Taxi!

As my life here normalizes, I find myself struggling to pick out those moments and observations that stick out to me. While at the beginning, everything caught my attention, the world around me holds less and less surprises. Like I said, it's amazing how you can get used to anything. On the other hand, maybe I'm so used to seeing things that strike me as 'different' that I have gotten used to just accepting the most strange and random things. 

The taxis are a subject in and of themselves. Every morning, I walk fifteen minutes to a gas station where I meet another girl from the program and then we take a Taxi together to school. During the walk there, at least 7 taxis drive by, honking loudly at me, even when it is obvious I see them half a kilometer away. It is completely normal for cars to be honking at me, Taxis or not. About half the cars in Amman are Taxis, so even though I live far outside the city in a relatively rural area, Suzanne and I have no problem hailing one right away. Although I know hardly any Arabic, the first vocabulary words I've learned are directions and place names, such as 'es safarah britania' for British Embassy, since our school is just a few houses away from the embassy. Addresses don't exist, so any place is described in reference to place names, such big roundabouts (there are 8 numbered ones in Amman), embassies, mosques, and neighborhoods. Nobody wears seatbelts here - they don't even exist in the back-seats. Yet, that doesn't stop many Taxi drivers from going up to 120 km per hour even in the city, weaving in and out of traffic, passing left and right, all the while honking at any cars that are in the way. This past weekend, the driver ran a red light at about 100 km per hour! I've ridden in more Taxis in the past few weeks than I have during my whole life combined, and with that have experienced an incredible amount of crazy and interesting Taxi drivers. Many try their broken English with us, which almost consists of 'you're welcome' and 'nice to meet you'. One made it his personal goal to teach us Arabic, especially the words for 'international relations', having us repeat it over and over again, until he deemed our pronunciation satisfactory. One was so enthusiastic to meet us that he ended up pulling out a beautiful copy of the Qur'an (written both in Arabic and English) from the trunk of his car, and giving it to Suzanne to keep! One explained to us the whole history of the Palestinian and Jordan history within the fifteen minutes of the ride. Not all experiences have been so positive, however. Many definitely have tried to cheat me, since I obviously look like a clueless westerner. Although the meter was on and running during the entirety of the taxi ride, the driver turned it off right before we got to my house, and charged me twice the price that it had displayed on the meter! Some have refused to use a meter at all! Taxis are incredibly cheap, however. My 20 minute ride to the school costs me on average 2.5 dinar, which equals around 4 dollars.

Once during a ride through the city, one Taxi driver would not stop trying to talk to me, and kept repeating the same crazy phrase "welcome to Jordan... I'm sorry" over and over again. Don't ask me why that particular combination of the two phrases... Furthermore, he started singing to himself while randomly and madly gesticulating to himself and I definitely had to question his sanity :) Once, the Taxi ran out of gas halfway to our destination, and we had to flag a new one to continue our journey. 

My stories could continue, but I think you get the point. Every time I get in a taxi, I am subject to a new adventure. Nowhere else has the transportation made up so much of my experience in a place - but here it shapes and colors my view and impressions of Jordanian culture and life.