Snow Day!!!

Hey Everyone,

I came to Jordan for a lot of reasons. I came to learn about the Arab world; I came to get over my fear of people named Mohammad; I came to learn Arabic; I came to learn about the Palestinian people. But mostly, I came so I could experience my first snow day. That's right folks: I had to come to Jordan to experience a snow day.

But it's not a normal snow day. It's a Jordanian snow day. Meaning the insanity meter is turned up to 11. Here goes nothing

Since I'm a weather wimp from California, I don't know what normal snow day protocol feels like, but from what I've heard, snow days are announced morning of, when everyone wakes up and realizes the roads aren't nearly clear enough for everyone to drive to school on. In Jordan, though, they announce a national holiday the night before, when it is EXPECTED that a lot of snow will come the next day. Great.

As the evening went on, I kept waiting for the snow to come. And waiting. And waiting. Apparently the snow was coming at midnight. I woke the next morning, and my brother and I decided to go outside and play in the snow. Thank god they had declared a national holiday...



My brother and I had a snowball fight, but the majority of the day was spent huddled for warmth next to the unsafe gas space heaters. Having said that, it snowed pretty consistently through the day.

SIT had told us that we weren't going to have class on Thursday because of the national holiday, but on Friday, we would be coming in (even though it's normally a weekend). There are two days of the program left, and some people still had to present their research. They said to come in at 11.

The thing is, though, that the national holiday has continued (it's the weekend after all), as has the snow. Now it actually looks like a snow day (for a wimpy californian). My family laughed at me yesterday when I said that I would be getting a cab this morning...because there is actually snow.




Cab Drivers in the Snow

I've spoken before about the bad drivers in Jordan. In case you haven't gotten the point, drivers are bad in Jordan. These bad drivers are by no means capable of driving in the snow. And yet, I have to get to SIT for the last day, so I'm about to put my life in the hands of some arab driver that doesn't know how to handle snow...

To make a long story short

1) my family gave me waterproof boots to use on my adventure, as they continually laughed at me while I tried to leave
2) I got a cab after just a few minutes (this is surprising), and he told me that he'd charge me an obscene amount, but I went with it. I was cold.
3) I made it safely. It was clear that this guy didn't know how to drive in the snow.
4) I was the 8th person at SIT. There were supposed to be 31 of us.

I hope my plane will make it out on Sunday...I'm going to Turkey for a week!

Becca