing through passport control and customs, catching the Jordanian bus on the other side. This is the first time we've actually seen the bus moving (unbelievable). It's cheaper than the taxi we usually have to take to Amman, but we soon discovered why - first it heads north to the city of Irbid before heading south towards Amman, doubling the journey. Whatever - we have time.

A roadside watermelon stand in Amman, Jordan.

We arrived to visit with our friends in Amman (part of the Zababdeh diaspora), watch the Spain-Ireland penalty shots, eat an overdue lunch, take an (even more) overdue nap, and head out into the gorgeous Amman night for batikh (watermelon) from a roadside stand and hummus from a local restaurant. It looks like a good night's rest awaits us.