Picturing Jordan

You haven’t lived until you and your friends have eaten seventeen different colors of rice, meat, and sauces while sitting on the floor at the Bab al-Yemen restaurant in Amman. If my experience is anything to go by, every item on the menu is downright delicious — including the humongous, flame-kissed flatbread that would be almost as fascinating to see being made as it was to eat.

Wild Jordan has an ingenious day trip where you pay them to take you to pick olives on a farm in Ajloun — the family who owns the farm even comes out to watch you and give you tips! Like I said: genius. Jokes aside, it was actually a lot of fun, and the point is to educate you about the olive harvest and its importance to people in the region.

The Jordan River Foundation has a showroom on Rainbow Street where they brilliantly showcase traditional, everyday objects from the region in a fresh, modern way. It’s like someone went and replaced all the things in your grandma’s rural kitchen with newer, brightly accented ones. All of the wood, cloth, and clay work here is produced by people in local communities, and, as far as I know, the proceeds from sales go back to supporting them.