Ahmed

Ahmed (L) and his cousin

Our bus driver has a weathered face, tattooed arms, missing teeth, and smiling eyes. He loves Celine Dion and the Jordanian national anthem. His stained shirt smells of tea and cigarettes....and he's always making us laugh. He arrives early and waits for us slow Americans to emerge from our apartments early in the morning when we're still caffeine-deprived zombies. He laughs at our bad Arabic and will go out of his way to take us to market. He even climbs sand mountains in the dark with us to watch shooting stars whiz over the desert. 

Ahmed, Serge, Amelia 

Music is his thing. He's made sure we've listened to the national anthem plenty of times, the "good morning" song, and our share of Jordanian pop. Ahmed has a CD of arabic party music and on the hour and a half drive to Wadi Rum he nearly broke the speakers blasting it. The beat was irresistible, the lyrics unintelligible but so happy, and a dance party quickly ensued in the bus aisle. Our travel guide, Basheer, taught us the arabic moves and Ahmed turned up the volume at strategic points to emphasize the fact that we should definitely be dancing. He bounced in his seat to the music and as he honked the horn, he pulled the blue "evil eye" charm hanging from the rearview mirror. He thinks we think that's the horn and if you pretend to be delighted, he beams at himself.

So many times, we'll board the bus to find ourselves being serenaded by Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On. We must have listened to it 4 or 5 times coming home from Petra. Ahmed has her programed in his phone and when the song reaches it's climax, he lets go of the wheel to spread his arms in the famous titanic flying pose. It's incredibly endearing and absolutely terrifying at the same time; Jordanian drivers are the worst ever and, more than anything, you want the driver's hands on the wheel. And yet, the way he turns around with laughing eyes and the biggest smile on his face makes you forget the cars whizzing by....inches away.

He'll be waiting outside our apartment in just a few hours to take us to class in the morning. He'll have a smile on his face and will probably ask if we've memorized any of his songs. We borrowed his party CD so we could download the music and we've been rocking out to it as we study and work on tedious databases. Who knows, we'll probably be listening to it again way too early in the morning tomorrow, and he'll be way too into it. And even though we'll be groggy, we'll kinda sorta love him for it. 

He's the best bus driver ever. And just a really cool guy.