taxis

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/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

‘What is he saying?’
‘It’s closed.’
‘Wakha. Fermé. No ferry.’
‘Closed? Why?’
‘I think he said there’s a strike… Huelga? Uh… grève? Est-ce qu’ils ne travaillent pas aujourd-hui?’
‘Ah! No lanchan ferry! Wakha, sadiqii, wakha!’
‘Pero, en serio Ben, tu te has enterado?’
‘A mí me gustaría mucho enterarme…’

You know what I was saying a couple of posts back about loving the multilingual melange that is Tangier? Well, I guess I got my comeuppance this afternoon. After a long shopping trip in the medina, loaded down with suitcases and food for the return journey, we hailed down a grand taxi for the harbour. But for the photography hiccup in Chaouen (and Booking.com refusing to refund me for a bungled payment), our four-day trip to Morocco had gone without a hitch.

So it’s only natural that the taxi driver would leave it until we got to the harbour to tell us that, due to exceptionally strong winds, the port was closed. This was swiftly backed up by both the police and the FRS office, as if we weren’t already doing a bad job of playing the trust card. If we wanted to get home, there was only really one viable option: we’d have to catch the big FRS ferry from Tanger Med near Ksar Es-Seghir, some forty kilometres up the coast.

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We should have seen this coming just looking out from the hotel, really…

That’s how I found myself still in the same taxi some twenty minutes later, rounding the bends of the twisting coast road for the port and trying to make one intelligible sentence out of the five-language jumble of our taxi driver. His Classical Arabic, French, Spanish and English were all perfectly reasonable, but his mixing-up of all four of them mid-sentence with his native Dārija made it nigh-on impossible to understand a word of what he was saying. Speaking four languages is one thing, but trying to make sense of them all at once is a step too far for me.

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So green – but how much longer will it last?

By some streak of luck we made it to the docks in time, and for a fair price, too; 180MAD for the car from Tangier, for the record, and not quite the 2500MAD that was his first offer (trumping even the villainous Oulad Berhil cabbie in greed). Predictably enough, we weren’t the only ones caught with our pants down by the closure of the Tangier port: at least two other boatloads turned up for the 14.00h, which was necessarily shunted back to 15.00h, and then 16.00h. Passport control was, for the once, the least of our concerns; a succession of connecting buses came and went, none of them bound for the FRS service. I don’t suppose I minded too much. I spent the last hour playing Peep-O and making silly faces at a little girl who seemed only too pleased at the diversion. By the time the FRS shuttle pulled in it was coming on to five minutes to four and tempers were running short. Mufasa would have been all too familiar with the stampede that followed.

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God, I’m so evil

Despite repeated warnings from the bridge, I spent almost the entire journey out on deck in the hopes of seeing a shearwater (I’d seen a few dusky shapes in the gloom on the way out, but I needed to be sure). The Strait is also a very good place to look for whales and dolphins, so I had an eye out for them, too… whenever it wasn’t shut tight in a wince in the game-force winds, that is. The sea was choppier than I’ve ever seen it, making whale-watching a no-go and rendering photography difficult. At its worst, the ferry was tilting at a twenty-five degree angle from side to side, giving spectacular views down the deck into the ocean or the open sky at any given moment.

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Not the healthiest angle for a ferry

A sensible mind would have given up the ghost and retreated. But I’m not all that sensible, and I was rewarded for my obstinacy just short of the bay of Gibraltar by a single, chocolate-coloured seabird gliding effortlessly between the waves and a far-off but recognisable vertical jet of steam. Stubbornness has its rewards.

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The Bay of Gibraltar (plus very distant shearwaters)

Let’s just take a step back for a moment. This is now the third extracurricular adventure I’ve had with my colleagues, following Andorra and the Romanian exchange. Before Meléndez Valdés I’d never imagined life as a teacher to be anything like this. I’m completely and utterly sold on this way of life. This is my life, opening up before me: traveling Extremadura as a qualified English teacher until I have enough experience under my belt to settle for good. The oposiciones sound tough, but my colleagues here are encouraging me to come back and go for it, which makes it all the more worthwhile. Spain, you just keep winning me over. How I love you with all of my heart and more…

It’s coming up to ten o’clock, Spanish time. The sun set an hour or so ago. Eight o’clock start tomorrow morning. Ive had worse. On the whole it’s been a very good weekend, and my appetite for the summer is more than whetted. Only next time, I think I’ll catch the plane. BB x

Tractor Beam

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Andalucia and Extremadura have plenty in common. They’re both southern, they’re both gorgeously hot and sunny most of the time and the language in both of them borders on the incomprehensible. So you can understand why I applied for both when I got myself into this auxiliar malarkey just over a year ago. My third choice, unmentioned since my very first blog posts back in May, was Cantabria. Land of cows, snow-capped mountains, green hills and tractors. The Iberian Alps, the Spanish Yorkshire. About as far away from the dusky south as you can get. So what in Creation drove me there this weekend – besides a frustratingly slow bus?

I’ll put it like this. You can’t keep a good man down, and you most definitely can’t shut up a wanderer in his house for long.

Besides hopping down to Olvera for Carnaval, I’ve done no traveling since Madrid back in the first week of January. That’s only a couple of months back, granted, but compared to the madness of last term, I’ve been doing a lot of nothing of late. In any case, I got a bad case of itchy feet last week and, watching the weather forecast, I made a spontaneous decision to visit my dear friend Kate in Cantabria – on the other side of the country. She’s working as an auxiliar up there and we’ve got much the same setup, right down to the state/private school split. If you haven’t already been keeping up with her adventures, check them out over at Langlesby Travels. Besides being jolly good fun, it makes for a lot easier reading than most of my biweekly outpourings!

I’d planned on two full days up north, as for the first time since I started trawling the site last year there was a super-convenient BlaBlaCar bound for Santander at midnight on Thursday, meaning I’d be in Cantabria for seven o’clock in the morning. It was just too good to be true…!

And so it proved. After a fourth BlaBlaBlunder where the driver changed his mind and shifted the drive six hours earlier, bang in the middle of my afternoon classes, any hopes of arriving early were dashed, so I resigned myself instead to one day in Cow Country and one whole day on the bus. Thanks, BlaBlaCar. I feel like it’s important to point out that as a system it’s by no means foolproof, as so many headstrong young things would have you think. It’s done me some very good turns and I do believe it really is the way forward, but it’s screwed me over in equal measure. You win some, you lose some. In that sense, perhaps BlaBlaCar is a good metaphor for life.

The journey began, as they so often do, in Mérida, where I found myself on the Roman bridge, scanning the reeds for a ridiculously early little bittern. Villafranca and its endlessly repetitive surroundings lack a viable soul spot, which Mérida offers in the ever-changing Guadiana. Mérida may always seem to be lacking something, but the river has never let me down. There’s something beautifully elemental about rivers. This one in particular is never the same. The first time I saw it, the river was playing host to several families of purple gallinules, frolicking about in the reeds. A month later the whole stretch was clogged with water hyacinth. Three weeks after that, half of it had been siphoned off and the rest was being heaped onto the banks by a team of gumboots. This weekend, the river was barely ankle-deep, with only the deepest stretch in full flow – only to be magically restored to life two days later. Oh Guadiana, you baffle me.

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What gives, Guadiana?

The journey north was fairly uneventful. I spent almost all of it trying to read Cavell’s Moghul, but more often than not staring out of the window at the changing scenery and, before sundown, came to the conclusion that Cáceres province truly is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. If you don’t believe me, visit Plasencia. If Spain has an Eden outside of Doñana, it may be found there.

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Snow on the mountains in Castilla y Leon

Despite reassurances from the driver that we were perfectly on schedule, we still pulled into Torrelavega a full twenty minutes late – which, coincidentally, is the exact amount of time I’d factored on giving myself to get from the bus station to the train station. Sprint as fast as I did – I may not be much of a sportsman, but I consider myself half-decent over a short distance – I arrived at the station just as the last train was leaving. Last year’s BB would have cried in frustration at this oh-so predictable turn of events; this year’s BB shrugged it off and chartered a taxi. It ended up costing me almost as much to go the last few kilometres to Cabezón de la Sal as it did to come all the way from Mérida, and at least three times the train fare, but that’s taxes for you. I’ve told you before… I don’t like taxis. Period.

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The River Tagus in the plains of Caceres

At any rate, I made it to Cabezón de la Sal and, after wandering aimlessly in the dark, lost in the Alpine beauty of the place, Kate finally found me, introduced me to her friend Almu and I had my southern accent swiftly corrected. That can only mean one thing: all those weekends in Olvera are paying off. They’ll make a guiritano out if me yet.

The following day’s adventures require a post in their own right, so I’ll give them that much. Keep your eyes peeled for the second installment! BB x

Giving Amman a Second Chance

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Had I known the Kievans would throw a violent protest four days before my return flight to the UK, I might have forked over that extra £80 and come home three days earlier on the two hour layover, instead of holding out for one last fling on that twelve hour layover that awaits me now.

The last stretch always seems like the longest. Only three nights remain, which is a damn sight closer than three weeks, and I have a bed for only two of those, as my 4am Saturday morning flight means that Andrew and I will be on stakeout at Queen Alia International Airport all night, catching sleep when and where we can. I’m still up and raring to get out and see Kiev during our ridiculous layover, protest or no protest, but it won’t be much fun on less than an hour’s sleep, and I’ll probably need my wits about me in the current climate. Especially when I speak about as much Russian as the hornet buzzing about my window. Still, that’s as much of an adventure as I could ask for, and the more I think about it, the better I feel for being so parsimonious with my flights back in May. Let’s just hope they let us out of Borispol first, or the whole thing will be dead in the water. 

But let’s not jump too far ahead! I’m still here in Amman. The breaking of the fellowship has come about at last, and a great deal more sincerely so than the last time I used that turn of phrase in Casablanca. We said farewell to Mac yesterday, after five days on the road together. Kate and Katie left for home in the early hours of this morning. Of the original Ali Baba team, there’s only three of us left. Andrew and I are practically the old guard. When first we arrived, it looked as though the end wouldn’t be ‘farewell’ so much as ‘until next year’, with all five of us set to return next summer; same people, same time, same place. Fortunately, life is a constantly fluctuating thing, and I’m bound for other lands next year. In truth it’s most likely that I won’t see the bulk of Team Jordan until we’re called back to Durham next October, now far in the distant future. So perhaps it really is farewell- until the next time.

It’s coming up to five o’clock in the afternoon, which means this post has taken me all of an hour and a half to write. The midday sun is just beginning to think about giving up the ghost, Andrew’s penning a couple of final postcards and the fan’s on at full blast, as it has to be if we aren’t to pass out in the fug. The hornet’s gone, thank heavens, and the orange vendor is back on the job, driving lazily up and down the streets with his pre-recorded pitch on a tinny repeat. We picked up our luggage yesterday and made a gesture at packing up, even though three whole days remain. It’s the thought that counts. Trying to fill up the final hours is a tedious affair, but on the plus side, downtown isn’t as frightening a beastie as it used to be. I guess that has a lot to do with living two minutes’ walk from the centre. Date bread and street pizzas from 25p a piece, slushies for half a dinar and plenty of cheaper eateries than the falafel mothership that is Hashem’s – and best of all, all of them within walking distance. So we come to it: it’s not the crush that bothered me so much as it is the needless expense on the taxi rides to and from wast al-balad. Diagnosed, at last. And that, I hope, is my last spark of angst off my chest.

For two months I’ve bombarded this blog with big city blues and saturated you all with my town mouse tantrums. I look back on all of that and laugh. It’s easy to do when I know I’ll be home in four nights’ time, of course, but it’s the final and most important part of the therapy. I’m not about to turn around and say that Amman is a great place to live – it’s not – but I’ll concede some ground to my detractors in that it’s not the Hell on Earth I made it out to be. It’s a question of willpower, living in a place like this, and I’ve learned a great deal about that here. Whether it’s a choice between holing up in your room with a book and braving a night on the town, or striking up a conversation with a local without a prompt, or even finding a functional solution to the ten-foot tall, sixty-foot long man-eating slug in the eleventh room on the left, one of the most important lessons you can learn in life is conviction. Being true to yourself. I thought I was pretty on it before I came here, but I see a lot of what I thought of as conviction now as my natural stubbornness, and there is a difference. You shouldn’t do things because you feel like you have to, just as you can’t be made to love a place you don’t like, but if you don’t make an effort on the inside to see the good in all things and stand by it, you’ll be on an island forever. Take it from the king of the castaways: man up. Some troubles in life are insurmountable, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re unassailable.

I’ve come close to breaking my golden rule and slipping into despair out here, but it’s that brush with the very worst emotion of all that’s given me the strength to go on. And Amman, for all its flaws, is built on a bedrock of warm, friendly people. Sure, you might have more adventurous encounters outside the city limits in provincial backwaters like Tafileh, but Amman itself is a very good place to start. Don’t make the same mistake I did and allow yourself to be freaked out by the size and speed of the place; beneath the rush are a host of charming characters who simply want to know how you’re getting on, if you’ll give them the time. The guy who runs this hostel, the Bdeiwi Hotel, told us last night that you often judge a language by your experiences with the people who speak it. He’s got a very good point, too. Sit on a step off the main road like a local and you’re bound to have somebody come over and strike up a conversation, in Arabic or in broken English. It’s heart-warming once you get used to it, just how much these people care. The sheer extent of the hospitality of the Arabs can seem so great as to be insincere to the untrained Western eye, as I once had to explain over a failed homestay offer in Morocco; we, a country so used to living off the hospitality of others. I think back to my trek across London with sixty-three kilos of luggage on my back, when I collapsed flat on my chest from exhaustion in the Underground and it took all of eight minutes for somebody to ask if I was alright; Amman is not as faceless as that, nor could it ever be.

Three nights remain. Twenty six dinars are left in my wallet. My city angst is exorcised, I’ve had a good two months’ run of it, and Andrew agrees with my final judgement. All is well with the world. BB x

End of an Era

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Racked up a grand total of five hours’ sleep last night. Not exactly great, but a lot better than it could have been, considering just how FRICKIN’ AWESOME yesterday was.

No more classes at Ali Baba, for a start. We’re finished. Khalass. Two months of study wrapped up and tossed aside, just like that. And doesn’t it feel like every day of it…! Nah, I’m just messing with you. In truth the last four weeks have flashed past in the blink of an eye. Wadi Rum feels like it was only a few days ago, and as for Dana and the others who were with us for first term… why, they could have been here yesterday (now somebody hit the cliché button and hit it fast). We’ve had a really good run of it and ended on a good high, with a certificate presentation, a few last rounds of Arabic language games and a talent show no less, which I won on votes with yet another dangerously one-man rendition of a song, this time the gypsy ballad Arrinconamela – chosen mostly because I’ve kind of done The Circle of Life to death out here and it’s not as fun without my Lights at hand. Hey, I got a double Snickers bar out of it, so I’m not complaining.

I digress. Ali Baba has been nothing short of brilliant in every way. I’ve learned so much out here and that has more to do with the intensity of my four-hour classes than anything else, so a great big shout-out to Wafiqa and the Ali Baba staff for a grand two months of Arabic teaching. I sure hope ALIF can match your level of commitment!

We scarcely had time to rush back to the apartment to start packing, Andrew and I, when I was whisked back to the internet range of Ali Baba’s fourth-floor cafe to book both of our hostels for the next week, in Aqaba and Amman. You see, unlike the homestay girls, whose hosts have graciously allowed them to stay on after their lease and then to take them as far as the airport, we’re being booted out on command and thus have to find – and pay for – somewhere else to stay for the next week. In fact, our cheery landlord wants us out of here by ten o’clock this morning. Worse, the chirpy chap even followed us to the main road yesterday asking over and over if we wanted to have left by eight instead. Words fail me; words did not fail Andrew. We’ve tidied up most of the place, but it’s still very much occupied for the time being. It’ll be a last minute rush down to the bus station when the clock strikes a quarter past ten, but it’ll be worth it to see the back of this little apartment. It’s been great having a pad so close to our school, as it were, and it’s been nothing short of the party nucleus for the last two months, both because of its proximity and because Andrew and I have been voluntarily phone-less, so the only way to contact us has been in person. A grand idea from the get-go.

That aside, I’m glad we’re leaving today; this place is simply not worth $1000 a month, even split between us. That’s double what I was paying in Durham, and that was for an entire house. Jeez. And for the gall of living in a city, no less! Ali Baba’s only flaw is the price it puts on student housing, whether they find you a flat or a homestay. Take my advice and find your own place, through AirB’n’B or from the friendly environment of a hostel. Because had I known how small a flat we’d be getting for $1000 – with a faulty kettle, nearly-headless tap and other inconsistencies too numerous to name – I’d never have been so quick to hand over the cash. Arabists, take heed!

With all of our hostels booked, Andreas and his language partner Abu Ahmad took us out into the country for a barbecue, and I might use this as an excuse to debunk a few myths that I started. It turns out that there are trees near Amman, and not the artificially-grown ones in the university grounds. If you can get as far as the neighbouring town of As-Salt, the countryside surrounding it is stunning, even in the last few days of August when it’s had the full force of the Arabian summer sun shining down on its back for three months and more. We cooked more meat than Andrew and I have had in our whole two months of egg-based existence and were stuffed to the gills within minutes. That we managed to gather our senses and box some for today’s journey stands testament to some last-minute quick-thinking, or else they’d have thrown the last home-made kebabs away. Ach, just thinking of it is making me hungry.

But seriously though: As-Salt. If you ever get tired of the noise of Amman, get yourself on one of the many buses bound for As-Salt (they pronounce it ‘salt’) and take a hike into the country. It’s so green, so quiet, and such a world away from the hustle-bustle of city living. There were wild birds there too: I saw a couple of jays, homely-sounding blackbirds and even an Arabian Babbler to top it off. If only we’d stumbled upon it sooner… No matter. We’ve had fun. More importantly this was also our last night with Andreas, who’s been such a rock in our time out here, both for Arabic queries and for good humour, not to mention strength of character. We’re all going to miss you, Andreas, our only and favourite Swede. Good luck in Cairo (you lucky thing) and I hope we meet again someday!

Our heartfelt farewells to Andreas were cut short because we needed to be back in Amman for seven to catch a taxi down to a place called The Dome, a party venue halfway between our pad and the airport – so quite a way out of town. Believe it or not, we had a stroke of luck in that – for once – the second taxi we asked was willing to take us there. Only, he had absolutely no idea where there was. So he got to driving south and rang up the venue for us, amongst other contacts, to divine the location, and in the end he not only got us there for eight o’clock but offered to pick us up in turn. What a charmer!

I should explain. We were bound for The Dome because the biggest name in the Arabic music world at the moment, Saad Lamjarred (the mu3allem guy), is in Amman and there was talk of a great big party on the grapevine. We had it from another taxi driver, as it happens, who let us in on the secret. He even called up his friend to get us tickets. At thirty dinar a head it wasn’t cheap, but any misgivings I had about the price were obliterated in the first hour – and Saad Lamjarred didn’t even show up until about twenty minutes past ten. No, our thanks go to none other than DJ Khaled.

Charged up on unholy slushie (I don’t even want to know what was in the stuff) and Kinder Bueno ice-cream (these Arabs have such great ideas when it comes to sweets) we – that is, Andrew, Eloise, Mackenzie and I – couldn’t help getting itchy feet every time a good song came on. About every five minutes, that is. And so what if nobody else was dancing? We were having fun. Sure, we must have looked a little crazy, just dancing alone as the four of us for about an hour, but when Khaled’s C’est la Vie came on and we realised that we knew it, we went wild. And before we knew it, there was a crowd gathered around us in a circle to watch us move. Andrew, Mack and I were milking it for all it was worth; Eloise had the sense to hang back a bit (and film it for last shaming opportunities). In the end it wasn’t just spectator sport either, as some of the men felt the vibe too and joined in, which is when the party really started. We met so many people our own age who had been waiting, it seemed, for somebody to bite the bullet in order to let loose. As for me, I haven’t danced so hard in months. Between the four of us, we got things going in the back row, and because of that it’s going down as one of the best nights of the whole shebang, if not of my life so far.

The craziness of it all is that the first, second and third class tickets counted for nothing, in the end. We’d gone for the cheapest option at thirty, the most sensible route by far, as next to nobody was in the £50 second class row, and the £70 first class row was a seated affair. That’s no fun! But it gets better (or worse, depending on how you look at it). The bouncers, some naturally built like gorillas, others just oddly proportioned with arms nearly three times the size of their legs, proved susceptible to the whims of Eloise and Mack and their charm and/or sheer determination to get ahead, because bit by bit, we found ourselves jumping from third class to second, and eventually even into first, right to the edge of the stage. How’s that for white guilt? It got to me just before the end and I hung back whilst the others rushed into first class, until I felt like a first-class muppet myself when it was just me, an old woman and a mother and child left in second-class towards the end of the night. As for the man of the hour, Master Saad Lamjarred himself, his show was nothing less than blitz-worthy; I mean that in a good way. He only really had four songs of his own, plus a few great covers, but he sure knew how to get the party going – and all the while with a great big grin on his face that was infectious at the sight. We had quite a rave at the back with our new friends.

I’d better leave it there. It was quite a night, and because of it we’re both knackered, Andrew and I. He was awake when I started writing this; he’s fast asleep now. We’ve got another long day ahead of us, but on the bright side, in a couple of hours we’ll be done with this apartment for good, and bound on a four-hour bus for Aqaba, where we can really let our hair down and chill. We’ve earned it. BB x

And Then He Threw A Table At Me

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

There’s a line in Tolkein’s The Fellowship of the Ring when Gandalf returns from his first encounter with the Balrog and tells his companions that he has ‘never felt so spent’. Well, I just got back from an hour spent looking after nine Iraqi children, and I think I have a fair idea of what it must have been like to face said fire demon.

But don’t get me wrong. I signed up for this. Willingly, even.

After three weeks of teaching English at this church Andreas introduced us to, I’ve been enjoying it so much that when one of my co-workers called in to say that she’d be absent, I leapt at the chance to try something new in looking after the children of our students for a change. They looked pretty fun, they sounded like they were having a good time with the girls, and Firas’ youngest is just about the cutest little thing on the face of the planet, even with the super-saiyan hair. The year abroad is all about new experiences, right? And I’m not afraid to say I’ve always been rather good with kids. I guess it’s my willingness to de-age mentally by about twenty years whenever I’m in that kind of position. Clown mode, or something like that. Kids love it. It’s supposed to be foolproof.

These kids don’t exactly speak much English, but I’d been told that they could introduce themselves and that they knew a few basic words, like colours, animals, the parts of the body… that kind of thing. So I thought I’d get the ball rolling with a song and dance kind of game. ‘I get loose’, to be precise. It always went down a storm in Durham, and that was with twenty year old students. Once they finally understood that they were supposed to be copying me – Maryam, the oldest of the girls, had to explain it to them – they seemed to be enjoying it. But one of the kids, Fadi, wasn’t having any of it. He just stood looking surly in a corner saying ‘ba’ over and over again, getting louder every time. After a few minutes of this it became almost impossible to think, so I shot him a dark look. He just yelled even louder at me, and then ran over and started hitting me with a microphone that he’d picked up from who knows where. I scolded him for it but he kept at it, and in the end I let him tire himself out until he got bored of smacking my arm. At least, I thought he had. Instead he ran to the other side of the room, grabbed the nearest small object – a piece of wooden train track – and threw it at me. Luckily, he missed, which is more than can be said for the dollhouse, the microphone, Noah’s ark, the drum, the foam floor mat and three chairs. When I looked up from teaching the girls (whose attention was quickly beginning to wane by this point) and saw a table flying at me from the other side of the room, I guess I realised that we had gone beyond the point of no return. At least he didn’t get his hands on my iPad, or I might really have lost it.

And then the screaming began. Whether Maryam had lost faith in my ability to control the class, or whether she was angry that it wasn’t Susie taking the class, or whether she just revelled in the chaos, I don’t know. But the next thing I knew all five of the microphones that Fadi had been using as missiles had found their way into the hands of the older girls and they were all screaming at the top of their voices into them. Fortunately, they weren’t on, though for all intents and purposes, they might as well have been. I tried everything – disappointed face, changing tack, feigning ignorance, even getting strict – to no avail. They just waved a massive thumbs down in my face and the screaming continued.

It was at this point that Andrew stepped in to lend a hand. For a few seconds the kids stopped, judging how he might react – and then unleashed a new barrage of screaming on him instead. Between the two of us we made absolutely zero headway and eventually Andrew retreated back to the Bible study group. Five ear-bleeding minutes later Kate came to my assistance and we tried again. More screaming – only this time they got tactical. ‘We’ll stop screaming if you dance’. So I danced, and they stopped screaming – for a grand total of two minutes. ‘We’ll stop screaming if you sing’. I whipped out the Circle of Life for them, and they actually shut up – until the English lyrics, at which point the screaming started up anew, not least of all because one of the girls who had slipped away during the chaos had returned with five cups of water. Ammunition to renew the war on the Substitute. There was a point when Kate and I just looked at each other in an expression of utter helplessness. What could we have done? The kids were mutinous in the extreme. They weren’t having any of it; no Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, no introductions, no colours, nothing at all. Just screaming. When their parents came in to tell them to shut up, and they got the screaming treatment just as bad as we had, Andrew, Kate and I threw up our hands in defeat. We’d tried everything. The kids had overwhelmed us. And when the clock struck five minutes past five, I can honestly say I’ve never felt happier to have finished something.

So the next time I jump at the chance to teach kids, somebody stop me. Please. My ears, at the very least, would be grateful. BB x

  

Amman: Observations of a Country Boy

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

It occurred to me a couple of days ago that most of my posts – discounting the rambling ones – are anecdotal more than informative. That’s only natural; you can’t spin a good story out of a constant streak of facts. And I tend to let my heart bleed all over my writing, so to speak, for good or ill. So I thought I might give you something factual for a change. It’s a little run-of-the-mill as topics go, but I can’t help but feel a few detailed observations on what life is like in Amman might not be such a bad idea. It’s the kind of thing I was trawling the internet for in the weeks leading up to my arrival here, now over a month and a half go. Obviously, we’re talking about a city, and a capital city at that; such places are very much what you make of them. If you’re prepared to go out and make a good time for yourself, you’ll probably find it. That’s as may be. At any rate, that takes a stronger will than mine.

Technically this kind of thing is best left until the end of one’s stay, but I’ll probably be out of internet range in my last week and having plenty of tale-worthy adventures whilst I’m at it. Besides, I think I’ve seen enough of this place over the last month and a half to have a fair idea of how it all works – at least, from my point of view. So without further ado, here’s my fifteen observations about Amman.

1. Amman is immense

I don’t have the figures, but you don’t exactly need them to know this. That you can stand at just about any point in the city and be completely unable to see an end to the seemingly infinite sweep of beige tower blocks has more to do with the fact that Amman is spread over several hills, making a full panorama nigh-on impossible unless you manage to climb one of the larger skyscrapers. Getting just about anywhere requires time, patience and, more often than not, a taxi. Some of the distances may look walkable, but in the heat of the midday sun, it’s just not worth it. Besides, a taxi ride means more Arabic. That’s good, right?

2. Grass does not exist

Looking for a shady green park to sit and study in? Think again. Amman has many things to offer, but grass is not one of them. The great belt of trees in the grounds of the Jordaninan University overshadows a bed of dust and pine needles, along with more plastic bags and bottles than the aftermath of a botellón. If you’re really after a green space, I’d suggest not coming here in summer for one, or else take a weekend sortie up to Ajloun in the north or Dana in the south.

3. Dust gets everywhere

This is one of the very first things you will notice. Wherever you go, there’s no escaping the dust. You can’t see it – at least, not unless you stand on a vantage point and look out over the city, where the brown haze over the skyline speaks for itself – but if you leave anything in the open air for a minute or more, you’ll find yourself brushing the dust from every available surface. Look on the bright side: when the occasional sandstorm sweeps its way up from the desert to the southeast, the wall of buildings act like a filter, so when it reaches Amman itself, it just looks like mist. Only, brown mist. Pretty novel when you first see it, I have to say.

4. Most of your Arabic practise will be in taxis

In a city that thrives on the back of its taxi service, it’s hardly surprising that the place you’re most likely to find yourself practising Arabic on a daily basis is in the front seat of a taxi. That’s not a bad thing per se, so long as you can put up with asking the same bloody questions day in, day out; how long have you been a taxi driver, are you from Jordan or Palestine, why is it so busy today etc etc. You won’t get lucky every time; there are a few singularly impossible cabbies who have wildly skewed ideas as to how much a ride downtown should cost, but for the most part they’re a chatty bunch. Life story, please!

5. Almost all taxi drivers are Palestinian

In seven weeks of living in Amman, I’ve met no more than three Jordanian cabbies. All the others have been Palestinian. And that’s assuming an average of six taxi rides a week. Most of them have plied various trades before becoming taxi drivers, up to and including military officers, teachers and engineers (all of which, thankfully, al-Kitaab One taught me). You can get a pretty good idea as to the nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict after just a couple of taxi rides, in this way. Not a subject to bring up yourself, naturally, but if they have an opinion to share, it’s always interesting to hear. Did you know, for example, that Hollywood rarely, if ever, shows Palestinians in a good light? Food for thought.

6. Every bus has a different siren

Remember those BopIt! toys everybody had once upon a time? Try to picture triggering each of the annoying noises one after the other twice over and you have a fairly accurate idea of what a street in Amman sounds like. I’m not joshing you. From vuvuzelas to ambulance wails and car alarms to foghorns, no two sirens are the same. Fortunately, the majority of Amman’s drivers are constantly on hand to remind you what a regular car horn sounds like, every second of every minute of every hour of every day. These people will honk at everything that moves.

7. Stray cats are a thing; dogs really aren’t

This isn’t just a Jordanian thing either. I seem to remember Fes being similar, though I didn’t stay there long enough to see for myself. But there are no dogs in Amman. Cats, on the other hand, are everywhere, prowling the dustbins, skulking along the sidewalk or fighting beneath the window in the early hours of the morning. If you’re an animal lover like me, you’d better learn to accept the fact that the sleek and healthy cats of home are not to be found here. Amman is a fast-growing, modern city where you’ll need all of your wits to get about, and the cats that prowl the dusty roads reflect that, scabs, scruffy hair and all.

8. Cafés and restaurants give you water

This one caught me by surprise. Apparently it’s a Jordanian custom to give water to guests, water having always been something of a scarce commodity in this part of the world. That’s all well and good, but when you notice for the first time that it’s included in the bill, it’s a bit galling. And there’s no escaping it, either; it’s just something you have to accept. Take my advice and find one of the smaller establishments, where you might just get off the hook. Doors might look inviting, but behind all the bells and whistles, it’s essentially the Starbucks of Amman. If you’re looking for a local, look elsewhere.

9. Bins are optional

Rubbish bins aren’t as rare as they might seem at first. Most streets will have one or two skips where the locals deposit their trash, and these are emptied at least once a week, much to the cats’ chagrin. But the way the people of Amman drop litter, you’d think they’d never heard of a bin. Bottles, cups and crisp packets, once used, are simply thrown over the shoulder, discarded underfoot or lobbed at the nearest wall. Little wonder, then, that stinking, wind-borne piles of trash tend to gather in street corners.

10. Rainbow Street is where all the ExPats go

If you miss an old-fashioned British tea or coffee, you’d better get yourself down to Rainbow Street. It’s a creature-comfort lover’s paradise, with milkshakes, bookshops and ice cream parlours galore. But if you’re after an authentic Jordanian experience, you’d be better off looking elsewhere. Not only is Rainbow Street quite pricey by Jordan standards, it’s also crawling with Americans, Brits and other foreign students, with the result that many shopkeepers will address you in English and not in Arabic. It’s popular with Amman’s younger generation, too, so it’s not all rainclouds, but try exploring downtown and its offshoots first. Hashems and al-Quds, though popular, are more of an Arabic experience than Books@Café.

11. Falafels are the way to go

Jordan may be expensive to get to, but once you’re here, eating out can be as cheap as chips. And if you decide to forgo potatoes for falafels, it’s even cheaper. A falafel wrap, stuffed with salad, harira and hummus, shouldn’t set you back any more than forty piastres. That’s about 38p. It’s a great snack, and it makes for a good lunch or dinner, too. Hashems is supposed to have the monopoly on all the falafel joints in town, being a favourite of the King of Jordan himself, but most places will do a good line in the falafel wraps. It’s not the most varied of diets, but it’s cheap, and it beats McDonalds any day.

12. Piracy is the norm

Don’t let the DVD stores spook you: just because there’s not a legitimate DVD case in sight, it doesn’t mean you’re breaking the law. If you’ve travelled to Asia or Africa before, you’ll already know the drill. Shops where you can buy as many as fifteen suspiciously homemade films for seven pounds’ worth are the norm. They’re also the lifeblood of the Jordanian student: especially if you’re up in out-of-the-way Tla’ al-Ali near the Ali Baba International Centre, you’ll be relying on these establishments to liven up the evenings when you’re out of pocket – or energy – to go to downtown and back.

13. Habibah is a dangerous place

Baklava. Kunafeh. Mille-feuille. Pistachio-coated trifles. Honey-glazed cakes. Triple-scoop ice creams. All of this in giant air-conditioned building so vast that it might well be the Arabian equivalent of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. It’s a good thing that this heavenly establishment is as out of the way as it is, or we’d all be doomed.

14. Vegetables are cheaper downtown

This is a given wherever you go in the world, but it’s worth repeating all the same: for fruit and veg, never go anywhere other than the main market next to the mosque in the city centre. For reasons beyond my understanding, the price seems to double outside the market walls, but especially up in Tla’ al-Ali, the environs of the Ali Baba school. Sure, it’s cheap by UK standards, but if you’re paying UK prices when the locals are getting their produce for half the price, you’re being ripped off. Downtown, ten dinars can give you enough greens to last you a fortnight, if you’re careful, and that’s including a taxi ride into downtown, provided you split it with a friend. It’s barmy logic, but it works.

15. Crossing roads is like playing Frogger

Feeling lucky, punk? Then give the mean streets of Amman a try, if you dare. Traffic lights are like the last egg in an Easter Egg hunt; you’ll do a little fist-pump for joy when you see one. In most places, you just have to brave it and step out into the fury. The rule of the road is one of might is right, but most cars will stop for pedestrians. The only thing to remember is not to hesitate under any circumstances. As the guidebooks will tell you, the drivers will base their actions on what they expect you to do. If you make the first move, carry it through. You’ll pick it up eventually. And it’ll be just as much of a thrill to the last.

That’s it for the time being. It’s probably important to note that this is very much my own opinion, and one coming from somebody used to living in a town of no more than a few hundred people, so Amman hit me harder than it probably should have done. As I’ve said before, once you get outside Amman it’s a very different story and I’ve met some of the most wonderful people on my travels around Jordan. It’s just that Amman itself and I were never made for each other. Insha’allah, Fes will show me the light.

I’ll be away in the south of Jordan for a couple of days to catch the Perseid meteor shower in Wadi Rum, via Petra, so expect some more adventure stories when I get back on Saturday night! Until the next time. BB x

Some Seriously Good News

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

My year abroad just doubled overnight. Double the countries, double the adventure, double the fun – and half the cash. I’m one happy guy. Because I’m thrilled to tell you all that I’m going back to Morocco next summer!

Seriously, this is the best news I’ve heard in a long time. Not only does this mean that I’ll be spending hundreds less on flights and accommodation, but I’ll get the chance to do a homestay, something that’s been barred to me out here on account of my sex. So even though it’s only a six-week course, I’ll bet it’ll be a lot more intense than two out here – in a good way! I’ll be heading out there on my own, too, which should do wonders for both my Arabic and my confidence, as there won’t be that English crutch I’ve had ever at the ready out here. Last but not least, it’s only a skip and a jump from Spain, so I can lay some early foundations during my assistantship. Win win. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy – there’s a whole batch of new difficulties I’m going to have to face head on by breaking the mold and striking out alone – but for the sake of a smaller city that doesn’t live on its taxi service, I’m more than willing to make that jump. Thank you to everyone who’s been on hand throughout these last few weeks; to Shahnaz and Archie for telling me to keep smiling; to Banner and Anna, for suggesting that I go for it; to my teacher Aziza for giving me the go-ahead; and lastly to Andrew, for putting up with a month and a half of comparisons…!

The best thing of all is that half of August and September are now open to me to do with as I choose. I’m still umming and ahhing between volunteering at an orphanage in Peru and roughing it on the backpacking adventure of a lifetime in Ethiopia, but I don’t want to set anything in stone quite yet, so I’ll keep you posted as and when I make a decision. Freedom feels so good, I can tell you that at least. And freedom like this, or of any kind, is always worth fighting for. I’m not half cultured enough to find a pretentious quote for you on that count, so I’ll let my own irrepressible good humor convey to you just how on top of the world I’m feeling right now. Erin Shore is playing on my iPod and I feel like I could accomplish anything, even a return to the vegetable market in downtown Amman to stock up on a week’s worth of fruit and vegetables. We’re running low and my egg-based repertoire is getting thin on the ground. I think I’ll treat myself to a meal at Al-Multaka tonight before starting to think about my TLRP: a study of angels and demons in the Crusades with a particular focus on Saladin and Reynald de Chatillon. Exciting stuff!

Enough of all this shameless self-aggrandizement. I’ll end up with a head the size of a football field. To finish, here’s an Arabic riddle that came up on a game show on TV last night. The English equivalent might run something along these lines:

A red, red city with greenest walls; its citizens black, no keys at all

The Arab viewership got it pretty quickly. It’s a shame they couldn’t keep the winning streak going, though; the following round, a game of ‘Spot the Difference’, proved too great a challenge. After forty-five minutes, nobody had noticed that the girl in the second picture was missing a finger. I guess they were all of them too hung up on that most decidedly harām shoulder on show. BB x

 

Blood, Tears and Broken Glass

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

It’s a Friday night in down-town Amman, the streets are buzzing and Andrew and Mac are exploring an abandoned hospital. Yours truly chickened out of this particular venture. I guess that means I’m on lookout? Jeez, how lame does that make me sound…

It’s kind of creepy, sitting outside this tumbledown hospital with the sounds of breaking glass and echoed footsteps breaking the half-silence. Not to mention the dim light from Andrew’s phone flickering off the walls between the windows from time to time. Am I missing out? Very possibly. Will I regret it? Almost certainly. I’m not about to abandon my post, though. Call it a brush with foreign police once too often, but I’m calling shy this time. In the countryside, maybe, but not in the middle of the city on a Friday night. And especially not after watching As Above So Below last night. Not on my life.

We’re into our sixth week in Jordan. Three school weeks remain, and after that – who knows? I took out another two hundred and fifty dinars this morning. The goal is to make that last until the end. With any luck, that should just cut it, travel funds and all, although I have been known to be a little over-optimistic about this kind of thing. Jordan’s bus service may be criminally cheap, but the Amman taxi system is draining my resources at a ridiculous speed. And there’s no avoiding them either, and believe me, we’ve tried. Google Maps gave us an estimate of two and a half hours. We scoffed at that and called it one and a half. Turns out it was a three-hour job. We won’t be walking to down-town again any time soon – not when there’s shopping to be done. And I thought that living twenty minutes’ walk from any shops in Durham was problematic! Something to think about if you plan on staying in Amman. It wouldn’t be a problem if you lived down-town, of course, but up here in Tla al-Ali, it’s a different story. Please don’t buy my fervent dislike for the place, that’s just me and my city angst, but it’s worth bearing in mind that the cost of all these taxi rides – two dinars a throw – racks up fast. I’m looking forward to living in a town where everything is within walking distance.

Now that the end is in sight, though, it’s a lot easier to stay positive. I’ve got it into my head that I’m not coming back next year and that thought alone is keeping me going, no matter how hard I’m going to have to fight to make it so. Hence a slightly less bitchy, more reserved tone this time around. It’s a lot easier with the midterm depression out of the way. Any and all lingering ill tempers were successfully vented this afternoon with The Green Mile. Tears all round, as it should be. There’s no better way to get it all out than with the greatest tearjerker of them all. Next stop, 12 Years a Slave! (There’s a bit of a theme going on here…) Films aside, I’ve plenty of books to keep me going between now and then, thanks to the wonder that is iBooks and all the free material on offer. Best of all, I even stumbled across a book of Arabic short stories penned by none other than our very own Dr. Daniel Newman, which I simply have to get my hands on the next time I swing by Books@Cafe. For the time being, I’ve at least another twenty Henry Rider Haggard books to wade through, including the full Quatermain saga. Excellent stuff. Perfect travel fuel, too.

Although I’m swung to thinking that perhaps Ethiopia might be wiser than South Africa for potential backpacking. It’s just a hunch. Further research needed. BB x

Alone in a Crowd

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Cars. Cars everywhere. Screeching tyres. Blaring horns. Shouting. Don’t understand. The language and the heat. The expense. Can’t stand it. Need silence. Need it now.

Five days since we rocked up here in Amman and it’s finally getting to me. All things considered I’ve held out well for as long as I could, but I’m no town mouse. This is all a bit much for me. There’s simply nowhere to run, no quiet, shaded wood, no bubbling river or creek, nowhere to hide from the noise. Our apartment is next to a building site overlooking the main road. Because of the heat, work starts early, so I haven’t been sleeping well. All I want is ten minutes of silence, but it’s impossible to find. The city stretches for mile upon mile of dusty, swarmed roads in all directions. I can’t even see where it ends on a good day. It just disappears, vast and white, like a scummy wave over the hills into the middle distance. I don’t hate it here, but it’s killing me slowly.

Perhaps I’m overreacting. Cities are supposed to be exciting places to live. But right now I feel trapped, imprisoned by my own choices. I long for the green fields of Sussex and the birdsong in the oak trees like I’ve never done before. I used to think England had lost its natural beauty. Here in the desert I understand. The only animals on the street are the house crows that flap lazily overhead like miniature vultures and the hordes of scabby cats that patrol the streets, frequenting every bin and dump site in town. Nothing here is truly wild; nothing but the taxis, racing madly from end to end with no regard for the road or anybody walking on it. And if you can’t hack the walk, you’ve no choice but to hail one down. It’s the only way to get around. How could I ever live in such a place?

We’re thinking of heading out to the desert castles in the Azraq plain tomorrow with the other students. It’ll be the first bit of traveling we’ve done since we got here and I’m dying to get going. Not to see Jordan beyond the city walls, but to escape. I need air. Time. Space. And I’ve been living on borrowed time trying to get by without it. Nine months in an isolated Spanish village gets more appealing by the second. I hope my heart can bear the wait. BB x