ALKHOBAR, 12 November 2005 — I arrived in Amman on Tuesday at noon. It was to be a short business trip. An official dinner that night and then one meeting, a presentation and lunch the next day. The events on Wednesday passed quickly. Over lunch there was a discussion about the terrorism situation in Saudi Arabia. Several in the group would be traveling to Jeddah next week and I assured them that the authorities had implemented every possible security measure.
In Jordan there seemed to be an absence of overt security. I had noted when checking in to the 5-star hotel, that there were no baggage scanners or metal detectors. Vehicles could drive right up to the hotel without being challenged by security guards and there were even cars and minibuses parked right outside the lobby doors. This seemed strange to me after seeing all the security measures taken by 5-star hotels in the Kingdom. Even more curious was that in the evening there wasn’t a security guard stationed near the hotel’s elevators, which were located at the front of the lobby. Anyone could go to the hotel’s upper floors without having to produce a room key. Frankly, the situation made me uncomfortable and I was glad to be staying just one night at the Grand Hyatt.
After lunch on Wednesday the group of journalists split up. About half of us were leaving Amman that evening and the others would fly out the next day. The Jordanian hotel driver who took me to the airport was a forty-something mother of three. Divorced just a few years, she was finding it hard to make ends meet. I wished her all the best as she dropped me outside Queen Alia International Airport.
Inside the airport, pandemonium reigned. It was necessary for women to put their luggage and purses through an x-ray scanner located quite a distance from a very long, female-only security line. After coming through the scanner, the bags were placed on the floor, out of sight. Getting through the security line took about twenty minutes and it was very disconcerting that during this long time my belongings could easily be taken away by anyone. My anxiety only dissipated when I could eventually collect my things and go to stand in the flight check-in queue.
My relief was short. At the counter I was informed that my confirmed reservation had been canceled. I was ordered to go register for the waiting list or return to the hotel and take the next day’s flight. Furious, I found myself standing with my baggage in a corner near the Royal Jordanian Airlines check-in counters. Frantically, I began calling the trip organizers for help and every ten minutes harassed the airline staff for the status of flight. Although I was told that nothing could be done and I should return to the hotel, stubbornly I waited.
Unaccompanied baggage was strewn about beside the Royal Jordanian check-in area. Some luggage belonged to passengers attempting to find reservations on other airlines. Most flights were overbooked due to the Eid holiday. Some bags had been abandoned by passengers whose luggage was overweight. I moved as far away as possible from those cast off suitcases, but I couldn’t leave the area. If I did, I knew I’d never get a seat on that night’s flight.
At 7:20 I was informed that a seat was available. I would have to sprint to catch the flight which took off at 7:45. Somehow I made it through immigration and a second security check and got on board the plane, seated between two mothers holding crying infants. Attempting to telephone my husband to inform him that I had caught the flight, I was confronted by the air hostess and ordered to turn the handset off.
It was a miserable flight and I hurried out of King Fahd International Airport. I couldn’t wait to get home. Meeting me outside the airport, my husband tightly held my hand. Calmly, he asked me if I’d known of any bombings in Amman that day. On the way to the airport to receive me, he’d hear the first reports of the explosions. Since I hadn’t been able to speak to him, he wasn’t sure I’d got on the plane.
When I learned that the Grand Hyatt had been hit, I was horrified. It took hours to discover that my colleagues left back at the hotel were all safe. The public relations representative who had arranged our trip had been in the lobby at the time of the attack. While not physically injured, she was in shock. I, myself, was a bit shaky when I realized that if I had followed the airline’s instructions and returned to the hotel to wait for the next day’s flight, I would have been in the lobby when the bomb went off.
As it was, I feel extremely upset that many of the hotel staff who cared for us have been either killed or wounded. I don’t know if the driver who took me to the airport returned to the Grand Hyatt or went home for the night. Even for those hotel staff who made it through the bombing, what will happen to their jobs? The Jordanians working at the Grand Hyatt lived from paycheck to paycheck. The hotel has been evacuated and will not be operational for some time. There will certainly be difficulties ahead for all of them.
Worst of all, most assuredly they will now join the tens of thousands of people on this planet who see every misplaced briefcase as a threat and make note of the nearest exit each time they enter a restaurant. For these people, a car backfiring is reason to crouch over in alarm and crowds are to be avoided. In hotel lobbies and on subways, these terrorized folks scan the face of everyone in their vicinity, looking for what, they don’t know. Their innocence has been blown away, and no matter how hard they try, they will never, ever, be able to completely eradicate the fear that has replaced it. I know this well because I am one of them, and I grieve for us all.
