Khaberni - I sat with my Sudanese friend in one of the cafes in Amman, where the bitter scent of coffee embraced the shisha smoke, and the soft tunes of Fairuz crept from a radio. I sat across from him, his eyes carrying the color of the Nile when it rages, and in his voice was a tremor unmistakable to the ear, a tremor from being war-torn from his family and memories.
As we were talking, suddenly he put down his cup, looked at me with tearful eyes, and said in a voice broken at the end:
By God, my brother… I wish I could love Sudan as you all love Jordan... I wish I could sing to a king like King Abdullah and cry out of pride and not pain... I wish I knew how to cry for the love of my country… not for losing it.
In that moment, I felt my heart stop.. tears filled my eyes.. words weighed heavy on my tongue like the rocks of Petra. I swallowed my saliva, not only out of sadness for him but also out of infinite thanks to God that I was born here.
We left the coffee to cool, but our hearts were ablaze… I walked out of the cafe, strolling through the streets of Amman, thanking my Lord for making me Jordanian, praise be to God… praise be to God… praise be to God a thousand times… for a blessing, if distributed over the entire world, would be enough that we are Jordanians.. for the blessing of security, on a king who walks among people and cares for them more than they fear for him, on an army called the Arab Army that guards the borders, and on vigilant security men.. we walk at night and at dawn and fear nothing... a blessing we do not see until we lose it… or when we hear a person like my Sudanese friend longing for it with tears and heartache.
May God protect Jordan and its king and its people… and may He reunite Sudan soon, so its people cry from their love for it, not from its wounds.
