Karak hospitality

Zoe and I were enjoying the Karak evening, noting the distinct lack of tourists about...my guess is they come in via bus for the castle and are gone again quickly. The town was lovely, people playing soccer in the square, a carnival we had noticed earlier springing into action...and tires flying down a hill.

Let me explain. The carnival is on a valley, ie the top end of the valley has been filled in, but at the edge of the fill is a very steep hill that goes down and at the bottom of which there sits a huge pile of tires. Hmmmmm? Until we saw that people must drop off old tires adjacent to the carnival where kids pick them up, roll them to the edge, then race those mothers down.

I was high above watching from Karak and I was deeply satisfied by the karams (sp?) and richochets here there and everywhere. AMAZING.

But this is all a side note, we climbed a tower and when looking at the glorious hills rolling into the distance a guy down below waved, yelled picture and posed in an amusing manner. Sure I figured...he then offered us tea, sure we figured, so we scrambled down the tower and around to meet Ali and Nabid.

Now when I say Karak is on a hill, I really mean it. We are talking STEEP edges and the location we'd been invited down to was that. From Nabid's house to where we sat probably 40 vertical feet, and maybe 10 horizontal...maybe. I don't know ratios, but it was steep. As far as I could tell Nabid and Ali are best buds and have themselves a little goat BBQ every friday night back there. They had some meat left over and it was delicious. Nabid owns a shoe store and Ali I think works there, but is also a kickboxer and wants to go to Canada to work.

Before long various relatives appeared. Nabid's dad, speaking on rich Jews, poor Jordanians, all of us as one people and a strange interest in how much we were paying to travel and the Turkish gold that is supposedly everywhere in Karak (if you have the right "lamp"??? to find it), a bunch of his brothers, a brother in law with his kids, etc etc. We drank delcious mint tea, smoked a bit of nargila and eventually moved things indoors. Had some coffee, some yoghurt drink, Zoe got shiipped off to the women and then hung out some more.

At some point in my convo they asked about our marriage and I slipped up and said we weren't....but soon, I swear. And she was yammering on about this and that (dad you're a farmer now). We've decided to just be engaged from now on. Somehow that should be easier to lie about. Especially since she still doesn't have a ring.

Without getting into all the things we talked about, and all the moments of silence in between, the visit was amazing. A classic "I went to Jordan and they were so hospitable" story.

But, really the whole thing made me uncomfortable after a point. The brother who was a doctor assured me I should contact him if I needed anything while I was in Jordan. The dad had us invited to stay the night pretty soon into the whole affair and everyone was just super kind. When we finally got out of there around 11 (after I'd tried once before, but another round of tea was already on the way) they wanted us to stay for food.

Crazy.

Maybe part of my apprehension stems from the little lies around me and Zoe. Trying to respect their culture makes me lie, but I guess it's inappropriate for me to be touring around with my friend, so we have to tell the tale. And I get all their details etc. and if I come back here I'd love to get in touch again, but then I have to explain what has happened to Zoe. Yarrgh.

Whatever. It was a wonderful experience, that has way too many details for me to recount fully here.

I'll just say Ali is an interesting fellow, big and bearded, a kick bozer or karate guy as mentioned, and the 'moon of karak' according to one of the guys. Undeniable charisma and no english, a fine fellow...but I also got the feeling that whenever they mentioned Ali wants to go to Canada or the US to work, i WAS meant to say "I can help with that". ALas I cannot.