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!
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!
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