A Night with Women from the Greek Orthodox Church

An  experienced that happened in early November of 2012 in Amman, Jordan:  

               The Christian world in the Middle East has continued to be a foreign subject to me regarding my studies and exposure. After last week’s experience with the Coptic Church, I was able to see a church setting much differently than my own and come to the conclusion that there were some similarities between the Islam and Christianity in how sacred some things are. People’s mentality towards things can be similar but in the Middle East it seems that strong practicing Muslim and Christian women’s mentalities are very different.

                Turns out a group of BYU students have been going to the Greek Orthodox, Church of Our Lady, on a weekly basis to their week night Sunday school type of class, maybe more equivalent to an LDS institute class. They would go to practice their Arabic and learn more about the Christian culture. This particular night no one could go but one of the BYU girls. She couldn’t go alone so she invited me to head on out. It also was supposed to be their Halloween party. We show up to the church and quickly notice it is not a Halloween party (lucky I just used my scarf from Scotland as my costume) and rather a normal class similar to the class I went to at the Coptic church but there seemed to be many more people and the father was speaking into a microphone so that everyone could hear him. My friend Sally and I sat near the back after she looked for her friends but to no avail, she couldn’t find them.

               

                The sermon was about a huge array of topics. Some of the topics included doing good unto others and following the example of Christ. You could tell that everyone appreciated the Father very much because each time someone spoke with a comment or a question they would express gratitude for the Father. The chairs that Sally and I sat in were almost like thrones, a large wooden chair with arm rests. Turns out instead of pews, each chair was like this with not too much room between you and the chair in front of you. When the sermon was done, Lucy’s two women friends found her and began talking to her. Lucy introduced me to them and they seemed to cling to me as close as they could without touching me. While sitting in my throne like chair, they stood right in front of me so I couldn’t stand up or leave if I wanted to. In the Middle East, I have learned to keep a large bubble around me when it came to women, I would not allow them to get near me and me near them. This bubble that I have spent two months building was popped and I couldn’t do anything about it. I almost felt physically violated because their legs were right next to mine and I couldn’t do anything about it. They continued to stand in front of me as they talked to others around them. And to my dismay, the Father showed up and wanted to greet me. I wanted to meet him and speak with him but not in this setting. So I lifted my hand up over the person sitting next to me and we shook hands from a far distance. I was surprised he didn’t mention anything to the women and their distance next to my legs. I finally had to ask them to move so I could get up.

               

                These two women then wanted to invite Lucy and I out to coffee and tea at a restaurant type of setting. Lucy and I agreed but it seemed to take about 40 minutes to finally leave the church because the two women, including my friend Lucy were busy talking to people of both gender, hugging and farewell kissing non-stop. Lucy and I rode with one of the girls to this more modern café house. The two women were more free in there dress, shoulders were showing, lower cut shirts and they let their hair hang loose. This is again the opposite of the conservative Muslims that I have met, they reminded me a lot of normal American women with their appearance. I do not feel that these women were the type that you would consider “loose” but were at more liberty to dress the way they wanted and to speak with who they wanted. During our discussion at the café while they drank their coffee and Lucy and I our shakes, they both vocally mentioned they wanted to marry American men. I wasn’t sure that was a hint or not to me but it sure they liked how American men are more forward in wanting to date and having a relationship than Arab men are. They were fairly attractive women in their mid-30’s and seemed to love to gossip. Shortly after getting our drinks, another group of Lucy’s friends showed up and these two women kept to themselves. I was able to hear their speaking topics which were about the other girl’s clothes, how she was still single, and how she wore glasses. Honestly, I think they were jealousy of her because the other girl that just joined us, though maybe not as pretty as the other two girls, she seemed to be much more confident and happy. After a long two hours in this café we finally left without getting a ride from the one that gave Lucy and I a ride back so we took a taxi.

                This was a whole new perspective to women in a different social setting. I have met a good handful of Christian women from Jordan, most of them were Greek Orthodox, and they all seem to be fairly independent women. These two women seemed to be the rare of the rare in their interactions with me. I am not offended or upset, almost rather more amused by their interactions because they were so different than what I had expected to be the case. Though they may have been on the extreme side it was a good picture of the difference between a conservative Muslim woman and a Christian woman. The Christian women are more open in what they want to say, they dress more freely and don’t seem to have the pressure to get married or date like that Muslims do, or so it seems from this situation. 

Coptic Church in Amman

An account while I was in Jordan in October 2012

                The other night a group of me and a few other BYU students decided to go to a Coptic church. There was a rumor that they were having a service on Thursday night. Fridays are the day for Sabbath day worship so I thought this was a bit odd but I decided to go either way.

I had ever been to a Coptic church before but I have heard much and studied very little about them. As one of my bosses is Coptic, I hear things periodically but she is not a strong Coptic in the sense of actual practice. I also had read much about them in the news regarding Egypt. Often times it is about the Coptic’s events dealing with Muslims in Egypt; most of the time they are not good events. The Coptic religion originates and is mostly found in Egypt.  Regarding the Arab Spring, Christians and Muslims united together to overthrow the Mubarak Regime. There was peace and alliance but just a few weeks prior to the beginning of the Arab Spring there were bombings in Coptic churches to probably incite revolts and a battle for a sense of control. Now, almost 2 years after the fall of Mubarak, Christians and Muslims are back at it with each other. The Coptic Church has many similarities with other churches. It has its own pope, the Coptic language is used during services and they can claim origin to the early apostles of the New Testament.

As we arrived to the Coptic church building I noticed that it was near the brand new, almost multiplex style, mosque. The mosque was beautiful, across the street from it was a large but simple church. The church building stood about 40-50 feet tall with a Christmas light lit up cross on the top of its highest point. We walked around the street trying to find a gate to get into the church grounds. I thought it was odd the church had walls around it but then I realized the mosque across the street had walls and that most of my own church buildings in the in the States had walls. It took a few Muslims who were crossing the street from the mosque to tell us where the gate was to get in. Turned out there was a little slot you can put your hand in to pull the lever to open the door but we didn’t realize this until after we had to call over for a person to open the door for us. This individual that opened the door was fully robed in priest clothes and had salt and pepper colored beard. The beard probably was a foot long and a half foot cap topped his head. He didn’t seem to want to say much to us at this time because he pointed us in the direction where we should go and then went back to sit on his chair. On our way out, we saw him sitting next to a younger male member and seemed to be speaking Coptic to him, almost like bestowing a blessing upon the young man.

As we walked closer to the main door, you could look inside and see lights and even candles lit inside. We were pretty nervous at first, we weren’t sure if we should knock or just open the door. Out of our group I decided to just open the door and walk in. As soon as I opened the door you could feel like you stepped back about 1000 years. The church, though had modern paintings, it was filled with cascade windows and arches. The doors were of the finest large wood carvings I have ever seen. The pews of the church were more modern, you could see scriptures written in Arabic from the New Testament written on the back side. Each pew had its own scripture.  There was about a group of 20 people listening to a man sit in the front dressed in business casual. It seemed all of the others there were dressed in business casual attire, including the women. The women were not veiled and even spoke more openly than I’ve seen Muslim women in social settings. The person giving the sermon we later found out was a visitor from Egypt, we could tell he was from Egypt because of his Egyptian Arabic dialect. It was kind of refreshing to hear it because that was the dialect I was taught in school. I sat down behind the others listening in and I found myself not paying too much attention to the sermon being given but more rather to the art work. It seemed that there were pictures of many of the notable prophets in the bible everywhere they could find a place to paint. Each prophet seemed to look about the same, white beards, old looking (some young), and carrying a scroll (probably scripture). A few had certain key symbols with them, for example, Moses was carrying a staff and two tablets. In the front, there was a pew and a wood wall that didn’t reach the top (the vaulted ceilings were about 40-50 feet high). On this wood wall was a spot for each of the twelve apostles and in the center top was a large wooden statue of Jesus Christ. There also was a miniature statue of Jesus Christ in the center of the priest’s area and then on the left side of the wood wall. Overall, the church was very beautiful with amazing artwork all around.

We were obviously late to the sermon but we weren’t the only ones. Two young Arabs came walking in down one of the aisles between the pews. They walked up where the priest’s area begins and took their sandals off where the step begins. They stepped up and began to cross themselves which I thought was the normal but then they knelt and began to pray similar to how a Muslims prays in the mosque. I was really confused because I thought for a moment that these were Muslims coming to pray in the church, almost to make a point against the Christians but this was not the case at all. After kneeling and putting their heads to ground for a few seconds, they got back up and crossed themselves again. Then they went and kissed both of the smaller statues of Jesus Christ and then each chose a picture of an apostle and kissed that. I think one kissed Paul and the other kissed Thomas. They then went near the entrance and each lit a candle and placed it in the appropriate spot of sand located at just below eye level in a circular tub.

Another member who was observing the sermon then handed us envelopes with the church’s name on the envelope. We of course took them but then after it was handed to us, we noticed that this was for the sake of paying offerings. One of the military guys with us paid five dinar but the rest of us did not.

The sermon was done (finally), it seemed to have lasted a total of two hours, an hour before and after we arrived. After the sermon, each of the members there were so anxious to speak to us! They wanted to ask us where we were from, why we’re in Jordan, and most importantly, to have us over for coffee and tea for next week’s sermon. The fellowship they were lending us reminded me of the type of fellowship we as Latter-day Saints had done. It was quite interesting to see how much they similar to us in this aspect. Coptics are primarily from Egypt so most of the people there were from Egypt but a small hand few were from Armenia. Most Armenians will say they go to the Armenian Church and never anything else so it makes me wonder if these Armenians were going for another reason.

This was my first experience with a Christian church in the Middle East. It was interesting to see another Christian church in a different culture where Christianity isn’t the most practiced religion. The Christians seemed to mix a lot of their practices with the Muslims. The act of prayer that the two young Arab men did at the beginning seemed too similar to what a Muslim would do when he first enters a mosque and begins to pray. Christianity was fairly established in the Holy Land when Islam came around and I wonder if maybe Islam took similar practices from Christianity. The idea of respect for the sacred area seems to be universal between the two religions. It also seemed that being a Christian, no matter what sect you were, was just as good as any other sect.

Taxi Drivers In Amman

                I’ve been in Jordan for over a month now. It hasn't been until I got to Amman that I took my first taxi. Growing up in the area as to which taxis were only for those that seemed to be only for business travelers or people that had not much money but used it as a way to get around when they absolutely needed it.  Taxis have always seemed very foreign to me so coming to Amman it’s been a real cultural experience.  Not so much the crazy driving, but more so the type of people that drive these taxis.

                My first experience in Amman dealt my friend Keith and I’s first morning in Amman. We were in a hotel for the night and getting ready to meet with our professor at the school which we would be attending. The hotel’s son recommended that we take a bus but we wanted a quick and direct way to the place. We must have seemed like a “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign because literally four taxis lined up along the street waiting for us to choose one of them. We started talking to the first taxi driver in line, he spoke English fairly well, while we were talking to them, two of the three other taxi drivers got out of their car and started talking to the taxi driver we were speaking to. Their conversation was in all Arabic and I had no clue what they were saying. It seemed like they were chatting simply to catch up with one another. They ended with the other two walking away upset at our driver. Reluctantly, it seemed we were stuck with this taxi driver as the other three taxis left.  He agreed to do the drive for three dinar, we knew we could pay it for less but we just wanted to get to where we were going. We didn't know there were meters, thought that maybe we were just paying a little bit extra, we later learned that if we were going off of the meter, it would have only cost a little over one dinar. One other aspect about taxis in Amman is that you need to tell them the general area that you want to go to. In this case, we didn’t know anything except that it was south of University of Jordan and on Queen Rania Street. Most Jordanians, especially taxi drivers do not know street names. So this didn’t help too much. Luckily, we knew the street number and the taxi driver asked other drivers through his window while we were in traffic where Queen Rania Street was, miraculously we found it.

                In taxis, if there are girls, they sit in the back seat. If it is girls and one guy, the guy sits in the front seat. This is cultural with the Islamic state that we live in. Women don’t talk to men in public. So later in our first week, we as a BYU group were heading to downtown Amman to get some delicious Hashem’s hummus. I went with a roommate and two other girls and I sat in the front street because I knew what to tell the taxi driver since I had been there before. What I didn’t know at that point is that you don’t take set prices; you always go with the meter. This taxi driver wanted three dinars and knowing that it was much farther than Keith and I’s distance from the hotel to our school, I figured it was reasonable. He was a big burly man, spoke English fairly well and had a sense of humor because he just laughed at all my Arabic attempts. He was pretty rude and didn’t seem to like us. We finally get to Hashem’s where I hand him a ten dinar bill, he puts it in his little stash on his side of the car and says goodbye. I am stunned, he just took my ten dinars without giving me change. I told him that we agreed to three dinars, he then says ok. He reaches into his stash, grabs a one dinar bill and hands it to me.  I had learned from a roommate that was in Jordan the summer beforehand that you needed to be stern with taxi drivers. So I sat in the charge telling him that he agreed to three dinars. He sat with a sly smirk on his face and didn’t seem to want to budge because he kept saying thank you and good bye. The girls and my roommate in the back seat didn’t know what to do. I encouraged them to get out and then I got out.  Before I got out, I told him that he was a very bad man (in my broken Arabic) and he laughed and said that he knew he was.

                I learned a few lessons about taxis thus far. Always have them restart the meter when you get into the car. Always have exact change for the payment. Never agree to a set amount. Don’t forget to talk to them and loosen them up, sometimes this will get them to be more kind to you.

                I have had many great experiences with taxi drivers. In fact, the taxi is where I feel most comfortable to practice my Arabic with. We had one that I remember understanding everything he was talking about and he seemed to understand me the whole time, it was a great feeling. Another older taxi driver was listening to older Arabic music, he began to dance with his arms held out in the air as if they were floating, turning his hands at his wrists like they belonged in a jet stream and his fingers rolled along. He then encouraged us to dance like him, mostly my roommate who was in the front seat. When we did it, he thought it was the greatest thing. Taxi drivers love to smoke (like most Jordanians), it was a little weird at first, but with the windows down and going as fast as they tend to do, it’s not a problem with the smoke and smell. Ironically, my first cigarette ever offered to me was here in Jordan while in a taxi. It seems to be the acceptable offer here.

                My roommates have a very different schedule than I do so they often get to the school before me. Because we live somewhat close and I need to save money, I walk to campus. Only twice have I needed to take a taxi on my own to get to campus in time of a class or a students’ appointment that I needed to record.  I get a taxi and proceed to tell them Mukhtar Mall (this is right next to our school, everyone seems to know where this little mall is located). We begin to talk, and I inquire about their family, work, and what they want to do in the future. To my surprise, when it comes time to drop me off, they offer the drive for free! Free!! Can you imagine that? Each ride is about a dinar’s worth and they offered it to me. I don’t want to risk my luck but it seemed to be a good thing when I take the taxi on my own.

                Taxis are great, they are fairly cheap and I feel most comfortable to practice my Arabic with the drivers. Maybe it’s because they can’t get away from me but they seem to enjoy it. It seems to be a lower end job, probably right above that of what the Egyptians get around here which is the dirty trash and service type of jobs. In short, be smart about the taxi you take, don’t let them cheat you out and talk about their lives and likely you’ll enjoy your experience with them. 

A Night of Jordanian Football

                I’ve never really been a huge soccer fan, or any sports type of fan for that matter, I always felt that professional sport games got in the way of practicing music or other means that were of more importance. In the recent years I have tried to be more balanced, do things I haven’t really done before that most people do, so when the opportunity came to go to a professional soccer game (or football called here in Jordan) I figured I should take the opportunity and go.

                There was word being spread about a football game, a competition for Jordan’s acceptance into the world cup. If they lost, they would be eliminated and the other team would move on, this team was Australia. My friend Keith and I gave some money to another BYU to buy our tickets in advance. When it got closer to the game, Keith and I decided to stay in our apartment to rest, do homework, and not deal with the hassle of a crazy international football game. Apparently there were roughly nine girls and four guys going which they were advised to have a 2:1 ration of guys to girls by their female Arabic teacher. We later received a phone call asking for Keith and I to come so there will be more guys, which we agreed. We took our own taxi to the stadium since the main group had already left.

           In our taxi we got stuck in traffic many times. When we got stuck in traffic along the street of the main gate, we had many Jordanian young men walking along side of the cars asking us, “Inta Australee? Inti maa Australia? Are you Australian? Are you with Australia?” Keith and I would respond with, “la, ihna maa Ilurdan. No, we are with Jordan.” The first two young men that asked us were so excited that we were with Jordan instead of Australia and called us their brothers. The rest of the young men didn’t believe us and continued their shouts for Jordan. Our taxi driver let us know that everyone will think we are Australian and that we should make sure we go to the Jordan gates into the stadium so we don’t get verbally abused or even physically abused. After many other young men coming to our taxi windows we were still stuck in traffic. A few times we would see groups of young men all of a sudden running fast towards us and away from the stadium. I later learned that that was because they were being chased off by Jordanian police with gas. Keith and I wanted to get out so we didn’t have to pay the taxi driver for his time. He told us not to get out until we got closer to the main gate. I thought it was for the fact of him getting more money for his time but I later learned it was really for our safety.

                We finally got close to the gate. Our taxi driver reminded us again to just go straight to the Jordan gates (versus the gate the Australian portion of the stands). We get out and quickly found ourselves in the middle of a chaotic situation with the crowds and police. These police stood in a line telling the young men to go away, I imagine threatening them with further gas, but I didn’t pay too much attention to what they were saying to them; I was focused on how to get inside the stadium and to find our group of BYU students. I walked through a hole in the line of police. One grabs me by the arm and begins to walk me towards the stadium with a gun in his other arm. I tell him that we have friends inside the stadium and need to get our tickets. He said we should go to the Australian side even though I confirmed to him we were with Jordan. We were escorted twice by the police to the Australian gate because this apparently was the best place for us to be. Our fellow BYU students were already stuck inside the stadium and were not able to give us our tickets. So Keith and I decide that we should just go home and miss the game because it was going to start fairly soon and certainly didn’t have any tickets to get in what already seemed to be an already sold out game. There were crowds at each Jordanian gate of young men, pushing and shoving to squeeze through the police at the opening gate but the police were doing the same back. Surely, we couldn’t get in that way and sit with our friends.

                Keith and I, with another last minute decision, decided to go back to the Australian gate and try our luck there. We were already there at the stadium; we might as well try to get in. It was very interesting because many Jordanian youth tried to get in on the Australian side, carrying Australian flags trying to convince the authorities there were with Australia. Keith and I told them our story of how we had tickets but couldn’t get them on the Jordanian side, the police told us they couldn’t help us but we waited to see what would happen. Later, a Jordanian woman (probably the only one I saw at the whole stadium) was in charge of helping the Australian tourists to get in. After hearing our story decided to let us into the stadium and to go quickly before others see that we got in without tickets.

Keith and I on the Australian side of the stadium.

                Inside the Australian side, we saw that our small portion of the stadium which was fenced off was not full at all. We saw proud shirtless Aussies doing cheers while the crowded Jordanian crowd rambled several Arabic cheers. We met a few friends on the inside; most of them were fellow Americans that are here studying Arabic that also got let in for free. Obviously the polices knew that this side of the stadium would be much safer. I began to worry a lot about our group that was stuck in the middle of the stands with Jordanians. We tried to call and text but most of the time, our phones didn’t work and if they did, we couldn’t hear each other because of the loud volume.

                I’ve never been to a professional soccer game, never been a fan, but I sure do recall of hearing crazy riots and attacks at soccer games, as well as that Arab young men can be notorious for sexually assaulting foreign women at these events. Jordan is winning with 2 points and Australia 0 points with only a quarter of the game left. I wanted to leave to avoid the riots and the attempted verbal or even physical attacks on us as being foreigners and on the opposing team. We tried to encourage the other BYU students to the same, but of course it was too loud for them to hear us and texting didn’t work. So we left, got a taxi fairly easy and then arrived home grateful to have avoided the later chaos.

Our view point from the fenced off area.
Straight ahead was where our other BYU group was located.

                Shortly after arriving home, I got a call from one of the girls from the main BYU group. I could hear loud sirens and “whooping” sounds from what sounded like an ambulance or police car. This girl called to see if we were still at the stadium at which I replied. I asked them if they were on their way home and she said they were in a police ambulance type of car. She said that the crowd got so crazy that they were bombarded by many of the young men that they sexually assaulted the girls as they tried to get out of the crowds. I later learned that one of the nine girls in the group strongly wanted to leave early like Keith and I did but the rest of the group wanted to stay to the end. Sadly, she was right to have wanted to leave. I continued to learn the greater details of what had happened and how some of the Jordanian young men created a line around the BYU girls so that others wouldn’t get to them, calling it “haram” or forbidden of what the other young men were doing. A few of the girls were devastated with what had happened while other girls just took it as part of the culture and were just fine with their sexual assaults.

                My heart goes out to those that were hurt physically and emotionally. I wish Keith and I could have been with them to help , I wish that the group was smarter in their actions. I wish that they had left early like Keith and I did but most of all I wish the girls that took the event light heartedly would be more sensitive to the girls that were highly disturbed by the night. Nothing ever gives men the right to sexually assault women, especially not a “culture.” They shouldn’t have gone even with the numbers of guys to girls that they had. They had to have known how crazy the crowds would be.  They surely were warned not only the day of the game that this would happen but also before they ever came to Jordan. Of course, being with BYU, we instated new rules regarding public events that there is 2:1 ratio of guys to girls.

                I think I am more concerned about all of this because I have personally tried my best to be with the girls from our program even if it is out of my way to make sure they aren’t bombarded by the infamous young Arab men, or what they are called as the “shabaab.” Now, a few weeks after the game, the girls that had the hardest time with it have expressed that it was hard for them to want to go out and talk on the streets as they should for school but that things are now getting better and were grateful for the young men that strived to protect them. 

Welcome to Jordan

                                                                                                                                                                

Ahlan Wasahlan

                “Welcome to Jordan” are the first words I heard when I arrived to the Queen Rania Airport in Amman, Jordan.  These words were said in English. It seems that everyone wants to welcome me to Jordan once they find out I am from America, even after two weeks. I imagine it will be like this the rest of my time here, a period of four months. After working with many Arabs in the United States, I have come to learn a different culture but a culture I felt was subdued by the Western Culture in which they were present in. These are the people I study for school and my impressions I felt were altered a little bit. Maybe the Arabs I met were accustomed to Western thought and experience has transformed them. I knew I had to get to the Middle East for myself to see what the Arab was like; in his atmosphere, in his realm, and in his own home.  Jordanians are interesting folk, if you can even use the term folk. They are loud, thoughtful, deceitful, kind, helpful, ambitious, talkative, deceived, and patient. Now not all Jordanians are each characteristic I just mentioned, not at all. I feel those characteristics I feel can describe almost any society in the world. For my first assignment of writing about the culture, I’d like to explain my first 24 hours, my first welcome from the country, and my first impression of finally being in the Arab world.

First views of Jordan

               Air France. Don’t ever fly with them. Their customer service while on the plane is fantastic but their luggage transfers are subpar. This was their second time losing my luggage in Paris in less than a week. While at the airport I had my friend’s cousin, Hashem Al Nasser, waiting for me. He waited patiently, without smoking a cigarette for one whole hour in the airport, as I got my luggage situation taken care of. Hashem Al Nasser and I first met on Facebook (Most Arabs love Facebook); we hadn’t met in person prior to the airport. I was impressed with his ability to be patient with my luggage situation. He then drove towards Amman. Along the road, I saw families huddled around a small tent and camp fire (it was at night), probably cooking something with meat. I asked Hashem if this is where they lived, he said no, it was their way of getting out of the city and enjoying time with their family. We then went to dilwar ilbalad, or downtown of Amman. It was crowded and so bright with lights. We went to his favorite restaurant, Hashem’s. No it wasn’t his favorite place because of the name; I quickly learned it was because of the pita and hummus that was served. Just thinking of it makes my mouth water. Then he drove us around the city, demanding that we see at least one of the hills. You see, Jordan is built on many hills (or mountains), much of the old city falls between these hills where the water would run down. Now the city is much bigger and each area has its name. We drove down Rainbow Street, which is supposed to be where most foreigners were. We didn’t get out of the car, simply drove through the rigged traffic in a maybe two lane road. As we slowly drove down this street, we saw many cafes and restaurants, many of them with hookahs—an instrument to smoke basically anything you put into it. We then saw many women that were outside of what the media typically shows, they were unveiled, immodestly dressed and plastered in makeup. These women were surprisingly looked more like Arabs than foreigners. This is where Hashem invited me to get a girlfriend. The Arabs I saw were fairly attractive, much more in person than I expected, but a girlfriend was not an option because I already had one. He let me and my friend, Keith, use his cell phone to call our mothers back in the United States. He dropped us off at our hotel; it was a grand first night. We were ecstatic to be in Jordan and had a great introduction. Thank you to a new friend in a foreign land.

View of Amman from Rainbow street

Sun Rise Hotel was very interesting. It apparently is the oldest hotel in Amman, which I am sure it is one of the older hotels in Amman. It was run down, but it did have wireless internet. I found myself going down to the lobby asking for the password for the wireless internet so I could contact family and find the address to the place we needed to be the next day. It was no sooner found myself sitting down with the foondook owner and his friend helping them find companies that insure the oil rigs in the Persian Gulf. They later told me they wanted to buy stock in these companies because they thought they will become very rich if they did. I thought to myself why would they get rich from them? But I didn’t let it bother me too much. They then noticed my iPhone and asked if I was going to get the iPhone 5. They asked if it was really see-through, or transparent. I laughed and said there is no way they would do that. They must have seen the same predictions/fake photos of the iPhone 5 I saw on the internet. They then started to speak to me in Arabic—about politics. They asked me if I liked Obama and Bush. They began to state how profoundly they hated Bush because of the wars which he brought to the Middle East all for oil. They stated they didn’t like Obama but they also didn’t like Romney. They muttered that he wasn’t even a Christian, that America should have an American president.  “Mormons, don’t believe in Christ,” one said. “Why would America ever have a non-believing Christian?” “He is a Mormon and must be magnuun (crazy).” Even though their words were filled with disgust about this topic, I looked at them with some excitement. I said, “Ana mormonee zay Romney (I am a Mormon like Romney). “  I explained to them that I believe in Jesus Christ. They questioned all different aspects of how I believed in Christ. They then seemed to have run out of complaints about Romney and the Mormons. I knew at least one of them was Muslim because I had to wait for him to finish praying before I could check in.

They then went back into the topic of stocks for the oil insurance companies. It finally bugged me enough to ask them why they wanted to invest in these companies.

“Because we will get rich.”

“Why?”

“Because Israel and America will be at war with Iran very soon.”

“Why would you want war?”

“So we can get rich, very very rich.”

“I hope they don’t go to war. In fact, I don’t think there will be a war at all.”

One stood up and said, “I hope there is a war! I want to be a rich man.”

                This logic made great sense. Hate President Bush for bringing wars to the Middle East, say it was for his own personal gain for oil, etc. but then want a war just so you can get rich off of stock from insurance companies that we weren’t even able to find for the last hour. I wish I had known better Arabic at this moment because my response of why there probably won’t be a war and how they shouldn’t want for a war didn’t seem to reach them.  I encouraged them to invest in Google, Macintosh, or something they use. They didn’t want to do that. I went back to the hotel room, told Keith about the conversation and then realized I had lost my iPhone.

Our Sun Rise Hotel room

                That next morning, I prayed I would find my iPhone. It was my future lifeline for Amman let alone worth hundreds of dollars. Shortly after taking a cold shower, I got a knock on the door; it was the owner of the foondook which I spoke with last night. He pulled something out of his pocket and asked, “Is this yours?” It was my iPhone! I could tell from the case it was in but now it was all scratched up. “Yes! It is mine, where did you get it?!” “Come, follow me,” he said. I followed him all the way down the stairs and into the street. He said, “Hunna (here) my son found it at 2am in the morning.” He pointed at a spot on the street near the curb. It must have fallen out of my pocket or my lap when I got out of Hashem's car the night before. He knew it was mine from the photos on the phone (I always knew it was good to not put a passcode on the iPhone!) and he made something very clear to me. He said, “Here at my hotel, I don’t lie or cheat. In America, someone would have taken it. Now write a good review of my hotel on the internet.” I nodded my head, said several thank you’s in Arabic and went back to my hotel room. Wow, what an amazing man and son for not taking my phone, a very expensive one, too. He was honest and wanted to get rich through a war, what a great introduction to Jordan! And a prayer answered most certainly. 

                Keith and I soon after took a taxi to our next meeting place, charged us four dinars (about $7) which should have really been half a dinar (about $1). Yep, ahlan wasahlan to Jordan.