Entry #1 - Dec 7-9, 2006

After a 8 hour flight to Paris, a 4 hour delay due to bad weather and another 6 hour flight to Amman I arrived 24 hours after I started this journey.

I was greeted by my best friend Tom Barclay and his liason / con-man Hasheem who proceeded to take my bags and my passport and finagle our way through customs, flashing Tom's diplomatic badge along the way. With my new entourage I had no problem getting my cameras and gear through customs. And Hasheem boosted he did it in record time. The only problem was the wheels on my big bag had been broken off but fortunately no other damage occurred.

At high speed Tom drove me through the streets of Amman from the airport to his flat (apartment), bobbing and weaving through traffic like a local. I quickly noticed that everyone here smokes, and vowed not to re-start that bad habit while I'm here.

Tom lives at the top of a hill overlooking Amman next to a Mosque. As soon as we arrived he offered me a hot shower only to discover we had no water. Tom does have Cable TV so I do have a connection to the States while I am here.

This morning we got up at 7:00AM to take the hour long trip to JIPTC: Jordan International Training Center to watch the Graduation Ceremony of Class #34. We drove through several towns and I noticed trash everywhere. Some places worse then others. Tom pointed out all the landmarks as we drove past them including several Palestinan Camps and Gypsy Camps. I was armed with my small HV10 HDV Camera and shot away through the car window as we drove past.

We proceeded onto the highway that takes you into Iraq and noticed that we are 300km from the Iraqi boarder.

The enterance to JIPTC comes up very quickly off the highway and is heavily guarded. It took us 5 minutes to go through 5 check points and I presented my credentials to the guard to get into the facility.

We got arrived and observed the last part of the graduation ceremony. I noticed that the Cadets are old and young, many are peasants. Two American Generals were present at the Ceremony: Gen Hunsicker and Gen Hunt. The cadets were very emotional after the ceremony, crying and hugging as they were quickly marched into buses destined for the airport to take them back to Iraq.

More to come.......