BootsnAll Travel Community

I have been invited to wwoof in Jordan.
Wondering if anyone has done it there? I have been told that although the people hosting me are lovely, the status quo is very conservative for women.Any thoughts? Gigirtw

I can't really fill you in on wwoofing details, since I haven't done that, but on the more general question here:

Jordan certainly is somewhat conservative, and like all arab countries, very male dominated. But things aren't terrible. Womens rights have come along way in the past 8 years, since the current king came to power, largely thanks to the efforts of his wife, who considered to be among the 100 most powerful women in the world. It's still not western by any means, but I wouldn't list conservatism as a reason not to go.

If you're worried about dress, I wouldn't be. It'll depend on area of the country a bit, but we saw almost no one in Jordan wearing anything more concealing than a basic headscarf, and plenty of women wearing no head coverings at all. Simply sticking to the conservative end of western clothing should be perfectly acceptable in most areas.

The only problem we really had was that my girlfriend felt isolated because, as backpackers, we pretty much only interacted with people who were working, and there is still a distinct lack of women in the workforce. If you're staying with a family though, that shouldn't be problem.

Hi, thanks for responding...
I think I will be ok as far as not feeling isolated, as I will be staying with a bedouin family and they seem western-friendly. I will be teaching English to the girls, as the father wants them to have female teachers only. I am there for a month.
I am more concerned about travel in route there and back,but they are outside of the largest city,so if that's western friendly,I will be ok?(thinking about USA's current political situation nearby, and wondering what if any impact that will have on me)
Questions:
What did you do while you were there? Any suggestions?
Costs(I'm on a budget.)?
Can I just buy a headscarf when I get there, or should I pick one up somewhere beforehand?
I am bringing several long skirts, and one sort of oversized,long black tunic; this besides my usual more conservative western travel clothing. Would this be sufficient?
Does your girlfriend have any suggestions for me?

quote:

I am more concerned about travel in route there and back,but they are outside of the largest city,so if that's western friendly,I will be ok?(thinking about USA's current political situation nearby, and wondering what if any impact that will have on me)

You shouldn't have a problem. A friend of mine, a woman, lives in Amman, and works with refuges...I last talked to her about 6 months ago, but at that point she was still really enjoying it there, and didn't seem to be having any trouble. Now, she's Canadian, of course, and looks Taiwanese, so she's not automatically associated with the US on sight, but I don't think it really makes a huge difference.

One note - on public transit, it's customary for women to only sit with other women, or with men to whom they're related. It's normal for families to rearrange themselves to free up a gender appropriate seat for single travellers, though, so it's not really a problem.

quote:

What did you do while you were there? Any suggestions?

Jordan's loads of fun, and I'd recommend basically everything we did:

1 - Scuba diving in the Red Sea. This is easy to arrange from Aqaba. Kathy hadn't done any diving before, and so we just did a shore dive, with her closely accompanied by a divemaster, and it was still amazing. The red sea generally is supposed to be some of the best diving in the world, and I certainly believe it.

2 - Camel trip in Wadi Rum. You can hook up with a guide at the gate or book it in any major city, but the language skills and quality of the guides vary a lot . We booked online with Jordan Tracks who came highly recommended to me, and we had a great time. The only thing - camels aren't very comfortable, and I would suggest only do one day by camel, and another day around the desert by jeep. If you have some flexibility, you might want to give them a range of dates and just ask them to tack you on to another group that they've got. Cheaper that way, and while their guides are really nice, it's also nice to do it with other travellers.

3 - Petra. Can't be missed.

4 - Dana Village & Nature Reserve - it's a pretty town, made out of mud bricks, and looks like something out of the middle ages. The only activity there is hiking, but it's also a great little R&R spot. We stayed at the Dana Tower Hotel and enjoyed it, but I've been told by others that the experience for single women is not as good, so maybe something only to do if you hook up with someone else.

5 - Madaba & Mt Nebo - I'm not religious, and this is the Christian trail in Jordan, but it's interesting and beautiful no matter what your persuasion. It's an easy day trip by taxi from Amman...we also went to the Dead Sea as part of the trip, which was less my thing, but some might enjoy it. As a woman alone, you might be more comfortable paying a higher price to use the facilities at a private beach instead of a public one. We went to a public beach, and I'm pretty sure Kathy was the only woman in a bathing suit.

That's what we did. Other points of interest are Karak (crusader castle) and the desert castles around Amman. I also highly recommmend a side trip to Syria, at least to Damascus, which is amazing...if you're interested in that, you will need to get a visa before leaving home. Single entry visas can be used anytime within 3 months of being issued.

quote:

Costs(I'm on a budget.)?

Everyone's on a budget, it's just a question of how tight. Jordan's a middle income country, so costs are...in the middle. While you're wwoofing, you shouldn't need to spend much of anything at all. For general travelling - we went through about $50 per day each, and we watch our spending, but we're not the cheapest travellers either.

Within Amman, taxis should use their meters, and so are very cheap. This was the only place in the middle east where we found that they'd take foreigners without trying to inflate the price. The most we ever spent on one ride was 2JD (~$3), and most were less than one.

quote:

Can I just buy a headscarf when I get there, or should I pick one up somewhere beforehand?
I am bringing several long skirts, and one sort of oversized,long black tunic; this besides my usual more conservative western travel clothing. Would this be sufficient?

The clothes should be just fine. I wouldn't worry about a headscarf at all. The only place you're likely to need it is for visiting mosques.

quote:

Does your girlfriend have any suggestions for me?

I'll ask.

Hi Neil, wow!You are an amazing resource.
Thanks for all the suggestions...
It sounds very affordable for me and also beautiful.
I will look up that pilgramage trail you mentioned.
I don't have time to go to Syria( I think) nor time to get a VISA here in the states as I leave very soon,anyway. But I will look into it.
I think the place I am staying has camels and does some tours for tourists-so hopefully I can do that there with them.
Interested if you flew in to Amman or if you travelled overland? I am flying there from Israel on my way to India.(at least-that's my current plan---!)
Thanks, gigirtw
http://blogs.bootsnall.com/gigirtw

We entered at the Aqaba ferry port (from Egypt), and left overland into Syria.

Syria's out if you end up with any evidence of visiting Israel (passport stamps in particular) anyway, so I guess that's just not happening for you.

quote:

Hi Neil, wow!You are an amazing resource.

You're making me blush. Really, Jordan is currently tied for second on my favourite countries list, so I get excited when people are going there.

Well,I feel very encouraged by what I'm reading here from you. Jordan has been on my list to visit since I started planning my trip-and alot of people have said, "Why Jordan?",as well as acted like I was going to be killed since I was an American(unless swathed /swaddled in a great deal of fabric)....
It is an amazingly beautiful country. I can hardly wait.
I hope more people post on to this thread!(Although you can post on every hour, Neil-I'm taking notes on your posts..)
As for coming from Israel-I thought you could just not have your passport stamped (in the book) and instead ask for it to be stamped elsewhere(on a loose page). This would allow you to go to misc. countries not in agreement with Israel.
?????
gigirtw
http://blogs.bootsnall.com/gigirtw

Neil asked me to come check out the thread. Sorry, I've really not been around boots lately.

He's right about two things - by the time we'd arrived in Jordan, we'd already been 3 weeks in Egypt, and I was definitely noticing the domination of males. While I don't necessarily consider myself an extrovert, I do tend to be very independent, and I'm not used to being demure. I was finding the lack of women in public places frustrating at times, but I got over it.
Secondly, Jordan is not nearly as conservative as we expected! I was really worried that I would need a scarf in Jordan/Syria, and really, Egypt was actually the most conservative of the countries we visited, despite it also having the greatest number of tourists. As Neil mentioned, not all women in Jordan or Syria wear scarves.

In the first 24 hours in Jordan, we discovered porn on the satelite tv at the hotel (though we kept having to fight with them to stop turning off CCN World!), and little shops that sold liquor. Although, this was in the Aqaba Free Trade Zone, an area highly frequented by foreigners.

Also, while in Aqaba, I wanted to find a more conservative long sleeved shirt, and this proved a challening task! The choices at the near-by mall were either the very Arabic tunic/dress-style outfit often worn by Muslim women, or tight jeans and tiny tees!

We stayed in downtown Amman, and I can't really remember anything about the women in that area, but I do certainly recall that we travelled a couple of times to different parts of town, possibly in the burbs (I honestly have no idea where we were, we took cabs), and it was all very western. Women, stores, restaurants.... At the Safeway (yes, they have 2! They even sold Canadian chocolate loonies!) there was a mix of women, from Western-dressed, to fully covered and scarved (though I really don't remember any face veils... the only places I really remember face veils might be Egypt, and definitely Istanbul and London - we stayed in a Middle Eastern neighbourhood near Marble Arch. Oh, and probably some in Syria, but not as many as I might have expected).

I would say, if you have long pants, long sleeved shirts (a couple of t-shirts I'm sure would be fine - I wore them without much concern), and careful about modest necklines, I'm sure you'll be fine.

We didn't spend much time with the Bedouins (outside of tourism), so I'm not sure how conservative or not they might be, but our male hosts in the Wadi Rum were certainly very easy going, and didn't seem at all concerned about our dress.

Oh, and also, we were invited home for lunch by a very nice gentleman, and we met his wife and children and got a glimpse into how they live.
It was really quite interesting - while there is a definite delineation along man/woman lines, I would say it's probably in many areas not much different than North America even in most of our lifetimes - women chat with women (it's probably stricter there in the sense that it's not very acceptable for local women to talk to unrlated men directly), women tend to do the kitchen work, while men do other work...
but in this household, the wife worked as a teacher, and at least at home, she was wearing jeans.

But it reminded me of my parents when I was younger, when they had company over for dinner, the women would generally do the kitchen work, and might chat over tea in the kitchen, while men retired to the sitting room to chat... not really all that different.

I hope you have an awesome time! Jordan really is a marvelous place. (oh, and please don't hire the horse carts at Petra - I swear one of the horses was foaming at the mouth. it made me want to cry how over worked and poorly treated those horses were. we rode one from the top of the siq back to the entrance, and those horses, at least the ones that we rode, seemed in much better shape. In the very least, take a good look at the animal before deciding to hire it.)

Hey Gigi!

Forget about the headscarf. If at one point you need one, you can just use that sarong you said you'd pack...

I was in Jordan only for 10 days but I agree that you shouldn't encounter any problems. From all your e-mails, you seem to be a conservative woman. Just stay that way and you'll be fine.

I spent an afternoon in a Bedouin home having tea with the entire family. They were extremely welcoming. Although the husband was the only one who could manage a few words of English, I had a really good time trying to communicate with the women. But the men spoke together and we, the ladies , were left to "talk" by ourselves... And so we mostly played with the baby...

The most shoking thing for me happened in Aqaba. Twice, I had women dressed in black, fully veiled (face and all) begging for money... You know, the type that no longer have a husband to take care of them...

Jordand is a very small country and it's very easy to travel around. Staying there, you should be able to take several daystrips and see quite a lot.
You'll love it!

Hey travelclown,
I didn't know you were ever in Jordan??!!!
You need to send me a PM with suggestions,please.
Funny-that I sound conservative-you are one of many people on these boards to tell me that...I suppose compared to some people I am, on these boards!
I guess the part of my trip thru Israel fell thru-I'll wait and see-how did you guys get into Syria again, please?
Thanks for all the suggestions.
Gigirtw

You need to arrange your visa before you leave - you can't obtain it overseas, unless you can provide proof that you're basically living as an ex-pat.

Then it's pretty easy - go to the bus station in Amman and buy a ticket for a bus to Damascus. The border was pretty slow, we did sit and wait for about 2 hours, but the ride isn't terrible, and at least for us, it was quite easy to get through. Just your typical stamping and paper pushing.

I'd say it's worth it. There's no place else on Earth like Damascus, not that I've ever seen. It's worth it just to go to the old city, and meander the tiny, labyrinthian streets. There's so much history there, it's fantastic.
Also, the old Christian quarter of Aleppo is also worth seeing. The souq is neat for it's history and architecture, but we didn't find it as good an experience as Damascus - Damascus barely seemed to recognize that we were tourists, where in Aleppo, some of the people seemed to have gone to tout school.

Too bad-I don't have time to get a visa here. You can'tget one in London or Paris?
gigirtw

wow! Lots of great info here. If you don't mind me asking - how did you get invited to wwoof in Jordan? who invited you and is there a website etc for Jordan and other countries as well?

Have a great time!!! I can't wait to read your blog as your going along.