“The Only School in the Kingdom”

“The Only School in the Kingdom”

Those words sound sort of like they got cut from a sub-par Disney film, don’t, they? But they were actual words uttered the other day by Dana, the head of all things financial at KA. She rushed up to me last Thursday morning, and burbled, “Habibi! I hear we are the Only School in the Kingdom in business today!”

A quick aside for a mini-Arabic lesson: Habibi—now that’s a great Arabic word. It means a little like, “my dear,” or “sweetie” and is used between good friends, chums, mates, both male and female.

She and I call each other Habibi regularly, so the really interesting part of her sentence is that we were (pause for dramatic effect) the Only School in the Kingdom open last Thursday! Why was everyone else closed, and why was KA open, you may ask…

It snowed in Jordan!

Those are words that six months ago I never ever thought I would get to type into the blog!

Last Monday the weather reports revealed something other than, “in the Jordan Valley today there will be a cloudless, blue sky” and reported that a major snow storm was approaching.

The Northeasterner in me just smiled. Oh sure. A Major snow storm? A smug chuckle—yeah…

So last Wednesday when none of the faculty who drive in everyday from Amman showed up (of course, neither did the day students from Amman) I attributed it to the “Gastonia Winter Effect,” as I think of it. Gastonia, North Carolina is where I started my teaching career, at Gaston Day School, making lifelong friends in this wonderful town with native Gastonians like Cookie and Mary Ray. Well, every winter a storm might blow through, and lo and behold, every Gastonian looked heavenward at those bleak skies, the skies they call the, “Uh-oh—bread and milk skies!!” and faster than you can say, “Free BBQ!” every person in the county rushes to Harris-Teeter to get enough bread and milk to tide them over until…I don’t know, from the looks of their carts, until kingdom come!

Anyway, I digress as I look back fondly on winters in Gastonia in the late 1980s.

So the on-campus residents taught classes all day, wondering what was going on in Amman, just a 30 minute drive away. We had had some rain, and some wind, but hardly what anyone would call a “major storm.” Of course the boarders resented those who happened to live off-campus…

Randa, one of the Jordanians who reached out to faculty instantly last August, called me to check on us, and said, “John—the storm! You wouldn’t believe it! There must be 30 centimeters of snow out there!” A quick aside: even though Ohio public schools tried valiantly, albeit briefly, in the 1970s to teach the metric system, I have very little understanding of what that measurement really meant. But Randa claimed there was scads of snow. “It is so dangerous out there driving no one dared to go outside. It is awful!” She said she would send me pictures from her phone so I could see the snow. I assured her that I believed her. “And the storm isn’t finished—there may be another 200 centimeters coming!”

Our stalwart headmaster announced to us that no matter what happened, there would be classes on Thursday, and KA would go about a normal day. Many of us just scratched our heads—it was just some rain and wind—is this a major storm?????

That night Tessa and I decided to make grilled cheese sandwiches for all the boys so there was something fun about staying on campus as day students rollicked away in Amman. About an hour before we planned to start, there were squeals in the hallway. Boys stared outside and saw snow cascading down out of the sky. Snow! Like real snow. Like the people in Boston and New York and Cincinnati know—those fat flakes that happily dance out of the sky. Then the power went out.

After about an hour of no power (ummm…maybe this is when we remind the physical plant staff that it would be wise to install emergency generators!) the lights and heat returned—just in time to make grilled cheese for all the boy boarders! During this whirlwind assembly line process of slapping cheese on a bread, generously slathering the butter on bread, grilling, and piling, there was something I am not sure if I have ever experienced—thunder and lightning claps during the snowflake dance! During one of the mighty thunderous roars, the power zapped off—right in mid-flip for me with a grilled cheese. The power returned with enough time to hand out our magnificent grilled cheese. Then the power left again…

Our power would be out for the next 18 hours, our heat would be off for about 24 hours, internet connection down for about 24 hours, and phone service out for about 5 days.

In the middle of this—no power, no heat, no landline phone service, no internet is when Dana breathlessly informed me that all schools, all businesses, had been shut down in Jordan.
“Habibi! I hear we are the Only School in the Kingdom in business today!” I wonder if Dana joined the group in front of the administration pounding together a Snow Bedouin (complete with red and white hatta—you wouldn’t have gotten it confused with, say, a Snow Brahmin in Boston or anything!)!

And while you might find it hard to believe—about two feet of snow did indeed drop onto Amman. I know—I saw it! After Thursday’s classes (with no Amman representation), a van driver took us into town—we were told there might not be food for a day or so. They were cooking on gas grills, and during lunch in the igloo-like dining hall, someone cracked, “this is like being in a refugee camp.” Another colleague wryly retorted, “and that is different from other days…how?”

Driving to Amman we saw why no one had ventured forth to KA: cars sliding off the road right and left, drifts of snow on the sides of roads, and almost everywhere, adult Jordanians having snowball fights. I don’t think I have ever since my Jordanian compatriots so playful.

I asked why they didn’t salt the roads—the driver said they have no machinery for that. I offered, “But with all the salt in the Dead Sea, it’s a shame not to make use of that natural resource!”

People were using planks of wood to shovel out of their little mountains of snow, and people were up on rooftops trying desperately to recover the tops of TV satellite dishes so they might watch television.

As we drove back to KA, we heard a number of sirens, and while we were creeping back on the King’s Highway, we saw a mash of emergency vehicles stop by this one car. As we surveyed the number of important cars we concluded someone must be stuck under the car. Whoa. But then as we saw this story play out, all those emergency professionals merely were digging one very nice BMW out from the snow drifts. Nothing more, nothing less. One of my friends said, whoever that BMW owner is, “now they have some serious wasta.” Lucky you—time for more Arabic class! Wasta is that word that means “connections.” Hmmmm…

Two days later, the roads were still a mess in Amman. I never did get to church on Saturday. What is normally about a 40 minute drive from KA became a snarled mess since the secondary roads were all closed in Amman, and everyone crammed onto the primary roads. After about 90 minutes of trying to get to church, I decided it was better just to have the cab go back to our newly restored internet/power/heat.

Shortly after that I had a text on my cell phone (mobile phone in Brit Speak here in the Arab world) from my good friend, Sam, a KA driver. Sam had texted me a poem he made up:

Snow is cold like a frozen ice cube,
Its crystal like a diamond,
Snow means angels in heaven
Are having a great time in a pillow fight.
Snow is a sweet friend like U



Now that’s a nice habibi.