Outside my door

[onlymark]

It's a little unfair that many of you can easily step outside your front door and see things of interest. Kerouac is the immediate offender in that he lives in such an interesting and historical place. Tod, with her SA town, even Cheery wandering immediately outside and seeing what she does.
How is it for where I now live?
Boring and same-y.

It's my fault in a way in that to live in the really interesting and older part of the city is not something we've chosen to do. So we end up being relegated to the newer part, though a part of it where there are very few expats immediately around us.
It's all been built in the last twenty years or so - and it looks like it has.

This is the street where I live -






I walk one way and come to a couple of streets with no redeeming features -








I walk the other way and come to the place where no doubt someone will soon build upon -




On here are my local rubbish bins. We don't have a collection, we have to take the individual bags, put them in the larger bins that are periodically emptied.
Exciting, huh! -




I turn right and walk up here -




I go up to where there are some shops to my left -




Or straight on there are more -




Looking across more waste ground to a few of the shops there. Behind the brown coloured van is a Turkish Hammam -






Oh no. More expats coming no doubt -




So there you see what is within a couple of hundred metres of my door. I think I must live in probably the most bland part of a historical city and country.

[tod2]

Mark, I would call that a 'concrete jungle'. Maybe so, but it looks neat and clean down your street. An effort to trim and shape the bushes outside someones property is visible. On the otherhand the unkept parts remind me of my city where the shoppers and shopkeepers living in the area are not concerned with dirt, grime, or litter.
Everyone thinks it's the job of the municipality to clean up, and if they did the work, it would be taking jobs away. The truth is we don't have enough money in the city coffers to employ the amount of people it would take to do a decent clean-up job or any regular sweeping and refuse removal for that matter!

What is the case with you? Do you, like so many of us who want to live in a clean kept atmosphere, take it upon yourself to do a little housework on the road frontage immediately adjacent to your home?

[onlymark]

The short answer is, no.
The longer answer is that we employ a man and his lad who come twice a week. His duties are not only to clean the outside and tend to any plants but do any repair work, sort out gas and heating oil - all the handyman type of stuff. We have a cleaner for inside the apartment who comes also twice a week and another local who has a business washing the cars on the street. He does our once a week.
Apart from the cleaner, who is a Filipino woman, the other two are cheap in comparison.

Each the buildings have a handyman cum outside cleaner (in Egypt they are called a Bowab, here it's a similar word, bowab as far as I know means something like 'gate/door', so they are the gatekeeper/doorman in a way).
They not only keep the outsides tidy and do handywork but also monitor deliveries, strangers, security and will even pay your bills for you and do odd errands. It's good to have a good one, very difficult if you have a bad one.

So - the outsides around the residences are dealt with. Where the shops are and waste ground there are also street cleaners. But as you can see, they are not so effective.
We have a lot more waste bins that in Egypt but there is still the general attitude of just littering anywhere. This is the problem mainly in non-residential areas. The general mentality is just to throw something down on the ground when finished with it.

It is a concrete jungle, but nothing like the same in the UK, plus I do only have to drive for literally five minutes and I'm in open areas where we still get the Bedouin camping.
It is also a lot greener than in Egypt, but still nothing in comparison to many countries not in the Middle East.

[tod2]

Thanks Mark - I see we have very close similarities with distances to open spaces. When I said "take it upon yourself", I actually meant with help of domestic labour which is paid by you. I should have explained clearer. (So we are on sort of similar terms at our own expense).

The starkness of the Middle East is what makes it so wonderfully different to all other places. When we were in Israel I loved seeing the tall green palm trees against the beige landscape and buildings! The cloudless sky seems to have a purer air quality.
What I see missing in your street is any patch of green lawn - sometimes a curse when it has to be cut twice a week

[Deleted]

I think the area looks quite nice compared to many other places in the region. Of course the fact that most of the buildings are quite recent helps a lot -- it might not look at all the same in 20 years.

I find the colour of the buildings quite harmonious, but I fully understand how people from our part of the world might start longing to see more greenery sooner or later. Even the people of the Middle East have a great love of gardens and greenery, and I am a bit surprised that they would not think to build at least some of these buildings with an inner garden courtyard which would be relatively easy to maintain -- like all of the Moroccan riads with a fountain in the middle.

But from what I know of other nearby cultures such as the Saudis, most people could not bear to share such a thing with their neighbours -- either you can afford your own private garden courtyard or you do without.

[onlymark]

Also there is the mentality in this part of the world that it isn't the garden that shows status but the size of the house. Thus on land in, for example the UK, you can have a crappy little house but if you have a big well cared for garden you are well thought of. The opposite is true here where the biggest house you can get to fill up the land is the thing.
I think you actually have experienced this.
As far as I can tell, if there has been in the past a Moorish influence in the architecture, then you'll get inner courtyards. Otherwise generally not. No?

[Deleted]

This is very interesting. I know the Maghreb, but I have not been to the countries west of Tunisia. It looks much drier which is not surprising but I would think they would want more vegetation even if it must be watered. Nobody wants to look at dust every day.

[mich64]

I recently watched a TV program on a family moving to Amman and your comment about the inner courtyards and Moorish design immediately became visual to me. I loved them.

Your area is quite nice in one direction and in the other was a little surprising to me. It was the litter, refuse and what looks like discarded building materials? I was thinking like Tod, why does the people in the neighborhood not do a pick up and put this stuff into the bins?

Each spring here the elementary schools take the classes out with a supply of garbage bags and clean up the neighborhood streets around the schools of any rubbish that collects from winter. The local jail also takes the prisoners out to the main city roads and they collect all the rubbish in the spring.

I do like the bushes and neatness of the area around your place. I think you have a nice place outside your door. Do you have many plants inside your home?

Cheers!
Michele

[onlymark]

We have some plants in pots mich, but they're not something that is looked after by myself or have much enthusiasm for. Those we do have were from the previous occupier. We just maintain them.
I have a deal with my wife - if she wants them then she has to look after them now. Too many times in the past she has accumulated them and then it was down to me to keep them healthy. She likes looking at them but forgets to do anything with them.

It does seem strange that people don't pick up the discarded litter but it is as mentioned before - they aren't bothered by it. In fact they don't actually 'see' it at all. It's difficult to explain, the mentality or the thought (or lack of it) processes behind their inaction. It's a 'cultural' thing or something, I don't really know.
That's why foreign, usually Filipino, cleaners are sought after. They actually 'see' the dirt in the house and clean it. We had a number of Egyptian women in Cairo who I constantly had to go over their work and point out what they'd missed. To them the standard of what we would accept as being clean was far above their normal attitude.
For example vacuum cleaners are ignored, even with all the dust. They prefer to sweep and then unwittingly just spread it around. It is the same outside. It is so much part of the life that it isn't seen any more. As I say, difficult to explain to us when we see it all the time.

The school and prisoner thing is a good idea but it would need doing every week. One other thing with the large rubbish bins seen in the photos is that they are a meeting place and cafe for all the numerous cats around - and there are many. You'd easily see in a morning ten or so at each bin having their breakfast. Unfortunately, after they've dragged a rubbish bag out and onto the floor, split it open and indulged their little feline hunger, they seem very reluctant to put it back again.
I have spoken to those I've seen do this but in a typical cat manner they just ignore me.
I've also sent a number of emails to the Cat And Tomcat Society in complaint but as yet had no reply.
I wont hold my breath.

[onlymark]

Just a couple of queries -
fulgenzio - you say, "I know the Maghreb, but I have not been to the countries west of Tunisia." I'm not clear as to if you think I am west of Tunisia or it was just a general comment.

mich - you said, "...a family moving to Amman and your comment about the inner courtyards and Moorish design......" I mean that there aren't any here of any normal design. There'd be the odd few but it's not normal as with Morocco for example. Was there some on the TV programme?

[Deleted]

Oh I am sorry - I meant east instead of west !

[onlymark]

No problem.

[Deleted]

What would have been the main difference if you had moved to "city centre"? Smaller dwelling for the price you are paying? Less security? Trashier surroundings?

[mich64]

Yes Mark, on the TV programme they said they were being shown something unusual for the area and then walked them outside a room to inside a beautiful square courtyard that you could cross and get into other parts of the house or they said you could walk around inside to the other sides of the courtyard. It was quite beautiful, it had a fountain and many plants and beautiful mosaics.
Cheers,
Mich

[onlymark]

Ok mich.

K2, in the centre I would either get a much larger apartment for the money or the same size but cheaper. We have a three bed apartment which usually is the biggest in terms of number of bedrooms anyway, so a four bed is unusual and there wouldn't be many in the centre anyway, so more than likely it'd be cheaper, older, less well fitted out and maintained, far noisier more litter in the area etc.
Plus the commute to her work would be more difficult (she's within walking distance now), the kids to school as well, security would also be less but purely because we are where a few Embassies are anyway, though there'd still be a 'bowab' in each building.

[cheerypeabrain]

Just catching up...that's not what I expected, but it's exotic and not here! I had never been abroad until a couple of years ago so anything I knew about other countries was based on what I saw on tv or read about. I expected all these glamorous places to be exactly as they were in the pictures I had seen..

I was actually quite ashamed of my own country's reputation as 'The Dirty Man of Europe' with our factories and polluted rivers, litter etc...but found that other countries have parts that are just as scruffy as here, it just doesn't look so bad because quite often the sun is shining and that cheers everything up!

Having spent the grand total of 3 weeks abroad in my entire life I now feel that basically, everywhere is the same with some regional variation of culture, architecture and history. I am probably talking rubbish...not having had the time to immerse myself in another country. I know that the countries that I have visited, I have liked and would visit again.

I admire tremendously people who can take themselves out of the comfort zone of their native land and live a full life in another country, working there and making friends. Brilliant...so when you say that where you live is boring is not the case at all..I think it's amazing and incredibly interesting.


sorry....don't mean to gush or owt. AND if you think where YOU live is boring you should see my street....sigh....I might take some honest to goodness pics of my neighborhood......eek.

[onlymark]

Cheery, once I begin to live in my comfort zone then I start getting itchy feet. Once I feel I 'know' the place, what to do, where to go, then I hanker for a move.
I am comfortable not living in my comfort zone, if you see what I mean.

[cheerypeabrain]

Ah....a free spirit.... ;D

I'm a home body me...but I would still like to travel.