Is Jordan boring? This is something you will hear a lot of Jordanians ask. It seems that most people living there would really prefer to be somewhere else. This may be due to the large immigrant community: the Palestinians prefer Palestine, the Syrians prefer Syria, and the Iraqis prefer Iraq. However, my time in Jordan has made me wonder whether sometimes boredom is appreciated.

In fact, Jordan was not my preferred destination either. I originally planned to spend my Year Abroad in the West Bank but events in Gaza forced me to choose somewhere else, and so I arrived in Amman last September without any real enthusiasm. When people asked, I explained I was not there for long and that I would probably head to the West Bank after Christmas. The situation there later calmed down, but I stayed in Jordan. There were a multitude of reasons, including the simple fact that I had made some friends in Jordan whom I did not want to leave. I also had a job that I enjoyed, a bar that I liked and a routine that I was settling into. You may think my decision to stay was unadventurous, and I am aware that visiting a more unstable area would have brought challenges and discoveries of its own. However, living in a relatively stable country in the Middle East has brought an unexpected insight.

My discovery was this: life in Jordan really can be boring. This is not meant as an insult. It is a good thing because it shows stability. Boredom is the privilege of those who do not worry about being bombed or arrested. They do not spend their lives facing a news camera or a burning building but instead go to work, come home and get bored of the daily routine. I know some Jordanians that have grown extremely bored of hummus and falafel. When the ISIS video of the Jordanian pilot was released most reacted with panic rather than anger. They did not want the violence that has engulfed neighbouring countries to cross their border too. They preferred being bored to being in danger. It is better to have boring hummus than no food at all.

So by witnessing this boredom, I had been given the opportunity to see how people in the Middle East normally live, without a war-torn backdrop. This was the life that those now suffering under that suffocating cloak of violence dream of returning to. The peaceful and politically stable side to the Middle East must not be forgotten.  

With this thought in mind, I travelled to the West Bank a couple of weeks ago to visit a Palestinian friend in Nablus. I had visited the Occupied Palestinian Territories before, and with each trip I notice the omnipresent tension of living under occupation. I saw the same tension in Nablus but I also noticed something else: people were striving to create a sense of normality. They seemed tired of being treated as activists or victims, or both. They wanted to be seen and treated as normal people.

One of my evenings was spent with a group of foreign aid workers and Palestinians, including an extremely talented oud player. The aid workers started talking about the situation in Gaza and turned to the Palestinians for their views. The oud player simply grinned and started playing his instrument loudly. He did not want to talk politics. I saw a similar attitude the following day when I was sitting with my friend in his lounge at home. The TV had been left on with a news channel playing but nobody was watching. His mother glanced at the screen, picked up the remote and scrolled through the list to find the National Geographic channel.

While a normal life may be craved by people living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, it is difficult to achieve and for obvious reasons. The situation in Jordan does still allow many to live a life free from politics, but unfortunately these people are very rarely seen in Western media. To quote the comedian Russell Peters: “They never show you those Arabs on TV because they’re boring. They only show you the crazies.” Understandably, the news channels feel the need to prioritize the reporting of war and terrorism, but the effect this reporting has on the Western perception of Arabs is more damaging than journalists realise. If all you saw on TV was Nigel Farage and Sarah Palin, you would think the West was pretty crazy too.

So is Jordan boring? Some locals may say so, but I know that they still prefer it to the chaos in surrounding countries. As a foreign language student living in the Middle East for the first time, it was rarely boring for me. But getting bored occasionally has brought a pleasant sense of familiarity. I feel settled and at home in Jordan, and is that not the ultimate aim of the Year Abroad?