Stories and photos from my time living in the Middle East

[T.Lex]

Maklooba, a chicken/beef/rice/veggie dish that's made in a big pot then flipped upside down on a tray to serve.

Sounds kinda like paella.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paella

Kinda a throw-stuff-together-in-a-pot-with-rice-and-spice-it-up thing.

My mother-in-law has a version that is superb.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Sounds kinda like paella.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paella

Kinda a throw-stuff-together-in-a-pot-with-rice-and-spice-it-up thing.

My mother-in-law has a version that is superb.

Drier and denser. It holds the shape of the pot when you first flip it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maqluba

In Barcelona now, paella everywhere.

 

[roscott]

You certainly are an interesting guy BBI. I lived in Morocco for a while, and it was an amazing experience. I had the best pizza in my life in Barcelona, and would love to recommend it to you, but I could never find it again. The pizzas were roughly 36" by 8", and cooked in a rotating brick oven. If anyone there is familiar with it, I highly recommend it, and let me know the name of it!

 

[BehindBlueI's]

OK, back to the US and have a real computer. I'll be updating this thread again as I can.

First up:

That is garbage tied to the side of a dumpster. Specifically, it's food such as table scraps, bread that's stale, etc. It is tied to the side (or in the case of bread only sometimes tied to the house's gate or set on the outside wall) because it is considered sinful by many people to waste food. Leaving it separate allows farmers to gather it for animal food, or for bread that's stale but not gone bad for the poor to take it for their own consumption. The bread on the gate was what got my attention, as I thought maybe it was a delivery.

Yup, liquor store. Jordan has no prohibition on alcohol. I suspect public consumption is illegal or perhaps just socially unacceptable, as I never saw anyone drinking in public outside of a restaurant.


Now, let's get into one of the biggest problems in visiting or living in Jordan. Traffic, and the complete lack of following traffic laws by the incredibly horrible drivers.

Let's take a look at this intersection.

No lane markings, no apparent indication of who has the right of way, no crosswalks, etc. Only the most major roads have those 'luxuries'. So, how does it work? It doesn't. They hit each other pretty frequently, there is a constant cacophony of horns, and crossing the street is like playing Frogger. The only saving grace is they can't get going fast enough to really hurt anything other than denting their sheet metal.

Here we see a in-the-middle-of-the-3-lane-road discussion on who caused a 3 car crash. Sunglasses dude was driving a small truck which struck Honda dude which struck my sister in law's front fender as it was forced into our lane. Now, you'd think it would be pretty clear. Sunglasses sideswiped Honda, Honda forced over into our lane striking us. Well, the wrinkle is Honda was trying to split lanes just before the crash. The damage to SIL's car wasn't enough to stick around for the crash report, which costs ALL drivers 70 Dinar, so she just yelled at them and left. You can get a small car body redone and painted for about 300-500 QD, so she just collects damage until its worth being repaired and then has it done. Seriously.

4 rows of cars in what is supposed to be a 3 lane road. Emergency lanes are a lane. If they can split lanes, that's a lane. Side of the road? Lane.

The traffic was bad in Amman in '04 when I was there last, but nothing like this. With the turmoil in the ME spreading, there are so many more people in Jordan and the infrastructure is overwhelmed. The roads are beyond capacity in Amman, although once you get out into the "countryside" it rapidly falls off to normal rates. Amman has absorbed the immigrants, students, refugees, etc. at a much faster pace than the rest of the country. Related, the city is dirty now. The residential areas have trashed piled up against walls, litter blows in the roads, streets are in disrepair, etc. Touristy areas, wealthy shopping districts, etc. are still maintained and uniformed street sweepers make the routes with brooms and push cans, but the "real people" residentials are in sad shape.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Very cool thread! You didn't tell us the "How I met my wife" story yet though...

Well, you guys know the set up from this thread. I took a job as a security contractor and found myself living in Doha, Qatar. Qatar is tiny and there isn't much to do for recreation. Especially then, I was more into outside activities, but that country doesn't offer much in the way of outside stuff to do (what can you do on flat rock and sand in 120-130 degree weather?) and the national past times are shopping, smoking and drinking coffee at coffee houses, and...driving to coffee houses or shopping centers? Seriously, there's not much to do. So, you go to the malls and restaurants a lot, even if you aren't a mall or restaurant person.

The biggest mall is City Center mall. 5 stories, 300+ stores, a movie theater, an ice skating rink (yeah, an ice skating rink), etc. I went there occasionally but not a lot, as I needed a cab to get there and there were smaller places within walking distance if I wanted to go out.

So I'd been there maybe 8-9 months when another guard said there was a gorgeous woman working at the pharmacy at City Center and she spoke English. He'd asked her out a couple of times and been shot down but she was friendly with him at the store, laughing and talking. Now, you have to understand the ratio in Qatar is terrible. 3 out of 4 people there are foreign workers, and the vast majority of those are men. Most of the female workers are phillipino housekeepers, shopkeeps, etc, and that was the primary source of female companionship. While many of them are reasonably attractive, they tended to be uneducated and conversation was rather limited. If you wanted a housekeeper with benefits, or if you wanted to marry someone who would accept a much older/uglier guy in exchange for a passport to the big PX across the ocean, you were ok. Else, not much was there. So, while in any circumstances a friendly attractive and educated female will snag your attention, this was sort of like hearing the hope diamond was somewhere in the dumpster outside.

So, I trundled myself on down and figured I'd try my luck. I talked with her a few times and then asked for her number, we exchanged numbers, and then she disappeared for a week. It turned out she went to London on holiday with her family, and when she came back we started texting and talking, and started dating (on the sly, as it's not allowed if you aren't formally 'engaged'). Our first outing included a 3rd wheel, part chaperone and part someone to spend the rest of the day with if I was a flake. I recognized the implication right away and when the 3rd wheel was dropped off and we went to the beach front to walk (al corniche, basically a place set up to take advantage of the breeze off the Gulf, and a prominent strolling/gathering area with coffee shops, greenery maintained along the walk ways, etc.) I figured I was doing ok.

Afterward, she said she figured out I was interested in her when I bought shampoo as an excuse to be in the pharmacy. Anyone who's met me knows I have as much use for shampoo as a snake has for shoes.

Anyway, I would meet her at the pharmacy before they would open and we'd go to breakfast together at one of the restaurants at the mall, sometimes we'd go to the Corniche, eventually she came to my villa and we'd cook and watch TV for an hour or two before she'd have to go (remember we were dating on the sly, so time was always an issue).

We eventually got serious enough that she figured I'd better meet her dad and end the "on the sly" part. That went pretty well, but some of her brothers weren't happy with the idea. It's a big family, and several siblings were fine with us, a few were against because my wife was a source of income (older siblings tend to help fund the education of younger siblings, along with the parents) and knew if we eventually got married, that would dry that up, and two were against because I was American, which brought a mixture of fear that the family would be targeted because of the tie to the US and fear I'd abandon her when I went back to the US. She was really afraid to move to the US and that was a hurdle for us for awhile, she was afraid people would hate her because of her religion, she was afraid of shootings (just like people here tend to think things blow up daily there, she thought shootings were much more common than they actually are here). The funny thing is there was no real proposal, we both just decided we wanted to get married.

Dad withdrew his permission to marry because of the controversy it caused in the family. He told me he liked me, but he couldn't go along with something that created so much conflict among his children. My wife is something special and defied her family, which is a really big deal there. We couldn't get married in Doha as neither of us were Qatari and for foreigners to get married you need an inordinate amount of paperwork from the embassies and a female also needs a father's permission (or oldest brother if father is dead) if she wasn't previously married. Jordan was slightly easier, as the father only has to have granted permission to marry, not to marry a specific person, and she'd been granted permission to marry when her father had introduced her to someone he wanted to arrange a marriage for her a few years earlier. That paper was on file and would work, but it was still an ordeal to get married and the Byzantine system of paperwork it required is it's own story, but that's how we met. On a side note, we got married twice. We got married in Jordan, went to the US embassy in Qatar to see what we needed to start immigration papers for when my contract expired, and found out we'd forgotten a step of getting a civil certificate for the US gov't, and the marriage wasn't considered valid for immigration purposes by the US despite being 100% legal and binding in Jordan or other Arabic countries. We got married again a few months later in Cyprus in a civil service, which the US gov't would accept and it was MUCH easier to get married there.

 

[printcraft]

Has your extended family realigned their thinking now?

 

[vitamink]

Afterward, she said she figured out I was interested in her when I bought shampoo as an excuse to be in the pharmacy. Anyone who's met me knows I have as much use for shampoo as a snake has for shoes.

I hate to get all "Denny", but she realized you were buying prophylactics right?

 

[BehindBlueI's]

I hate to get all "Denny", but she realized you were buying prophylactics right?

...I've obviously been using shampoo incorrectly my entire life.

Has your extended family realigned their thinking now?

Oh, yeah. Once we had a child together and it was apparent I was serious about her it didn't take long for the objectors to change their mind or at least shut up. I *still* haven't met all of them, they are living all over the globe, but everyone I have met has been friendly with me. I'll talk a bit more about the family later. Like any family (or any group of people period) they have different opinions, different values, etc.

As an example, the family is split on Saddam Hussein. The family lived in Kuwait when he invaded, but they were on holiday in London. MIL hates him and was glad when the US killed him. FIL thinks Saddam was good for the Iraqis because they are idiots and incapable of living in harmony without a dictator to keep their natural idiocy and violence in check. MIL and most of the kids think Saddam was completely wrong to invade Kuwait. FIL thinks Kuwait was the bad guy, as they were purposefully destroying Iraq's economy, and while invasion may (or may not) have been the best response, Saddam would have stayed put if not agitated by economic warfare. SIL who is the next oldest from my wife is completely OK with Saddam being a tyrant to keep Iraqis in check, but thinks he was wrong to gas Kurds and invade another country. If you ever want to start a lengthy argument at a family gathering, bring up Saddam. These opinions weren't from one conversation, btw, but gleaned over the years.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

My FIL is the guy in the blue shirt. He's buying "Iranian bread" for breakfast. Iranian bread is the bread I was talking about earlier in the thread that is huge and is cooked in a few seconds to a near crackery like consistency on the metal cymbal looking thing. My FIL found out I liked it and that I was impressed by the size of a piece and talked to the owner about making a bigger one than normal. It was trash can lid sized, no idea how they made it. The other guy is the owner. He was an odd mixture of western and traditional clothing. He had on a brown man-dress, but western style loafers, a western blazer over the man-dress, and then the traditional head scarf.

This outing was to gather breakfast. I do mean gather. My FIL is something of a social butterfly, he knows everyone and he knows who had the best whatever. While we could have gotten everything at the first shop, he liked their hummus and ful (also written fool, fowl, foul in English but pronounced fool) but not their bread or cheese, so he ended up going to 4 different stores plus a fruit stand to get each shop's speciality.

This is the hummus and ful from the first stop. You'll note they are in real bowls. If you take your own bowls, you get more food for the same price then if you use their takeaway tins. The hummus is made to order, the base paste is made and then you say if you want yogurt mixed in, lemon juice olive oil, beans on top, etc. Ful is take it or leave it, no options. It is in a huge urn shaped metal pot and a ladle with a handle about 3' long goes down the narrow neck and brings it up. They hold the bowl at the opening and basically make waves come up the neck with the ladle until the bowl is full, instead of taking it completely out and transferring it to the bowl like we would with soup.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

This is the view from one side of FIL's screened in porch. He's very proud of his porch and says he likes to sit in the breeze and enjoy it. There is a cage with song birds, a porch swing, and multiple lawn chairs and tables. The ceiling is done in redwood, which is very expensive there, and the effect is very nice. The other side opens into the "garage" which is half walls and a roof over an area for the car and a sliding metal gate in the front. This side opens into the garden area, really just for potted plants as you see. The metal door opens into the same street as the garage. The far white wall is the edge of his property. There is a ramp there that goes down to some olive trees and has access to a small storage shed and the side door to the house. The side door is technically the front door, but they use the garage entrance as the main entrance. The "front door" is only used by renters. FIL's house is 5 stories, and he's converted the 2nd story and the basement into apartments. They live on the 1st floor, 3rd floor is for guests and parties, 4th and 5th floor are under renovations and are currently just empty rooms with bare walls. The roof is open, but mostly just water tanks and the like. The 3rd floor has a full kitchen with two stoves, a large gathering room that's screened in, etc. and there sole purpose is entertaining and parties.

The streamers were put up by a neighbor to celebrate a son's wedding a few weeks earlier. I asked if he will take them down and they said no, they'll just leave them until they fall down on their own. They aren't big on cleaning up after themselves or maintenance.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

This is Wadi Rum (Moon Valley) and is a popular destination for tours. You can drive yourself and look around or you can take an organized tour. We took a tour, we being my wife, son, one SIL, one female cousin, and me. You drive out in a bus playing loud horrible Arabic music. Arabs, like Indians, have not discovered bass and their traditional music is shrill and piercing. You get to Wadi Rum and pay 1 JD for natives, 5 ND for foreigners, and the bus takes you inside.

It is truly a beautiful place of wind shaped rock structures, tiny caves, "mountains" of rock that are craggy and can be climbed freestyle fairly easily, a camel race track (yes, seriously), dunes for 4x4s to play on, and a viewing area for the sunset. We elected to climb the rocks and play around in the sand dunes. The sand is incredibly fine and soft, like baby powder, and it very difficult to walk in because you sink so much. It is not like the fairly rough beach sand that you can see tiny cubes if you look close enough. It is more like brown dust.

So the tour was supposed to be you go out and see the place, get a traditional Bedouin meal and party. The traditional Bedouin meal was easily the worst food I ate in the country. Bedouins don't have much access to salt, spices, etc. so it was bland as pond water. They cook the chicken under the ground in a sand pit with fire on top, which you would think would give some flavor, but nope, nothing. The hummus was too thin, the bread was spongy, just nothing to recommend it. No napkins (wipe your hand in the sand) water was cheap but extra, and portions were small. It was sort of like airplane food but without a sweet at the end. I'd rather eat MREs, or really just saltine crackers. Horrible.

So then the 'party'. Not traditional Bedouin, as it turns out. Apparently some Arab jagoff looked at this pristine natural landscape, a rich tradition of Bedouins in the area, and said "let's put an outdoor discotech right here." The horrible shrill Arabic "dance" music was played at rock concert levels around a concrete dance floor with 4 rows of benches around it. Men and women can't dance together and the boys got to go first. It looked like a bowl of fruit loops to me, but they insisted they weren't gay, that's just how they dance. Culture differences aside, two dudes with their hands on each other's hips thrusting at each other strikes me as "those dudes are looking to get up each other's butts later", but if they want to pretend that's how straight guys act more power to them. Most of it was poorly sychronized line dancing sort of things, ok, but the Thrusty Twins were gay, I don't care what anyone says. My SIL insists that you can tell gays in Jordan because they dress like the opposite sex, but I'm sure they aren't all cross dressers. Anyway, you could rent a hookah pipe and smoke the flavored tobacco, shisha. So this "party" consisted of tobacco smoke, shrill loud music, and dudes thrusting at each other. These are 3 things I attempt to avoid. I told my wife I was out and me and my son went into the sand dunes and played tic-tac-toe in the sand until it was time to go. My wife did not care for it either and eventually joined us. She said the girls never got a chance to dance because the boys wouldn't leave the dance floor when the announcer told them to and let the girls have a turn. Girls dancing, I could have watched from a safe distance away from the speakers, but we'll keep that between us.

The ride back was quiet as the bus driver turned off the inside lights and most of the riders napped.

Oh, and let's talk about the bus ride. Tour buses have to stop at police checkpoints and the police either just talk to the driver and check his license or come on the bus and check people. Apparently they are making sure it is a real tour and not refugees or militants. They can also check luggage, but I only saw them check one bag. The owner of the bag kept walking forward and looking at the police then going back to his seat. They would check men's IDs but not women's. I was not once selected to have my ID checked in 3 checkpoints. I think it was because I was traveling with my son next to me, but my SIL says they could tell I was American. I don't know. The checkpoints made me a bit nervous, TBH, even though they were never interested in me in the slightest. In Amman I know the police are straight, but you get out in the sticks and I wasn't sure if they would solicit bribes or the like. My FIL told me that they are all the same police department and that they are professional and don't solicit bribes when I talked to him about it. He said 15-20 years ago it was different, but the pushback got to the point that the King stepped in and created an internal affairs department that was serious and cleaned it up. The trade off was that only "original Jordanians" could become police. That's how they term people who's ancestors are Jordanian vs immigrants and immigrants children. They, rightly or wrongly, believed the foreign born cops were more likely to engage in that sort of behavior. Since my FIL is not "original Jordanian" none of his family can join the police or the military, despite the fact he could have done so himself when he first immigrated to Jordan.

The tour bus runs the road through sheer intimidation. He tailgated and leaned on the horn until people moved out of the way. He was within a few feet of their bumper and just riding them flashing his lights and blowing the horn.

I did not enjoy that day.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Pro tip: don't act a fool in Royal Jordanian flights. Doing so may result in complimentary duct tape and the next 7 hours riding hog tied in the back of the plane. Full story when on a computer, not phone.

Ok, last update today. I almost forgot I hadn't told the story behind this yet.

So our flight from CHI to Amman was by Royal Jordanian. I've flown with them before and they are a nice airline. The stewardesses are generally attention worthy, the food is good for airline food, and the planes are tidy and up to date. The seat backs have an individual monitor so you can choose your own movie or TV show, USB plugs for charging devices, etc.

We were perhaps three hours into the flight when they pilot asked if anyone onboard was a doctor or nurse as they had an onboard medical emergency. Some fellow in the rear of the plane had a seizure. A few people responded, and one guy was a doctor. I was, uncharitably, concerned we would have to divert and go back or make a stop in the UK and a long flight would be even longer (12 hours in the air). That fear was greatly unfounded, as despite the passenger asking for a diversion RJ ain't got time for that and the doctor apparently believed the guy would be ok for the rest of the flight. About an hour later they paged the doctor to return to the rear of the plane. This was about 10 rows behind us, but I didn't pay any attention and kept watching Big Bang Theory. I'm not a doctor, there's nothing I can do for the guy, and I'm not a rubber necker into other people's issues. The other passengers were greatly interested and the stewardesses kept having to chase them back to their seats to clear the aisles.

Then, somewhere over the Atlantic a bit before Europe, I see a mass of guys dragging the seizure dude down the aisle back toward his seat. His hands and feet were secure behind him with those seat belts they use for the safety demonstration. Once they got him back there I heard the distinct sound of duct tape coming off the roll and I'm sure they hog tied him. He started screaming and they gave him a thumping to quiet him down, or so my wife said, as again I was watching Big Bang Theory and didn't care to see the circus. The rumor on the plane was he tried to open a door, but I don't know. He shouted in Arabic and in English that he was dying and no one would help him. I have no idea who was right or who was wrong, but I knew I was not intervening in a situation I didn't understand with people who's language I didn't speak on an airline I didn't know the rules of bound for a country I didn't know the laws of. Instead, I watched Paul Blart after I ran out of BBT episodes.

The guy quieted down but would start shouting again after a bit. He wanted help. He wanted someone to video tape what was happening. He was dying. He couldn't feel his hand. The doctor stayed back there and as far as I could tell no one thumped him again, but the stewardesses and the doctor both shouted at him to quiet down. A group of men hovered over him to enforce the idea he should be quiet. He got really bad again about an hour before we landed that he couldn't feel his hand and he wanted water. I figured when we landed they'd get him off first, either by EMT or by cops, but nope. We all got off, there was no sign of first responders, and I have no idea what happened to him. The rumor was he was going to be refused a visa and sent back to the US or his home country. He was definitely Arabic, but apparently not Jordanian by his accent per folks who could tell that sort of thing.

So, I really don't know what happened other than the dude needed medical help, at some point went forward in the airplane, caused an issue that resulted in him being trussed up and drug back to his seat, and then the drama continued to unfold. I do know Mall Cop 2 was better than I expected it to be and that Billy Bob Thorton made a guest appearance on Big Bang Theory.

 

[dudley0]

In Amman I know the police are straight, but you get out in the sticks and I wasn't sure if they would solicit bribes or the like. My FIL told me that they are all the same police department and that they are professional and don't solicit bribes when I talked to him about it. He said 15-20 years ago it was different, but the pushback got to the point that the King stepped in and created an internal affairs department that was serious and cleaned it up.

Last time I was in Mexico (1999) I had to go back to this small airport to get my lost luggage. My driver spoke as much English as I did Spanish so we didn't chat it up too much. I see this black and white VW Bug ('70's era) pull along side us... it was the local LEO. They waved to me, because they wanted me to pull over.

Turns out they saw an Anglo in a town that didn't have many foreigners. They wanted a bribe. I had learned to say "Can we settle this like gentleman." while I palmed 100 pesos but had nothing on me. Then my driver starts yelling and screaming at them. I just knew I was going to end up in a Mexican jail. No way to contact my guys, no money, and the language barrier.

Somehow that little driver convinced them that there would be no bribes handed out. We drove on and I slunk low in the van from then on unless I was in the back. I did buy his lunch at the mobile taco stand the next day.

The local LEOs were known for this I guess. But when the Federal guys came out all that stopped. They didn't mess around.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

McD's is EVERYWHERE and is usually 24h a day. Fries are the same, chicken is the same, beef tasted a little different on regular burger but oddly the same on the Big N Tasty. I also noted there was much less conservative dressing among some of the younger females (not that I routinely notice that sort of thing...) at the mall. Fewer head coverings, many more sleeveless shirts, tight jeans, etc. In my FIL neighborhood the dress was still conservative and you'd put the neighbors to talking sending your 20-ish daughter out in that sort of thing, but apparently it doesn't turn a head (at least in a bad way) in the downtown areas.

I also noticed two people with pet dogs on a leash. This shocked me, as dogs are generally considered unclean and having any fur bearing creature in your house is traditionally viewed the same as we'd view having livestock share your living room. Caged birds and fish, ok, but cats live outside and dogs aren't pets. Obviously this is changing too, at least slowly. I don't know if it's Western influence or immigrant influence or what, but there are a lot of pet shops now.

 

[T.Lex]

One of the best threads on the net IMHO. (Can't rep you yet.)

 

[BehindBlueI's]

In the "at least you tried" category. Yeah, it's misspelled, but it was one of very few misspellings I saw at the Amman Children's Museum. **Edit** Well, I'm the wrong one here, not them. Apparently that's the British spelling.

Also at the Amman's Children Museum. A tolerance program to teach kids that other nationalities, religions, etc. are just regular people, too? Huh, go figure.

The Children't Museum was awesome. There were plenty of hands on stuff for the kids to do, as you'd expect, but there were a lot of guides that interacted with the kids and they spoke multiple languages. I've been to larger children's museums, but I've never been to a friendlier one. One guy's area had big foam blocks of various shapes and when no kids were there he built big robots and things to entice them to come play (ok, maybe he was just playing himself...) and when my son went in he helped him build a biplane that was about 10' long and 8' wide. I saw him help another kid build a castle and I'm pretty sure it was going to be a train locomotive that he was helping two little girls with when we left. They had the digestive system you could walk through (yay, we're turning from food into poop!) a science show where a young lady mixed various chemicals to make foaming geysers, pop the cork out of a bottle, liquids change colors, and other loud/colorful doo-dads that would hold kid's attention. Plenty of pulleys and weights exhibits, lasers, how a tv station works including cameras and a news desk you could use and see the results on a monitor, etc. etc. It was all very well done. There was a bee you could ride and steer to collect pollen. It looked like a lot of fun, but stupid rules about "kids only" kept me from trying it. Stupid rules. Stupid little bee saddle not designed for adult butts. Stupid weight limits.

 

[jamil]

In the "at least you tried" category. Yeah, it's misspelled, but it was one of very few misspellings I saw at the Amman Children's Museum. **Edit** Well, I'm the wrong one here, not them. Apparently that's the British spelling.

The British are just wrong.

Also at the Amman's Children Museum. A tolerance program to teach kids that other nationalities, religions, etc. are just regular people, too? Huh, go figure.

Okay, they get points for participation. No sprinkles though. Because. You know. Two-thirds of Americans are either cowboys or Indians.

 

[jamil]

The British are just wrong.



Okay, they get points for participation. No sprinkles though. Because. You know. Two-thirds of Americans are either cowboys or Indians.

ETA: they'd have gotten sprinkles if they'd have depicted at least one American with gold teeth.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Jordan allows private ownership of firearms and there are shooting clubs (or at least signs for shooting clubs...so reasonable assumption they exist). They are also idiots with guns, which I found to be a common trait among Arabs. A wedding party was driving along the busy streets of Amman at night and were shooting under the overpasses for the noise. My FIL insists they use guns that only fire blanks for this as the king banned 'happy fire' with live bullets with severe penalties, but I have my doubts.

Per my FIL and BIL, you aren't allowed to shoot someone for simple burglary. If you catch a thief in your house, it's a no go to shoot him. You can attempt to capture him, but that's it. My FIL jokes you must make him tea and cookies and ask if he'll kindly wait for the police to arrive. If the thief assaults you, though, then you can use lethal force if you are in serious danger. You aren't allowed to carry outside of the house, and while the guns are allowed in cars under some circumstances carrying just because isn't allowed. Home break ins in the city seem to be a non-issue, too many neighbors and too densely populated. Isolated homes in rural areas, generally unoccupied or occupied only by the elderly, are the usual target per FIL. This started with the immigration influx. My FIL's family didn't lock their doors at night until recently.

Also, from media reports:
Syria’s war triggers a spike in gun sales in Jordan, a country where one in four owns a firearm | The National

Gov?t endorses new firearms draft law to curb violence | Jordan Times

note:

The draft law also includes a ban on weapons being carried during official or public celebrations, including protests, weddings and funerals, the minister said, adding that this law will apply to any gathering of 10 or more people.

AKA: The idiot "happy fire" law.

It all fits what FIL said.

 

[Alamo]

Now, let's get into one of the biggest problems in visiting or living in Jordan. Traffic, and the complete lack of following traffic laws by the incredibly horrible drivers.Let's take a look at this intersection.
...
No lane markings, no apparent indication of who has the right of way, no crosswalks, etc. Only the most major roads have those 'luxuries'. So, how does it work? It doesn't. They hit each other pretty frequently, there is a constant cacophony of horns, and crossing the street is like playing Frogger. The only saving grace is they can't get going fast enough to really hurt anything other than denting their sheet metal.
...
4 rows of cars in what is supposed to be a 3 lane road. Emergency lanes are a lane. If they can split lanes, that's a lane. Side of the road? Lane..

You are well prepped if you ever have occasion to drive in Saudi Arabia then, exactly the same (lack of) rules. The key to Frogger, if you are the Frog, is to NOT make eye contact with the drivers. Mostly slow traffic in cities due to sheer mass, but the Ring Road around Riyadh (like 465 around Indy) is NASCAR in dishdashas and no six-point harness. Speeds pushing 100 mph easily. Spectacular accidents. We call the emergency lane "the Allah lane," because if Allah didn't want you to use it, why did he put it there?

We went on some bus tours there in those 20 pax busses that have the huge front windshield. The front seats (no seatbelts of course) were known as the suicide seats, so when the bus pulled up everyone ran like hell to get no farther forward than the second row. I was in the suicide seat one time when the bus driver shot the gap between the car closest to the curb and the telephone pole planted in the sidewalk. Two wheels up on the sidewalk, 45mph thru the gap, the telephone pole smash-folded the outside mirror back against the window next to my ear. But we made it! Al-ḥamdu lillāh!

UAE exactly the opposite, at least in Abu Dhabi. Trucks relegated the rightmost lane ONLY. Low speed limits and other traffic laws strictly enforced. This caused a bit of problem for my commander there, because the unit ahead of us rotated out with a number of members leaving a traffic fines unpaid, and the Emiratis were not happy about that.

Good times, good times.