Our daily hand sign give us today….

One thing you need to learn is the correct use of your hands when talking. The wrong signal can have quite significant consequences… so either you learn the meaning of the signs or you stop talking with your hands. The second option is no option for Italians and so I try to learn and adapt the hand signs as soon as possible. Here is a very nice one especially for Italians. Put all your fingers together in the way that all tips touch each other and have your fingers looking upwards. And know wave your hand by having your fingers pointing upwards and in front of your chest, straight away from you and back. Like back and forth…And now while doing this you say: “Shwai, shwai!” Here, a polite way to say: “Please wait!” In Italy: (depending how fast and hard you move your hand back and forth:” What the heck do you want?!” So, when standing at customs and waiting to walk through the metal detector, don’t be offended if on the other side there is a customs officer waiving his fingers. He is not trying to ask you what you want, but simply that you should wait a second to pass the detector.

I know that it sounds boring to talk about the weather but it is still extraordinarily warm. I had to travel on business this week and usually the planes are leaving early here (at least to the destinations I fly) so that I (and poor Katja) have to get up a crazy hours in the middle of the night. So we got up at 0400 and the temperature in the kitchen (no a/c on there over night) was 28.9 degrees… quite warm for this time, isn’t it?!

My Arabic is improving… the strategy of tiny little steps seems to work. I am on one hand so proud that I already manage to greet people in such good Arabic that they do not recognize me as a stranger! I am really proud! But on the other side now I hit another problem as people then assume that I speak Arabic they continue in Arabic which of course is something I do not manage yet. At work, as you know, I have my white flip chart paper on the wall which became famous in a way. Everybody who comes in starts to read it and comments on other people’s way of writing or adds another word or starts to interpret what is written on the wall. The paper on the wall already triggered very interesting discussions. On top of it I a really learning some words thanks to it.

Do you remember that we got the satellite installed? OK here is the follow up story: First time he came, he showed up with a cable that was too short, means it was long enough to reach the plug from the TV, but it was laying in the middle of the room as it was too short to go along the wall. Of course after having installed it: “Madame, mafi mushkele! Bukra, In sh’ Allah new cable!” Read: “Ma’m, don’t worry, I will bring you a new cable tomorrow, no problem!” or better read:” The cable is here I will tell you that I will come back tomorrow, but if you don’t call me again, not once, but so many times until I show up, I will never come back again" ;-) So the gentleman left and of course he never showed up again until Katja called him again. He on the phone: “A, a (yes, yes…) bukra! (Tomorrow!)” If you are here the first thing you must learn is:” La, la, lium!” Means:” No, no, today!” So it seamed to work and he showed up the same day and brought his cable along. This time the cable was long enough (he brought some 50 meters of cable along ;-) and he fixed it. The second point was that we have on cable coming from the dish and two receivers as one is from the pay TV provider. Wcan shoot people to the moon, but apparently you can not plug in two receivers into one plug. Whatever… solution: he needs to pull a new cable from the dish to the plug. Katja was at home dealing with the issue when she called me asking for somebody who spoke Arabic because she thought that there was a misunderstanding and indeed there was one. He told my colleague that Katja told him that she wanted to have the cable from the dish on the roof straight over the wall, outside the house, along the façade, through the window (?!) into the living room… Before I tell you Katja’s version, you need to know that we have a satellite plug in every room but a main one in the kitchen area close to the fireplace. So here is Katja’s version: “Please don’t plug in the cable in the kitchen and drag it through the apartment to the bedroom!” After a clarifying discussion between me and Katja (in Schwyzertuetsch), me and my colleague (English), my colleague and the TV dude (Arabic), my colleague and me (English), me and Katja (Swiss German) the thing was set! Welcome to my polyglot world… The outcome: he will come “bukra” to pull in a new cable! So come to Jordan and find out if our TV station works or if we still have cables lying around in our flat ;-)

Talking about our flat…there is one big enemy here to fight against: DUST!!! It may sound strange to hear it from a man but first of all I am a Virgo (apparently we like to have things in order…) but honestly it is insane. You could spend your whole day cleaning. I could live with the dust but it is dangerous. The tiles and stairs here are made of polished `marble (or whatever rock, I am not really sure what rock it is ;-) Polished surface and dust is just slippery and if you don’t really pay attention your bum will hit the floor faster than you like (already happened…).

OK that was it for today. Take care wherever you are in this world. Big hug from Amman!