Today a terrorist shooting occurred in Amman.  There are some basic facts about the incident: a lone man aged 30 shot at a group of Western tourists and killed one and injured five. The shooting occurred at the Roman amphitheater, a popular tourist destination in East Amman.  I first heard of the shootings after my teacher received a phone call on his cell phone from our programs headquarters in Brattleboro, VT.  When my teacher told the class of this developing news, he certainly unnerved me a bit as a sense of besiegement overcame me.  “Was this the first of a planned series of attacks that would come against Westerners today,” I thought to myself.  After some initial thoughts of worst case scenarios such as the aforementioned one, I settled down a bit after my teacher reminded us of both how we went only to areas of Amman that were safe and of how we traveled to these already safe areas inconspicuously in small groups, unlike the one that was shot at today. 

As I left my school for home, I still felt a little unsafe; however, if one were to walk around the Western part of the city, you would never know that such an act had occurred.  Going by restaurants and shops, I failed to see one TV that had anything on about the shootings.  Maybe it was the fact that this event compared to neither the hotel bombings of last November nor the events that happen daily in the countries that border it?  When I returned home, I obviously discussed the shootings with my host family.  All of us emphasized different aspects of the terrorist event.  Being a Westerner, fear and uncertainty dominated my comments as I asked about safety and other similar issues.  Conversely, Osama, one of my home stay brothers, stressed how the act did not faze him since he is constantly surrounded by events like these because of the wars in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq.  Ghaith, my home stay father, focused on how bad this shows the perception of the United States and the West to be. 

Even though an awful act occurred in this city today, I am glad that I am here and have no desire to leave.  I will not let the acts of one madman prevent me from expanding my knowledge about a very interesting and important part of the world.  Tomorrow, Amman will be normal once again, just as it seemed today to everybody but me.