Directions, bil Arabee

I'm a "working woman" this week, thanks to a military exhibit going on and a need for some organizing assistants to keep things running smoothly. Yesterday, a fellow worker and I made a dry run to the entrance gate to our work site, accompanied by her trusty GPS, and felt very confident that we'd have no trouble finding our way.

Today, we entered the base and asked where the exhibit was being held. "Straight", he told me. As I came to the next security guard (only 100M further down the road), I asked again. "Turn right up ahead." After turning right, we found a swimming pool and the Officer's Club. I called the coordinator. She asked someone who works on base--"there is no officer's club on post", she said. (Just so you know, there is. It's written in both Arabic and English, just in case you doubt my Arabic skills.) We drove back towards the entrance and chose the only other possible path. No luck.

Passing another security guard, I asked again.
"Straight," he told me.
"After that?" I asked.
"Left," he said.
"After that?" I again prompted.
"Right," was all he offered.
Since I was mapping out the route he was explaining, I realized he was sending me back to the swimming pool. When we passed another guard 200M later, I asked him for directions.

"Left," he said.
"Near the swimming pool?" I asked.
"Past the swimming pool," he offered.
Ah--now we're getting somewhere. Unfortunately, past the swimming pool led us to a road circling the air field. It didn't seem right. We backtracked to another road heading downhill, since the coordinator had told us the registration building was "at the bottom of the hill". When I asked, "Where is the exhibit?", I got no reply from the guard, but the cone was removed so I could pass. I assumed we were heading in the right direction, only to discover we had been let off post. Grrrrr.

Directions in Jordan are not based on road names (nobody uses them or even knows them, although the GPS voice does!), but rather on landmarks. When we studied Arabic in America, we spent a lot of time practicing giving directions. We'd take someone from point A to point B, always including landmarks in addition to street names (we now understand why our teachers were emphatic about the landmarks!). So why, when speaking in Arabic to an Arab, do they not give you "from point A to point B" directions? Instead, they ONLY offer the very next step. Great, so I drive straight. Ahead of me is a right turn, a left turn, and an option to keep going straight. What now? Don't you know, when a driver came to "rescue" us at the swimming pool 30 minutes later and guide us to the work site, he drove us around the very airfield we had started down before turning around. How easy would it have been for one of the many guards I querried to say, "Go a long way around the airfield, and the exhibit will be on your right"?!

The silver lining to all of this? At least I got some legitimate language practice bil Arabee (in Arabic) today! :)