Driving in Amman

Thursday, June 24th

Eli’s second day at school! Jason’s got the drive there and back totally figured out, so today was my turn to drive, with Jason as co-pilot. After a relatively easy drop-off, we headed back to Amman. Jason’s phone rang and it was the folks at the institute wondering where we were because we were supposed to be getting our blood test for our passports today. Luckily we were on our way back! And it was also lucky that I had money on me because it turned out we also needed to pay 20 JD each. The experience wasn’t bad. Sa’id took us and shepherded us through the process. It also gave us a chance to get to know Scott and Emily better, who were also getting blood test done. Emily is overseeing the summer Arabic program at the institute. Jason and Scott got to talking about the World Cup and Jason will probably go with Scott to watch some of the games. What’s frustrating about the games is that they aren’t on broadcast TV here, and I guess you have to buy some subscription or have satellite or something to get it. Evidently Al-Jazeera had a contract to broadcast it, but then the price became exorbitant and they just couldn’t do it.

I continued my driving practice by picking Eli up from school—again with Jason as co-pilot. How to explain driving in Amman? The lane lines aren’t meant to show where cars should be—instead you fit in as many cars as possible. What that means practically is that what we’d consider a 4 lane road can easily have 6-7 cars across (3-4 on each side). There are other rules that must be learned—taxis stop a lot, so you don’t want to be behind one that’s on the right side of the road if you can help it. Also, no sudden moves to the right or left. You basically glide over, and the person behind you gets out of the way or honks at you if they can’t. Turn signals are only used for actual turns—and even then infrequently. We’re swapping our current car in for a smaller (newer, faster) hatchback, which should make all of this easier. After the morning drive there and back, Jason was instructed not to say anything on the afternoon drive unless I was about to make a wrong turn. I drove much better that way ; )