(no subject)
Since I have an idle Saturday night, I thought the proper thing to do is to spend part of it complaining about bums. Specifically, American bums. You guys have no skillz.
In Chicago I learned how to live with myself when I refused to give bums money because they were "cold and hungry", "needed cash to take the bus to school", or "were missing two fingers". I thought these bums had given me a good education in being a hard-hearted bastard, and that I was ready for anything. How wrong I was. When I went to a conference last week in Israel and went on a day trip into Jordan, I learned just how outclassed our bums are by those in the Middle East. The US has truly fallen behind in the hobo arms race, and I was left defenseless against the vagaries of the tricky desert beggars.
Explaining what happened requires a bit of a tale, so gather around if you wish to hear of my impressive gullibility. Me and a friend I met at the conference taxied into Jordan to see the fabled ruins of Petra (these ruins are some mind blowing shit ... if you ever have the opportunity you should go see them). After seeing most of the ruins along the ~3 km main path, the two of us decided that we wanted to go look at an ancient fortress a few miles off the beaten path and away from the crowds of retired European tourists. It did not take us long to discover that we had chosen the wrong trail, and it dumped us off in the trackless desert (don't look at me like that, it was my idea but we were never in any danger because there were plenty of visible landmarks). We thought we were isolated from other people at this point, but a couple of children on a donkey saw us from a distance and rode out to try and sell us a donkey ride. They were very persistent, but by this time we were well practiced at saying "no" to camels, donkeys, and horse scams, so we pressed on in the direction where we thought the fortress lay. For some reason, even though we clearly weren't going to pay for their donkey, the kids followed us at a distance. We found out why after about half a mile when the children started shouting something in Arabic. Minutes later, we rounded a pile of rocks in the dry stream bed and found ourselves standing in the campsite of a Jordanian family. There was only one adult: a woman, and she was on her feet telling bidding us welcome, and asking us to come have some tea. We were taken by surprise. I had some misgivings (what if this is part of a trap to abduct wnwary foreigners for ransom) but the woman didn't look threatening and I thought a drink with a Jordanian family would be way more interesting than seeing more ruins, so I talked my friend into it. The woman was taking care of four children - the two donkey boys were hers, and she had two much younger kids as well, probably barely out of preschool in age.
We sat down and awkwardly watched while the woman broke twigs and started a fire to boil water with her lighter. The surroundings were desolate. There was no shade or water nearby, and the temperature must have been well over 80 degrees even though it was November. A ragged blanket was strung across some bushes to give a semblance of a wall, but there was no other form of shelter. While we waited the boys tried to convince us to hire them as guides to lead us back to the civilization, or on to the other interesting things up ahead (none of them knew enough English for us to entirely understand them). The woman tried to sell us beads for our "women", and pottery. We refused, but eventually we relented and bought some coins used by the ancient Petrans that the kids had dug up from the sand. The woman served us hot spiced tea. Due to our time constraints, we drank as fast as we could without burning our mouths, and she constantly refilled our cups the moment we came close to finishing. The woman also insisted on giving me a gift: a beaded necklace which she strung about my neck. The boys eventually realized we weren't going to buy anything and went riding off again, but the smaller children hung around closely. They grinned at us and patted us with their hands. They were filthy, had broken teeth, and were covered in flies.
When we decided it was time to leave the woman began to look a bit desperate. She pointed at her kids and tried unsuccessfully to communicate with us, but repeated the word "baby" a number of times. This was unnecessary for me. I had already been moved by the time I spent around them. This woman was not like the other obnoxious merchants who constantly hounded you along the main roads. She was living in a place where it would be difficult to even survive, somehow supporting four children. When we came, yes she tried to sell us things, but she was not too pushy, and she also gave us hospitality and gifts. And I could not help imagining myself as one of the children: if I had been born out here that would have been me trying to support myself by selling donkey rides to tourists with no hope for any real future. I was moved to do everything I could, so I gave the woman all the money I could afford and still pay for the taxi ride back. Forty five dinars, which are worth slightly more than Euros. Away from the tourist trap places, our taxi driver had bought three of us coffees for one dinar, so I was sure that that much money could do them a fair bit of good.
The woman took the money and did not even blink. Without missing a beat she tried again to sell us her beads, this time for a higher price. One of the children held out his hand to my friend. "Baby wants dinar", the woman said. My friend gave him a dinar. The other kid came up and held out her hand. "Also wants dinar". On our way back my friend asked how much money I had given them and told me that I had been conned. In retrospect I am pretty sure he was right. Those kids get sent out to sell tourists rides to the fortress, and the passengers then get led to the family - we just made their job easier by stumbling upon the campsite of our own accord. Why would the family choose to live out in the middle of nowhere away from any water? Because that's halfway along the route the tourists would be led. Why pick a site that has no shade? Because children baking in the sun attract a lot of sympathy. The little kids were clearly instructed to look cute and touch us a lot. And selling us cheap things and giving us gifts at first was a calculated tactic to get us to like them and want to give them money.
Am I angry at them? Not at all. I am impressed at their resourcefulness and I don't really begrudge the money - I'm still sure they need it more than I do. But I am chastising their American counterparts. Asking pedestrians for change and playing bad music on the street? Come on guys, you can do better than that! Look at me here. See how fooled I am? This woman schooled all you's all.
Do we really want to live in a nation with second class vagrants? I say we need to take action! I have a proposal for Mr Obama. When you're president, set up an exchange program with the Middle East so that our bums can learn from the masters. Or maybe I'm just trying to assuage my own ego by pretending they were good and that it's not just me being super gullible ...
In Chicago I learned how to live with myself when I refused to give bums money because they were "cold and hungry", "needed cash to take the bus to school", or "were missing two fingers". I thought these bums had given me a good education in being a hard-hearted bastard, and that I was ready for anything. How wrong I was. When I went to a conference last week in Israel and went on a day trip into Jordan, I learned just how outclassed our bums are by those in the Middle East. The US has truly fallen behind in the hobo arms race, and I was left defenseless against the vagaries of the tricky desert beggars.
Explaining what happened requires a bit of a tale, so gather around if you wish to hear of my impressive gullibility. Me and a friend I met at the conference taxied into Jordan to see the fabled ruins of Petra (these ruins are some mind blowing shit ... if you ever have the opportunity you should go see them). After seeing most of the ruins along the ~3 km main path, the two of us decided that we wanted to go look at an ancient fortress a few miles off the beaten path and away from the crowds of retired European tourists. It did not take us long to discover that we had chosen the wrong trail, and it dumped us off in the trackless desert (don't look at me like that, it was my idea but we were never in any danger because there were plenty of visible landmarks). We thought we were isolated from other people at this point, but a couple of children on a donkey saw us from a distance and rode out to try and sell us a donkey ride. They were very persistent, but by this time we were well practiced at saying "no" to camels, donkeys, and horse scams, so we pressed on in the direction where we thought the fortress lay. For some reason, even though we clearly weren't going to pay for their donkey, the kids followed us at a distance. We found out why after about half a mile when the children started shouting something in Arabic. Minutes later, we rounded a pile of rocks in the dry stream bed and found ourselves standing in the campsite of a Jordanian family. There was only one adult: a woman, and she was on her feet telling bidding us welcome, and asking us to come have some tea. We were taken by surprise. I had some misgivings (what if this is part of a trap to abduct wnwary foreigners for ransom) but the woman didn't look threatening and I thought a drink with a Jordanian family would be way more interesting than seeing more ruins, so I talked my friend into it. The woman was taking care of four children - the two donkey boys were hers, and she had two much younger kids as well, probably barely out of preschool in age.
We sat down and awkwardly watched while the woman broke twigs and started a fire to boil water with her lighter. The surroundings were desolate. There was no shade or water nearby, and the temperature must have been well over 80 degrees even though it was November. A ragged blanket was strung across some bushes to give a semblance of a wall, but there was no other form of shelter. While we waited the boys tried to convince us to hire them as guides to lead us back to the civilization, or on to the other interesting things up ahead (none of them knew enough English for us to entirely understand them). The woman tried to sell us beads for our "women", and pottery. We refused, but eventually we relented and bought some coins used by the ancient Petrans that the kids had dug up from the sand. The woman served us hot spiced tea. Due to our time constraints, we drank as fast as we could without burning our mouths, and she constantly refilled our cups the moment we came close to finishing. The woman also insisted on giving me a gift: a beaded necklace which she strung about my neck. The boys eventually realized we weren't going to buy anything and went riding off again, but the smaller children hung around closely. They grinned at us and patted us with their hands. They were filthy, had broken teeth, and were covered in flies.
When we decided it was time to leave the woman began to look a bit desperate. She pointed at her kids and tried unsuccessfully to communicate with us, but repeated the word "baby" a number of times. This was unnecessary for me. I had already been moved by the time I spent around them. This woman was not like the other obnoxious merchants who constantly hounded you along the main roads. She was living in a place where it would be difficult to even survive, somehow supporting four children. When we came, yes she tried to sell us things, but she was not too pushy, and she also gave us hospitality and gifts. And I could not help imagining myself as one of the children: if I had been born out here that would have been me trying to support myself by selling donkey rides to tourists with no hope for any real future. I was moved to do everything I could, so I gave the woman all the money I could afford and still pay for the taxi ride back. Forty five dinars, which are worth slightly more than Euros. Away from the tourist trap places, our taxi driver had bought three of us coffees for one dinar, so I was sure that that much money could do them a fair bit of good.
The woman took the money and did not even blink. Without missing a beat she tried again to sell us her beads, this time for a higher price. One of the children held out his hand to my friend. "Baby wants dinar", the woman said. My friend gave him a dinar. The other kid came up and held out her hand. "Also wants dinar". On our way back my friend asked how much money I had given them and told me that I had been conned. In retrospect I am pretty sure he was right. Those kids get sent out to sell tourists rides to the fortress, and the passengers then get led to the family - we just made their job easier by stumbling upon the campsite of our own accord. Why would the family choose to live out in the middle of nowhere away from any water? Because that's halfway along the route the tourists would be led. Why pick a site that has no shade? Because children baking in the sun attract a lot of sympathy. The little kids were clearly instructed to look cute and touch us a lot. And selling us cheap things and giving us gifts at first was a calculated tactic to get us to like them and want to give them money.
Am I angry at them? Not at all. I am impressed at their resourcefulness and I don't really begrudge the money - I'm still sure they need it more than I do. But I am chastising their American counterparts. Asking pedestrians for change and playing bad music on the street? Come on guys, you can do better than that! Look at me here. See how fooled I am? This woman schooled all you's all.
Do we really want to live in a nation with second class vagrants? I say we need to take action! I have a proposal for Mr Obama. When you're president, set up an exchange program with the Middle East so that our bums can learn from the masters. Or maybe I'm just trying to assuage my own ego by pretending they were good and that it's not just me being super gullible ...