Cafe

I think that this latest experience sums up a lot of my food service sector interactions here in Jordan. I walked into the coffee shop in dire need of a cup of American coffee pre-workout. After walking up to the open counter, past two employees staring intently at the slushee machine, past one employee just sitting around, I finally caught the attention of the other employee behind the counter and proceeded to order (in Arabic). I asked for a small American coffee and a cookie, since I had just spotted the plate of chocolate chip cookies arranged in the name of the establishment. The nice man behind the counter simply stared at me and smiled good naturedly. Wondering if he had been caught unawares by the foreigner speaking Arabic, I repeated my order. He finally motioned for me to wait a moment and looked toward the two guys staring at the slushee machine. One of them finally came over and I repeated my order a third time. After distinctly looking at the cookies that I had motioned to, he said, "there are none." Since he said this very genuinely and without a hint of arrogance or malice, I didn't argue and ordered a mini-muffin instead. He initially said that there wasn't any coffee either, but alhamdulillah it finished brewing in time. The original gentleman had a genuine grin on his face as he proudly presented me with the large tray containing my small order.

Despite the time it took and me being denied the cookie sitting right in front of me (I assume because it would have messed up the design), I am not the least bit frustrated by this experience. Cultural assimilation, anyone? Here, there is not the automatic assumption that the customer must be served as quickly and efficiently as possible, at least not to the degree that there is in America. All of the employees were perfectly affable; they made preserving the cookie design seem perfectly legitimate. For my part, I knew that I would get my stuff eventually, having learned long ago that being in a rush doesn't work all that well here.


Just thought I'd share this little story. Back in September, I'm sure that I'd have found it incredibly frustrating, but not now. In this respect, Jordan has taught me to just relax and patient. All for now. Yalla bye.