Snow games in Jordan

The week before last, when we were snowed in in Jordan, we were in an empty, unheated apartment and we were hungry. (Yeah, I said unheated. In parts of the world where it doesn't snow often, people rely on space heaters and mild winters to keep themselves warm. Which they don't. But that's another post.)

So, we were hungry because we hadn't anticipated the weather and all we had was a half-eaten box of Honey Nut Cheerios. We saw them on a quick trip to the market and made an immediate decision to buy them, because we don't have anything like that in Málaga. For the record, the run-of-the-mill Jordanian grocery store had Betty Crocker baking mixes, peanut butter, Frosted Flakes, and Nutri-Grain bars. And that's all I saw before The Mister dragged me away from the food and towards the electronics section.

So: Jordan, me and The Mister, no heat, box of Cheerios. We were cold and hungry and the roads were impassable. There was no choice: we had to go out. We lined our (very un-waterproof) shoes with plastic bags in an attempt to keep dry, put on all our clothes at the same time to stay as warm as possible (I looked like the younger brother in A Christmas Story) and ventured forth. 

We walked for ten minutes and got absolutely soaked. The watery slush in the road came up to our ankles at some points and stepping right in it was the only option. My toes were numb.

Finally we came upon a little food counter. Saved! The menu was only in Arabic, and the people at the place only spoke Arabic. Our Arabic is limited to knowing how to say "I'm sorry, I don't speak Arabic" so it didn't come in that handy. Luckily, there was a huge photo on the wall of a cheeseburger. The Mister smiled, pointed to the cheeseburger, and held up two fingers. It worked. Two hot cheeseburgers (with fries!) later, we trudged back in the snow.

On the way back, groups of young guys had staked out the road, ready to pelt passing cars with blizzards of snowballs. They were also cheerfully lobbing snowballs at anyone that passed, and we fit that bill.

They saw my blonde hair, took in our unmistakable foreignness, and a gleam came into their eyes.

They laughed. "Welcome to Jordan!" they cried, and hurled snowballs right in our faces.

We looked at each other and smiled. Our "dry" clothes were ruined anyway. We couldn't really get any colder.

Why not?

So we scooped up snow as fast as we could and slammed 'em right back.