My Jordanian foster family


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Middle East » Jordan » North » Amman
June 20th 2008
Published: June 20th 2008
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The serviced taxi ride from Damascus to Amman was looking to be a disaster. Picture a big-bellied driver, a big-bellied Jordanian riding shotgun, and me in the back riding thigh-to-thigh with two Jordanian men. Throw in a lack of AC in the Middle Eastern sun and a permanent stream of cigarette smoke, the next 3 hours of my life crossing into Jordan were 3 hours I would have paid to skip. The man in the front made no efforts to acknowledge my existence, the man to my right was thinner than me and also seemed glued to his cell phone. After some rather hopeless attempts at communication, I sort of just gave up and relinquished myself to misery until the man on my left busted out with some admirable English.

At first glance he is the type I would have normally avoided contact with. He is slightly overweight with your typical Middle Eastern protruding belly, rather tight jeans, and a very tight D&G print shirt. He also wears reflective gold-rimmed glasses and is very heavily showered in cologne. After a few minutes though I loosen up with the realization that our moist skins were going to be unpleasantly touching for a few hours and I may as well hear some stories from the only English-speaker in the car. His name is Amer and he is a 29-yr old Jordanian working for Gant/Wrangler brand management in Dubai.

The driver makes multiple long stops on the way at several market stands all seemingly selling the same crap. This I do not understand, why are we stopping to buy nuts and fruits and drinks over and over and over? We also stop for gas and also at a car wash, then move on to a place to service the tires. I am confused, but I am in no position to argue. Amer brings candy and Red Bulls back to the car, he haggles with people for my water, he is basically going all out to make me comfortable. He offers to sit bitch and offers to put my bag on his side of the hump. He translates for me and tells me stories of Dubai and his family in Jordan. He lets me internationally dial my brother from his phone. I wonder if he is trying to marry me or at the very least trying to have sex with me. Soon though we pass the weird “what do you want from me” line and I realize he just loves talking to people and probably just wants a foreigner to see the best of his country.

We get to the Syrian border and Amer tells me to watch the guard as he flips through all of our passports. The passports of the 4 men I am riding with get flipped open, checked through, and returned with some question and nod. When he gets to my American passport, he flips kind of all through it and hands it back almost immediately. Amer is right - the border guard can’t read English. Is it just me or doesn’t it seem like that should be a requirement for his post? We pass into Jordan without much hassle and at that I think “Great, Finally, Wonderful, Lets get going.” But much to my dismay the driver stops in front of the duty free store and everybody piles out. I ask what we are doing, and he says “You shop!”... We left Damascus before 5 which means we should have been to Amman easily by 7:30 or 8 latest. It is now 8pm and we are only at the Jordanian border, and he wants me to shop?? You have got to me kidding me.

Kidding not so much. The other 3 passengers happily bound in and I grudgingly follow because well, what else was I going to do? After about half an hour of milling through ties that nobody in their right mind would buy, I really had had enough. I go looking for my buddies and soon stumble upon Skinny and Shotgun in the perfume section. Big-bellied Shotgun waves me over and holds out his arm expectantly, “Sexy?” He wants me to smell it, the man that hasn’t even so much faced my general direction for the past 3 hours. I smell it and worry his arm hair will go up into my nose. The perfume woman and the two men look at me with big eyes, and the bluntly honest person I am I kind of just shake my head and say, “Smell good, but for you no.” His eyes light up in surprise, “No for me?” I grimly shake my head, “Need heavy for you, you BIG. Not sexy enough!” And thats when the dam broke. His face explodes in laughter and his whole body jiggles, he slaps me on the back and I almost crash into Christian Dior’s newest line. I meekly walk back over from where I have been propelled, and he drags me and Skinny to the shoe section, leaving Perfume woman in disgrace.

We all finally congregate back outside and Amer is there with like four bags full of useless merchandise. Each of the other men have also apparently flexed the plastic, which surprises me as the duty-free only stocks high-end designer labels. I thought we were all in this piece of shit car because well, I am a black-soled traveler and I thought you were all poor locals who wouldn’t be able to afford these things. Turns out Big-Bellied Shotgun is Jordanian and works in the tobacco industry in Kuwait, bling bling, and actually does speak some English. Amer apparently didn’t lie and really does work in merchandising in Dubai. Skinny guy, well he doesn’t speak English and I really don’t know about him.

At this, Amer and Shotgun start pouring through each others bags like high school girls to check out what fabulous things the other scored. Shotgun's eyes flash with jealousy when he sees Amer has purchased a few new colognes. Rapid Arabic follows, and soon Amer and Shotgun are walking BACK into the store. The other two men excitedly follow, by now I have given up on getting to Amman before dark and am curious to what happens next in this very strange progression of events. We go back into the perfume section, and Amer pulls out some horribly heavy smelling scent to test on Shotgun. Bottle after bottle gets pulled, spray after spray fills the air and I swear it was like being in a water balloon fight, only except it wasn’t water, but it was eau de toilette. A water balloon fight under confetti and candy falling from a pinata, only except it wasn't confetti or candy, but it was cologne. And instead of a pinata, it was the skies, the planets, and all levels of heaven. Shotgun eventually finds a cologne that is big and sexy enough.

I am pretty sure that in the next 2 hours all my nose hairs disintegrated in what I can only describe as a new classification of gas comprising China-grade pollutive tobacco smoke, petrol, and 30 of France’s most musky, pungent scents. Do not discount either the effects of body heat from 3 large Middle Eastern men, one skinny recluse, and a highly metabolic Asian girl in a shitty little non-brand sedan. Aside from losing any practical utility of one of my five senses, the ride from the border into Amman turned into one big party with everybody swapping numbers and promises of good times in Kuwait and other oil-rich Gulf countries, and a diarrheal usage of the endearing term “Habibi!”

We finally reach Amman a little past 10pm and Amer invites me back to have dinner with his family and to stay with them for the night. I hadn’t booked anything yet, I was fairly comfortable with him by now and had heard so many stories of his two younger sisters, one of whom is my age and is getting married in two weeks time, so I accepted and before I knew it was being picked up by Amer’s 25-yr old brother Ali in a shiny BMW. Their family lives out in what we might classify the ‘burbs of Amman where the houses are multi-storied with columns and fancy night lighting schemes. Wow, I had no idea what I was getting myself into but was pleasantly surprised.

His sisters were both absolutely charming and were giggling the whole time, taking me by the hand all over the house and sitting me down to show me 6(!) photo albums. I sat and watched Germany advance to the semis with Ali before helping Amer’s mother prepare dinner at midnight. His mother speaks no English at all, but was a very very jolly woman who at every smile I gave her would bust out in bellowing laughter. She loved me. At dinner, the girls tell me they don’t eat eggs or drink milk for fear of fat, while I sit and wolf down all the food before me. I tell them in America everybody starts their day off with a couple eggs and usually some milk as well. Funnily enough, they still eat cheese. Nobody besides Amer really speaks English - Howie, you would be proud to see the clear development of my pidgin English. It’s also very interesting to note the role that daughters play in Middle Eastern families. They tend to all the mens’ needs, presenting food and tea, even books and calculators when needed. They only speak when spoken to. They are so much more domestically inclined than females in America. I want to pit Jordanian women against Korean women in a Battle of the Ideal Housewives.

Amer’s family was seriously way too nice to me, and Amer has been amazingly hospitable. He says that when he first arrived in Dubai somebody did the same for him and from then on he always goes out of his way to help people as well. In addition many of his Western friends in Dubai have expressed the fear which Americans tend to have of the Middle East, and he wanted to do his part to dispel this thinking even if just for one American girl such as myself. His family loves that I get out there and travel (even though his mother turned to the girls and said "But not for you!") and asked me to stay another night with them which I would have loved to, but I have to be in downtown Amman tonight for my brother’s arrival. I cannot wait for Steve to meet Momma Amer; she is going to die laughing.

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22nd June 2008

reading your blog reminds me how much we miss the Jordanian people
We were in Jordan and Petra before Christmas and stayed at a local Bedouin village http://www.bedouincamp.net/index.html. In ten days we met hundreds of people from 20 something coeds to old and gray like us. Some stayed in 5 star hotels. We chose a billion stars in a Bedouin tent and camping in Waddi Araba on a 3 day camel trek. Another adventure was hiking into Petra the back way and exploring down the valley from the "monastery” to the "treasury" with an Ammarin Bedouin village guide. The archaeological and natural sights were spectacular but pale in comparison to the Bedouin people once they accept you within their homes. We think open heated people like you are a natural fit with the Jordanian people and you are therefore a great ambassador for modernity.
2nd August 2008

LOL
I loved reading this! I busted out laughing because I am American and my boyfriend is Jordian. He all the time takes,well drags me, to the perfume/cologne section in a store and sprays himself all over!!! I couldn't understand why and now I do so thank you! I finally got him to realize that I don't need to smell all that all over him because his smell is wonderful to me and clean. Now he doesn't do that but it took me forever to retrain him!!! LMAO...thank you for the laugh!

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