Tuesday, I picked up my Mom and Nancy to bring them to the Embassy for lunch. We left 2 lights and an AC unit running (we couldn't find the remote to shut it off). We went from lunch to the Olive Wood Factory where we made several large donations to the Jordanian economy.
I dropped the ladies back off at 4:15 and went back to work, to finish out the day. They called at approximately 4:16:30 to tell me that the power to my entire apartment was out. My mother worked with the local guard to locate the doorman/apartment keeper/watchman, who flipped a switch in the basement, restoring power to my apartment. He doesn’t speak English but used hand motions to indicate that the dials on my apartment’s electricity meter were spinning very fast.
While this issue was being resolved, a neighbor in the building came and began to berate Mom. She got in her face and began shaking her fingers, school-mistress style, reprimanding her. She said she had ordered the doorman to shut the power off to my house because my house “was using too much electricity” and "draining power from all the other houses in the building". She repeatedly told Mom that she must “promise to stop using too much electricity”. Mom (good for her!) refused to make such a silly promise and eventually walked away.
I, of course, was incensed when I heard what was going on and promptly marched down to the Embassy housing office and reported the whole incident. A phone call was made to the doorman, much Arabic and hand-waving ensued, and the guy at the housing office said the power would not be turned off ever again, that he would send technicians out first thing in the morning to examine my circuits, etcetera, etcetera.
I love this country - nowhere in America could someone arbitrarily decide to cut their neighbor's power supply to "teach them a lesson" and not only feel that it was perfectly acceptable but convince the building supervisor to actually do it.
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