Work about work

Tuesday - Friday, December 10th - 13th

This week was really busy with university stuff. Therefore, here is a summary of the most important events until Hanni arrived:

It's cold! At least cold enough for me to consider going out with my thin jacket and taking a break from jogging until I get some weatherproof sportswear. But there is no time for that now. I'm caught between university assignments, internship & Arabic (which, apart from the lessons, once again doesn't have enough time) and in the meantime, trying not to lose my mind. Manara has already become a familiar second home for me. So much so that I'm now addressed by Manara waiters, whom I randomly meet at other places in Amman, with "Oh, our customer!"

What's new at Tarabot: Sophia and I successfully finish our English course. Until the end, the class is a mixture of attentive, motivated students and restless troublemakers, but that seems to be the fate of all teachers. However, we manage to cover the material we planned for the last lesson and at the end, we hand out a sheet to the children where they can stick a picture of themselves that we took earlier and write positive characteristics about themselves in the boxes around it. As with all tasks, some do better and some do worse, but we hope that at least we can give them something for their future journey. Yamamah and Amwaj, our two little course admirers, also give us something to take away: about a dozen self-painted pictures. Really cute.

On the same day that we finish our English course with Samer's support, he tells us that it will be his second-to-last day at Tarabot: he received a call from a company he had an interview with the previous week. He can start at the new company next Sunday. So, things can happen really fast here in Jordan. Sophia and I are really sad. Samer was our favorite colleague. But of course, we are more than happy that he has finally found a job in the IT sector. After all, that is his background of study, unlike database maintenance at Tarabot. "The people are good!", he tells us during lunch break at Abu Wahid, "But the work not."

And we can understand that. Deciphering names on participant lists and entering them into the system is not really something you need to have studied computer science for. Samer also tells us what he went through until he finally successfully completed his studies at the beginning of this year. To support his mother with cancer, his father sold all their possessions years ago to pay for her treatment. While she was able to recover from the disease, the strain was too much for his father - he suffered a heart attack. Samer and his brothers had to leave school early to work. Only three years later, and older than everyone else, he was able to continue his education and finally made it to the end of his studies with a lot of diligence. It is more than understandable that he now wants to apply what he has worked hard for. Both Sophia and I hope that he will find everything he hopes for in his new job.

... oh yeah, almost forgot: Abu Wahid sent Sophia a friend request on Facebook. However, he found her there. Now their friendship is officially official!

About the visa: After calling the day before (which was a medium-sized effort: I told exactly the same thing to 3 people in a row), I drive back to the Directorate of residence and borders with Nandini on Thursday morning. There, the same game as last time: the unfriendly officer with a mobile phone video in the women's container at the entrance, then into the large hall where the same officer as the previous week sends us to counter 1, where the same 3 officers sit. Our applications are dug out from an old folder and further processed (all on paper), then we go to counter 2 where we have to pay a fee (for whatever reason), then back to counter 1. And finally, we have it: our visa for the next 3 months. Al Hamdulillah!

And a little detour from the post office: On Friday morning, I set out to send some letters. And yes, I could have guessed that Friday in Jordan would once again not be a good day to do such things. I pass numerous closed post offices until I finally find a single office in the downtown area where the doors are open. So, I walk in and find myself in an empty room. In a German administrative office, there would now be a small buzzer on the counter, but here my voice will have to suffice.

But it doesn't. So, I sit down on a chair that invitingly stands against the wall and wait. After about 10 minutes, when I'm just starting to think that today, on Friday the 13th, maybe isn't my lucky day, a man enters the office. Very casually and with a coffee cup in his hand, he strolls in and greets me with a reserved "Hello". I want to know if he works here, to which he replies yes. Great. So, I give him my letters and let him inform me about the best value for money. It turns out that he speaks German. Quite good German, so that he can tell me the difference he perceives between German and Arabic people. "When you open German heads, you see numbers. When you open Arabic heads, you see letters." Maybe a small exchange between the two would do us all good.