How My Experience in Jordan Can Be Summed Up Through Taxi Rides

Before arriving in Amman, Jordan, I must admit I was very naive about the country I was about to visit. I had a loose plan, centered on studying formal Arabic at an institution called Qasid. The center draws several hundred foreigners to Amman each year, and is regarded as one of the best in the whole Middle East for learning formal Arabic. I received some good beginning information from the Qasid administration, but I was still very curious about how things really were.

I still remember when I first arrived and was dropped off at the apartment that Qasid had arranged for me in Madineh Riyaddiyeh. I asked my new roommate if he could show me to the nearest food store- we walked outside the apartment, and he immediately flagged down a taxi. Confused, I asked him "isn't that going to be expensive? There must be another way to get around…?". His response was that taxis were the most reliable way to get around Amman without a car of your own, and I remember a sinking feeling. Is this true, I wondered? This would become one of my single biggest issues with living in Amman- my reliance on taxis to get around the city was fascinating, frustrating, educational, scary, and unreliable for the entire 2 years and 4 months that I lived in Jordan.

I met fascinating people with fascinating stories in the taxis of Amman. Many were educated and possessed knowledge of foreign languages or other skills, but couldn't find other jobs. The conversations ranged from the simple about my presence in Jordan, to the complex about global politics of the American government, dipped into some fascinating comparisons of values across cultures, and sunk to me fending off conversion attempts. I discussed Iran and the Shi'a, Iraq and Saddam Hussein, Israel, George Bush, and heard the phrase "Bush bad, Clinton good" more times than I could possibly count. I must say that most of the drivers I met distinguished between the American people and the American government, a distinction I feel is missing all too often from debates in my own country about the Middle East. The opinions I heard about Obama were of every flavor and variety.

It may sound cliche, but the most important parts of Arabic language I learned did not come from my studies in the classroom, but rather from any one of my 3-4 taxi rides a day to get around the city. It was not uncommon for the meter to "accidentally" get turned off, or for the driver to try to convince me that the quickest way from First Circle to Shmeisani somehow involved going past City Mall. These were the frustrating moments in the taxis in Amman, and I never knew when they were going to come. Each time I got in a taxi, it was like rolling the dice; maybe the driver would be a really nice and interesting man who would ask me questions about my country, my travels, and how I "saw" Jordan, or maybe he would attempt to charge me too much, drive the long way, or scream a piece of his mind into my ear about how all the problems in the Middle East came from my government. The seatbelts in the front didn’t work half the time, and when they did work, they were usually disgustingly dusty because no one used them, and sometimes I would get a nice dirt smudge across my shirt! The seatbelts in the back were invariably removed, written off as unnecessary!

Frustrating as those experiences were, I must also say that many times the generosity for which the Arab people are known would pop up in the taxi. Drivers would offer me food, coffee, cigarettes, and every once in a while they would flat refuse to take my money-  "Khallee a'layy" as they would say. I remember two experiences in particular- one where my cell phone fell out of my pocket, and when I called it, the driver answered and promptly came back to where he dropped me off so that he could return my phone to me. In the other case, I got a taxi to the Northern Bus Station, (Mujamma ash-shamal) and I forgot my second bag in the trunk of the taxi. I was seriously worried that I would never see it again, and that my trip to the West Bank was ruined before it even started, but 15 minutes later the taxi came speeding back into the parking lot, and the driver returned my bag to me and refused to take any money for doing so.

I also had the pleasure of getting to know several taxi drivers as I got into their cabs multiple times and we recognized each other. My favorite was Abu Faris, who always drove around Jabal Amman and Jabal Al Weibdeh areas. I can’t count how many times I got into his taxi, it must be something like 50. Each time he would ask me how my studies were going, and if my landlord was treating me fairly. He told me all kinds of stories, who knows how many of them were really true, but I always enjoyed getting in his taxi. In the end, I cannot fathom Amman without its taxis, nor what my experience in the city would have been like without them.