I went out to a coffee shop tonight with a couple of buddies. I asked the waiter for some cards. He gave me an embarrassed look that said, “Bear with me… I’m about to say something that sounds stupid and I don’t agree with it.” He then explained to me that Shabaab are not allowed to play cards. The cards are for couples or families only. He said that we were allowed to play Backgammon, Chess or Dominoes. We played dominoes but wanted cards and couldn’t get over that craptastic rule.

I went to the big Orange office here in Rabia the other day to ask about the iPhone 3Gs. While we were in the USA I was waiting until we came back to get my iPhone 3G. Well a week before we came back the 3Gs was introduced. You better believe I am not going to buy a 3G when it has already been end-of-life’d back in the states. I had asked several Orange people to try and get a consensus of when the 3Gs would come. The general thought was mid-August… except for two people from Orange, one being the manager at the Rabia branch. When I asked him about when the 3Gs would come he replied, “No, you can just buy 3G, make download and then it is become 3Gs.” Either this guy knows of some new way to download physical hardware downloads or he is um… stupid… I mean… trying to get rid of his 3G stock on helpless people who are dumber falling prey to his craptastic sales technique. I wasn’t gonna buy it and I told him, “No. You are wrong. There are hardware differences and you are wrong.”

PS… Orange, I loathe love you.

Michael Jackson’s dad, Joe Jackson, wants to take Jacko’s three kids and get them touring as the Jackson 3. That type of “fatherly” behavior explains a lot about Michael’s life.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,531940,00.html

If you don’t know what Fail Blog is then you don’t know what you’re missing. It’s a great collection of user submitted pictures and videos of things that just aren’t quite right. I have submitted a photo a guy in a mullet, or better put: “skullet” and for it to make the home page and get exposure it needs your votes. Click on the link below and give it a rating of 5… the more votes the more likely it will get exposed on their website!

Click here and vote!!!

Here is the photo…

We just got back to Jordan a few days ago and we’re so glad to be home. Our 6 months was great in the US but there is nothing like our own bed :)

Not having driven in the Middle East for that length of time made a drive in town today an adrenaline rush. I also met an old buddy at TGI Fridays tonight. If you recall my post about TGI Fridays about filling out the comment card, there is something I didn’t realize back then. I was requested by the staff to fill out a card tonight and I saw something funny. Ahlan wa Sahlan… Jordan welcomes me back with some Arabish :)

Feed us to serve you better...

I thought I was there to be fed! Why do I need to feed them in order for them to serve me food better… I’m so confused.

I’m sure they meant something about feedback ;)

Sorry it has been so long since i’ve blogged a little. My family and I left Jordan in December and will be back in June. We have been enjoying time with family. Enough about me… on to more interesting topics…

The U.N. is so worthless. I’ve held this opinion for many years now. I’ve never liked the fact that America foots the bill for the majority of the Administrative costs of the UN. That coupled with the fact that they are nothing more than the equivalent of that nagging aunt that comes over for the holidays and feels they must interject their worthless opinion in your life. This post came about because of the UN’s resolution on a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. I’m not even going into the right and wrong aspects on either side of the conflict. That is another post for another time and I’m sure that the blogosphere is buzzing with all sorts of opinions that one more isn’t needed.

So when I read that a resolution was passed by the UN Security Council calling for an “immediate and durable” ceasefire between Israel and Hamas all that I could do is laugh. Neither Israel or Hamas is going to listen to them and I just don’t see the reason… Well… I guess if they are doing it only for the purpose to have some type of backup for when the don’t listen. I just hope that they don’t pass these resolutions with any type of expectation that either side will listen. So after laughing about it, I went into the other room where my family was and I let my sarcastic side out telling everyone, “Praise the Lord everyone! The great world savior, the UN has come to the rescue! They’ve passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire! The conflict is over!”

Let’s just say I wasn’t surprised when I saw this headline… “Israel and Hamas Reject U.N. Truce, Intensify Attacks”

Ack… I’m so sick of the UN.

Once again… this post neither criticizes nor defends either side of the conflict and that isn’t the issue so let’s not turn it into that in the comments. This is about the U.N.

My wife gave birth to our beautiful baby girl this morning. We named her Kenzy (كَنْزي)… not after the blogger but rather because she is our treasure.

We are at Farah Hospital near 3rd circle and they came to turn on the internet to allow my computer to hop online. First the IT guy said that their internet is not compatible with Macs. I told him to just give me the information he would put in a PC and I had my Mac up on the net in seconds. Later after I’ve been on they came and told me that I would have to pay 10 JD per day for the service. For that kind of money it had better be super fast… but it ain’t. I told them forget it and they said you might as well use it until midnight because you’re paying 10 JD today. Bah!

Milk (verb): to draw or coerce profit or advantage from illicitly or to an extreme degree.

They already had the privilege of delivering our beautiful baby for money… the least they could do is toss in some free slow wi-fi.

Yesterday morning we spoke with one of the friends of the hiking tragedy. We told them that we wanted to go to the funeral but we wanted to make sure that it was okay with them. They told us that they wanted us to come so we let several of the people in our hiking group know and 5 of us went. It was in Sahab, which is a good distance outside of Amman.

When we arrived, they had already placed Ahmed’s body in the ground and they were all gathered around it. There was some speaking over a bullhorn and lots of people were stealing glances at the whiteys in the crowd. Everyone was very respectful towards us… especially Ahmed’s friends from the trip. There were hugs and tears and kisses on cheeks exchanged between us. We were introduced to several people, including a member of parliament and then one of the friends asked us to come meet the family. There was a line of about 40 men that, I’m guessing, consisted of his grandfathers, uncles and cousins from a wide swath of the family tree. It was sad to hear that this family had lost Ahmed’s father to cancer within the last 2 years as well.

There were at least 300 people attending the funeral and nearly all of them were in the line to meet the family. They cleared a path for us telling people that we were the men that tried to save him and that brought him out of the water. People stepped back and graciously allowed us in the line ahead of everyone. It was honestly a very touching and humbling experience. You can’t help but wonder at times like this about the what-ifs that could have prevented us from being honored and Ahmed being buried. We shook hands with all of the family, wished them God’s comfort and exchanged kisses with some of the friends one more time.

We left the funeral with knowing the efforts we had made were appreciated but only wishing all the more there could have been a different outcome for this son of Jordan.

Yesterday, on a hike, near the Dead Sea a young Jordanian man drowned. While we did not see him go in, my friends and I were the first responders.
I and 14 of my friends went down to the Dead Sea yesterday. We hiked up into Wadi Ma’in to a waterfall with a beautiful pool at the bottom. I had made this hike 2 times before and it was a wonderful experience. This area is a true hidden treasure of Jordan.

On the way up the canyon we were passed by a group of about 20 Jordanians. We stopped and spoke with them for a few minutes. They were very friendly and it was enjoyable to have them on the trail with us. They beat us to the pool by about 15 minutes and apparently began wading in the pool under the waterfall… 10 minutes after they got there, a guy who had ran back asked us if we knew how to swim and we could sense the urgency in his voice and demeanor. A friend of mine and I ran as fast as we could up to the pool and made in about 5 minutes. When we got up there, they told us that their friend was under water somewhere. We asked where he had gone in so we could try to focus on that area. We swam out to where we could stand on the side so that we could work from the base of the waterfall and avoid the current. I was concerned that he had been pulled under by some type of undercurrent… and thinking about my very pregnant wife and 2 boys at home, I took a rope from one of the guys from their group and tied it around my waist. I gave the other end of the rope to a friend of mine and I began diving and searching for the guy. I must have dove 15 times into this pool that can be up to 5 meters deep in some areas. Another friend of mine took a rope that I had brought and hooked it up at the top of the waterfall and started rappelling down the waterfall into the pool to try and go straight under.

My friends and I were the only people doing anything to try and find this guy… and here is why… none of them could swim. If they could swim it was nothing more than a dog paddle swim which is completely useless when trying to find a drowning victim possible 5 meters down.

It turns out they had told us the wrong place where he had gone in and we were looking in the wrong area. Yet another friend of mine, tied a rope around his waist and dove in and found him on the first try and pulled him out. It looks like I had been diving over him to look in the area we thought he would be in. They performed CPR on him for about 20 minutes and then gave up. He had drowned.

They started to carry the body down the trail and only got about 10 minutes down before they decided to try CPR again. They had also gotten a mobile signal. They called the Civil Defense and about an hour and a half later a guy in a wetsuit showed up. He began performing CPR again. The man, about 20 years old, who had died had been dead for 2 hours now.

We sent most of our group back down and 3 of us stayed behind in case they needed help carrying the body down. More Civil Defense people started showing up and they used my phone for a long time trying to organize an effort to get the body out. I use Zain and had a weak signal but their Orange lines had an even weaker signal. About 3 hours after he had gone in the water another civil defense guy showed up with a breathing bag for CPR… so they started CPR again, beating upon his chest, trying to bring life back into his limp, lifeless body. It was so weird to see them try to revive someone who had been dead for so long. It was really an exercise in futility. They didn’t spent too much time doing this though.

The Civil Defense could not decide if they were going to get a helicopter in or if they were going to carry the body out. We explained to them at 2pm that it would be impossible to carry the body down before sundown. It usually takes us 2 hours to hike out of the canyon but carrying a body through the terrain there would take 6+ hours. There was nothing more that we could do so we decided to go on our way.

We expressed our sorrow to the guys who had lingered around with the body and told them that we would like to go to the funeral. They told us that Insha’Allah he would still live. They were still hoping that somehow the Civil Defense officers could revive him. We began our 2 hour trek down the canyon. It was definitely a more somber trek down. Once we got down to the parking area we saw quite a crowd of people gathered, presumably the family of the young man. We don’t think that they knew he had died. When they were contacted by his friends I am guessing that they did not inform them of much more than «educated guess» “Ahmed got hurt badly on the hike but he will be okay Insha’Allah” «/educated guess»

The whole ordeal is very sad. We are going to try and contact one of the guys and go to the funeral today.

I haven’t blogged in over 2 weeks. I’ve found myself avoiding it because I’ve been recently bothered more by cultural differences… and albeit the name of my blog is culture rage… I’m trying not to rage if it is just something I should get used to. Living in a foreign culture I have the responsibility to adapt to my host culture. Lately it’s been rough. I’m getting frustrated easier and I’m calming slower. I’ve wondered if this could have to do with having a tentative date for taking an extended vacation back in America.

Most of my biggest frustrations are stemming from time. I made up this acronym about living in the Middle East. Everything here takes more time because…

This
Is the
Middle
East

A couple of frustrations…

1. Jordan University - Make a schedule and keep to it. Every week they hand out a schedule for the week. Although most of my classmates don’t have to consider work schedules… I do! When I signed up for the University course they said that classes were Sunday through Thursday from 9am-12:40pm. I am fine with that schedule… but I just need it to be steady. I can even get by when the schedule changes but when they give me a sheet with the weekly schedule… STICK TO IT! I plan my week by it! It seems that the Language Center is adjusting the schedule to meet their needs… we’re paying customers. Recognize that! Ack!

2. My cell phone needs some repair. I won’t mention the company because I’m friends with the manager and I wouldn’t dare shame him by bad mouthing his company. I went there over a month ago and they said they would order the parts and it would be ready in 2 weeks. I went back after 3 weeks and the lady at the front recognized me and asked me why I was there seeing that she hadn’t called me. I told her that she never said she would call me but rather said it would be ready in 2 weeks. She said that nothing was ready and to wait on her call. That was mid-September and still no call. No shock either… but that doesn’t mean no rage.

I feel better getting that off my chest… this blog is cheap therapy.

Jordanians… any insights on why nothing can be done in a organized or timely manner?
Ex-pats… any special coping techniques?