Day Trip to the Dead Sea

I was invited by a Jordanian family and an American friend to visit the Dead Sea on Saturday. They had one free passes to a lovely resort there, and had a car to drive us directly there (no public transportation or hotel-arranged trip -- yay!)

So, the first thing that surprised me was how close and accessible the Dead Sea is to Amman. It's really a very short (30 min) drive from the capital -- which makes it a perfect day trip or "escape". 

Then of course we were wrapped up in the "resort culture" the entire day. We ended up spending about 6 hours at the Dead Sea Spa and Resort -- where the day package includes entrance and 15 JDs worth of vouchers for food, for 30 JD. In some ways, I was hesitant to embrace "resort culture" because part of me feels like I came to do my research and the everyday life of university students here in Jordan -- most of whom cannot afford to take a day trip and shell out so much money for a day at the Dead Sea. However, my guide book did recommend a trip to the Dead Sea, and in fact, called missing the Dead Sea a "travesty". Plus, I decided, what better way to go than with a Jordanian family. For that reason, I was very excited to take them up on the offer!

We spent the day swimming in the resort's 3 pools, going down the water slide, walking down to the Dead Sea, where there is a stand offering "Free Mud" to slather on you -- of course you can just pick up the mud/sludge from the ground as well. Then we went for a dip in the Dead Sea -- the salt certainly stings a bit on open wounds, but is not unbearable. The views of the mountains and hills on either side of the Dead Sea are stunning -- the Jordanian side has dry, dusty brown mountains rising up, while across the water, you an also see the Israeli hills that are tinted blue.

What I've come to realize is that as much as I have a desire to experience the "real Jordan" -- this is as much "Jordan" as is any other aspect of the culture -- there are many wealth Jordanians who are themselves natively bilingual, and send their children to private bilingual schools, speak English among themselves, or at least code switch rapidly back and forth between English and Arabic. They vacation in Europe and the US, and study higher education abroad. Personally, given my goal to learn Arabic here, I prefer to meet Jordanians who want to speak Arabic with me, but I also realized that the vast majority of the people I met at the Dead Sea resort were in fact Jordanian, not tourists. So in that sense, this elite resort tourism is not catering to a foreign crowd, but meeting a demand for native tourism. 

I am also wondering whether this same insight might apply to higher education as well -- are there certain types of Jordanians who go to private higher education in Jordan, vs. those who go to higher education outside of Jordan? When offered the choice of public or private university in Jordan, how do Jordanians make their choices?