Kids WIll Be Kids

Since Friday is usually part of the weekend in the Muslim world (as in we have Friday and Saturday off, and the week starts on Sunday), many Arab families have a big family lunch on Friday afternoons.  My friend Matt lives with a Jordanian family, and they invited our friend Botta (we will refer to him by his last name since his first name is Matt too) and me over for lunch this Friday.  I gladly accepted the offer and secretly couldn’t wait to meet Matt’s host siblings: Ramy, 4 and Lara, 6. 

Well, let’s just say it was quite the afternoon.  We ate lunch while the kids sat in the other room throwing paper confetti and empty water bottles yelling “happy birthday” to us through the door.  Then after lunch when we were all in the family room watching Arabic music videos (a favorite Arab pastime), Ramy and Lara ran around with more energy than the 5 of us combined. 

They decided they wanted to go swimming and changed into their bathing suits and pretended to swim around the entire house.  Then all of a sudden, they started jumping between the coffee table and the couches and even on top of Botta, Mattand me.  It was endearing for about 5 minutes, but then it just got annoying and dangerous. 

I somehow managed to capture Ramy (an adorable little Arabchild), and we were playing in my lap until he decided he wanted to jump out ofmy arms and onto Botta who was holding a hot cup of coffee.  Well, the coffee went all over Botta and the couch, while Ramy sat there laughing.  Enta (you are) naughty, Ramy.  Naughty! 

Unfortunately, Botta had a date at 5 (he was planning onleaving straight from the house for his date) and now he literally looked like somebody smeared poop all over the front of his jeans.  He asked Matt for a change of clothes, but Matt is a good 6 inches taller than Botta, so it looked like he was in hisdad’s sweatpants.  Classy outfit for a date. 

Then, Lara had a bead kit to make necklaces, which she was really proud of and started to show it to me.  She held it up, and apparently it wasn’t closed all theway…because the beads went flying all over the room.  So Matt’s host parents, Ramy (who is now somehow naked), Lara, Matt, Botta, and I are on our hands and knees picking up all thebeads.  Once they were all back in the box, Ramy picked it up and again, the beads went flying! As if we didn’t learn our lesson the first time! So once again, we were back on the ground picking up all the beads.

Throughout the afternoon, Ramy and I formed quite a bond…aka we are now best friends, and he started crying and his mother picked him up.  But then he motioned that he wanted me to console him.  Yep, definitely best friend status right there! As we were leaving he gave me alittle kiss and a hug, and right then and there I decided I wanted to take him home with me.  But when he started acting up again, I would probably decide to bring him back! I can’t deal withall his energy. My goodness!

Saga of Taxi Troubles in Amman

1. Today my roommate Kirsten and I wanted to take a cab tomeet Matt at a café on Mecca Street. Of course taxi drivers have no idea which streets are which, let alonewhere a specific restaurant is located, so I said Mecca Mall (a knownlandmark).  He said ok, so we gotin.  Then after about a minutethings got weird.  This is how theconversation went (in Arabic!):
Driver:  Mecca Mall?
Me:  uhh yes
Driver: “ok well can’t you go to__________ (I forget where he said) because that’s where I need to go right now
Me: No, I want to go to Mecca Mall,thank you
Driver: Ok well then I need to getyou another cab because I can’t take you there
Me: ummm, ok

So he tries to flag down another taxi, but in doing so he isalso making a huge circle around our neighborhood.  Where he stopped to get us another cab was maybe a blockfrom the street we live on.  Therewas a cab stopped, so I figured we could just take that one, so I got out.  Well as I got out he asked for hismoney.  I looked at Kirsten and sheshrugged her shoulders. 

I knew I was going to have to handle this conversation.  So I start talking (in Arabic…I’mgetting good at this whole arguing in Arabic thing!) to the driver through thewindow, and pretty much say that there is absolutely no way I am going to payhim for driving us in a circle in order to find us another cab.  He tried to argue his case that heflagged us another cab.  Umm, okI’m sorry, but I wouldn’t be in this situation had you not agreed to take us inthe first place.  You have noargument in this scenario, buddy. There is no way you are getting you .75 JD.  I ended up yelling at him saying there was no way I wasgoing to pay him until he finally realized how serious I was, so he said hewould take me to Mecca Mall. 

When we got out, Kirsten and I made sure we paid the exactamount and not a penny more after that little adventure. 

2.  Thursday night (which is like our Friday night since the weekend is Friday/Saturday) I was going downtown to meet Matt to go to dinnerand a café, so he called me to say he was leaving at 6:30, so that’s when Ileft too.  I walked down to themain road to try to catch a cab, but it was such a mess.  All the cabs were already full or somedrivers just didn’t feel like stopping to pick you up. 

It didn’t make me feel any more comfortable that I was asingle girl (dressed super conservatively though) waiting by myself on the sideof a dark street, so all I wanted was to be in a cab to meet Matt.  Well, I waited for 30 minutes: nothing.  No cab would stop.   Then I started walking.  I knew the general direction of where Iwas going, but it was definitely not within a walking distance, so I hoped thatmaybe walking farther down the main street would help me catch a cab.  Well, another 30 minutes went by andstill no cab.  So I called Matt andsaid that if I didn’t catch a cab within 15 minutes, I was just going to go home. 

Within 10 minutes, a cab miraculously stopped for me!  And boy was the cab driver chatty.  By the end of the 20-minute cab ride, Iknew all about Juman’s life.  Ieven watched home videos of his two daughters, Salwa, 7, and Noor, 4. 

He dropped me off downtown, but before he did he asked if Ihad any friends in Jordan.  I saidI had some and he said “well, now you have another,” and I definitely did.  It reminded me that not all taxidrivers are trying to rip you off, creep on you, they can be genuinely nicepeople who compliment your Arabic and consider you a friend!

3.  My friendsKirsten, Jennifer, and I decided that Thursday after class we wanted to getmanis/pedis because 1) our feet are absolutely disgusting (Amman has reallytaken its toll) and 2) we just wanted the relaxing experience.  So we went to the IntercontinentalHotel Salon to get them done.  Wewalked in and they guy said he can’t do them now because he has to call his 2manicurists from their salon 30 minutes away.  Ok, so why do the Interncontentinal Salon workers also worksomewhere else? That’s kind of weird. But we said that we would wait the 30 minutes and went to a café towaste the time. 

When we came back, he said he called, and they said theycouldn’t come until after 5 pm when their salon closes.  There was no way we were going to wait3 hours for them to come after we had been told they would be here in 30minutes.  So we asked him for anothersalon to go to.  He gave us ageneral area where there are a lot of salons, so we were going to go when allof a sudden a random guy comes and asks if we wanted a salon.  We said yes, and he said “ok, I’ll takeyou.” 

We followed him outside, and he got into his car, andmotioned for us to do the same. We stood on the curb looking at each other.  Red flag: A random man told us he wouldtake us to his salon in his car.  Idon’t think so.  I was more thanhesitant and said I’d be more comfortable in a taxi.  He said he was the owner of the salon at theIntercontinental and the one he was going to take us to, but still I couldn’trationalize getting into his car, especially after everything that happened tome in Egypt with random men driving me places on public transportation.

So we said we would take a cab.  He didn’t put up a fight and said he would tell the driverexactly where to go, which he did. But not only did he do that, he drove in front of the taxi to show himthe way.  When we arrived at thesalon, there was an employee waiting for us on the side of the road to take usupstairs, and we said goodbye to the man. Only once inside the beautiful salon did we actually get confirmation thathe was the owner of both salons, and not some random creepy man!  I hope we didn’t insult him, but at thesame time I absolutely do not regret not getting into his car.  But now we know how to tell the taxiwhere to take us when we want to go back to the salon!

Saga of Beirut Taxi Troubles

1. The airport is teeming with taxi drivers who like to smellout Americans to rip them off with an exorbitant taxi fare.  Well our driver smelled out the wrongAmericans.  Kirsten’s friend toldus not to pay more than $15/20 USD (which they use along with the Lira), sothere was no way I was going to pay more than $15.  Warning: Don’t mess with Caitlin when she is bargaining. 

One taxi driver sniffed out the three American girls, mostlikely assuming we were an easy target. Oh how he was mistaken.  Hetried to take us for $25.  No, no,bud.  NO.  So I said $15, and not a penny more.  He laughed at my $15, so I laughed athis $25 when he said it again. Realizing I wouldn’t budge, he went down to $20.  Ok, so now he is showing hisweakness.  He went down within 5minutes, so why should I go up?! So I stood my ground.  Hesaid no to $15 again, and literally pulled a random guy off the street andclaimed he was airport police (umm, yeah, sure…airport police wearing jeans anda t-shirt talking on his cell phone, holding car keys?) and said the policemanwould enforce the $20 fare.  Well,I was not about to buy into that, so I started walking away to find another cabto start the bargaining all over. But of course once he saw that, $15 it was!

2. So the thing to do in Beirut at night is goclubbing.  I am not a clubbing kindof girl, but I bought into the whole “When I Lebanon, do as the Lebanese do”thing after Kirsten spent all of dinner convincing me to come out withher.  Well, we left for the club at11:30 pm, thinking it would take half an hour to get there.  So when I checked my phone uponarrival, I was shocked to see that it was already 1 am. 

It took us awhile to catch a cab since there were 6 of us,but we managed to cram 5 people in the back seat, and one sat in thefront.  The driver had no ideawhere we wanted to go, and neither did we.  Great…always a good sign.  So we drove in the general direction of the club (whichmight I add was an underground civil war bomb shelter turned club), but gotstuck in traffic.  And by stuck intraffic I mean like sitting in the same place for 30 minutes.  We stuck up a conversation with thecreepy guy in the car next to us, because we were so bored.  Then, once we started moving, the guybehind us apparently got so excited we were moving again and rammed into theback of our cab.  So that tookanother 20 minutes to figure out, even though car accidents here always endwith a smile and handshake. 

So we were finally back en route to this club.  Until we no longer knew the route.  So the driver pulls off the road onto aside road trying to find the place, and then all of a sudden we see thereflection of flashing red and blue lights.  Great. So not only did we get into a car accident, but nowwe are also getting a ticket. Apparently it was a 1 way street for the night, and we were going thewrong way, and also the fact that we had 5 people crammed into the backseat wasalso definitely illegal.  So that’stwo strikes against the driver, but apparently he talked himself out of theticket, so after another 20 minutes, we started up again.  Only to be pulled over, AGAIN.  But this time the police made a mistakeand returned the wrong drivers’ license to the taxi driver and had to exchangeit.  Thank goodness. 

We finally arrived at the club an hour and a half after ourjourney had started, and of course the driver wanted to charge us for thetraffic, the accident, and the run-in with the police.  Umm, I don’t think so, but this time Ileft the bargaining up to the Lebanese.

3.  Jennifer,Kirsten, and I were wandering around Beirut trying to figure out how to go toPigeon Rock (pretty much just a massive rock off the coast of theMediterranean), but we had no idea how much the taxi should cost.  So we flagged one down and told himwhere we wanted to go, and he said 4,000 Lira for all of us.  We agreed, and got in.  Probably 7 minutes later, we were atPigeon Rock, and he said he wanted 10,000 Lira for all of us.  What?! Absolutely not. 

So I started arguing with him.  There was no way I was going to let him rip us off when weonly got in after we agreed on 4,000 Lira.  He told us that normally it was 6,000 for a service and10,000 for a taxi, so he wanted 10,000 and denied that he originally told us4,000.  So I pitched a fit.  I was yelling at the guy in Arabic, andwasn’t going to let him take advantage of us. 

Then a random guy from the street came up to the windowasking if there was a problem.  Thedriver told him what was going on, and I clarified that he had told us 4,000 tobegin with, but the random guy on the street started saying “I guarantee he isright. You owe him 10,000 Lira.  Hedidn’t say 4,000.  I know. I knowhe didn’t.”  Oh boy.  That got me even more upset.  I started yelling at him, too! “What doyou mean you know? Were you there 5 minutes ago when we got in the cab and hesaid 4,000? I don’t think so. So you don’t know.  I know.  So goaway and let me talk to the driver.” (I am proud I got this all out in Arabicin the heat of the moment!)

After 5 minutes of bickering, we threw a 5,000 Lira bill inthe front seat and got out of the cab. I’m still a little upset he got an extra 1,000, but whatever.  At least he didn’t get his 10,000.

Caitlin Goes Camping...?!

Just like the title suggests, I went camping...in the desert. Shocking, I know. I'm surprised I survived to tell you all about it, but I can honestly say that I enjoyed it. Well, most parts of it...

 

 

Our program scheduled a trip to take us to Dana (a small little nature reserve), Wadi Rum (the desert), and Petra (an ancient city built into the rocks). So a group of 124 American students took off for a desert camping trip. How descete we must have looked!

The plan for the afternoon was drop our stuff at the tents in the nature reserve, then go on a "hike". So in case you guys didn't know or remember, Caitlin doesn't hike. Ever. My roommate Kirsten kept telling me "oh, it'll just be like a walk through the nature reserve. It's not a big deal; don't worry about it." Oh no, this was definitely a hike. There were two paths we could take: one was a scenic path and the other was to see the caves. My friends decided that the caves sounded really cool, so we were off to the caves. Only until we were 10 minutes into the trail did I find out that the cave trail was the intense hiking trail. Great. All I wanted was a leisurely walk and now I am literally on the side of a mountain climbing through caves. How did that happen?

 

 

After our little hiking adventure, we were told you could sleep in the tents or at a hotel. I think my hand went up before anybody else's for the hotel. After Matt's and my Umm Qais hotel mishap, I thought it could only go up from there. False. The hotel in Dana was pretty much a jail cell. It was a concrete room with three beds and a toilet. No mirror, tiny window, but they had a toilet! Success.

 

 

After hearing mosquitos buzzing and donkeys making their obnoxious sounds and dogs fighting, we fell asleep for maybe 3 hours. The next morning was rough, but we got up after our 7 am wake up call. By 9 we were on our way to Wadi Rum...the fun part.

The first thing we did was go on a jeep ride through the desert, making stops as needed to survey the scene and capture the desert images. It was absolutely amazing. Except that for some reason our driver was 12 years old, and we were always in the back of the pack. We would start out first after every stop, but soon enough we were watching all the other trucks speed by us! The last stop: tea in a bedouin tent! How classically stereotypical, but still. We are technically tourists who enjoy those things.

But what comes next is even more classically stereotypical: a camel ride through the desert. Which in theory sounds fun, but in reality is just painful. That's the only way to describe it. I was in a pack of 4 with Kirsten, Matt, and our Bedouin leader Abdul Rahman (more to come on him in a second). My camel's name was Esraa and let's just say she and I are not friends. Granted, she was pregnant and the last thing I would want is another 150 pounds on my back, but at the same time she needed to speed it up. Literally everytime there was a little tree or patch of weeds growing Esraa was stopped.

Anyway, that was the least of my concerns. My "saddle" (if you could even call it one) was kind of occupying my mind given how much pain it was causing me. For some reason everybody else was sitting comfortably on their padded saddles, while I was literally cringing and groaning the entire 2 hours because my saddle was a piece of wood covered by a light fleece jacket. Let's just say that it didn't work out very well. I literally could not sit or lay comfortably in any position for the next couple days, and I had bruises to prove it.

But all of a sudden in the middle of our camel ride, Abdul Rahman (who took a little too much of a liking to me) said "You sing or you jump." Umm I choose option number three: neither. Thanks. Then of course Matthew had to egg him on and say how wonderful of a singer I am and how much I love to sing. False. Nothing could be farther from the truth. But little Abdul Rahman was insistant, so I had to do it. For some bizarre reason, all I could think of was "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" so in the middle of the desert, there I was, cringing as I rode my uncomfortable camel while singing an American chidlren's song. Only in Jordan.

At the camp, we were assigned our tents, settled in (and by settled in I mean threw our bags on the mattress and unfolded the blanket. There's not really much settling in when it comes to tents in the desert. Then it was dinner time. Dinner was more of a feast of lamb and chicken cooked in the traditional bedouin way: buried and heated underground. It was ok, but buried meat is not really my idea of a good feast.

 

 

That night I actually slept better than I had in the hotel the previous night. It was a little cold, and my body wasn't going to let myself get comfortable after the camel ride, which should be really indicative as to how bad the hotel was. I really should stop complaining about that hotel...

Anyway, the next morning we were Petra bound. Petra is a city carved into the rocks of Southern Jordan and was the captial of the Nabateeans in th 6th Century BC. It was kept hidden until the early 19th century and was described as "a rose-red city half as old as time." The whole time I was walking through I could only imagine how it was in the 6th century, it must have been absolutely incredible. I mean it was absolutely incredible in the 21st Century!

I must say, though, it was a trek. A LONG trek. We had the option of walking up 900 steps carved into the mountain where to visit the Monsastery to see where the sacrifices took place, and let me tell you that was another hike and a half. What is it with all of this hiking?! I did feel accomplished afterwards though! Even though the Monastery was anti-climatic after seeing the Treasury and walking up 900 steps!

 

 

So after seeing a 6th Century rock city, riding a camel for 2 hours, being propsoed to by a Bedouin, 4 wheeling through the desert, eating a buried heat-cooked lamb, and sleeping in tents in the desert, I arrived back in Amman ready for a massage and ready to collapse in bed! Unfortunately only the collapsing in bed happened, but at that point, it was good enough for me!