Middle Eastern Hospitality

I've talked about this before so I won't spend much time on the subject, but it really is amazing the extraordinary sense of hospitality that a visitor feels in the Middle East. The standard line here is that if you drop in unexpectedly to stay at someone's house they can't even ask you why you're there until the end of the third day - you can still stay, they'd just like to know why you stopped by. I've heard it repeated so often that it may just qualify as an urban legend, but after making so many visits here I tend to believe it. Here at the Amman International I've been befriended by the front desk guy, Ahmad, who works the night shift. He first made friends with my colleague Al Capone (or, as I've renamed him, al-Capone, to give him a more Arabic feel) because of a Seattle connection - al-Capone grew up there and Ahmad sort of went to university there for four years. He's been wonderfully helpful during my time of need as I try to get credit cards replaced. One actually showed up yesterday via FedEx (who knew that "overnighting" took a week) but the other one, coming via UPS, never made it. According to the UPS website an attempt was made to deliver it to the front desk of the hotel at 6:15 p.m. last night but no one would sign for it. We're still trying to figure that one out, with the two main theories being that the woman behind the counter had a brain-cramp (because I had stopped by five times to remind them I was expecting a second package) or the delivery guy just didn't feel like coming in because it was already after hours. The message at the site stated that it would be delivered on the next business day, and then threw in the line that a delivery on Saturday was not guaranteed. This, of course, opened up the question of what the next business day was - Friday is the holy day in Islam but they also do a lot of business with the US and western Europe - so things were up in the air. Ahmad volunteered, over my objections, to drive me to the UPS office this morning, after working all night, just so we could figure out where it was and what their hours are (as it turns out they are closed today, so we're shooting for early tomorrow, insh'allah). After figuring this out he then insisted, again over my objections, that he take me out for a Starbuck's coffee. I told him that I had to pay because of all his kindness, but he said nicely but firmly that for a Jordanian this was out of the question - I'm his guest and he is responsible for me. So, off we went to Starbucks. By the way, he ordered a frappecino (I had a latte) - I mention this simply because I get a lot of grief from my friends because of my fondness for frappecinos (which are considered a bit wimpy by some of my associates, and it was good to see someone from the coffee-addicted Middle East order the frappecino).