21st to 29th of July, 2019.
They arrive to collect me in a 4×4 with four people in the back. I assume they are all tourists and join than.
We all start to talk in a very friendly way and get along pretty well. In the end, one of them was actually another volunteer for the Hostel, who had arrived just in the day before.
We visit Little Petra. Little probably because you do not need to pay. Is still pretty beautiful though. Unfortunately we are in such rush and our leader and owner of the Hostel, Ghaith, or T, as we all call him, does not show too much interest for it.
We have a pretty view of the sunset in the ruins of a castle and go back to the Hostel. The plan is to have dinner there. But once we arrive, T decides we will go to eat out. I, very humbly, tell him that I am sorry but I cannot eat out (and I do not even know where we are going or how much it will be). Instead of he just be cool and say something like, “it is on me, do not worry”, since I am just trying to be nice, you know, I just met him, we did not talk about anything related to the volunteer work and its conditions, but no, he decides to say this creepy sentence and make the situation very weird: “It is OK, do not make such a big deal”. That it is the first one of many other times when he says something rude and totally inappropriate to me plus they are all not true. Like that I am a very negative person. Really? Me? Or that I complain all the time. When is about you doing nothing to change this Hostel into a better place and just keep drinking and partying, of course I might sound like complaining too much. But let’s not keep in this negative vibe, show we?
The next week I spend in there it actually feels like a whole month. But I am lucky to meet and work with three nice people: Simone, from Netherlands and my favorite Mexican couple, Azu and Oto. We are all volunteers. The four of us, that is right. Plus the other two workers. Now, the thing is: there is not an organized schedule, like in the Golan Garden Hostel, in Katzrin, where two people work per shift, there are free days, no. There is no schedule at all, everybody works together all the time, a totally and completely chaos. Just like T is himself. A very disorganized and irresponsible guy, who is so spoiled that never grew up and learnt anything from life. The Hostel has so much potential, me and everybody else around know that. As much as everybody else know how the problem is T.
Anyway, we volunteers have a wonderful time together! Suffering with a lot of bad situations like asking T 100 times the same thing, not having a big variety of food to cook, have to see him make always the worst business moves ever, but still we laugh a lot, we cook and eat together all the time, we planned our work and executed pretty much well, and we make jokes about everything all the time. Wonderful time! I do not know what would be of me if it was not for them. Thank you so much, my friends! It was a truly pleasure for me!
We create a smoking area outside from nothing! A wonderful project which ended up fully successful! We started a vertical garden plan, but because of absence of resources I do not know how it ended up. And, Azzu and Otto teach us how to dance Salsa! Yay! (just now, remembering Azzu and Otto attitude, so funny and clever all the time, I laugh a bit and I am glad again for spend some time with them). Oh, and Simone too! She even buys pop corn for us having a decent cinema session! Two sessions actually!
Another person that I also meet is Mohammed, the receptionist at the afternoon shift. He is the one who saved me from the other Mohammed, the asshole one from the Mars Camp, who in the night before I supposed to leave say he cannot go to Amman. So let’s call the friendly Mohammed, M. So M, was going to Amman in the same morning I was planning to go. He had a exam to do and also his father and little brother had some issues there. So he offers me a lift.
So, I am about to leave to Amman, one day before my flight, which is in the morning, and T decides we have to go to the desert in my last night, where he will cook like the Bedouin people and we will eat nicely. It is a nice idea. The place is beautiful, the sky is wonderful and it was a great night.
Now, pause to mention quickly a character who I already had introduced in my stories before but whom this time it shows a very different face. Do you guys remember Floor, the volunteer from Netherlands with whom I worked in Golan Garden Hostel when I first arrived there? I said she was really cool, and she collected some wonderful pants for me from the dumpster… Anyway, she came to spend a few days in the Hostel. One day she completely freaked out and over reacted for no reason at all. Resuming, I told her and her brother I would join them in the morning for a tour. In the middle of the night, me and T decided it was better if I did not come. Immediately after, he called someone so I presumed it was her or the driver, so anyway she would know I had cancelled. But in the morning, I would go downstairs and tell her. Exactly at the time we planned to leave, at 8.30 a.m., she came to my room (I had just woke up and would be going down in the next few minutes) and has this creepy look in her eyes while she keep repeating: “We were waiting for you! We were waiting for you!” Waiting what if you just came in exactly in the time we planned to leave? Waiting what? Even Simone, who also had woke, told me later how creepy she looked. Later on she apologized herself and I said it was fine but girl, that showed me how people can really be two faces. It was good for me in one point: I was honestly thinking that she was really cool and her ways of travelling were so nice, that I was a bit jealous and thinking why could not I be that cool. Well, I got my answer.
In my last night I could not sleep because we came back very late form the desert and I still had to find a place to stay in Amman. I posted a public trip before and got over 30 offers. Most of them pretty creepy but two or three normal. I send a message just to one of them, the nicest one. It was nearly 2 a.m. and Bander answer me quickly and positively. Plus he is super friendly. I am shocked with my lucky. And I had not even met him. I was about to figure how truly awesome he was.
I say goodbye to my friends still during the night because I do not want to wake up them early morning. After breakfast, M arrives and pick me up. Bye bye Rafiki Hostel. I leave Petra without have seen Petra.
