The Jordan Diaries 2005: October 27 Day 1.4 Out & About to the Local Shop

JD001 A view from Radisson SAS Amman to Al Hussein bin Ali Street belo

From our room we could see in the middle distance, a very small hole-in-wall "OPEN" supermarket in a parallel street, where we could buy much needed bottled water and maybe something else to drink as the non-alcoholic option....

Decided to give it a try and ventured down to the street below – Al Hussein Bin Ali – and stood on the kerb for a very long time, buffeted about in the collective air rush of a very large number of speeding cars and wondered whether shopping for water was really worth risking life and limb for! 


Suddenly with a break in the traffic, we made a run for it to the median strip and perched there even more precariously than before, this time at the mercy of air rushes to the front and back of us. We waited for the break, clinging to each other for balance, and then bolted for safety and kept on running onwards, even after we reached the safety of the footpath, up the hill to the supermarket in the top terraced street above.


It was small, very colorful and very typically Arabic casual - no seeming semblance of order – the empty boxes piled up out the front almost covering the front window. And that, coupled with a  bright orange roller door and a couple of beaten up drinks fridges on the paved area to the left, one step below the door, made it look more like a receiving depot for boxes, rather than a surprisingly diversely stocked mini-mart.

Encountered some language difficulties trying to buy our provisions – maybe it was our Gulf Arabic pronunciation. Water was the first hurdle. Tried everything (as one does) even miming and eventually as TheBoy said “moy” to the shopkeeper for the umpteenth time, the guy’s face broke into a wide grin as we broke through the language barrier and the light of communication and understanding dawned. “Ahhh “he smiled benevolently as he corrected our Arabic, “may-ya”....“May-ya” he said again slowly and looked at us expectantly like students of his impromptu language lesson, waiting for us to repeat what we had obviously gotten so wrong. “May-ya."

Lemonade was a whole different ballgame! And it seems generally to be a much more difficult concept on a global basis. In Hong Kong we once asked for lemonade and were handed lemon flavored Iced Tea. And in KSA there is a tendency to reach for orange flavoured Miranda (like Fanta) to fill the order for 'lemonade'. 
The universal word that seems to come closest to the generic, is the brand name – 7 UP.  And quite often the word Sprite will do the trick as well. A result of the McDonald's global phenomena perhaps?

With our small transactions successfully completed and parcels double wrapped in the ubiquitous (and omni-present) black plastic shopping bag, we made our way back to the hotel unscathed, not so breathless and with fewer heart palpitations.  Settled in for an early night and some local TV before sleep.