Here in Jordan we are experiencing what the overflowing water tanks on the rooftops of apartment buildings or water squeegeed out of those buildings on cleaning day. When I asked the guard shivering in his telephone booth sized shack outside the Turkish Embassy a few days ago if the weather was "a little cold", he aggressively responded--not in an angry but in an I-can't-believe-what-I'm-seeing way--"A little cold? Look at the street! There's ice on it!"
The buildings here aren't exactly made for this type of cold weather. Several days ago the pipe from one of our water tanks burst, sending a waterfall cascading down from the roof on to our back porch. The water was promptly turned off and the pipe fixed the next day, just in time for a different pipe from the same tank to develop a small tear, launching a sprinkler like stream into the air. That problem is still ongoing. Also, the temperature inside our apartment tends to hover around the same temperature as outside. There are many in Jordan that do not have heat. Most people, including us, use space heaters to keep warm. The rooms where the heat is on do get warm, but in the rooms where the heat is not on we can see our breath when we exhale (this makes it very hard to get out of bed in the morning!). Last week we visited some friends and while at their house we all sat in their salon on mats on the floor in the traditional Arab way, each one of us with two large, thick blankets covering us to keep warm. There we could easily see our breath, like we were all smoking and exhaling clouds of fumes as we talked between tokes. Some of my toes were actually frozen by the end of our time there.
Being from Minnesota we are of course used to living in cold weather. Most of the people here, though, are not, and I think right now there are a lot of people here who feel like that Turkish Embassy guard.
The buildings here aren't exactly made for this type of cold weather. Several days ago the pipe from one of our water tanks burst, sending a waterfall cascading down from the roof on to our back porch. The water was promptly turned off and the pipe fixed the next day, just in time for a different pipe from the same tank to develop a small tear, launching a sprinkler like stream into the air. That problem is still ongoing. Also, the temperature inside our apartment tends to hover around the same temperature as outside. There are many in Jordan that do not have heat. Most people, including us, use space heaters to keep warm. The rooms where the heat is on do get warm, but in the rooms where the heat is not on we can see our breath when we exhale (this makes it very hard to get out of bed in the morning!). Last week we visited some friends and while at their house we all sat in their salon on mats on the floor in the traditional Arab way, each one of us with two large, thick blankets covering us to keep warm. There we could easily see our breath, like we were all smoking and exhaling clouds of fumes as we talked between tokes. Some of my toes were actually frozen by the end of our time there.
Being from Minnesota we are of course used to living in cold weather. Most of the people here, though, are not, and I think right now there are a lot of people here who feel like that Turkish Embassy guard.
Even our cat is cold.
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