Category: Jordan
-
Gerasa-Jerash
Gerasa-Jerash Only a stone’s throw away: Walk down the South Decumanus road of Roman Gerasa into present day Jerash – or vice versa – and you bridge a time span of two thousand years in just a few minutes. Actually this switching in time is nothing extraordinary. It happens with every visit to historical monuments…
-
Migrating birds
Migrating birds The play of reeds, water and light in last week’s photo pleased me because of its abstract nature. In the same way Devrim Erbil must have been pleased by the sight of a chaotic swarm of migrating birds and took it up as the subject of his painting. Abstraction inspired by nature. Photo…
-
Salty beach
My old Hachette guide tells me that very long ago, before the Tertiary Era, the Dead Sea was an expanse of sweet water lying above (!) the level of the Mediterranean. After the dislocation of the valley of the Jordan it sank to great depths and came into contact with salt deposits deep down in…
-
Dead at the Dead Sea
This luxury resort at the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea looks pretty dead itself. Tastefully laid out in a colour scheme that pleasantly matches the backdrop of the Dead Sea landscape, it does look rather sterile. There’s no living soul to be seen; even the palm trees look artificial and don’t succeed in blowing a…
-
Witness from Baghdad
The heads of the women are blurred and their faces hidden in veils. But their eyes see. We see eyes that see. Eyes that have seen. And now the eyes have directed their penetrating look at us, confronting us onlookers. Remember last week’s photo? REMEMBER? We shall remember, Halim Al Karim! Photos of the week:…
-
Remember
REMEMBER: written in capital letters on a wall on a hillside in Amman, Jordan. I saw it from the opposite hill during a visit to two modern art galleries situated there. REMEMBER: is it an artistic statement; is it related to the works of art in the gallery compounds and buildings? It could well be. As an isolated…
-
Patriotism
I once was seriously lectured by a young boy in India about my alleged lack of patriotism. Everybody in India always wants to know where you come from. Whenever they heard I was Dutch they would often relate to me the story of how a small boy in Holland had saved his country and people…
