RashAfter two days of cycling around the outskirts of this beautiful country, passing by the giant wind farms of Al Tafileh under the foggy wintery weather, Shobak, Petra, Little Petra, Namaleh, Ghor, WadiRum and the Disi area it was great to encounter many random people alongside the sides of the road. Some assumed we were fellow Dutch tourists cycling around the area (looking out for more wind turbines!?) and others welcoming us with huge smiles saying “welcome to Jordan” automatically assuming we are foreigners because of the spandex attire. Always great to meet the simple bedouin culture (especially the surprised look on their face when they realise we are fellow Jordanians) that has always been so inviting for a cup of bedouin tea or any kinds of love which is usually expressed by serving you with a ton of food.
Ah, the joys of the simple happy life… Minimalism something I am trying to work on.
Funny enough, during the duration of the two fabulous days, negativity did not hit my mind not until we reached a checkpoint were a fellow local said “يا ما احلة راحة البال” meaning in short that it actually bothered him that we are a happy go lucky group of friends cycling around assuming that we have it easy and all figured out. Deep down inside all I wanted to tell him was to read Neil Paricha’s “The Happiness Equation” telling him to remember we have already won the lottery. Alive and lucky to be where we are. Experiencing our beautiful country in great health. It’s literally all that matters.
As we were approaching the end of our weekend we were cycling through the red sea enjoying the seaside views, the awesome tail wind and the high speed accompanying it not to realise that there was a very cute group of people painting along the walls. What a wonderful sight and I said to myself we are going to stop and talk to these people on the way back.
The Positive World – عالم ايجابي
I am so proud and happy of all the people involved with this initiative. It really made my day. It made me so happy to see people working on this issue especially outside of Amman. Their goals were pretty clear; to spread out the positivity along the community by performing various group activities in order to make the world around us a better place.
One of the organisers explained that they were painting the walls alongside the north shore in order to make it a more presentable place for the tourists and the locals. I guess what they meant was that they were trying to create the best possible version of Aqaba… and that is something that we deeply respected. They then explained how they also take advantage of the situation in order to teach anyone who is interested some art. Anyone was allowed to participate and they even offered us the paint brushes.
Hopefully I will be able to support this initiative when I start my road to IM MontTremblant fundraising project. If anyone is interested in supporting or knowing more about this lovely community please contact them on their facebook page.
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