Becoming a Jordanian

I arrived at the office in Amman at 8:45 to meet with my driver. After some formalities in the office, my driver and I were on our way. It was my turn to have my blood work done for my Jordanian residency; the blood test is one of the requirements when applying for residency in Jordan. We picked up another coworker, Hosen, an Indian that had just begun working on the project a few days earlier. We flew through the streets with ease. One of the benefits of having a driver is that they not only know their way around but they also know the limits that they can push the law, which is always far greater than what an outsider would do. We arrived at the residency building and snuck around to an ally beside the building. Our driver knocked on a window and a woman opened it and began to talk with our driver. We were asked for our passports and gave them quickly. Everything was done quickly for some reason or another. I questioned my driver as to the legitimacy of this method; he didn’t respond. After paying some type of bribe we snuck into the back of the building. Again we went racing up the steps ducking our head into each room. Each room had a line of people waiting to get there blood test, these were the legitimate people waiting in line like the rest of the normal world, we however continued on our mad dash to find an open room. Several floors later we found an empty room with a “doctor” and a nurse. The room was nothing like what you would find in a hospital or any other clean room in the U.S. No questions were asked, no words were spoken. The “doctor” pointed to the chair and I quickly removed my coat and sat down. He grabbed a clean needle and wrapped a band around my arm. A second later the needle was in my arm and the blood was drawn. Still in shock from the harshness of the situation and lack of alcohol prep, I waited to be cleaned. The “doctor” looked up at the Indian and pointed at the chair. As I was standing up watching the blood begin to drip down my arm the “doctor” threw a cotton swab and a band-aid at me. I quickly jabbed the cotton swab at my bleeding arm trying to wipe up the blood and stop the bleeding at the same time. After a minute or so when I was sure that my blood had coagulated nicely I removed the cotton from my arm. Nope! It still looked like swiss cheese and the blood was still flowing nicely. I thought to myself that the needle he used would have made a heroin addict jealous it was so big. I put my band-aid on over the cotton and looked up to see the Indian standing in the corner of the room, clearly looking as violated as I had been. The “doctor” asked for my name. I replied “Evan” and saw the “doctor” scribble something in Arabic on the jar of my blood and place it into a rack with about a hundred other samples. After some other fees were paid to the nurse we grabbed our jackets and raced down the steps back to the car. I later asked the driver if there was any other identification on my sample besides my name, which was surely spelled wrong. He reassured me that there was some type of number that was cross-checked with my passport. As we sped off down the road, I looked outside and thought to myself, this is surly one for the books.

As I was standing up watching the blood begin to drip down my arm