May 29, 2006

In the last post I promised to write something about my desert trip, the fact is I didn’t write directly after arriving but one of my best friends, Elizabeth Williams, encouraged me to write and here some of what I have seen;

Four days ago, I had a new experience, I traveled by car from Qatar , where I work, to my home Jordan through Saudi Arabia, the road was 2,000 km of desert.
I loved this adventure because it means something to me; it was the first time to cross all this way and being alone in the desert gives something inside yourself.

I started the way from Doha at 1 pm driving one hour to the Saudi border and after crossing the check point the real trip started, in the Saudi desert you do not see any thing except sand, camels crossing the Hiway and trucks do not know stopping.
The road inside Saudi Arabia took more than 20 hours of driving including many stops for gas, taking a nap and praying.
Every 300 hundred km you find a city, most people in these cities are not Saudis, they are from Asian poor countries like Pakistan, India and Philippines. They are working in oil industry.
The paradox is that along this way you do not meet a local person except the border people and the police check points on the hiway every 100 km after the terrorist threat in the kingdom, they stop every one cross the road asking for IDs.

Whenever you meet a person working in Gas stations or using the road you meet a new culture different from you and you learn a new thing from its people.

The best moment in this way was when you are driving alone 160 km per hour at midnight and you decided to stop the car and look around in the desert; nothing but stars in heaven…. This moment you can call it" listening to the silence"


I can say now I am proud of everything in this way except one thing; I broke the speed limits which is 120 km per hour.
I hope this gives all of you specially Elizabeth something about the way.

May 24th 2006

Tomorrow, inshala, I will have a new experience, crossing the desert of three countries in my car more than 1800 km, I love this adventure to explore the life. Being alone in an infinity desert line gives you the chance to think in life and what you have done,
When I come back from this trip I will write something

Why listening to the silence 2?

At 22 years old, the boy started his first job with a low salary; he had no choice to refuse the job. In his first week at the weekly newspaper his feature story occupied the front page… day after day he took the confidence in work.
During the next year the boy became one of well known journalist among the politics life as he covered the parliament affairs in the paper, he found himself sitting at the same table in restaurants with the country elite not only talking to them but they became in need him to provide news and give him secret information to publish.
But here I have to admit, that the journalist in his first attending to restaurants he didn’t know many menu items and he had to order anything he knows to avoid embarrassing but life goes on as Peter Frost, the poet of America, said.
Within few years, the boy or the journalist took his way in media field covering so many important events, visiting a lot of countries and achieving press awards.
What happened to the boy is not miraculous but it deserves to write about it, as it is not easy for a nomad boy like him to inter a world that is restricted to certain few ….
It will be continued…