JRB: Jordan Hospitality

Danny; Yesterday we drove from Amman to Irbid, which is a town up in the north of Jordan. This northern town is about 20 klm from the Syrian border. On the way we saw Bedouins with their sheep and goats, olive groves and beautiful vistas.

When we arrived at the Princess Basma Youth Center, which is partially funded by UNICEF, we were taken to the directors office. She sat and spoke with us about her university time in the States and the youth center. They have a computer lab and a mini studio where they teach photo shop and some music programs.

As we loaded our equipment to the classroom/lab, we saw that the children had made welcome signs and created collages from JRB photos that they had found on he web.

We set up our gear and played our first song, when we finished, the students started requesting songs from our recordings. They asked for She and then for The Best of You in me. Jailhouse Rock and Whole Lot of Shakin Goin on, were big favorites also. We had the students play along on some songs with us, they had Doumbeks,
Violins, Guitars and Keyboard. We played a blues with them and then they played and sang some traditional Arabic songs for us. We all joined in and played with them and you could just sense the joy in the music and their faces.

The programming of the outreach events and concert , were surperbly planned by Karin Ehlert and her staff from the US embassy cultural affairs office. The Musical Overtures program is often jokingly refered to as the Rocky Rhythm Road, but so far this trip has been smooth sailing. Emad, our new friend from the embassy staff, acted as our tour guide, rodie, driver, interpreter and facilitator. We made so many new friends in Jordan and hope you all get a chance to travel there some day. It was one of the most hospitable places I have ever been and we were welcomed with open hearts wherever we went.

Here are some of our amazing food adventures and assorted pics;