Date: June 6th 2008

Amman, Jordan

Asking here and there in our endless searches for live music performances we climb up to the fourth floor open terrace of a restaurant here in Amman. The manager tells us that the regularly employed Jordanian oud player is not there this week but that they have an Iraqi oud player in his place. It's only 10:30, still early, so he hasn't arrived yet. We settle in to a table and order a salad and Arabic coffee.

An hour later the table full of Iraqi men sitting next to us are singing along with the oud player who has arrived and plugged into the sound system. When a song comes by which we happen to know we sing along too. This of course is always a surprise and I have to explain to the player something about our background. I also make requests for some of the older Iraqi songs of Nazem al Ghazali and he is delighted to mix them in with his presentations of some of the newer music. I am very happy to be bathed in his elaborate usage of maqamat, the ancient microtonal Arabic scales which I have come to love so well.

Our new oud playing friend, like all Iraqis, is here in Jordan under rules and regulations which are not so favorable and the endless question in his mind is of course, "Where should I try and get to from here?"
He is very curious to hear my opinions about various possibilities like Sweden or Canada or, should he consider the USA?

I have heard a few stories and I pass them on. One of our Iraqi friend's son managed to get into Turkey and on a boat to Greece. But, being required by the boat captain to finish the last part of the journey into Greece by swimming ashore, he was captured and spent some time in a Greek prison before managing to move on, at considerable expense, to Sweden where he is now facing deportation back to Iraq. Not a pretty picture.
And of course we have had recent experience with observing the Iraqi support options in America: try living on $330/month until you find a job and get on your feet.

"So Canada is good?" he asks me.

"Maybe so... Or maybe Brazil..." I respond out of almost complete ignorance on the subject but knowing that going back to Iraq now can mean death for a lot of Iraqis.

I look at him playing Iraqi music for the still appreciative group of Iraqis here in Jordan and I think that maybe here is not so bad for him. But the governmental pressures are being raised to make the Iraqis feel less welcome here and increase deportations. Syria maybe? Syria probably offers the best circumstances right now for Iraqis but everyone knows that, having already absorbed 2 million Iraqis into their economy, a ten percent total increase, the potential for employment in Syria is small.

Around 2:00 a.m. he thrusts the oud into my hands and very appreciatively sings along with my still very imperfect rendition of "Lamma Anakhu..." ...a musically improvided poetic introduction deeply embedded in older Iraqi musical tradition...

Before we leave we explain our work in Jordan and Syria to try and channel money donated in the USA to help support Iraqi refugees by furthering the education of Iraqi refugee children in the old Iraqi maqam music and he is eager, of course, to be a part of it. He gives me his mobile phone number.

I put a large Jordanian Dinar bill in his hand. Later, when he has the opportunity to look at it, hopefully he will be pleasantly surprised. I remember a friend in Boulder giving me a $100 bill and saying, "Just walk up and give this to some Iraqi refugee!"

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Thanks and More Soon, Cameron
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