There's a Popeyes, KFC, Pizza Hut on the street that runs by my house here. But there's also half-a-dozen open fields, golden with grass and limestone boulders, that seem misplaced among the bustling boulevard and monolithic apartments. Even more odd when a small herd of goat and sheep moved into the fields last week. In the mornings, through the window open, I hear their bells around their necks accenting the hum of traffic.

Yesterday the evening light was perfect for photography, so I went for a walk with my old film camera, intending to take a few pictures of the animals. The herd grazed in the field next to my house, and I sat and waited for them to move closer for a good shot. I guess the Bedouin shepherd saw me sitting there, watching his herd, so he came over to me holding a cup of tea. He approached wordlessly. His red-checkered keffiyah was faded from years under the sun, and his jacket and pants looked like second-hand fatigues. He regarded me through squinted eyes and leathery brow. When I spoke to him in Arabic, asking if I could come sit with him among his herd, he looked taken aback--me, the white guy with a ballcap and big camera, speaking to him in his language. But he answered my rough Arabic in his pure Bedouin dialect: "you are most welcome, come, come".

The tea was amazing. I think he brewed it with a special kind of herb or mint; he also put loads of sugar in it, so that didn't hurt.

The shepherd and I walked back towards his kettle in the field. I asked his name.
"Qassim".
"Qassim. I'm Matthew."
He nodded, "Matthew".
Some mischievous goats had moved in on Qassim's things, knocked over his tea kettle and some cups, and were licking them clean. They, too, liked the tea. Qassim made low grunting sounds towards the goats; they ignored him. Then he tossed a rock in their direction. They heeded the rock. He had an amazing arm, too, not hitting the animals but getting close enough to startle them.

So we sat among his herd, crouching at the low couch cushion that doubled as his table. The Holiday Inn towered over us, the grease from Pizza Hut wafting among the earthen smell of sheep.
"Where are you from", I asked.
"Balad as-shams" (country of the sun), traditional Arab for Greater Syria. He had taken his herd from southern Syria, through Jordan, and was making his way back up to Syria's fertile hills as the dry Jordanian summer came on.
"I like Amman, though, I want to stay. There are no problems here. No problems. Just peace."
He seemed fine with moving his herd through this city of three million, if only because Jordan is free of the political turmoil that shapes so much of life in all the neighboring countries.

I watched the largest goat, as tall and more regal than his mule, pick its way among the dry grass. A shined brass bell hung from its neck, and around its head a red ribbon. "Why does he have that?", I asked, pointing to the goat.
"He leads my herd."
I told him I thought he, the shepherd, was the leader.
"I do not lead them; I only show them where not to go. If that one does not walk, no animal walks. If that one walks, all follow."

He called the goat over, and it ambled up to us. It surprised me, the care he gave it, running his tanned hands through its fur, rubbing its neck and rump. The goat put its head in my crotch, like a dog asking for more love. I combed through its long hair, felt the coarseness like dried hay. Its square irises shined up at me.
"Does he have a name?"
Qassim didn't look up, rubbing dirt from the goat's curled horns.
"No name."

I wanted to ask Qassim about his life, what he did with the ancient rhythm of his days, why he chose to do sleep among animals. But then his cell phone rang. I listened to his crisp Syrian Arabic, the soft rounding of his words, and could only think his reality was made up of times and places that fit into no world. He brewed tea in the same way his father and his father before that had done, he carried a cell phone. He herded sheep through the highrises of Amman. He told me KFC was his favorite place to eat.

But before I could ask him about all this, he turned to me with a quizzical look.
"You...are Muslim?"
No one had ever put this question to me so sincerely. It was hard not to chuckle.
"No. I do not follow any religion", I half-lied. "You?"
"Yes". Silence. Qassim looked around at the quiet motion of his herd.

"I am Muslim, because I have all this." He swept his arms wide. "I love my life...and I think if you love all this too, you are with God." I nodded.

Several lambs wobbled through the herd. Qassim saw me looking at a black one.
"It was born yesterday, in that field." He pointed across the street, to the grass beside the Pizza Hut. I looked at the mother ripping grass from the ground, at its cowering lamb. Had the diners had watched its first gasping breath, its first pained step, as they chomped on pizza?

A crowd of German tourists were gathering in front of the Holiday Inn. They stood beside their monstrous tour bus, and held out digital cameras that gleamed in the sun. Qassim saw them and led his mule closer for a photo op. I snapped some pictures of him with the camera-armed crowd in the background. His tattered fatigues, faded keffiyah, sun-worn skin a quieter key than the crisply dressed Germans.

They eventually filed into their tour bus, and Qassim walked back to me, smiling.
"I have to go", I said. The sun was nearly down.
"I will be here if you come back."
"How long?" I asked.
"I don't know".
"Ok. Ma' as-salaam". I extended my hand to him. His palm was rough; his grip was gentle.
"Ma' as-salaam, my friend Matthew."
I turned and walked home.