Rybakov, of course, fell into a stupor when we were so abruptly seated, poured tea, and told what's what around here. Until the very sunset, he didn't really understand what was going on, and experienced mixed feelings. However, I didn't just casually stop at this little house with the sign "Al Numeira". The thing is, I remembered reading in the profile of our host William that this is the very NGO (non-governmental organization) he is involved in, and he had even sent me the phone numbers of his friends from there, which, unfortunately, I hadn't written down. This organization is engaged in introducing eco-consciousness into the minds of the region's residents, and educates them on how to properly conserve water and electricity, and grow vegetables and fruits with minimal expenses.
I showed the older guy my phone with William's number, and asked if he knew this person. "Why, that's my brother," replied the guy, who later introduced himself as Malak. At the table where we were drinking tea, there was also an Australian present, who had signed up as a volunteer through a website similar to Couchsurfing, but for volunteers. The Australian said that we would be spending the night in a different place, but Sasha couldn't make out his accent, so he continued to remain in a daze. Meanwhile, we drank several teapots of the local tea, which deserves a separate story.
The tea traditionally drunk in Jordan is black tea from tea bags, and they are styled like "Lipton" (I suspect that's exactly what it is). The tea tastes awful, but that's not enough for the Jordanians. They finish off the poor Europeans by pouring a glass of sugar straight into the teapot, and then suggest adding another spoonful or two into your little cup. All of this would be completely unbearable, but to sweeten the pill, locals add a few leaves of dried or fresh sage or mint into the teapot. Because of the sage, the tea reeks terribly of medicine, and a normal person probably wouldn't drink such a thing, but in this case it adds national flavor, and makes the simply disgusting black tea somewhat tolerable, because it turns into authenticity and cultural immersion. As you know, it all depends on your point of view.
Eventually it got dark, the guys closed the office, and showed us the way to a place with the pretentious name Dead Sea Harmony Center, a place that William had set up to host couchsurfers and volunteers. The name is loud, but in reality it turned out to be just a shed in the yard of William's house. A shed is a shed, we decided, and were about to figure out whether to get ready for bed or go look for some grub (even though it was barely six in the evening), when Malak announced that we were going to his place for dinner.
Awesome!
Malak lives in a three-story apartment building, for some reason the apartment has huge corridors, and in the living room there are futons instead of furniture. While we were chatting about this and that with the Australian (whose name, by the way, is Josh), Malak, his buddy (maybe another brother?) and his wife were stringing beans for dinner. The thing is, many Jordanians are vegetarians by necessity: meat is a bit expensive, so they eat it rarely. Maybe not vegetarians, but flexitarians?
Be that as it may, during this process Malak asked tricky questions (though he apologized that they were of a personal nature). What is our faith? Do we go to church often?
At this point, the Australian Josh and I exchanged glances, and mumbled something about being baptized Catholics. Later, we quietly discussed between ourselves that we are both atheists, but decided not to voice it out loud in front of Malak. Rybakov was so alarmed by such questions that he started joking about how they would come and slaughter us in the night. Malak told us that a Muslim man can take a Christian woman as a wife (I think, on the condition that she converts to Islam), but not vice versa, and other things about local life and Islam, but you can't remember everything.
The Australian, by the way, said that Latvia was advertised to him as the country with the most beautiful women in the world, to which I invited him over and gave him my address.
Malak proudly showed off his son and daughter to us, and also demonstrated that his kids know some English words, for some reason particularly emphasizing "air conditioner". His wife in a hijab also flickered by here and there, and even exchanged a few words with us, and later joined the dinner. Sasha says that underneath the hijab she was flashing Adidas sweatpants. The dinner consisted of pita bread, fried green beans mixed with other vegetables, and on separate little plates there were also fresh and pickled cucumbers (spicy), very hot peppers, and other snacks. It wasn't without hummus, either, but all the hummus we ate in the Jordanian outback left much to be desired.
By the way, Malak repeatedly smoked in front of the kids, just slightly opening the window. For us, spoiled Europeanized middle-class snobs, this looked exceptionally wild. I am, however, a sensitive soul in general, and always cringe when I see parents smoking next to a stroller or a child.
Eventually it was time to head back. On the first floor of the building there was another NGO; Malak said it helps the poor and teaches English. For some reason he brought us in there and sat us down on chairs, after which the man at the desk subjected the Australian to a proper interrogation, something between the "topics" on an English teacher's exam ticket and the questions of an immigration officer.
"What is your education? For what purpose did you fly to Jordan? What is the Australian economy based on? What are the main religious and ethnic groups there?" — the questions poured out one after another, but it all looked like a weird exam where the questioner is not interested in the answers, but rather cares about how fluently and briskly the examinee responds. This citizen condescendingly paid attention to us only a couple of times, so all that was left for us to do was to take in this theater of the absurd.
This didn't go on for long, however, and soon we returned to our dear shed. We were already getting ready to turn in for the night, when I saw a man on the porch of the back door of the house — the mysterious William, as I guessed. He exists after all, and that really is his name! A rare case when the insightful Mr. Ragai was wrong — a local really can be named William.
William was practically swaying from exhaustion, and hadn't yet filled out his daily work report (he is a water supply engineer), plus he still had to spend time with his family. He spoke in a very soft, kind, and tired voice; we exchanged compliments, I gifted him a Latvian chocolate bar that Sasha had the foresight to grab, but which had long ago turned into an amorphous mass. William also asked why the light was on in the toilet of our sleepover shed, to which I told him that I was just heading there. When I got back to the shed and asked the Australian how to turn off the light in the toilet, he replied: "To be honest, I didn't even know there was a light in the toilet," at which we laughed in unison. William's lightbulbs everywhere really were the energy-saving ones, those huge ones that shine like 150-200 watts. In other places we saw a ton of regular incandescent bulbs.
Sleeping was tough: the rough mat scratched the skin, light and cold air pushed through the shutters, it was incredibly dry, and there was dust and sand everywhere: in the nose, on the body, in the eyes, and in the lungs. Tomorrow we had to climb from minus four hundred meters up to 1.2 km of altitude, to Karak Castle.