Treasure

Expensive day. For our Colloquial Arabic class, we met at a restaurant. Now, it should have been actually less expensive to go here first, since it is between my house and the University. But did the taxi driver know where it was? No. Did he take me to another neighborhood entirely and I had to tell him, no, it’s near the University? Yes. Did he take me up past the North Gate of the University, despite my best attempts to tell him it was the other way? Sigh. Yes. So, about 1 dinar more than I would spend on a normal ride to the University, I hopped out and ran down the busy street and found another cab.

“Abu Zhabara?” I asked this driver, thinking I’d have to bust out all my fancy “close to” “beside” and “between” Arabic words.

“Abu Zhabara!” he said. And away we went. It was only an extra 1.50 to get to the restaurant.

I waited with one other girl for about 30 minutes before most of the rest of the class arrived. Apparently, Abu Zhabara isn’t that well known to drivers. However, Hardees is. I had to give directions over the phone to the driver of another girl’s cab and he at least knew Hardees. (Because, remember, taxis drivers and everyone else here do not really go by street names.) So. Then we all waited for another 15 minutes before the teacher arrived – she was late because her car had gotten a flat tire.

Finally we all settled in to order breakfast (another 3JD that I don’t normally spend). This was hilarious because there were 11 of us Americans who barely speak and read Arabic and our teacher was doing her utmost to make us speak and read Arabic. The waiters had a fun day, I would bet.

Then another cab ride back to the University. Another 25 piasters (it was less because we split it among three of us and we were going to a different gate).

Then this evening my normal cab-sharer didn’t cab share and I was leaving from yet another gate that was even further from my house – so it was yet one more dinar fifty that I don’t normally spend.

Oh, and did I mention it was hailing as I walked twenty minutes outside from one class to another? Yes. Yes it was hailing.

On the dreary ride home, I realized how grumpy I had become as I was obsessing over the extra money I had spent. It is true that I am not a greedy person, but I am, what I would like to call, frugal. Thrifty. Prudent. Okay, okay, I am downright tightfisted and stingy. I may be able to care less about amassing wealth but I sure do hate to let any of it go. And this is wrong. However, living in Jordan and in such a cash-based society in which I have to physically hand over money every day has been good for me in forcing me to confront this problem. I must ask myself, why is it so hard for me to see my money go – even to absolutely necessary things? Is it because I trust money to provide me with security, comfort, and safety? Is it because I fear my future needs won’t be provided for or that I might miss out on some future good? Ultimately I know that any amount of temporal wealth can provide neither contentment nor security and that my trust belongs in Someone else. I know that good stewards are neither wasteful spendthrifts nor penny-pinching hoarders. I know that the money is in my care in order to be given to good things. But getting that knowledge from my head and into my tightly clutched wallet is taking quite a long taxi drive.