The Long, Long Trip to America

Sadly, the time has come for us to say goodbye to Jordan. I will miss the call to prayer, the jacaranda and pomegranate trees, the falafel, the smell of Turkish coffee (if not always the taste). But most of all I will miss our friends and work colleagues and our home. It wasn’t always the quietest house, but it was ours, and Jordan will always be the place where Sam grew into a young man, where Peter, for one night, enchanted a crowd as Elfis, Clementine learned to swim, and Elise conquered the open oceans. Where we explored the deserts of Wadi Run and wandered ancient cities’ streets. Living life and working in the Middle East isn’t always easy, but it is certainly not hard, and you shouldn’t think twice about visiting; you will find its people warm and welcoming.

When it came time to book our tickets, there were no good options. I was offered the choice of a 1:40 a.m. flight out of Amman or a 3:15 a.m. flight. Hindsight is always 20/20, but it was much worse than I thought it would be and I will never...I mean, ever...depart in the middle of the night again. 

We decided to leave the house at 9:30 in hopes everyone would still be awake before we left the airport. This was already asking a lot, because the kids usually go to bed at 8:00.  But Clementine was asleep on the cold, hard marble of the entry way before we even left the house.

When we checked in for our flight, we learned it was delayed an hour. Instead of departing at 1:40, we'd be leaving at 2:30 in the morning. It didn't take me long to do my best 'Amazing Race' impression and stretch my body out on the hard, industrial, short-pile carpet in the terminal. Using my fully-stuffed backpack as a pillow, I fell asleep.

We were on the same flight as two of the kids' best friends from school, so they had no trouble staying awake as Elise and their mom chatted. Her kids fell asleep. Not ours. At least, not until we boarded the flight for Paris.

I don't remember taking off from Amman, but do remember waking up not knowing where I was. I looked out the airplane window, saw golden street lights below and what looked like the moon reflecting off the smooth surface of a black lake, and had no idea where I was. Completely disoriented, but also completely exhausted, I promptly fell right back to sleep.

I really should invest in a neck pillow, but I am embarrassed for those that use them, because most of people I see with neck pillows wear them around their necks through the airport even when they are not sleeping. That night as though, I wish I had one because I woke with a crick in my neck I couldn't get rid of. 

Most of the first flight is a blur. This would be one of those trips that felt like it began weeks ago. After a lengthy layover in Paris on which the kids played free rounds of Pac Man and Donkey Kong and we bought macaroons and ham and cheese sandwiches on baguettes with butter because....hey... we're in Paris. If even for a few hours. 

When we boarded the 11 hour flight from Paris to Salt Lake City, the flight attendant informed us they had run out of earphones, rendering the in-flight entertainment system useless. I immediately cringed at the thought of having to stare at the seat back in front of me for 11 hours straight and trying to keep three kids from going completely stir crazy. The woman sitting behind Elise sensed our plight and kindly offered up a pair of earphones she had received from her dentist. Fortunately, the flight attendant was able to scare up just enough headsets so everyone had one. 

Both Elise and I were impressed with the level of service offered by Delta. We were greeted with a warm towelette to wipe our greasy, travel-weary faces. Later, we enjoyed the warm chocolate chip cookies service (a la DoubleTree inn), followed by lunch which included your choice of one of three options. Elise makes fun of me because I am still talking about the ceaser salad. 

Upon landing in the good ole U. S. Of A. We all had a good chuckle in the immigration line. The kids mistook the cameras on the passport scanners as something you might find in a carnival funhouse and proceeded to monkey for the camera. Needless to say, those were likely the three goofiest immigration receipts the border patrol agent would process all day.

There was nary a hiccup in the travel, but if I had to identify the least smooth portion of our journey it would have been our return to the United States. 

I don't need a red carpet or marching bands, but ever since the border patrol agent in ATL welcomed Elise and I back to the U.S. after leaving Brazil, thanking us for our service overseas, I keep hoping it may happen again. It hasn't. Which is fine. I'm not a soldier or working on a battlefield and understand this type of service merits special recognition to which I am not entitled. 

This return was particularly unceremonious. After passing through immigration, we picked up our seven pieces of luggage, five carry-ons, and three car seats from one conveyor belt and walked it fifty yards and deposited them on another conveyor belt. We didn't have boarding passes for the last leg of our flight from Salt Lake City to Spokane, so I asked the woman behind the Delta counter where I went to get them. She curtly told me to take the escalator upstairs; I could get the boarding passes there, so Elise and I hauled the kids up the escalator, but all we found was a long queue at a security checkpoint. 

We dutifully joined the queue and waited only be told we needed boarding passes before we could go through security. I had to go back downstairs and confront the woman, asking her why she told us to go upstairs for boarding passes when this information was clearly incorrect. To which she completely denied having told me that and extended a long, snaking arm with a long, snaking finger in the direction of a completely nondescript computer terminal from which I was supposed to obtain the boarding passes. 

I reinstalled myself at the front of the line to security where the TSA agent told me to put each passenger's boarding pass with their corresponding passport; no ID required for children. Simple instructions. At this point, however, after traveling over 24 hours and already thoroughly discombobulated, I admitted to having no idea what he was asking us to do to which he asked me to step out of line again.

Long story short, we did eventually make it out of Salt Lake City, silently swearing never to travel through the city again. It has now been a week since we left our home in Amman, and Elise and I already recognize this transition is different. Likely no two are ever the same, but I, personally, and seeking some sense of closure on our two years in Jordan. At 4:30 p.m. I was on a conference call with Washington discussing options for a new warehouse and a half hour later, I was turning in my badge. There can never be a farewell if there never was a welcome, so I must find my own way to end this chapter.

Pack-Out, Day Two

Because of Ramadan, the packers only worked until 2:00. But because most of them were fasting, they worked without a break and packed up 4/5 of the house in five hours, only leaving two rooms for the next day, Elise’s office and the storage shed, neither of which had very many things left in them. Somehow, however, it took all of the next day to complete the pack out, to finish these two rooms and load everything into the truck. Likely, because more than half the crew disappeared for three hours in the middle

of the day after loading the first truck and having to run get a second. 

The kids finished school the day before, so they were home in the morning. We put a movie on for them, “The Greatest Showman”. Sam didn’t want to see it. He has this thing against live action movies, automatically assuming they are more intense than their cartoon counterparts. While he is usually correct in this assumption, it makes deciding on a movie to watch as a family challenging at best, because Peter is all into intensity. The more intense the better. 

Soon after the movie started, Sam complained his stomach was bothering him. Within a few minutes, he was on the bathroom floor, writhing in pain, and, a few minutes after that, vomiting. Elise and I assumed he’d come down with a stomach bug, and for the next couple of hours, Sam intermittently rushed to the bathroom. 

About lunch time, however, he seemed to make a miraculous recovery, and we soon found him downing several bowls of instant ramen noodles. 

As a child, Sam was our puker. He was infamous for whipping himself into a tizzy at bedtime. So much so, he would throw up in his bed. Elise and I, as if on cue, would come rushing in to change the sheets and comfort him, making a lot of fuss in the process, and giving baby Sam exactly what he wanted. Eventually, we grew wise to his game and on subsequent episodes, quietly reentered the room, changed the sheets nonchalantly, and put Sam back to bed. The first time we didn’t play along was the last, and Sam never puked in his crib at bedtime again. 

The end of school was a relief, of sorts. Sam’s body had held itself together for the entire school year and likely sensed it didn’t have to hold itself together any longer. That, combined with the emotional stress of ending the school year, saying goodbye to his friends, and the move, were likely enough to make himself sick. His class also sang the opening song from “The Greatest Showman” at their moving up ceremony. Elise and I gathered it was altogether too, too much. 

The move finished up right around 2:00, despite our predictions it would be a short day. 

That afternoon, we headed over to the pool for an end of school year pool party, after which I attended my second iftar dinner. 

I met several co-workers at the Crowne Plaza. They had erected a giant wedding tent behind the hotel, next to the pool. When I arrived at 7:30, several hundred people were storming the buffet. I didn’t exactly know what to expect, but it made sense those fasting all day wouldn’t wait for the call to prayer to charge the buffet; they would make sure they had a plate of food in front of them the moment the adhan began. 

I am still enthralled by the iftar as a communal event. The tent fell silent as the call to prayer began and the iftar began and stayed that way until the four-piece Arabic band began to play. 

At the end of the song, I clapped in appreciation. I was the only one. That must not be a thing in Jordan, but I didn’t care. It seemed like the right thing to do, and the band appreciates it, and a few songs further into the set, my colleagues at our table joined me.

After most everyone had made several trips to the buffet, followed by several more trips to the table of Middle Eastern sweets, tent emptied as many went to pray. 

Then the sheesha pipes came out. Arguillah or sheesha is sweet, flavored tobacco smoked through a water pipe. The tent clouded with sheesha and cigarette smoke, but it was not unpleasant. Yet informed a setting and sense of place. 

When the band stopped, the party was over, and the tent cleared. I brought my valet ticket to the parking attendant and stood on the curb in the hot night. I pulled out of the hotel, made a wrong turn, and found myself ensconced in obstreperous Amman traffic. At night is when people come alive during Ramadan, and they become more enlivened the closer to Eid. 

We leave Jordan the first day of Eid, only three days away.