Yesterday was not an ideal time to run out of water. We're not actually sure why we ran out of water this week since we used way more water last week, but that's okay. Since there isn't enough water pressure in the city to keep all places with water at all times, there are tanks on the roof that get filled once a week with water. This should, theoretically, give you enough water to last a week (this includes doing laundry, showering, flushing toilets, etc). Once a week the city turns on the water for your neighbourhood and your tanks get replenished (our day is Tuesday!) and then you have whatever water you got to last you for the rest of the week. It's like forced water conservation. Luckily, they also generally have tanks in the basement of the apartment buildings in case, like us, you use too much water one week. Hopefully we'll do better next week!
You buy your drinking water separately because the water that comes through the pumps is not very sanitary. So, a 20 litre container usually lasts about a week as well. We still have plenty of drinking water but we didn't want to waste that cleaning and so forth because drinking is somehow higher on our list of priorities than showering.
In light of our recent waterlessness, I have been thinking about what I am glad I brought to Amman (things helpful in water crises and otherwise):
1. Baby wipes. These have served in numerous capacities and are really good for a sponge bath if needed. (They also sell them here)
2. Hand Sanitizer. We actually didn't bring any of this (they do sell it here) but it is good to have on hand for those times when you run out of water and can't wash your hands, or when you're just on the street and decide to eat and then look at your hands and think back on all the things you may have brushed up against.
3. A little bottle of water. I always carry a 0.33 Liter bottle with me because it fits nicely in my purse. I can use it when I get desperate. I just keep refilling the same bottle.
4. Kleenex or a little "on the go" toilet paper roll. Public bathrooms generally do not have toilet paper. Kleenex serves its purpose and you can buy it anywhere (children will often sell it on the street), but it would be nice to have a travel toilet paper package (I believe Charmin sells toilet paper in resealable plastic containers). If you happen to not have either of these items, look for a McDonald's or other "American" building (like Mecca Mall); the restrooms in these places are generally well-stocked with TP, soap, and paper towels.
5. Change. If you take a taxi, they rarely have change, so it is best to hand them correct change. If you hand a taxi driver anything more than a 5 JD bill he will get rather flustered (we've tried paying for cabs with a 20...it doesn't work very well). Sometimes they cannot even find change for a five, so if all you have are big bills, I suggest going to a busy restaurant and buying a bottle of water or something so that they can break your bill, otherwise your taxi ride could be more expensive than you bargined for.
6. Cell phone. This is such a great amenity to have here. If you bring one from America, make sure that it is a tri-band phone and that it is already unlocked. We brought a tri-band phone that was supposedly unlocked but it wasn't and so we bought new phones here. A lot of places sell used phones for around 30-40 JD. SIM cards are about 12 JD and genreally come with minutes already on the phone. If you run out of minutes, you just buy another card and put more minutes on your phone (the minutes are "good" for a year). A 5 JD card usually lasts more than a month. Text messaging is cheaper than calling. It's helpful in case you get lost and need someone to give directions to your taxi driver...just phone a Jordanian friend and hand the phone to the driver. Perfect!
7. A guidebook. We have the Lonley Planet Middle East book and the Slades have the Lonely Planet Jordan book. Both are very helpful in planning trips and finding cool things to do in the city.
8. A purse...or "man" purse. It's nice to have a small bag to put all the above-said items in while you are out in Amman. Crystal and I have it easy because we carry purses. Andrew uses his scripture bag from his mission and Jason bought a "man" purse yesterday (because he was jealous of Andrew's "man" purse). A "man" purse is a small, black, retangular bag with a shoulder strap.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query "out of water". Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query "out of water". Sort by date Show all posts
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Running low on water?
As you may be aware we have been having water issues. We have run out of water every week since the Slade's have arrived. Generally the water needs to be pumped on Fridays when our porter is out at the mosque, so we have no water on Fridays. Then we'll have it for part of the day on Saturday...and then it will be gone. Not a drop on Sunday. Usually the water fills up on Monday. This usually happens in the morning but sometimes doesn't happen until late afternoon, so we typically go a day to two without water. It's inconvenient, especially when we get sick with Pharaoh's revenge...but, it's doable. Amazingly enough, we haven't run out of water at all this week (yet). One of our neighbours was not so lucky.
Yesterday afternoon, the watertruck pulled up. They lowered a rope from the roof and attached it to the hose; they then hefted the hose up to the top of the roof and connected it to someone's water tank and started pumping the water. The hose was kind of a make-shift hose and was spraying water all over the place. Water was running down the street and spraying our window.
Yesterday afternoon, the watertruck pulled up. They lowered a rope from the roof and attached it to the hose; they then hefted the hose up to the top of the roof and connected it to someone's water tank and started pumping the water. The hose was kind of a make-shift hose and was spraying water all over the place. Water was running down the street and spraying our window.
We had always wondered what had happened if you really ran out of water (which we have). Our porter would always just tell us to wait because we'd get water in a few days. I guess if you pressure him enough you get a truck of water. 20 minutes and 20 JD later, our neighbours have a full tank of water. Ours, I am sure is getting rather empty...
We are not the only ones who've had water problems. Bridget, Brian and the Slades have all have similar complaints. We're just glad that this week it's not us out of water! 
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Oh, no: Out again!
Yes, we ran out of water today...again. Hopefully this is the last time. Afterall, this is our last week here so we really shouldn't even have a chance to run out of water again. However, since this is us we might run out even though we fill up tomorrow and are leaving on Wednesday. Crazily enough we've only had two weeks here that we haven't run out of water. I'm not sure whether or not to count this next week as the third week or not. I mean, we won't (crossing our fingers) run out of water, but if we stayed the whole week, we probably would run out of water. It's a toss up!
A few weeks ago we decided to keep all of our water bottles to see how much we were drinking. We collected quite a few--and most of those are 2 litres! That's not all the bottles in the house, and we have thrown a few away...but that is a lot of them. We call it our water bottle graveyard. (aka: weapons of little-to-no destruction).
A few weeks ago we decided to keep all of our water bottles to see how much we were drinking. We collected quite a few--and most of those are 2 litres! That's not all the bottles in the house, and we have thrown a few away...but that is a lot of them. We call it our water bottle graveyard. (aka: weapons of little-to-no destruction).
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
How Hot is Hot?
We were asked a very good question: How hot is hot? Well, it's pretty hot, but it isn't terrible--however, since I really enjoy the heat you might want to take that with a grain of salt. Anyway, the average temperature in the summer is about 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius). Today it was 92 degrees and that was pretty hot. Even in the school, although it is air conditioned, everyone was sweating.
The houses here are built to keep things cool. The walls are brick and cement and the floors are all marble. It makes things really cold - like the beginning of May when it was freezing inside but around 20 degrees Celsius outside. So, it isn't dreadfully hot inside but it is still rather warm.
The heat brought Andrew a very interesting situation yesterday. Our neighbours were installing new furniture all evening. Around 8:00 PM, the porter and our neighbour knocked on our door. Instead of actually talking to Andrew they say (in Arabic), "Water, water? It's hot outside! Water." They then start waving their hands in front of their faces and panting. Andrew thinks to himself, They must be thirsty from all their work and have run out of water and want to borrow some. So Andrew goes to the fridge and pulls out a bottle of water and tries to give it to them. They refused it but said again, "Water, water? It is very hot outside!" Andrew's like, "Yeah, it's hot..." but still had no idea what they were getting at. So, the porter left and came back with a 20 liter container of water and said, "1 JD." It turns out they were trying to sell us water, not borrow any. Since we had been trying to find a place that sells water in large containers (we'd been buying 1 litre- 5 litre containers and go through them really fast!) we were really excited. Plus, this is way cheaper. Andrew starts to pull out his wallet but then they say (in Arabic), "Change! Change!" So Andrew thinks to himself, They don't want me to give them bills...they want coins. Okay. He starts pulling change out of his pocket so that he can pay them with his coinage. But then they say, "Old one, new one." and Andrew realizes that they are asking if we have an empty container to trade with them. We didn't so he paid them 1 JD and they left. So, now we have 20 litres of drinking water that will be replaced each week. Andrew was quite embarrased about his miscommunications. We often find ourselves wishing that people would speak to us in full sentences. People find it hard to believe that, as Americans, we can speak any Arabic at all, therefore, they will either speak English to us (even though their English might be worse than our Arabic), or they speak in baby-talk to us. But, as Andrew learns more and becomes more fluent more and more people talk to him. They realize that he actually does understand and that he actually can speak. It's what we call the "talking-dog" syndrome. People listen to what you say and then tell you that they don't understand what you are saying. You'll say what you say again and they think, "Wow! That dog is talking!" but they don't respond. You say it a third time and they think, "That dog is talking and I know what it's saying!"
The houses here are built to keep things cool. The walls are brick and cement and the floors are all marble. It makes things really cold - like the beginning of May when it was freezing inside but around 20 degrees Celsius outside. So, it isn't dreadfully hot inside but it is still rather warm.
The heat brought Andrew a very interesting situation yesterday. Our neighbours were installing new furniture all evening. Around 8:00 PM, the porter and our neighbour knocked on our door. Instead of actually talking to Andrew they say (in Arabic), "Water, water? It's hot outside! Water." They then start waving their hands in front of their faces and panting. Andrew thinks to himself, They must be thirsty from all their work and have run out of water and want to borrow some. So Andrew goes to the fridge and pulls out a bottle of water and tries to give it to them. They refused it but said again, "Water, water? It is very hot outside!" Andrew's like, "Yeah, it's hot..." but still had no idea what they were getting at. So, the porter left and came back with a 20 liter container of water and said, "1 JD." It turns out they were trying to sell us water, not borrow any. Since we had been trying to find a place that sells water in large containers (we'd been buying 1 litre- 5 litre containers and go through them really fast!) we were really excited. Plus, this is way cheaper. Andrew starts to pull out his wallet but then they say (in Arabic), "Change! Change!" So Andrew thinks to himself, They don't want me to give them bills...they want coins. Okay. He starts pulling change out of his pocket so that he can pay them with his coinage. But then they say, "Old one, new one." and Andrew realizes that they are asking if we have an empty container to trade with them. We didn't so he paid them 1 JD and they left. So, now we have 20 litres of drinking water that will be replaced each week. Andrew was quite embarrased about his miscommunications. We often find ourselves wishing that people would speak to us in full sentences. People find it hard to believe that, as Americans, we can speak any Arabic at all, therefore, they will either speak English to us (even though their English might be worse than our Arabic), or they speak in baby-talk to us. But, as Andrew learns more and becomes more fluent more and more people talk to him. They realize that he actually does understand and that he actually can speak. It's what we call the "talking-dog" syndrome. People listen to what you say and then tell you that they don't understand what you are saying. You'll say what you say again and they think, "Wow! That dog is talking!" but they don't respond. You say it a third time and they think, "That dog is talking and I know what it's saying!"
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Water Woes Continue
Again we have run out of water. This is interesting because it is only Thursday and we don't get water until Monday. We are convinced that our tank doesn't fill up all the way sometimes. After all, we've each only had 1 shower and done 2 loads of laundry this week along with a few bucket baths. Technically that doesn't amount to the quantity of water we should have had. So this morning Andrew heated up the water (because I hate fiddling with the water heater) and just after I had shampooed my hair...
Yup! The water stopped flowing! It's a good thing we had a bucket that we let fill up in the shower before we start showering (for toilet flushing purposes, mainly)...so that was used for the rinse off. Bummer...I'm still not convinced that everything is out of my hair but at least I can stand the smell of myself now.
Sometimes we go so long without showering that we can't stand the smell of each other. I'm quite positive that you did not want to know that, but seriously, we run out of water so often we conserve it like crazy! Oh, well...hopefully it just needs to be pumped. Whenever our bowab wakes up, he'll try that. Until then, no toilet flushes, no hand washes, no showers, no water for cooking, no dish washing, no mopping the floor. We are totally dependent on water! At least we have to buy purified water so we always have some of that on hand!
Yup! The water stopped flowing! It's a good thing we had a bucket that we let fill up in the shower before we start showering (for toilet flushing purposes, mainly)...so that was used for the rinse off. Bummer...I'm still not convinced that everything is out of my hair but at least I can stand the smell of myself now.
Sometimes we go so long without showering that we can't stand the smell of each other. I'm quite positive that you did not want to know that, but seriously, we run out of water so often we conserve it like crazy! Oh, well...hopefully it just needs to be pumped. Whenever our bowab wakes up, he'll try that. Until then, no toilet flushes, no hand washes, no showers, no water for cooking, no dish washing, no mopping the floor. We are totally dependent on water! At least we have to buy purified water so we always have some of that on hand!
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
The Dead Sea (Saturday, May 20, 2006)
On Thursday, which is like a Friday because it is the last day of the work week, I was over visiting with Bridget and she asked what Andrew and I were planning on doing for the weekend. We weren’t really planning on doing anything, but Bridget said that she and Jeremy were planning on going to the Dead Sea —so Andrew and I, as well as the Joneses (Ariel and Matt) decided to go too. It was so fun!
We met at Kirk’s house at 9:00. Andrew and I walked there; it takes about 25 minutes. It used to take 30 but then we discovered another road that makes us backtrack less. On the way we saw a horse being used to plow the islands of the road. That was kind of strange…I guess they don’t have roto-tillers here.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Islamic Cairo - A Three Hour Tour!
We signed up to go on the Intensive Islamic Cairo Tour. We thought that it would be a half-day tour...boy, were we ever wrong! Our tour ended up lasting 7 hours and 40 minutes! We were exhausted by the end of it. We learned a lot of interesting new things though!
Before you can go into a mosque you need to take off your shoes. The next thing is to make sure that the girls are modest. At some places we had to wear full robes. At other places we just had to cover our heads with a scarf. And I even had to tie a scarf around my stomach because my midriff was "immodest" (I had a layered shirt on...so since my undershirt was showing we had to cover it...). Sometimes instead of taking off our shoes we put on shoe coverings, but this was only at mosques that are no longer used for worship.
We learned the origin of the word "chair" as used in "department chair." I'm not sure that it necessarily evolved from Arabic, but when mosques were used for places of instruction the teacher would sit on a chair and all the students would sit on the floor around them. We learned this while sitting on the floor around Mohammed Eissa, the professor who gave our tour.
Andrew was excited that he could recognize different types of architecture. Most of the minarats that we've seen in both Egypt and Jordan have been a solid tower. However, we saw one mosque, Ibn Touloun's, which was done Iraqi style, with the staircase on the outside.
The cherry on our Islamic Tour cake was the Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha. It was based on the Blue Mosque in Turkey and had a lot more decoration than the other mosques that we had seen. The acoustics in this mosque were amazing! Inside there are 365 lamps to represent the days of the year.
We also went to some rather fancy houses. One was the house of Gayer Anderson: a very wealthy British man who left his house to the Egyptian government. His whole house was amazing. There was a huge collection of Islamic art, and the house was huge! It just kept going and going. If I had to make a "list of things to do in Cairo" this would definitely be on there. It was really cool.
We also went into some of "Old Cairo" which is still surrounded by the city wall. It really isn't too bad, but there is a lot of garbage on the streets and they were replacing the water lines so the road was a little torn up. We had to walk through an old gateway and through all that garbage to get to the torn up road. After we passed the construction the roads were fine...the construction went almost all the way through the center of Old Cairo so I'm not sure that we ever officially "passed" it unless we were on one of the side streets.
Another fancy house that we went to was an old schoolmaster's house. It had a series of wings that were used to house students, teachers, the headmaster's family and so forth. We had a tour guide that was taking us through the rooms one by one and explaining things to everyone in Arabic. At this point we were all so fatigued that no one was really paying attention. Gayer Anderson's house was cooler, but I think that was just because we got to explore it on our own.
This is the ticket to get into the above explained house (al Darb el Asfar). These tickets are pretty much uniform throughout Egypt.
When we got out of Old Cairo, we really were tired. It was past 2 in the afternoon and we had not eaten since breakfast. Many people were out of water. We were not a happy group. We wanted food. We wandered out onto the street and all these restaurant workers started trying to get us to eat at their place. They were moving tables out in front of us while we were walking, pushing us into their restaurants and continuously telling us to eat at their store. One guy even arm wrestled Wade, promising us all free beverages if Wade won. Wade lost. We didn't eat lunch (there was no time! we had to keep going!) because we were on a slave-drive tour again, so we all filed onto the bus after getting our water.
Kirk did end up buying us all pita bread while we were on our way to the last mosque we visited (the Muhammed-ali Mosque) from a pita seller. It was probably the best-tasting pita bread I've ever had in my life. That, or I was absolutely famished. There are bread-sellers everywhere. They carry their bread with them. We caught a guy on a bicycle...impressive, no?
Also around this area of the neighbourhood is the City of the Dead. It is actually a graveyard but people have begun to live there. So many, in fact, that the city government has gone in to put in water pipes. It is pretty crazy how desperate people are for housing and really sad that they are too poor to live elsewhere. You can't see it too well in this shot, but behind that wall is a nice mix of tombs and make-shift houses.
After finally heading home, Andrew and I went swimming to relax and then went to dinner and straight to bed. We were exhausted and rather glad that our 3 hour tour (aka 7 hour and 40 minute tour) was over!
Before you can go into a mosque you need to take off your shoes. The next thing is to make sure that the girls are modest. At some places we had to wear full robes. At other places we just had to cover our heads with a scarf. And I even had to tie a scarf around my stomach because my midriff was "immodest" (I had a layered shirt on...so since my undershirt was showing we had to cover it...). Sometimes instead of taking off our shoes we put on shoe coverings, but this was only at mosques that are no longer used for worship.
We learned the origin of the word "chair" as used in "department chair." I'm not sure that it necessarily evolved from Arabic, but when mosques were used for places of instruction the teacher would sit on a chair and all the students would sit on the floor around them. We learned this while sitting on the floor around Mohammed Eissa, the professor who gave our tour.
Andrew was excited that he could recognize different types of architecture. Most of the minarats that we've seen in both Egypt and Jordan have been a solid tower. However, we saw one mosque, Ibn Touloun's, which was done Iraqi style, with the staircase on the outside.
The cherry on our Islamic Tour cake was the Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha. It was based on the Blue Mosque in Turkey and had a lot more decoration than the other mosques that we had seen. The acoustics in this mosque were amazing! Inside there are 365 lamps to represent the days of the year.
We also went to some rather fancy houses. One was the house of Gayer Anderson: a very wealthy British man who left his house to the Egyptian government. His whole house was amazing. There was a huge collection of Islamic art, and the house was huge! It just kept going and going. If I had to make a "list of things to do in Cairo" this would definitely be on there. It was really cool.
We also went into some of "Old Cairo" which is still surrounded by the city wall. It really isn't too bad, but there is a lot of garbage on the streets and they were replacing the water lines so the road was a little torn up. We had to walk through an old gateway and through all that garbage to get to the torn up road. After we passed the construction the roads were fine...the construction went almost all the way through the center of Old Cairo so I'm not sure that we ever officially "passed" it unless we were on one of the side streets.
Another fancy house that we went to was an old schoolmaster's house. It had a series of wings that were used to house students, teachers, the headmaster's family and so forth. We had a tour guide that was taking us through the rooms one by one and explaining things to everyone in Arabic. At this point we were all so fatigued that no one was really paying attention. Gayer Anderson's house was cooler, but I think that was just because we got to explore it on our own.
This is the ticket to get into the above explained house (al Darb el Asfar). These tickets are pretty much uniform throughout Egypt.
When we got out of Old Cairo, we really were tired. It was past 2 in the afternoon and we had not eaten since breakfast. Many people were out of water. We were not a happy group. We wanted food. We wandered out onto the street and all these restaurant workers started trying to get us to eat at their place. They were moving tables out in front of us while we were walking, pushing us into their restaurants and continuously telling us to eat at their store. One guy even arm wrestled Wade, promising us all free beverages if Wade won. Wade lost. We didn't eat lunch (there was no time! we had to keep going!) because we were on a slave-drive tour again, so we all filed onto the bus after getting our water.
Kirk did end up buying us all pita bread while we were on our way to the last mosque we visited (the Muhammed-ali Mosque) from a pita seller. It was probably the best-tasting pita bread I've ever had in my life. That, or I was absolutely famished. There are bread-sellers everywhere. They carry their bread with them. We caught a guy on a bicycle...impressive, no?
Also around this area of the neighbourhood is the City of the Dead. It is actually a graveyard but people have begun to live there. So many, in fact, that the city government has gone in to put in water pipes. It is pretty crazy how desperate people are for housing and really sad that they are too poor to live elsewhere. You can't see it too well in this shot, but behind that wall is a nice mix of tombs and make-shift houses.
After finally heading home, Andrew and I went swimming to relax and then went to dinner and straight to bed. We were exhausted and rather glad that our 3 hour tour (aka 7 hour and 40 minute tour) was over!
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Mount Nebo, the River Jordan, and Umm Qais
Yesterday (Saturday the 6th), we took a biblical tour of Jordan that Nadal set up for us. He is a strong member of the branch here in Al Husn - served a mission in South Africa and speaks English perfectly. He also has connections all over Jordan (anything you need, just ask Nadal). We were supposed to leave Amman at 7:00 in the morning, meaning that the Irbid/Husn people needed to leave at around 6:00 am. This is problematic because Jordan really doesn't wake up until 10:00 am so trying to get a Jordanian bus driver up to drive earlier than 6:00 was asking a lot. He was quite late and laughed at us when we told him he was late. But we all got on the bus and promptly fell asleep for the hour and 15 minute ride.
The rides from Irbid to Amman (and vise versa) are really quite interesting. You go up a hill at 20 miles an hour because you can't go any faster and then you go down the hills much faster (as in, I never see break lights come on). Imagine riding through a canyon road going 100 miles an hour around curves. It's interesting. The view is interesting as well. There are a lot of olive orchards and vineyards and pottery kilns. You can also see the bedoin tents and houses carved into the rocks as well as a lot of caves. And then the goats. There are tons of goats in Jordan. People herd goats up the highways and through towns (including right through Amman). They tether goats to poles at the butcher shops. It's interesting to see the goats there. They look so nervous - and then you realise that two goats are currently being skinned right in front of these two goats. It is really quite gross. They do it all right there on the street for everyone to see. Everyone has goats!
This trip, however, we didn't take the main highway. We took a "back way" which was much more windy and a few girls got sick. We had to stop the bus for one to get out. It was a pretty sad ride, but we finally made it to Amman and picked up the rest of our group. We all got on the bus and Kirk wanted us to sing hymns, so we sang one verse of something before everyone fell asleep. After singing alone for a while, Kirk got the message that we were all still struggling with jetlag and he sat down.
Us inside the Moses Memorial Chapel
From there we went down to a platform on the river. We were on the East bank. About 10 feet in front of us was...the West bank. Seriously...if I jumped from the rail of the platform I probably could have landed in Israel. If I were to swim across the river, it would have taken me 2 strokes. It really wasn't all that wide. But, with the snipers and land mines, we decided to stay on the Jordan side with our snipers and land mines. If we had attempted to cross, there would have been trouble, but we got a nice picture of us with the Israel flag waving in the wind. We also touched the river. It was murky brown and pretty warm.
Oh, and the Al Husn branch met us at the Baptisimal site and we sung hymns in English and Arabic. That was pretty cool. We sang some of the primay hymns about baptism while we were looking out over the river and that brought a whole new meaning to the songs.
Alas, we are moving on again. This is kind of how the whole trip went - in and out. So, we're on the bus again on our way to Umm Qais. This is apparently pretty cool, but we didn't quite get there. It's supposed to be a great picnic area with a lot of vegetation and trees but, since it is right on the border of Syria and Israel the borders are, again, pretty disputed. They were having a military demonstration up there (in the middle of no where) so we couldn't go all the way.
We went as far as they would let us and then we got out and look over the Sea of Galilee. Standing on the ground where the Savior did almost his entire life ministry was pretty cool (remember that Jordan and Israel were the same country. Jordan used to be Israel or vise versa...the borders are all pretty fuzzy here).
The rides from Irbid to Amman (and vise versa) are really quite interesting. You go up a hill at 20 miles an hour because you can't go any faster and then you go down the hills much faster (as in, I never see break lights come on). Imagine riding through a canyon road going 100 miles an hour around curves. It's interesting. The view is interesting as well. There are a lot of olive orchards and vineyards and pottery kilns. You can also see the bedoin tents and houses carved into the rocks as well as a lot of caves. And then the goats. There are tons of goats in Jordan. People herd goats up the highways and through towns (including right through Amman). They tether goats to poles at the butcher shops. It's interesting to see the goats there. They look so nervous - and then you realise that two goats are currently being skinned right in front of these two goats. It is really quite gross. They do it all right there on the street for everyone to see. Everyone has goats!
This trip, however, we didn't take the main highway. We took a "back way" which was much more windy and a few girls got sick. We had to stop the bus for one to get out. It was a pretty sad ride, but we finally made it to Amman and picked up the rest of our group. We all got on the bus and Kirk wanted us to sing hymns, so we sang one verse of something before everyone fell asleep. After singing alone for a while, Kirk got the message that we were all still struggling with jetlag and he sat down.
Our first stop was Mt. Nebo. It is on of the mountains that Moses has been known to be at. There is a statue of a staff with a snake on it that is really quite cool, as well as a church that is famous for its mosaics. From the top of the mountain you can look out over Israel and the Dead Sea. We saw a little bit of Jerusalem, Jericho and a few other well-known biblical towns, as well as the site of the dead-sea scrolls. It was really neat.
Statue of Moses' Staff with Snake
Us inside the Moses Memorial Chapel
From Mt. Nebo we drove down past the Dead Sea to the River Jordan. The road was so windy and had so many switchbacks (we had to keep holding our breath and praying that the breaks wouldn't give out!) but down at the Dead Sea everything was pretty flat. All of our water bottles got crushed as we went down because of the change in pressure. We didn't get to stop at the Dead Sea though. We will go back another time. Instead, we carried onto the River Jordan. We had to stop at a lot of check points because the borders are not very well defined (our cell phones welcomed us to Palestine) and there are mines and snipers all over the place. If you get off the trodden path you are in real trouble.
Nancy dipping in the Jordan River
Andrew and Nancy in front of the Jordan River
(The West Bank is just across from us.
Note the flag of Israel and all the fences!)
John the Baptist Spring
Chapel of the Jordan River
Chapel of the Jordan River
We did a little hike around the River and found John the Baptist's Spring. It is a little pool of water that springs up from the ground (hence the name) and feeds into the River. The water was very clear and cool (no, we didn't drink it). We then continued on to the "Chapels at the River." This is the proposed spot of baptism for the Savior. It has some chapels and some steps leading down into a big hole (the water has been diverted back into the Jordan River so it is empty now). The Savior was baptised at "Bethany beyond the Jordan" so chances are he wasn't actually baptised in the actual river and since there was a font at these chapels, it seemed pretty likely that "this was the place."
Nancy dipping in the Jordan River
Andrew and Nancy in front of the Jordan River(The West Bank is just across from us.
Note the flag of Israel and all the fences!)
Oh, and the Al Husn branch met us at the Baptisimal site and we sung hymns in English and Arabic. That was pretty cool. We sang some of the primay hymns about baptism while we were looking out over the river and that brought a whole new meaning to the songs.
Alas, we are moving on again. This is kind of how the whole trip went - in and out. So, we're on the bus again on our way to Umm Qais. This is apparently pretty cool, but we didn't quite get there. It's supposed to be a great picnic area with a lot of vegetation and trees but, since it is right on the border of Syria and Israel the borders are, again, pretty disputed. They were having a military demonstration up there (in the middle of no where) so we couldn't go all the way.
We went as far as they would let us and then we got out and look over the Sea of Galilee. Standing on the ground where the Savior did almost his entire life ministry was pretty cool (remember that Jordan and Israel were the same country. Jordan used to be Israel or vise versa...the borders are all pretty fuzzy here).
"Fastlink wishes you an enjoyable stay in Syria..."
It was neat to see the cities in a distance, and get a message on our cell phones welcoming us to Syria (even though we were still in what is considered Jordan). But because of the men sitting behind machine guns who were urging us to get back in the bus and go home we weren't there very long. There are a bunch of ruins up there and we would like to go back to see them.
Ruins at Umm Qais
It was a wonderful trip. We'd like to do it again, maybe taking the whole weekend or just doing one site a day.
It was a wonderful trip. We'd like to do it again, maybe taking the whole weekend or just doing one site a day.Saturday, July 22, 2006
One of the coolest places in Jordan - Wadi Mujib
We have a three day break this weekend, but instead of going out to some far away place, we decided to go to a little-visited place in Jordan - the Wadi Mujib nature reserve. If you read about it it sounds really boring - it's just a big animal reserve on the shores of the Dead Sea. It's really quite amazing though.
All along the shore of the Dead Sea there are fresh water springs that flow into the huge body of salt water - water coming from the mountains (but not from runoff - who knows where it comes from?!). One of the larger creeks is Wadi Mujib Gorge - part of the main reserve - which is a long hike up the river through a narrow canyon, ending at a tall waterfall. Immagine Petra's Siq with a fast moving river coming down, like the Subway or the Narrows hike in Zions National Park. Pretty amazing stuff.
We hired a mini bus from the Muhajereen bus stop by the 3rd circle in Amman. We negotiated the price for the whole day - 50 JD. Slightly ludicrous, but we only had a group of 5 (the three male BYU students in Irbid, Curtis, Stephen, and Andrew (aka Sami) came with us), so we took it. It was nice, since we had the driver wait for us wherever we went.
After about an hour drive we made it to the trailhead and paid the 7 JD per person. Once again expensive. Oh well. After paying we started hiking. We walked on man-made, metal bridges for a couple minutes until we came to the edge of a cliff with a metal ladder hanging down. Thus began our long, wet hike.
We had to swim twenty feet across to the other side of the river, where we could actually stand up and walk. We hiked in the shallow water for about 30 minutes, heading up the narrow canyon. The water gradually got whiter and rapider and deeper. We then got to some steep, small waterfalls/cliffs that we had to climb up.
After climbing up all the rapid waterfalls, we made it to the main one, which was a lot more rapid and powerful than the other small ones (duh). We all had fun running through it, trying not to get knocked over or lose anything. Curtis's watch got ripped off his wrist - it's still up there somewhere (maybe we'll find it in our sink someday). Stephen lost his glasses, which Sami miraculously found under the pummeling waterfall. It was amazingly fun!
After a long while at the top, we headed back. This was a lot more difficult, and a lot more fun than coming up. The group that left before us took the ropes that we needed at the steep climbs, so we had to jump down some of them and slide down others. The undertow was really strong on some of the waterfalls, making it difficult to get away and continue. We were all completely bruised by the time we got to the end. My shoes didn't survive - too many fast currents, poweful waterfalls, twisted ankles, and big rocks.
Once again at the beginning of the hike, we spent half an hour jumping back in the water from that first cliff with the metal ladder. The surrounding water was extremely deep and very warm - perfect cliff jumping water. Even Nancy jumped!
We then found our bus driver having a smoking/tea break with the guys at the trail head desk. We got back in the bus and went up to Amman Beach on the Dead Sea and met up with the Slades. We spent a little while floating in the Dead Sea again, but it wasn't as fun as the first time. We had so many stratches and scrapes and bruises from Wadi Mujib that the salt just stung. It hurt way too bad. I still love the Dead Sea, though.
All along the shore of the Dead Sea there are fresh water springs that flow into the huge body of salt water - water coming from the mountains (but not from runoff - who knows where it comes from?!). One of the larger creeks is Wadi Mujib Gorge - part of the main reserve - which is a long hike up the river through a narrow canyon, ending at a tall waterfall. Immagine Petra's Siq with a fast moving river coming down, like the Subway or the Narrows hike in Zions National Park. Pretty amazing stuff.
We hired a mini bus from the Muhajereen bus stop by the 3rd circle in Amman. We negotiated the price for the whole day - 50 JD. Slightly ludicrous, but we only had a group of 5 (the three male BYU students in Irbid, Curtis, Stephen, and Andrew (aka Sami) came with us), so we took it. It was nice, since we had the driver wait for us wherever we went.
After about an hour drive we made it to the trailhead and paid the 7 JD per person. Once again expensive. Oh well. After paying we started hiking. We walked on man-made, metal bridges for a couple minutes until we came to the edge of a cliff with a metal ladder hanging down. Thus began our long, wet hike.
We had to swim twenty feet across to the other side of the river, where we could actually stand up and walk. We hiked in the shallow water for about 30 minutes, heading up the narrow canyon. The water gradually got whiter and rapider and deeper. We then got to some steep, small waterfalls/cliffs that we had to climb up.
Some video of the beginning of the steep waterfalls
As we got closer to the main waterfall, the water got even faster and the cliffs that we had to climb up got higher. Ropes were provided on one of the difficult ascents. As we climbed, we took lots of breaks in the water, playing in the powerful mini waterfalls.
After climbing up all the rapid waterfalls, we made it to the main one, which was a lot more rapid and powerful than the other small ones (duh). We all had fun running through it, trying not to get knocked over or lose anything. Curtis's watch got ripped off his wrist - it's still up there somewhere (maybe we'll find it in our sink someday). Stephen lost his glasses, which Sami miraculously found under the pummeling waterfall. It was amazingly fun!
Me getting pummeled by the waterfall
Nancy falling in the waterfall
After a long while at the top, we headed back. This was a lot more difficult, and a lot more fun than coming up. The group that left before us took the ropes that we needed at the steep climbs, so we had to jump down some of them and slide down others. The undertow was really strong on some of the waterfalls, making it difficult to get away and continue. We were all completely bruised by the time we got to the end. My shoes didn't survive - too many fast currents, poweful waterfalls, twisted ankles, and big rocks.
Once again at the beginning of the hike, we spent half an hour jumping back in the water from that first cliff with the metal ladder. The surrounding water was extremely deep and very warm - perfect cliff jumping water. Even Nancy jumped!
We then found our bus driver having a smoking/tea break with the guys at the trail head desk. We got back in the bus and went up to Amman Beach on the Dead Sea and met up with the Slades. We spent a little while floating in the Dead Sea again, but it wasn't as fun as the first time. We had so many stratches and scrapes and bruises from Wadi Mujib that the salt just stung. It hurt way too bad. I still love the Dead Sea, though.
After a while there, we found our driver, once again chilling with the ticket and security guys - with tea - and came back home. It was an amazing day! We highly reccomend Wadi Mujib to anyone thinking about going! It's an incredible place! (Just don't go to the Dead Sea directly after...ouch!)
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Up on the housetop
We seem to be out of water...again. This time we might actually be out instead of just needing to pump our water. Andrew and I went up onto the roof to check things out. Our roof is pretty scary. There are pipes and cables and satellites and tanks and solar panels everywhere. It's all pretty trashy. We're not completely positive which water tank is ours since there are three different kinds of tanks, but we think that they are these big metal boxes. Please note how rusted the tank on the left is. It is no wonder we are not supposed to drink the water.
There are also some more interesting double-decker tanks that we don't think would hold enough to get anyone through the week. This is a picture of a newer tank...some of them were really gross looking!
After tip-toeing around our roof for a while (there really isn't a good place to put your feet down firmly), Andrew went to get a shot of the city. In this shot we can see our neighbour's roof and understand how they can have parties up there. Do you see how nice and organized their water tanks are in that nice little line? Ours are not like that. Ours are sporadically placed here and there. Some plastic ones, some metal ones...some broken ones. I'm kind of jealous of their roof--and their nice-looking water tanks.
In case anyone is wondering why the tanks are on the roof, it is due to water pressure. Our dear friend gravity is the only thing that helps our water get through the pipes and into our apartment.
There are also some more interesting double-decker tanks that we don't think would hold enough to get anyone through the week. This is a picture of a newer tank...some of them were really gross looking!
After tip-toeing around our roof for a while (there really isn't a good place to put your feet down firmly), Andrew went to get a shot of the city. In this shot we can see our neighbour's roof and understand how they can have parties up there. Do you see how nice and organized their water tanks are in that nice little line? Ours are not like that. Ours are sporadically placed here and there. Some plastic ones, some metal ones...some broken ones. I'm kind of jealous of their roof--and their nice-looking water tanks.
In case anyone is wondering why the tanks are on the roof, it is due to water pressure. Our dear friend gravity is the only thing that helps our water get through the pipes and into our apartment.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Good ol' Dubai
Dubai seems to me to be a city of "new" wealth. Everything about the city screams newness! We arrived at the airport and it was definitely a lot better kept-up than Amman or Egypt. It was also quite a bit hotter! We were a little worried about finding our hotel since we didn't have an address, but we followed the directions given on the internet site: "tell the taxi driver it is by the clock tower." Andrew and I, thinking that this was an Arab country so it definitely has some history, thought that the clock tower would be some old fashioned tower. We were wrong. And amazed.
As you can tell, the clock tower is anything but old. And once we got to the tower, our hotel was in plain sight. I think we fell asleep almost as soon as we got in our hotel room. The heat, even at 1:00 A.M. was quite oppressive.
The next day we took advantage of the hotel's free shuttle to the beach. As we were sitting in the lobby, Andrew picked up the paper and read that the day before had been the hottest day of the year. It had reached an even 46 degrees Celsius (114 F), there was a nice load of sand dumped on the city from the "empty quarter" during a sand storm, and it had been overall a pretty miserable day. We were glad we had missed it.
We knew that it would be hot at the beach, and that we would probably burn so I insisted that we lather up with sun screen. It's probably expired by now or something since it's the same sun screen I used as a lifeguard when I was like 16...but apparently it still works well since we didn't really burn at all.
Anyway, the beach was beautiful. It was clean, the water was clear. There were no rocks or seaweed. It took us forever to find anything resembling a stone, shell, or living creature. The water was nice and warm. It was perfect. We had 4 hours of ocean bliss. The best part was that the beach was pretty uncrowded! I've never been in a more deserted beach in my life! We didn't figure out why until the next day...but it was definitely a good time at the beach, regardless of circumstances.
At 12:30, we decided that we should probably pack up to leave since the shuttle was coming at 1:00 to pick us up. We were drying off under some palm trees when in the distance we hear some disgusting gagging noises. Not too far away, at the showers, a man was puking his guts out. Like I wanted a shower now. Andrew and I headed to the showers anyway and rinsed off our feet while the lifeguards tended to the poor man.
We left the beach and commenced waiting outside for the shuttle. Soon beads of sweat started forming on our faces. Then those beads of sweat began dripping down our faces. We realized that our shirts we soaked. Our pants were soaked. Our hair was soaked. And we had just dried off. We decided to go to a near-by cafe and buy some AC. This was done by purchasing the cheapest thing on the menu and eating it as slowly as possible. Luckily the cheapest thing on the menu was ice cream. We were cooled inside and out! But after finishing our ice cream we had to head back outside to wait. Why was the shuttle taking so long? Why of all days did it have to be late?
We went and waited by the road once again. Drenched in our own sweat. Ringing out our shirts to dab our foreheads. Fanning ourselves with our hands. It was horrible. Finally the shuttle came. We filed in and turned the AC vents to face us. We were exhausted. I saw a billboard, that I wish I had caught on film...but was much too tired to do so, that had the traditional "men at work" sign on it, only instead of working then men were sitting under umbrellas. The sign said, "Men at rest. 12:00-4:00 P.M. Sunday-Saturday." Or something to that effect. I conceded with the sign and quickly fell asleep. It seemed to take forever to get the hotel but we finally made it there.
We somehow stumbled up to our room, drank more water than imaginable, and fell asleep. I slept for six hours, woke up and was still exhausted. I'm pretty sure we were suffering from heat exhaustion. At least it wasn't heat stroke, which I suspect was the level of the man vomiting at the beach.
The next day, a nice Indonesian couple staying at the hotel said that it had been 52 degrees (125 F) at noon the day before. I haven't been able to verify that, but if it is true, that would explain our reaction to the heat. I'm sure I sweated out more water than I had taken in that day. The other days we were in Dubai were all around 45-47 degrees and the heat was manegable...but our first day there was utter insanity. I've never been hotter. Nor have I ever sweat so much in my life! The beach was worth it, but it may have been nice to have done it on a slightly cooler day.
Dubai reminds me a lot of Las Vegas, architecture-wise. That, or a museum of art. It is just amazing the array of buildings they have. And then you go in the buildings and they are just as extravagant. Although I'm sure Dubai has slums, we didn't find them. Everywhere we went was pristine. And boy, did we go everywhere!
On Friday we set out to go to church. We had an address, and although our hotel didn't seem to use the numbering system, Dubai actually has a nice grid-like address system. We gave the address to the taxi driver and set out for our short taxi ride to the church. We ended up in a fancy neighbourhood, which could be right...but we couldn't find the villa the church was supposedly in. We drove all around the neighbourhood and asked everyone we saw if they were familiar with the address...costing us a pretty penny. Alas, we could not find the church and didn't have a number to reach anyone with. At 80 dihrams, we decided to call off the search. It was getting much too expensive. (Not too expensive though. USD outweighs the dihram 3 to 1!) The ride cost us 4 times the amount our trip from the airport cost us! And airport rides are outrageously priced.
Not only did we skip church on Friday, we went to the mall in the evening. We had planned to go the day before but were busy dealing with heat exhaustion. We didn't buy anything though since everything was too far out of our budget range. We did, however, watch an interesting fashion show. A fashion show for hijabs. It was pretty cool. It was a contest for local designers so there were judges for the hijabs. I really wonder how they judged though since all the outfits were black, to the ankle, to the wrists, and hooded. They did add some flair here and there, but really, it was a close call all around. They did a "casual wear" section and a "formal wear" section. Some of the formal wear was pretty scandalous! Seriously, some of the gowns I wouldn't wear...low cut, strapless... They were covered by capes, but I still would not venture out in those gowns.
After the mall, Andrew and I went to the Clock Tower to take some pictures. Dubai has a mascot and he is placed all over the city. His name is Modesh and he has a catchy smile! The fountain has quite a few of these Modesh mascots so we decided to pose with them all. It was pretty fun...people thought we were crazy, but Dubai is kind of a crazy city, so I suppose we just fit right in.
Andrew and I had learned our lesson and refused to venture out during the day, leaving our next days (Friday and Saturday) just mornings and evenings. Besides which, Andrew had developed an ear infection from swimming and getting water stuck in his ear so I had to take care of him.
This involved finding the nearest hospital. I went to the front desk and asked where the hospital was. The clerk was unfamiliar with that term in English. He questioned what I wanted. I said, "My husband is sick. We need a doctor." The clerk informed me that what I needed was a "poly-clinic" and said the nearest one was "Sunny Poly-clinic" and was five minutes (insert ambiguous hand gesture here) that way. I was like, "What way?" and he's like (repeat ambiguous hand gesture) "That way." I'm like (mimicking hand gesture), "Oh, that way?" and he's like (repeating hand gesture), "Yeah, that way."
I went up and retrieved Andrew. He was in pain, swollen, and deaf in one ear. Cool things can happen in just a few days. I told him that I found out about the hospital. It should be cheap. It was close. But I had no idea where it was. Then I told him again. And then I told him again. And then I said, "Never mind. Let's go." So we went to the desk. I stopped to ask another person where the clinic was. They gave me the same ambiguous hand gesture saying it was five minutes that way. Great, I thought, Andrew and I have walked these streets countless times. We had staked out all the pharmacies for self-help just the night before. There was no clinic in sight from the hotel. So, we walked five minutes in what we deduced was that way. After walking for a few minutes we saw a fancier-looking hotel and I decided to ask the clerk inside for directions. He had no idea what I was talking about but was really nice about it. He phoned the local directory to get the number for the clinic and then asked for directions from his hotel to the clinic. He then walked us outside and said, "Turn right at the next street, walk down the whole block and it should be the last building. You'll see a pharmacy with a sign saying, "Ben Sina" and it will be right after it."
I was dubious because we had visited that pharmacy and they told us to go see a doctor but had not said that there was a doctor right next door. Plus, we didn't even see the clinic when we were there...but we followed the directions to a tee considering they were a lot better than the directions we received before. We got to the end of the block and didn't see the clinic so we kept walking. I stopped and said, "This is dumb. It should be right here! Why can't we find it?!?" A man on a bicycle stopped and said, in a nice Punjabi accent, "What are you looking for?" I sighed...would he really know where it was? "The Sunny Clinic," I said. "It's right here." He said and pointed to a sign high up on the building we had just passed. Yup. It read "Sunny Clinic." I thanked the man and dragged a confused Andrew to the sign. We looked at all the signs plastered on the apartment complex. That's right, folks. Apartment complex. We found one that said, "Sunny Clinic. Floor M. Entrance E." Cool, a little computer printed flyer telling us where the clinic was. No wonder we missed it.
We found the clinic by walking through completely unmarked doors. We were ushered into a waiting room where we were almost completely alone, except for the company of one woman who stood up and rushed out of the room as soon as we entered. She was the doctor...she was wearing a sari, but that's okay...she was still the doctor. She looked at Andrew and gave him a prescription. We paid the clinic 50 dihrams and went to the clinic nextdoor to get his prescription. We then walked across the parking lot and...into our hotel. That's right. Our hotel was right there. Why they didn't say, "Take a sharp right until you get to the apartment building with the blue balconies and then go into a door marked "E" and go to floor "M." is a question I'll never know the answer to...but we got Andrew the help he needed and he's feeling a lot better.
That evening we were able to go to the suqs downtown and found a clock with Arabic numbers, hurrah! We walked through the long gold suq and were bombarded by numerous people trying to sell us stuff. It wasn't nearly as bad as Egypt or Jordan. They were pretty wimpy, as street sellers go. I think that's because selling without a license is actually an enforced thing in Dubai, so we had people making us offers but then a police officer would walk by and the seller would disappear. It was interesting. But it was nice to not be bothered!
Dubai was nice, but if I had to live there, I would insist on having a few things:
1) a car with AC
2) AC in the house
3) 24 hour access to a pool
4) an ice machine
Excluding #3, I never thought that I would want any of those things. I've always thought that I could do without AC and ice, but in Dubai that's really a death sentence. How did people live before air conditioning, you ask? Simple...windmills. It's true. Without a cooling system you couldn't live there!
Language-wise, if you don't speak a lick of Arabic, you'll feel right at home. 80% of the city's population is foreign. Most people we saw on the streets and roads and everywhere were Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Filipino, Thai, or Indonesian. Andrew spoke Arabic to two people the whole time we were there - our first taxi driver was actually from Syria, and another taxi driver was from Pakistan who spoke mostly English. Andrew started in Arabic with him, so he struggled through the conversation in Arabic the whole time, amazed that a Westerner like Andrew actually spoke the language. He insisted that we must have had Lebanese or Syrian ancestors or something!
Best point of the lack of Arabic: in one of the pharmacies we went to, a native Arab lady came in and asked the pharmacists if anyone spoke Arabic. One of the Indians affirmed, so she stayed. Even in her home country, she couldn't get by on Arabic. Wow!
So, if anyone wants to come out here for a lucrative job offer, we say go for it. It's hot, but it's a cool, organized, modern city, and English is pretty much all you need to survive (plus AC and all that other stuff I mentioned...)
As you can tell, the clock tower is anything but old. And once we got to the tower, our hotel was in plain sight. I think we fell asleep almost as soon as we got in our hotel room. The heat, even at 1:00 A.M. was quite oppressive.
The next day we took advantage of the hotel's free shuttle to the beach. As we were sitting in the lobby, Andrew picked up the paper and read that the day before had been the hottest day of the year. It had reached an even 46 degrees Celsius (114 F), there was a nice load of sand dumped on the city from the "empty quarter" during a sand storm, and it had been overall a pretty miserable day. We were glad we had missed it.
We knew that it would be hot at the beach, and that we would probably burn so I insisted that we lather up with sun screen. It's probably expired by now or something since it's the same sun screen I used as a lifeguard when I was like 16...but apparently it still works well since we didn't really burn at all.
Anyway, the beach was beautiful. It was clean, the water was clear. There were no rocks or seaweed. It took us forever to find anything resembling a stone, shell, or living creature. The water was nice and warm. It was perfect. We had 4 hours of ocean bliss. The best part was that the beach was pretty uncrowded! I've never been in a more deserted beach in my life! We didn't figure out why until the next day...but it was definitely a good time at the beach, regardless of circumstances.
At 12:30, we decided that we should probably pack up to leave since the shuttle was coming at 1:00 to pick us up. We were drying off under some palm trees when in the distance we hear some disgusting gagging noises. Not too far away, at the showers, a man was puking his guts out. Like I wanted a shower now. Andrew and I headed to the showers anyway and rinsed off our feet while the lifeguards tended to the poor man.
We left the beach and commenced waiting outside for the shuttle. Soon beads of sweat started forming on our faces. Then those beads of sweat began dripping down our faces. We realized that our shirts we soaked. Our pants were soaked. Our hair was soaked. And we had just dried off. We decided to go to a near-by cafe and buy some AC. This was done by purchasing the cheapest thing on the menu and eating it as slowly as possible. Luckily the cheapest thing on the menu was ice cream. We were cooled inside and out! But after finishing our ice cream we had to head back outside to wait. Why was the shuttle taking so long? Why of all days did it have to be late?
We went and waited by the road once again. Drenched in our own sweat. Ringing out our shirts to dab our foreheads. Fanning ourselves with our hands. It was horrible. Finally the shuttle came. We filed in and turned the AC vents to face us. We were exhausted. I saw a billboard, that I wish I had caught on film...but was much too tired to do so, that had the traditional "men at work" sign on it, only instead of working then men were sitting under umbrellas. The sign said, "Men at rest. 12:00-4:00 P.M. Sunday-Saturday." Or something to that effect. I conceded with the sign and quickly fell asleep. It seemed to take forever to get the hotel but we finally made it there.
We somehow stumbled up to our room, drank more water than imaginable, and fell asleep. I slept for six hours, woke up and was still exhausted. I'm pretty sure we were suffering from heat exhaustion. At least it wasn't heat stroke, which I suspect was the level of the man vomiting at the beach.
The next day, a nice Indonesian couple staying at the hotel said that it had been 52 degrees (125 F) at noon the day before. I haven't been able to verify that, but if it is true, that would explain our reaction to the heat. I'm sure I sweated out more water than I had taken in that day. The other days we were in Dubai were all around 45-47 degrees and the heat was manegable...but our first day there was utter insanity. I've never been hotter. Nor have I ever sweat so much in my life! The beach was worth it, but it may have been nice to have done it on a slightly cooler day.
Dubai reminds me a lot of Las Vegas, architecture-wise. That, or a museum of art. It is just amazing the array of buildings they have. And then you go in the buildings and they are just as extravagant. Although I'm sure Dubai has slums, we didn't find them. Everywhere we went was pristine. And boy, did we go everywhere!
On Friday we set out to go to church. We had an address, and although our hotel didn't seem to use the numbering system, Dubai actually has a nice grid-like address system. We gave the address to the taxi driver and set out for our short taxi ride to the church. We ended up in a fancy neighbourhood, which could be right...but we couldn't find the villa the church was supposedly in. We drove all around the neighbourhood and asked everyone we saw if they were familiar with the address...costing us a pretty penny. Alas, we could not find the church and didn't have a number to reach anyone with. At 80 dihrams, we decided to call off the search. It was getting much too expensive. (Not too expensive though. USD outweighs the dihram 3 to 1!) The ride cost us 4 times the amount our trip from the airport cost us! And airport rides are outrageously priced.
Not only did we skip church on Friday, we went to the mall in the evening. We had planned to go the day before but were busy dealing with heat exhaustion. We didn't buy anything though since everything was too far out of our budget range. We did, however, watch an interesting fashion show. A fashion show for hijabs. It was pretty cool. It was a contest for local designers so there were judges for the hijabs. I really wonder how they judged though since all the outfits were black, to the ankle, to the wrists, and hooded. They did add some flair here and there, but really, it was a close call all around. They did a "casual wear" section and a "formal wear" section. Some of the formal wear was pretty scandalous! Seriously, some of the gowns I wouldn't wear...low cut, strapless... They were covered by capes, but I still would not venture out in those gowns.
After the mall, Andrew and I went to the Clock Tower to take some pictures. Dubai has a mascot and he is placed all over the city. His name is Modesh and he has a catchy smile! The fountain has quite a few of these Modesh mascots so we decided to pose with them all. It was pretty fun...people thought we were crazy, but Dubai is kind of a crazy city, so I suppose we just fit right in.
Andrew and I had learned our lesson and refused to venture out during the day, leaving our next days (Friday and Saturday) just mornings and evenings. Besides which, Andrew had developed an ear infection from swimming and getting water stuck in his ear so I had to take care of him.
This involved finding the nearest hospital. I went to the front desk and asked where the hospital was. The clerk was unfamiliar with that term in English. He questioned what I wanted. I said, "My husband is sick. We need a doctor." The clerk informed me that what I needed was a "poly-clinic" and said the nearest one was "Sunny Poly-clinic" and was five minutes (insert ambiguous hand gesture here) that way. I was like, "What way?" and he's like (repeat ambiguous hand gesture) "That way." I'm like (mimicking hand gesture), "Oh, that way?" and he's like (repeating hand gesture), "Yeah, that way."
I went up and retrieved Andrew. He was in pain, swollen, and deaf in one ear. Cool things can happen in just a few days. I told him that I found out about the hospital. It should be cheap. It was close. But I had no idea where it was. Then I told him again. And then I told him again. And then I said, "Never mind. Let's go." So we went to the desk. I stopped to ask another person where the clinic was. They gave me the same ambiguous hand gesture saying it was five minutes that way. Great, I thought, Andrew and I have walked these streets countless times. We had staked out all the pharmacies for self-help just the night before. There was no clinic in sight from the hotel. So, we walked five minutes in what we deduced was that way. After walking for a few minutes we saw a fancier-looking hotel and I decided to ask the clerk inside for directions. He had no idea what I was talking about but was really nice about it. He phoned the local directory to get the number for the clinic and then asked for directions from his hotel to the clinic. He then walked us outside and said, "Turn right at the next street, walk down the whole block and it should be the last building. You'll see a pharmacy with a sign saying, "Ben Sina" and it will be right after it."
I was dubious because we had visited that pharmacy and they told us to go see a doctor but had not said that there was a doctor right next door. Plus, we didn't even see the clinic when we were there...but we followed the directions to a tee considering they were a lot better than the directions we received before. We got to the end of the block and didn't see the clinic so we kept walking. I stopped and said, "This is dumb. It should be right here! Why can't we find it?!?" A man on a bicycle stopped and said, in a nice Punjabi accent, "What are you looking for?" I sighed...would he really know where it was? "The Sunny Clinic," I said. "It's right here." He said and pointed to a sign high up on the building we had just passed. Yup. It read "Sunny Clinic." I thanked the man and dragged a confused Andrew to the sign. We looked at all the signs plastered on the apartment complex. That's right, folks. Apartment complex. We found one that said, "Sunny Clinic. Floor M. Entrance E." Cool, a little computer printed flyer telling us where the clinic was. No wonder we missed it.
We found the clinic by walking through completely unmarked doors. We were ushered into a waiting room where we were almost completely alone, except for the company of one woman who stood up and rushed out of the room as soon as we entered. She was the doctor...she was wearing a sari, but that's okay...she was still the doctor. She looked at Andrew and gave him a prescription. We paid the clinic 50 dihrams and went to the clinic nextdoor to get his prescription. We then walked across the parking lot and...into our hotel. That's right. Our hotel was right there. Why they didn't say, "Take a sharp right until you get to the apartment building with the blue balconies and then go into a door marked "E" and go to floor "M." is a question I'll never know the answer to...but we got Andrew the help he needed and he's feeling a lot better.
That evening we were able to go to the suqs downtown and found a clock with Arabic numbers, hurrah! We walked through the long gold suq and were bombarded by numerous people trying to sell us stuff. It wasn't nearly as bad as Egypt or Jordan. They were pretty wimpy, as street sellers go. I think that's because selling without a license is actually an enforced thing in Dubai, so we had people making us offers but then a police officer would walk by and the seller would disappear. It was interesting. But it was nice to not be bothered!
Dubai was nice, but if I had to live there, I would insist on having a few things:
1) a car with AC
2) AC in the house
3) 24 hour access to a pool
4) an ice machine
Excluding #3, I never thought that I would want any of those things. I've always thought that I could do without AC and ice, but in Dubai that's really a death sentence. How did people live before air conditioning, you ask? Simple...windmills. It's true. Without a cooling system you couldn't live there!
Language-wise, if you don't speak a lick of Arabic, you'll feel right at home. 80% of the city's population is foreign. Most people we saw on the streets and roads and everywhere were Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Filipino, Thai, or Indonesian. Andrew spoke Arabic to two people the whole time we were there - our first taxi driver was actually from Syria, and another taxi driver was from Pakistan who spoke mostly English. Andrew started in Arabic with him, so he struggled through the conversation in Arabic the whole time, amazed that a Westerner like Andrew actually spoke the language. He insisted that we must have had Lebanese or Syrian ancestors or something!
Best point of the lack of Arabic: in one of the pharmacies we went to, a native Arab lady came in and asked the pharmacists if anyone spoke Arabic. One of the Indians affirmed, so she stayed. Even in her home country, she couldn't get by on Arabic. Wow!
So, if anyone wants to come out here for a lucrative job offer, we say go for it. It's hot, but it's a cool, organized, modern city, and English is pretty much all you need to survive (plus AC and all that other stuff I mentioned...)
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