Last week, the weather forecast predicted 1-3 inches of snow on consecutive days. Turns out the weather forecast wasn’t even close. What we got was a whopping foot and a half. Over less than 36 hours.
Drawing back the curtain on the morning of the first snowing, I expected a thin white layer over the cars, and maybe the trees. What I didn’t expect was that the cars were completely invisible beneath the snow.
Jordan, of course, is not a country that was built to accommodate snow (and neither is China, obviously, if you’ve checked the news). There is no such thing as salt sprayers or a vehicle that will bulldoze every road in town until clear. Not surprisingly, then, do most businesses decide to close shop. The Embassy followed suit, relying as it does on all of those foreign nationals to get to work. I have already pontificated on Jordanian driving habits. Now imagine them driving on snow and ice. An elephant in a mini skirt couldn’t look more ridiculous.
Funny how that works. In Germany we never received a day off from school if it snowed. And I mean never. It seems to me they expected you to strap on your skis if the roads became inaccessible. We did receive days off for the heat if it was, say 85 degrees or higher. Of course, 85 degrees to these people here is half a cold front. Don’t even suggest to these people that you can’t go to school at 85. They will run you out of town if they don’t drop dead from laughing first.
I have already described how the locals react to cold weather. Even at 40 or 50 degree (Fahrenheit) weather you will see them wrapped up like Eskimos, complaining to each other about how they miss the 110 degree weekends in the desert. Imagine the torture they go through when the weather hits freezing point.
I know this sounds facetious, but it wasn’t too long ago that I had to adjust to weather as well…hot weather, as in 120-130 degree Fahrenheit lowest level of hell weather. And still it was the locals (in this case the Moroccans), not me, whining about the weather. What do you do when the temperature reads 130 degrees? Play baseball, if you’re in St. Louis. In Morocco, it translates to: get up, drink piping hot tea, take a nap, walk a few steps to the living room, nap, look for a tree with an ample shadow, nap, etc., until it’s eleven o’clock in the evening, the air has cooled down, and you can begin your day.
What’s equally strange is the fact that our area here has the most snow, while the east of Amman had less than a quarter of what we had. Translated, that meant that by the third day all of the snow was gone in the east while in the west people still couldn’t walk on sidewalks without the help of a shovel. We are talking about a distance of seven to eight miles, max. Not exactly Lower Manhattan to Flushing. When you ask about the anomaly, the funny answer you will get from the locals is, “Because the people in the west have money.” True, but it also means they will use that excess money to pay for accidents and possible hospital bills after thinking they could walk or even drive on ice. The truth is that the altitude in the west is much higher. Look at the Dead Sea, more than a kilometer below us. Not much snow there, if any.
Of course, the locals can say whatever they want about the snow. They welcome it, as anyone yearning for a day off would.
Drawing back the curtain on the morning of the first snowing, I expected a thin white layer over the cars, and maybe the trees. What I didn’t expect was that the cars were completely invisible beneath the snow.
Jordan, of course, is not a country that was built to accommodate snow (and neither is China, obviously, if you’ve checked the news). There is no such thing as salt sprayers or a vehicle that will bulldoze every road in town until clear. Not surprisingly, then, do most businesses decide to close shop. The Embassy followed suit, relying as it does on all of those foreign nationals to get to work. I have already pontificated on Jordanian driving habits. Now imagine them driving on snow and ice. An elephant in a mini skirt couldn’t look more ridiculous.
Funny how that works. In Germany we never received a day off from school if it snowed. And I mean never. It seems to me they expected you to strap on your skis if the roads became inaccessible. We did receive days off for the heat if it was, say 85 degrees or higher. Of course, 85 degrees to these people here is half a cold front. Don’t even suggest to these people that you can’t go to school at 85. They will run you out of town if they don’t drop dead from laughing first.
I have already described how the locals react to cold weather. Even at 40 or 50 degree (Fahrenheit) weather you will see them wrapped up like Eskimos, complaining to each other about how they miss the 110 degree weekends in the desert. Imagine the torture they go through when the weather hits freezing point.
I know this sounds facetious, but it wasn’t too long ago that I had to adjust to weather as well…hot weather, as in 120-130 degree Fahrenheit lowest level of hell weather. And still it was the locals (in this case the Moroccans), not me, whining about the weather. What do you do when the temperature reads 130 degrees? Play baseball, if you’re in St. Louis. In Morocco, it translates to: get up, drink piping hot tea, take a nap, walk a few steps to the living room, nap, look for a tree with an ample shadow, nap, etc., until it’s eleven o’clock in the evening, the air has cooled down, and you can begin your day.
What’s equally strange is the fact that our area here has the most snow, while the east of Amman had less than a quarter of what we had. Translated, that meant that by the third day all of the snow was gone in the east while in the west people still couldn’t walk on sidewalks without the help of a shovel. We are talking about a distance of seven to eight miles, max. Not exactly Lower Manhattan to Flushing. When you ask about the anomaly, the funny answer you will get from the locals is, “Because the people in the west have money.” True, but it also means they will use that excess money to pay for accidents and possible hospital bills after thinking they could walk or even drive on ice. The truth is that the altitude in the west is much higher. Look at the Dead Sea, more than a kilometer below us. Not much snow there, if any.
Of course, the locals can say whatever they want about the snow. They welcome it, as anyone yearning for a day off would.
0 comments