POSTING #99

Update on Posting #97: Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus

When I uploaded Posting #97, the total viewings of the Hallelujah YouTube video was an astounding 2.1 million. Seven days later when I uploaded Posting #98, it was an even more astounding 8.5 million. Now, a week later, as I upload this Posting, the total is now a still more astounding 17.5 million. Where will it end?

So much joy, for so many people!

Some Stories from the Kingdom of Jordan

Friends have shared with us pictures they took during a recent trip to Israel and Jordan. In one of the photos, the wife is taking the obligatory 'float' in the Dead Sea.

That reminded me of a trip that Pat and I made to the Dead Sea in the spring of 2001 to do our own 'floats'.

As I walked into the sea, the water was colder than I expected---it was the Middle East, after all, and water should be warm. Instead it was about the temperature of Lake Ontario in July, that is, COOL. When the water reached my waist, I did what I do before dipping into Lake Ontario. I splashed some water on my chest and arms to prepare them for the dunking they were about to receive.

Unfortunately, some of the water splashed into my eyes. No one had warned me about not getting Dead Sea water in the eyes. My eyes started to burn instantly. I wanted to rub them but my hands were covered with Dead Sea water.

Not knowing what to do, I stumbled blindly back to the beach. In the meantime, our driver who was quietly enjoying a cigarette on the beach saw what had happened and ran to a beach stand. He came racing back with a bottle of  spring water, which he used to rinse my eyes.

I went back in, had my picture taken, got out and headed for the nearest shower.

I guess I would recommend that visitors try the 'float'. It's an eerie feeling all right.

Just don't get water in your eyes!!

000

Talking of eyes, I developed an eye infection during my work in Jordan. I went to see a doctor recommended by the Canadian Embassy. He promptly booked an appointment for me with an ophthalmologist, for later the same day.

The walls of the specialist's waiting room were covered with his diplomas (he had received his ophthalmology training at a hospital in Liverpool, England)  and clippings from Liverpool and  Jordanian newspapers with articles about how he had restored eyesight to people who had been blind.

He was tall, good looking, in his late 40s, dressed in a well-tailored suit with a white shirt and tie. After examining my eye and prescribing an anti-biotic, the specialist pushed aside the machine he had been using to see into my eyes.

He asked me whether I used sun glasses. I said I did but he looked at me doubtfully.

"If you do", he said, "you and I are the only two people in Amman who wear them."

He went on about how difficult it was to convince Arabs to wear sun glasses, and how dangerous the bright desert sun was to eyes.

Then he offered a totally new insight into the problems we have been having with the Middle East.

"You westerners think that we don't like you. You think we are always frowning at you. We aren't frowning, we are squinting because we don't wear sun glasses."

I'm thinking of offering this insight to the international experts trying to negotiate a Middle East peace treaty.

000

The current US discussion about airport body scanners and 'pat downs' reminds me of an incident when we were leaving Jordan to return to Canada,

Pat 'failed' the metal detector test at the Amman airport---because of a metal bra clasp. She was directed over to a small, private booth for a 'pat down'.

When she rejoined me in the airport concourse she looked angry, with fire in her eye.

I asked how things had gone.

She said that the 'pat down' had been extremely thorough, and that was OK, but what had annoyed her was that the examination was performed by two people in burqas, with only their eyes showing. They didn't talk to her, just directed her by gestures.

What, she wondered, if they were not women, but men!!!!

It was a scary, and annoying experience.

If her privacy was going to be invaded, she should at least have been able to see the faces of the examiners.

Not at all an unreasonable view!!!!

000

This story didn't take place in Jordan but it has a Jordanian aspect. I should interject that there was often confusion when I told people in Grimsby about my work in Jordan. Some people thought I was talking about the town down the road, Jordan, Ontario.

I was home in Grimsby on leave from the  Jordanian assignment, and Pat and I decided to have a dinner party for 6 couples. The people were from different places in the Niagara Peninsula, including a couple from Jordan, Ontario.

Pat decided that the menu would include a salad, spaghetti carbonara, a chocolate dessert and would finish with some Jordanian coffee that I had brought home with me.

Prior to leaving Jordan, I visited a fine spice store in Swafia---the Yorkville Village area of Amman. I selected a half kilo of dark-roasted coffee beans, which the clerk poured into the hopper of a coffee grinder. He than asked me how much cardamom to put in. Almost all Jordanian coffee has cardamom ground with the beans, with each family deciding how much to put in. It is the cardamom that makes Jordanian coffee so unique.

I asked for advice, and the clerk picked up a small handful of green cardamom pods and said that was the usual amount to add.

I nodded and he put the pods in the hopper. He ground the beans and pods until they were very fine, and then put the coffee in an air-tight package.

Pat had obtained the recipe for making the coffee from the wife of a Jordanian colleague. It involved putting a few tablespoons of coffee, along with a good bit of sugar and some water into a sauce pan and cooking everything for a few minutes. The coffee was then poured directly from the pan into small cups.

We both had learned to like the bracing drink and we regularly drained the cups until only a little black residue from the finally ground beans was left.

The Grimsby dinner party went well. The spaghetti carbonara was just right (a guest of Italian origin went back for seconds!). The dessert was enjoyed and wine flowed freely throughout the meal.

Pat then asked if people would like to try some Jordanian coffee, noting we had 'regular' if they wished. Everyone opted for the Jordanian.

They seemed to like it and one woman was particularly enthusiastic. She wanted to know more about the coffee.

The conversation that follows is, I think, better heard than read. May I suggest that you read it out loud.

WOMAN: Where did you get this coffee?

PAT: From Amman.

WOMAN: Which man?

PAT: From Amman in Jordan

WOMAN: Well, WHICH man in Jordan?

HUSBAND OF THE WOMAN (tapping his wife on the shoulder): They got it from Amman in Jordan.

WOMAN: (somewhat heatedly): I know they got it from a man in Jordan. What I want to know is WHICH man in Jordan.

HUSBAND: (still tapping his wife on the shoulder) Mary, Mary, they got it from the city of Amman in the country of Jordan.

WOMAN: (even more heatedly) Well, why didn't they SAY so!

Kind of reminds you of the famous Abbot and Costello, "Who's on First" routine, doesn't it. Click here to play a YouTube version of that routine.

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See you on December 19th for Posting #100 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting,  or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com.

POSTING #80

A Miscellany of Stories---from Far and Wide

It has been a strange (and very hot) week with no discernable pattern---it has been a little bit of this, with a dash of that.

This posting reflects that lack of a single theme with several unrelated stories, stories that come from Yorkshire, Novosibirsk and Amman.

Now how's that for 'far and wide'?

I hope you enjoy them!

000

This week as I was driving along the Welland Canal on a road with a posted speed of 50 kph, a car coming toward me blinked its lights. I travel that road often and know that it is a favourite place for Niagara Region's finest to hang out. Sure enough, just around the next curve was a policeman with a radar gun.

Having learned to set the cruise control at a safe speed, I was OK but the warning blink reminded me of Yorkshire in the early 1960s.

We bought a car and immediately joined the Automobile Association (AA), a venerable organization that provided roadside assistance, as well as maps and authoritative guides to hotels, inns and restaurants.

As part of our membership package, we received a good-sized, yellow and  black metal AA badge to attach to the grill of the car.

In that pre-cell phone era, the AA had a fleet of uniformed employees who cruised the roads on motorcycles with sidecars, ready to help members who were in trouble.

One of the first things I noticed, after affixing the plaque to the grill, was that when we met an AA motorcycle employee, he saluted us.

A nice, crisp salute.

I must say that it felt good to be saluted. It seemed to say, 'Don't worry about car problems, we are here to help'.

It's silly, but it also felt good to be recognized as someone of importance---similar I suppose to the rush that newly-minted army officers must feel when they receive their first salutes. 

When I told an English friend about the AA greetings, he interrupted and asked whether I knew the background to the salutes.

 I didn't.

He explained that in the early days of British motoring, the police started to position officers with stop watches behind trees and posts to catch speeders.

The AA decided to warn its members of these speed traps by having their motorcycle employees salute when there was a policeman ahead. A salute meant a speed trap.

The police took the AA to court for interfering with the course of justice, or some such offense. And the court agreed with the police, that warning motorists was illegal ---it just wasn't cricket.

The AA debated what to do.  Assisted I suspect by some clever lawyer-members they decided on a response.

In future, the AA motorcycle staff would salute all members, EXCEPT when there was a speed trap ahead.

No salute, meant a trap.

The beauty of it was that the police could not charge a motorcycle employee for NOT doing something.

The clever British!

A postscript.

As our time in England came to a close,  the AA decided that the increasing volumes of traffic made it dangerous for their motorcycle staff to watch for the AA badge and then lift a hand off the handlebars to salute.

The salutes stopped and we were on our own, at least as far as speed traps were concerned.

000

Talking about police reminds me of a 1996 run-in with a traffic officer in Novosibirsk, the third largest city in Russia (after Moscow and St. Petersburg) and the largest city in Siberia.

My office manager/interpreter, Yuri (not his real name), and I were in Siberia checking on an office that our hosts---the Russian Federal Employment Service---wanted  our Canadian consultants to overhaul and change into a model employment office.

As we were walking to a meeting, we came to  a busy and wide boulevard with 6 lanes of traffic. There was a pedestrian underpass nearly a block away but being a little late we decided to jaywalk across the boulevard, dodging speeding Ladas and the larger Volgas and Zims.

It was an exhilarating bit of broken field running, crossing all those lanes of traffic.

We were feeling good as  we arrived safely at the other side---until we saw a policeman waiting to talk to us.

My first thought was, 'Oh-oh what have we done now' The second thought was, ' Well, they can't send us to Siberia, we are already here'.

And then I thought, 'They could just leave us here.'

The policeman, a somewhat over-weight man in his 50s, wanted to know who we were and what we thought we were doing. Yuri explained and then the policeman launched into a stern lecture aimed primarily at Yuri---I suppose he felt that as a Westerner I couldn't be expected to know any better.  

After what seemed like a severe dressing-down, the policeman's demeanour relaxed a bit, and he motioned for us to move on.

Relieved that we weren't going to get a fine or worse, I asked, " What did he say?".

Yuri replied, "He kept repeating that what we had done was very dangerous and that we should have used the pedestrian underpass.

"And then at the end, he said that on our way back we should use the underpass because he was feeling tired and his back hurt. He didn't want to have to lug our bodies off the road."

And who said Russians don't have a sense of humour?

000

There were a number of references in the media this week to the clothing worn by some Muslim women. There is a debate in Turkey and Quebec about the wearing of the hijab, a head scarf, and in France and Syria about the wearing of the burqa (sometimes called the niqab) that veils the face, with just a slit for the wearer to see through.

It is clear from the media items that the debate is going on not just between Muslims and Westerners but also between different groups within the Muslim community---as Muslims try to agree on what the Koran means when it talks about 'modest dress' for women.

The articles reminded me of two stories from  my consulting assignments in the Kingdom of Jordan, during the period from 2001 to 2006.

One evening in Amman, a couple of Canadian colleagues and I were window shopping in Swafia, an upscale area with fancy and expensive shops selling jewellery, clothing, perfume, shoes and so on. As we passed a Victoria-Secrets-type lingerie shop, we saw three women wearing brown burqas---the women were obviously from Saudi Arabia or one of the Gulf states because although the headscarf (hijab) was fairly common among Amman women, the burqa was not.

One of the women was holding a skimpy, lacy bra across the front of her burqa. Although we couldn't hear what they were saying and couldn't see their faces, we could tell from the shaking of their shoulders that the woman were laughing and having fun imaging what effect the bra would have in the boudoir, back home.

I am sure that a video of those burqa-clad women and the bra would have been a great hit on U-tube---if it had existed at that time.

000

The other story is one told by the taxi driver---I'll call him Fadi---who usually drove me from the hotel to my office. At the end of a particular week he told me that he would not be able to drive me the following week but would arrange for one of his taxi driver friends to take me.

I said that was fine.

He said he had been hired for the whole week to take a newly-wed couple from one of the Gulf states on a honeymoon tour of Jordan. Fadi was excited by the challenge of fitting into just one week all the attractions Jordan offered.

In the middle of the next week, he suddenly showed up at the hotel, looking unhappy.

"What happened, I thought you were tied up for the week with the honeymoon couple", I asked as I got into his taxi.

He shook his head and the story poured forth.

He had met the couple at the Amman airport and driven them to the hotel. He said the husband was in his early 20s and although expensively dressed seemed a little unsure of himself. The tall, slender wife was wearing a white burqa made of some fine material, probably silk, with just a slit for her eyes.

After they had checked in, Fadi took them on a driving tour of Amman.

The next morning after the couple got into the taxi, the husband, who seemed upset about something, asked Fadi to turn the rear-view mirror up toward the roof of the car. He said he didn't want Fadi looking at his wife in the mirror.

Fadi protested that he needed to see what was behind him, but the husband told him he could use the side mirrors.

Fadi reluctantly agreed and twisted the mirror upwards.

At lunch-time, Fadi stopped at a restaurant and selected a good table. The husband made a point of asking Fadi to sit at a different table.

When Fadi called at the hotel the next morning to pick up the couple, the doorman told him that they had returned to the Gulf. It appeared that  the stress of men looking at his new wife was too much for the young man.

Fadi said he understood about modesty and veils over the face. In fact, he hadn't seen his future wife's face until the two families had nearly completed their marriage negotiations (his mother had seen the girl's face and told him that she was pretty). It was only then that the young people were allowed to go into a room by themselves. Once there, the girl removed her veil.

But, in Fadi's opinion, the young husband's concern about men looking at his burqa-clad wife was excessive.

He shook his head and said that it was a shame that a young man with obvious wealth and a new wife couldn't let himself be happier.

Fadi didn't say it, but I like to think that he was concerned as well about the happiness of the wife. 

After all, Fadi had refused to insist on the customary (in the Middle East) and substantial  (US$3000 was common) 'dowry' paid by a man---in gold--- to the father of the woman he wanted to marry.

Fadi wanted his daughters to marry men who would make them happy, even if the men didn't have a lot of money. All Fadi asked was that a man who wanted to marry one of his daughters should give the daughter a small piece of gold jewellery on the wedding day.

From photos that Fadi loved to show me of his daughters with their husbands and children it seemed pretty obvious that the marriages had worked out well.

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See you on August 8th for Posting #81 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting,  or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com.

POSTING # 3

POSTING # 3: Canada Geese Drop in on Virgil, Waiting for a Woman in Amman, The World’s Greatest Vodka, Falling into a Storm Sewer in Kuala Lumpur, Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)



Canada Geese Drop in on Virgil

Our home backs onto a large park, and this week a huge flock of Canada Geese used it as a rest stop on their way south.

Now, I happen to like Canada Geese but I know they have their detractors.

Golfers hate them---remember the story of a angry golfer who killed a goose with his putter after the goose had swallowed his ball.

Airline pilots fear them---a goose can smash the windshield or demolish an engine.

Farmers get angry about the damage to their crops.

And people strolling in parks complain about the amount of goose poop---it is certainly true that geese poop frequently and copiously.

I guess what I like about these geese is the skill, dedication and, yes, love they show in raising their young. I enjoy watching the parents take 6 or 8 gosling for a trip on the water or land. The male leads the way while the mother stays back watching for goslings who try to goof off. You can almost hear her saying, “For goodness sake Herbie and Freda, get back in line!”

And when the family is feeding, one of the parents always acts as a sentinel, head up watching for dogs, hawks and other predators.

Male geese can be aggressive in defending their young---just ask a dog that has been battered by a flurry of goose wings---and also very competitive over food and mating.

We were wondering how the males managed to forego all that aggressiveness and competitiveness and become cooperative with others during migration. A biologist friend told us that nature had found a way to turn the males into more cooperative beings. As migration time approaches, the male birds’ testes shrink and they produce less testosterone. After the migration south and back north is completed, the testes grow back to their original size, ready for another round of breeding.

It seems to me that there may be a Nobel Peace Prize for some scientist who can figure out how to use the Canada Goose technique to reduce human testosterone levels during perilous times of economic, military and political challenges.

Just a thought.


Waiting for a Woman in Amman

A driver had picked me up at my hotel in Amman, Jordan to take me to an Embassy reception. First, we had to pick up a Canadian official at another hotel.

The driver checked the lobby but there was no sign of the woman official. He settled back into the van.

“Women are always late”, he said.

“You better not let your wife hear you say that.”

“My wife! I have three wives.”

“Oh.”

As we waited for the official, he told me the story of his three wives. He married his first wife but after a number of years there were no children.

He decided to take a second wife but didn’t divorce his first wife. She stayed in their apartment and he found another apartment for the new wife. He said that, as his religion required, he divided his time equally between the two wives.

A few years passed but there were still no children. He decided to take a third wife, and rented yet another apartment for her. He said that it was easier for his Bedouin cousins who lived in the desert---when they took another wife, they just had to buy another tent.

It was a case of third time lucky and they had a boy and a girl who were now 14 and 12 and, as he said proudly, both healthy and bright. He had hoped that they would be able to go to college or university but he was worried that there wouldn’t be enough money for tuition. Costs of everything were rising and it was expensive to maintain three homes. He was a veteran and the government had a modest program to help the children of veterans. And if the children did well in their exams they might win full scholarships but the chances of that were not great---competition was very tough.

The driver shook his head, “I don’t know what is going to happen”.

Just then the official arrived---she had been on the phone to Canada---and we set off for the reception.

Our discussion was in 2001 and while the cost of living in Amman was rising then, it has soared since the start of the Iraq war in 2003. I often wonder what happened to the driver, his three wives and the two children, who would now be 21 and 19.




The World’s Greatest Vodka

Talking of receptions reminds me of the many official dinners my interpreter and I attended as we travelled across Russia during the planning for the creation of model employment offices. Our hosts were always enormously generous with their food---wonderful local and national dishes---and with their vodka.

Prior to the first (of many) toasts, a local official would always tell us that we were about to taste a special local vodka that was clearly the best vodka in Russia, and therefore, of course, in the world.

At one of the dinners, I playfully asked about the criteria that Russians used in judging different vodkas. The usual response was, “Well, you just know”, but I would persist that we had to be more scientific; we had to isolate the key criteria. The question provoked a lot of good natured bantering and my interpreter and I used the question at many of our dinners.

After lord knows how many dinners and how many toasts, here are the criteria that great vodka must meet:

1. Clarity. It should be as clear as fresh water.
2. Smell. There should be no smell.
3. Taste. It should have a clean taste, not oily.
4. It should go down the throat smoothly, not burn on the way down.
5. There should be no headache the next day.
6. It should affect the legs before the head----after many toasts one can still talk even though one can’t walk.
7. Finally, if the vodka is really good, and there is enough, one no longer needs an interpreter.

The criteria for vodka served us well, breaking the ice and getting conversations flowing.

There was another gambit we used to break the ice. Almost all the dinners involved a course of borscht---my favourite soup. After praising the soup, I would ask which was right: to put the sour cream in the bowl and pour the soup over it, or to add the sour cream after the soup is in the bowl. And then, the interpreter and I would sit back and listen to the proponents of each argue that the ‘right way, the only way’ is this or that. It was fun.



Falling into a Storm Sewer in Kuala Lumpur

I was in Kuala Lumpur in November 1991 as a consultant to assess the Malaysian Employment Service and prepare a leadership training course for senior managers.

I had arrived on Friday and was using the weekend to tour the city and get over jet lag before my meetings started on Monday. On Saturday, after breakfast, I talked with the hotel staff and they gave me maps and instructions on touring the old part of the city. They said the weather would be fine for touring, sunny and hot, but they warned me that it was the monsoon season and there was likely to be a heavy rain storm in the evening.

I toured the old city and had an early dinner so I could get back to the hotel before a storm hit. Either I miscalculated or the storm came early that Saturday. I had just stepped outside the restaurant when sheets of rain started to fall.

Cities in Malaysia have to have ways of carrying off the heavy rains. In that part of the old city, there was a deep ditch along the front of buildings with slabs of concrete across that created a sidewalk. There was an inch or two gap between the slabs so the water could drain into the ditch. It is an excellent system that serves two purposes, getting rid of the rain and providing a sidewalk for people. Excellent, that is, unless someone steals a slab.

I was walking along, rain running down my face, trying to find a taxi when I stepped onto a slab that wasn’t there. Down I went, hitting my chest against a slab that WAS there and knocking the air out of me. When I caught my breath, I was standing in the ditch with water running past my knees. Some people helped me clamber out and find a taxi.

Soon I was back in the Pan Pacific Hotel checking the damage. Apart from a nasty scrape on the chest and some sore ribs I seemed fine. I had a hot bath, wrote an email to Pat telling her I had fallen into a sewer but was fine and went to bed.

The next morning there was an email from Pat saying that she had told B and B guests at breakfast about my sewer adventure. One of the guests knew Kuala Lumpur well and said that criminals used the storm sewers to dispose of the bodies of their victims---the water flushed them out to sea. Just what Pat needed to hear!

My chest was feeling pretty sore so I called the Canadian High Commission and they recommended a clinic they used to examine potential immigrants to Canada. A kindly doctor checked me over, gave me a tetanus shot and some antibiotic cream for the scrape. She thought my ribs were fine but ordered a chest x-ray to be sure.

The clinic was not used to dealing with tall people. As I stood against the wall, the technician strained to get the x-ray camera up as high as it would go. Finally, she took the picture and I went back to wait for the doctor. After thirty minutes, the doctor called me in. She was laughing, “Look at this”, pointing to my x-ray on the illuminated panel. The image showed the bottom half of my chest.

“You are too tall”, she said.

She felt my ribs again and sent me on my way, saying that if the pain got worse, I should get back to her.

As it turned out, my ribs were fine but I took a lot of ribbing (sorry about that) from colleagues who loved to tell about the consultant who fell into a sewer.



Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)

Friends took their toddler to a fine restaurant in Yorkshire. He sat in his high chair, ate well and was charming with the waitress. He then asked if he could get down and walk around a bit. Our friends looked at each other and decided that he had been so good they would let him. The boy wandered down to the back of the restaurant, smiling at the diners and chatting with them. Our friends took a deep breath and relaxed.

Suddenly, there was a muffled but distinct little explosion that came from the toddler. He stopped, felt in his diaper and then shouted, “Dus gas Mommy”.




One of our grand-daughters had received a first bike and she and her dad went shopping for a helmet. The salesperson brought out several models and he and our son talked about size, cushioning, straps etc. Finally, as the salesperson bent down to take another helmet out of a box, our grand-daughter leaned over and whispered to him, “I think I need a red one”.


Another grand-daughter, about three at the time, was shopping with her dad. They got back to the car and he discovered that he had left the keys in the locked car. The little girl sensed there was something wrong, and then the light came on. She gave a world-weary shake of her head, “Not AGAIN, Daddy”


NEXT SUNDAY

Watch for a more stories from our universe in next Sunday’s Letter from Virgil.