Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Revisiting Taxis and The People That Drive Them


At the beginning of my blog I wrote about my first experiences with taxis and how successful I was at getting to and from school those first couple days. However, I must revisit my first experiences now having lived in the city for three weeks.

Taxis are unpredictable. That is probably the best lesson I’ve learned. Sometimes, you get an excellent driver who has cleared the meter from the previous ride, put the meter in a visible location, they know where your destination is, and they give you the proper amount of change when you pay them. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. For example, many times, the meter is situated in between the two front seats and is impossible to read from the back seat.

Some Experiences I’ve had in a taxi:
1)    The driver stopped for gas. He did need gas (I made sure to check) but since the meter is run by distance and time, I had to pay extra because of the time we spent parked at the gas station.
2)    My driver did not know where I lived. This has happened more than once. Taxi drivers do not know Amman by street names; instead they know them by neighborhood and landmarks. I live by a mosque in Daheit Al-Hussein (neighborhood). However, it is frustrating to get a taxi driver who asks you how to get to your destination when you are a foreigner who just moved into the city a week or two ago. Now, I know how to get to and from my house and the university in case I need to direct my taxi driver.
3)    I only had 20JD and I knew my ride would cost me a little less than 2JD so I told the driver at the beginning that I didn’t have any small bills. When he dropped me off, he tried to rip me off 8JD, only giving me 10JD in return for my 20. The total cost of the ride was 1.80 and I fought with him to get those last 8JD. Finally he gave in, counting them out one by one in contempt. I gave a curt “Thank you” and got out.

Despite those experiences, I have had some good taxi drivers. When I tell them I’m studying Arabic, some of them try to teach me basic Ammia (colloquial) phrases. Others ask where I’m from and attempt to pronounce Massachusetts. I do my best to not chuckle because it is a really hard word for an Arabic speaker.

The majority of taxi drivers are on their phone the whole time and/or smoking a cigarette. I’ve been offered cigarettes before and politely refused. In the 10-15 minute drive between my house and the university, it’s not uncommon for the taxi driver to go through two cigarettes. Normally this isn’t too big of an issue when he has the windows rolled down. However, it was raining last week and I had a taxi driver who had all the windows rolled up, save for a small crack in the driver’s seat window. I was trying to eat falafel and just about died because he was smoking. It was really hard to breathe and I was thankful to leave.

I mentioned above that taxi drivers don’t know the city by its streets but rather by landmarks. GPS is not a thing here. If your taxi driver is lost or you’re having trouble communicating, he can call somebody to find where he should go. If necessary, he’ll hand you the phone so you can tell the person where you’re trying to go and then they will explain to the driver how to get there. Such was the case when I was trying to get to the US Embassy. The driver didn’t realize that the Embassy was where I wanted to go; he thought I was just using it as a landmark and kept driving after we passed it. An alternative to calling somebody is to use Google Maps (shameless plug, I know). The Google Maps app can locate you even when you do not have Internet, due to some unbeknownst cool technology ability. When my taxi driver was lost, I used it to direct him to my neighborhood.

Thankfully, I have not had many creepy taxi drivers. I’ve only been asked for my phone number once, which I consider a win in these first three weeks. And no one has tried to follow me after I got out (I never ask to get out directly at my house). Hopefully the next three months will follow my good streak of drivers.

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