Talib the Security Guy

Not this Saturday but the Saturday before last Saturday a tragedy befell me. Our drive from Wadi Rum was not the most smooth experience. Since We had to traverse about two and half hours of hot desert to get back to Amman our minivan overheated. Six times. Hussam, our beloved driver (I seriosly mean that because of everything he did for us), would stop the car each time, pull out a cigarette and light it, then get out to open the car's front so he could fiddle with the radiator which needed to be cooled down more.
Once we finally got back to the university I decided to do a load of laundary. Now I'm pretty sure our laundary machines date back to the late 70s or 80s so they are rather well loved and reliably unreliable. In fact these machines are supposed to leak ALL of the water on to the floor. Anyways I put a dark wash load in the machine and sat at the table nearby studying as I waited for the machine to go through it's cycle. Half way through, I stopped the machine to make sure my clothes were actually getting clean when I realized the machine was spewing out scorching (near boiling) water into my clothes. The water coming out of the machine was a nice shade of purple because the machine had boiled the dye out of my clothes.
Upset, I walked out of our apartment complex and decided to get something to eat. I called my mom and started venting about the new bringht pink shade of my nice khakis. Conspicuously angry and in the midst of my ranting sweet nothings and f bombs about the laundry machine, I walked by a Yarmouk University security guard. As I muttered curses, the security guard, ignoring the fact that I was on the phone, walked up to me and said "hey! American! Talk with me!". Confused on what to do I told my mom I'd call back and then I focussed my attention on this security guard. "Ahlan!" I said. In rapid colloquial Talib (the security guard) said something along the lines of I'd like to drink tea or coffee with you, sit down, I'll go make it. I was actually really hungry at this point so I told Talib, the security guard, that I wanted to get a shawarma sadwhich. After eating my sandwhich I promised Talib that I would come back to sit and chat with him for a bit.
After finishing a "wajbah 'arbiya", an "Arabian meal" which is just a shawarma and french fries I went back to Talib's bench by the same university gate that I had left him by. Having done abosolutely no studying during the week I watched the sun set anxiously as I walked to a visibly bored Talib. "Ahlan ya Mathion, keefak? bidak guhwah o shaiy?" do you want coffee or tea Talib asked completely in a Jordanian rural dialect. I decided on Arabic coffee (which will be the subject of my next blog... in sha Allah..."ان شاء ألله). Talib walked from the bench into a trailer like buling a couple yards away which I realized was like a security guard rest place. He made the coffee then walked back to the bench. We sat and looked at each other. "Ahlan wa sahlan ya Mathion". "Ahlan bik I replied. Smiling Talib said "marhaba ya Mathion" Marhabtayn ya Talib. This went on for about ten minutes. Ahlan and Marhaba both mean "hello" or "welcome" however whenever someone says "hello" to you you reply with "two hellos". In Arabic there are many different ways of saying "hi" and when you meet and converse with Jordanians they tend to use several varities of "hi", "hello", "two hellos", and "a 100 hellos to you". After the hellos you go through the varities of "how are you" s. In American Universities they teach us the super formal "kayfa al hal" which means literally "how is the state". Talib and I used "Kayfak" and "shloonak" which is the more down to earth "how you (doing)". Over the course of the first hour Talib asked me where I was from, what my parents do, what I'm doing in Jordan, what I think of Jordan... those kinds of things. I asked Talib about life in Jordan; where he was born, what other jobs he had worked, and his thoughts on the Qur'an. The latter provided the subject for the next 45 minutes.
One of the big differences between life in Jordan and the US is that religion is everywhere in just about every form. I find it amazing that Talib wanted to talk about religion with me, someone he had just met literally on the street. As a Muslim, Talib told me in colloquial Jordanian that he had no problem with the "injeel", the Gospels. However compared to the Qur'an it had some kinks in it. I listened and nodded and once and a while added some pithy comment about how I respected the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH... as everyone says in Arabic "God's prayers and peace be upon him" everytime they mention his name). Authoritatively Talib told me, "Matthion, you know, the prophet Jesus was a very good Muslim."
After talking about religion I told Talib I really needed to start studying. I gave him my cell phone number since Talib had said he wanted to call me sometime and invite me over for dinner with his family. I went on my way...