Our elders explained that it was a common theory in the Arab world that at night, plants start taking in and using oxygen and compete with humans for it. Because of this theory, many people here make sure that they remove all the plants from their bedroom at night and put them outside in the hall. I confirmed this with a friend of mine here who has a bachelor’s degree in nursing. “Of course you put the plants outside of the room, especially in a hospital,” he said. “Otherwise, they might suck up all of the oxygen in the room.”

I was completely dumbfounded by this. Now, I can’t speak for all of the countries in the west, or other states besides Wisconsin, or even other school systems besides the ones I went to. However, I’m pretty sure that it’s a standard part of middle school biology classes that we learn that plants = good for oxygen, regardless of the time of day. On that same topic, I learned that there are old superstitions here that walking through a forest at night can be harmful to your health, for the same reasons.

I had to find out where this completely contradictory idea came from.

In my completely scientific research process of “searching The Google” I came across some pretty interesting articles, the most credible of these being from “Yahoo! Health Expert” Doctor Maoshing Ni. I checked his credentials – he’s a specialist in Chinese medicine and anti-aging research.

To get through the night, most plants reverse the process of photosynthesis and breathe, like you and I, by burning carbohydrates and oxygen while producing carbon dioxide and water. So surround yourself with plants during the day but remove them from your bedroom at night when you sleep.

On this Yahoo! Answers question thread, I found the back-and-forth between people to be particularly interesting. The reactions of most of the question answers that you can see if you scroll down the page (that the asker did not select to be “best answer”) were the same as mine – incredulous that someone would even ask the question (also note the citation on the “best answer” selection is Dr. Maoshing’s article).

Finally, the page that I found to be the most helpful was this one from the Aroid Forum. After establishing that yes, plants do shut down photosynthetic reactions at night, I learned that yes, that does mean that they need to carry out simple respiration at night, same as humans. Maybe it was just my school, but strike one against me: I was wrong. I don’t recall ever learning that plants carry out human-like respiration in the absence of light.

But is the Eastern World right? Let’s look at the math from Aroid Forum. (Bold emphasis added by me)

I asked a friend who did his doctoral work on plant respiration and got the approximation that the emission of CO2 in the dark is unlikely to exceed 4 micro moles per square meter of leaf surface per second. This is the same as the O2 taken up. Say our plants have a leaf area of one meter. Let’s say for the sake of argument that both upper and lower leaf surfaces emit at that rate, so our plants use up 8 micro moles PER SECOND (please excuse the upper case, but when we think of a whole night the seconds really add up).

In an 8-hour night, we have the 8 micro moles/s x 3600 s/h x 8 h = 230400 micro moles of oxygen the plants take up. That is only millionths of moles, so it amounts to 0.23 mole. That got the number back down in a hurry.

How much oxygen was in the room to start with?
A room 4 m x 4 m x 2.4 m has 38.4 cubic meters of air. That is 38400 liters.
At room temperature, a mole of gas is about 25 liters, so the room has 1536 moles of air.
If we say the air in the room is 20 % oxygen, we have 307 moles of oxygen to start with.

How much of the total oxygen in the room did the plant use? It is 0.23/307 = 0.075 %.

What about our oxygen-starved sleeper?
A person breathes out about 900 g CO2 per day or about 300 g in an 8-hour night.
CO2 has a mole weight of 44.
300/44 = 6.8 moles CO2 emitted = moles O2 taken up by a person in the night.

The 6.8 moles of oxygen used by the sleeping person amounts to only about 6.8/307 = 2.2 % of that available.

How do the plant and the sleeper compare? The plant uses 0.23/6.8 = 3.4 % as much.

With all the guessing (“approximation” in science-speak), none of the numbers has any meaning unless it’s rounded off to only one digit. You can insist that a sleeping person uses less oxygen than an active one, the room is smaller and the plant larger, but that doesn’t change anything. A good-sized plant surface won’t reduce the oxygen content of the room by much more than a tenth of a percent, and that is only about three percent of what the inhabitant uses up.

So, that takes care of that. To summarize, no one has been getting the complete picture so everyone’s a little bit wrong. My American school never taught me that plants consume any oxygen at all, and Eastern schools don’t mention exactly how ridiculously small the amount of consumed oxygen is.

And bottom line: how many of us sleep in completely air-tight sealed rooms, anyway? Eastern science really needs to take that into their considerations, otherwise they’re ignoring the question of how humans don’t just kill themselves off with the amount of CO2 we use up in one night. Or, for that matter, why a husband and wife who sleep in the same bed don’t suffer from oxygen deprivation. Unless you sleep with your head in a plastic bag (in which case you probably have bigger problems, my friend) that plant next to your bed, or even an entire roomful of them, isn’t going harm you a single bit.

Science!

We're holding onto his legs as he does this, I promise

Andrew and I shared one of the three hotel rooms that our team utilized, and after the awards ceremony I asked him if he would mind me taking copies of the video. He told me to go ahead, but warned me of the difficulty of doing so. He told me that I needed to have a special program to play the videos back, and that they took a long time to transfer off the camcorder.

I got out my Windows 7 laptop, took his USB cable, and had the files downloaded and playing on my computer in Windows Media Player 12 (WMP) in less than a minute. He stared at the laptop in amazement. “How did you do that?” I explained that Windows 7 really focused on interoperability and being able to work with as many devices as possible. They probably got tired of Apple people warbling about how it “just works” and devoted some of their billions into tangible R&D…these days, sure enough, everything “just works” with Windows 7, too. Score one for the Redmond team!

.MTS files are the default file format that most high-def camcorders use, and I don’t know how many other free programs can play them besides WMP. Of course, the king of Open Source Media Players, VLC, plays them without issue, although they need to be de-interlaced and the playback is slower on older computers.

I’ve put one of the MTS files up on HeiseHeise.com, and you can download it here to check it out. Keep in mind that it’s about 26 megabytes in size, and half a minute in length, at 1440 by 1080 pixels of resolution. Personally, I was quite impressed at the level of quality Panasonic was able to fit into such a comparably small size! Try playing it back with Windows Media Player, but if it gives you an error message, download and install VLC and you can be assured that this file, and anything else you throw at it, will work with it!

After I assisted Andrew with getting the .MTS files off his camcorder, he took them and made a nice little 4 minute video of highlights from the ride, set to music. Just imagine you’re out there with us on the highways!

It was too late to do anything about it now, and we cheerfully piled into our trusty silver Intracom pickup truck. Perhaps it was the copious amounts of sugar in our bloodstream, the onions and garlic from the spaghetti dinner, or merely lack of sleep, but we were in giddy high spirits as we roared down the highway, shouting and waving out the windows at other bike-laden trucks. The twinkling lights of the Palestinian/Israeli towns on the other side of the Jordan River greeted us as we approached the foggy Dead Sea, and after some confusion as to where we were actually supposed to start, we met up with the rest of the starting trucks and exited into the warm night air.

Last year, I was a stranger to the Dead2Red biking groups, but this year, I felt like I knew at least half of the people involved! I found Aaron and Laura with their own biking group and rented mountain bikes, looking doubly determined and in equally high spirits. Rob from choir was ready to head out a half-hour early with the single riders, and I told him about my friends Luay and Kamal from last year who had preceded him in the lonely solo 250 kilometers, the latter on a mountain bike. I high-fived the gregarious Samir, the organizer of the entire event who had accompanied Cycling Jordan’s trip to Beyda last year and he shouted “Free sandwiches for everybody!” while yanking open the back of his pickup truck to reveal a crate-load of turkey sandwiches. All the guys from Cycling Jordan were there, like Sari, Hussein, Sinnan, and Sa’ad and his son. The atmosphere was festive as we unloaded Omar’s sleek 5-kilo racing bike from our truck and we all agreed that the weather was certainly so much warmer and nicer than last year. And what a pleasant breeze!
*cue ominous foreshadowing music*

"This is the bike that's going to win us a trophy!" I roared giddily. "Why does he smell like sugary drinks?" they asked.

We had already decided on our racing order. Rami would go first, clearing the way to take the lead early. “Don’t be afraid to use your elbows,” we told him. We were joking, mostly. Then, after five kilometers, I’d take over on the hybrid bike, followed by Omar, then Micha, and finally Andrew. After the solo riders left at 3:30 AM, everyone quieted down a little bit, focusing on stretching, testing their bikes, and discussing strategies with friends. As for me, I was trying to help some friends of mine from choir that were on their way down from Amman when their support vehicle got not one but two flat tires, leaving them stranded still 20 kilometers from the start line. They barely made it in time for the start at 4 AM, but they had arrived by the time the pistol cracked, sending the ~20 bikers from the 3 and 5 person flying into the darkness.

Just like last year, our support truck was close behind them, and our four pairs of eyes strained to find Rami in the mass of juking and jiving reflective jerseys. This year, Samir and his team mandated that all runners and cyclists must wear the provided reflective jerseys during the nighttime hours, on pain of disqualification, and it definitely made it harder to pick Rami out of the crowd. After a few minutes, we found him and shouted encouragement as he climbed up the first couple small hills near the large potash factories of the Dead Sea.

It seemed like only a few minutes had passed before Rami called out for me to replace him, and before I even knew what was happening, the car was careening to a halt, and I was leaping out the door. Last year, team DRed Shaheen did 10 kilometer sprints, and this year’s 5 KM’s made things seem a lot more frantic. Rami was already right on me as I grabbed the hybrid out of the truck bed, checked the seat height…and the tires…and then I was off!

Those reflective vests definitely did their job...but made it much harder for cameras with flash!

By the time I had started my first stretch last year, we were already 40 kilometers into the race and fifty minutes had already passed, leaving me to enjoy a leisurely and lonely ride for my first ride of the night. Not so in 2010! This time, we were five kilometers in, I was surrounded by cars and other cyclists, and I was on a much lighter hybrid than Rami’s heavy-duty mountain bike of yesteryear. Gritting my teeth, I pounded up the hill in front of me as cyclists whipped past me like buzzing hornets, their own reflectors glowing back at me from the light of my front lamp.

As I crested the first hill, the wind hit me full in the face for the first time and I was immediately rendered blind in my left eye as my contact lens slipped out of place, turning the already-dim world around me into a bizarre kaleidoscope of shifting headlights and reflectors. Blinking furiously and beginning to feel my eyes water, I hunched down as low as I could into the bike seat, turning my face almost parallel to the ground and only chancing glances up every few seconds to ensure I wasn’t about to slam into anyone or anything. The angry wind whistled around me, tearing at my jersey, and I could hear the trucks behind me, and the distant whine of bike chains biting into gears.

Down in the valley once more between hills, my left eye mostly returned to normal and now I could see my chance, both literally and figuratively. There were two cyclists in front of me, drafting off each other. They both had road bikes, and I only a hybrid, but I was high on adrenaline and Red Bull and flitted around them, passing them both easily on the next uphill and maintaining a steadily growing lead past them. Two more bikers on mountain bikes were in front of me, and I was on them in seconds, leaving me with empty clear road ahead and the sounds of the other cars and bikes safely growing more distant behind me.

My five kilometers was over in about six or seven minutes, and I saw the glow of the Intracom truck ahead of me, and Omar unloading his racing bike from the back. As I slid to a halt, Omar darted forward, faster than any of us before, leaving only a dusty breeze which almost dislocated my contact again. Back in the car, Micha, Andrew and Rami congratulated me on my first stretch, but we didn’t have time to talk; at the rate of speed Omar was flying down the road ahead of us, we would need to get in front of him again within minutes to be ready to switch to Micha and the hybrid.

After Micha finished her first stretch and Andrew had started off, she leaned against the truck, breathing heavily. “There are dogs out there!” she gasped, catching her breath. “And they were coming after me!” She explained to Omar, Rami and myself that after the truck pulled ahead to get ready for her finish, dogs had appeared at the side of the road, dashing from the ditches and snapping at her and howling. I had seen one at the bottom of the hill watching her when I got out of the car to help her with the bike, but I hadn’t realized it had been that bad. We apologized to her and resolved to keep a closer eye on each other to make sure that we weren’t inadvertently abandoning anyone to the hounds.

With only 20 kilometers separating each racer from their next round, it didn’t take long before Rami was was out the door, leaving me to hurriedly buckle on my helmet and get my headphones ready. I was only a few minutes into my ride when I realized how much…lighter…I felt, and then looked down with a sinking feeling at my reflector-less body. I had apparently forgotten to put on my reflector jacket after giving it to Andrew to use, and now I was a defenseless and technically rule-breaking biker. I was sincerely glad to be a long way away from any other cyclists who might try to later get me disqualified, but as I pedaled grimly onward in front of the support truck, I heard the awful sound of another car behind me pulling up alongside my team and driving next to them. I chanced a look back under my arm and sure enough, I glimpsed the flashing yellow lights of one of the race official’s cars. I was sure I was going to be pulled off the road at any minute and thoroughly dressed-down for my transgression.

But nothing happened. I looked back again, could see Omar talking to the official, and then the car sped up and disappeared down the road. The extra nervous adrenaline in my system spurred me to go even faster, and after I finished a few minutes later, I collapsed into the passenger truck and wheezed out, “what did the officials want?!?” Someone shrugged (I don’t recall who was driving; memory is a bit hazy) and said, “They were just telling us to keep the hazard blinkers on for safety.” They all teased me for forgetting the safety jacket, but theorized that because I was biking directly in the high-beams of the truck, the bright white of my Intracom jersey was reflective enough that it easily passed a glance inspection. If it had been Rami, wearing his black and silver biking suit with only reflective patches on it, we wouldn’t have been so lucky.

As we approached That %#$@ Hill, we recalled the Samir’s warnings that there was a little bit of “road work” going on, which in this case meant that all of the asphalt had been torn out. Remembering how Tareef’s Terminator-esque biking team had tore past Galen last year, we were now in a position to make up for lost time on any team in front of us. Rami chuckled, “I knew there was a good reason I brought my mountain bike,” and we had to agree – none of us wanted to take the narrow-wheeled hybrid or road bike over that sea of gravel. The stretch of broken road was only about 200 meters long, which Rami easily demolished on his bike; after all, it’s what it was designed to do! Omar was there moments later on his road bike to take over for the rest of the climb – and this time, there were no Tareef cyclists to draft off him and take over. We passed That %#$@ Hill in record time, by now in the full morning sunlight.

The next half hour/hour is kind of hazy for me, because it was around here that my lack of sleep merged with my constant consumption of red bull and I slumped woozily against the car door and passed out. There’s a funny video clip of Rami filming us in the car, first Andrew driving, then Micha in the back, and then me half-unconscious in the backseat. “We’re saving him for the end,” Andrew explains in the video, to which I sleepily grunt, “Yeah, something like that.” I made it up for it, though! – Once I woke up, and got ahold of my Snickers bars again, I felt like I had my second wind.

We passed through many small villages like this...I'm sure that we must have been quite interesting-looking to the locals!

It was about this time that the hybrid bike decided that it was finished racing for the day, and promptly decided to get flats and slow leaks every time someone sat down on it. Micha and I were the only ones using it, but I had already started testing out the road bike to switch onto it as soon as possible. It wasn’t Galen’s Italian dream of a bike, of course, but Omar’s Giant-brand bicycle was more than serviceable, even taking into account that the seat was set for people six centimeters shorter than I was, making me feel like an awkwardly large Giant in my own right. Or a bear on a unicycle.

Andrew makes himself comfortable in what will become the usual repair spot for this troublesome bike

The hybrid required patching, or refilling, or some sort of maintenance every time we used it. After one such stop, we pulled up at a police checkpoint about 100 kilometers into the ride, where the two police officers gawked at us, fish-like, for several minutes from their office before coming out to poke at the bicycles as we were working and trying to get the front wheel back on. They asked asinine questions for a good five minutes about what we were all doing and why, and then took one of our 2-liter bottles of water from us back into their office. I was simply dumbfounded by their stupidity and completely lack of sense. What kind of police officer would take water away from a biking team? They’re sitting in an office all day with a fan on them! It was simply ridiculous, and although my teammates muttered to me, “let it go, Zach; forget about the water,” I’m sure that my anger showed on my sunburnt face.

Unlike last year, we had companionship from other teams for almost the entire trip. In 2009, we saw nary a single soul after the first few hours until our arrival, but this time, we passed several other solo bikers and three-person teams in the late morning. As we approached one of the Bike Rush company’s trucks, I briefly glimpsed my choir friend Rob’s gleaming road bike, his primary companion for the next six hours. I was in the rear passenger’s seat at the time, and waved to him as we passed. “I love all you guys!” I heard him yell out, and the last I saw of him until the awards ceremony that night was someone leaning out of the window of his support truck to feed him a peeled banana. Now that’s teammate service!

About two-thirds of the way through the race, we came across another Cycling Jordan team, comprised of Sinnan, Osama, and Salaam. As a team of three, we weren’t in competition with each other and as C-J friends and fellow bikers, we cheered each other on and in my case, even gave me some of their sandwiches and a ride when my own team “accidentally” left me behind…of course, that may have been because I was taking a bit too long photographing instead of getting into the truck.

Seconds after I took this picture of Micha, the Intracom truck suddenly peeled away after her. Give me a break, guys!

Only a few dozen kilometers outside of Aqaba, just when we thought we’d finally catch a break and a climactic downhill after our hours of straining up the side of Wadi Araba, we discovered that in fact the hill we were biking up was actually shielding us from massive windstorms that were now suddenly hitting us full in the face. We were already tired, sweaty, and running out of Snickers and Red Bull, and now this! Our hybrid bike was almost completely out of commission, flattening either its front or its rear tire seemingly at whim, and I had resigned myself to “bear-on-a-unicycle” status with the road bike. Taking the time to adjust the seat on the road bike (requiring an allen key as there was no quick-release) lost us precious time and the C-J team of three had soon pulled ahead of us and was gone over the horizon. At least we had a “pleasant” breeze now.

We were at a quandary now…should we draft off of the truck, or shouldn’t we? Bicyclists had been drafting off each other for the entire journey; we had been doing it with Sinnan’s team just an hour earlier. We knew that it was a gray area to draft off of a vehicle; it was one of the things that Tareef had caught so much flack for last year with their victories. But the wind was quite literally pushing us backwards at times, especially in small uphills, and we decided that we had to take the risk of drafting in some areas – or at least until we got into Aqaba.

The last downhill on the city's outskirts. The wind was at last blocked by the buildings ahead, so Rami could go at full speed!

This year, it was Rami who had the nerve-wracking, death-defying experience of biking at high speeds through cars, buses, and absent-minded pedestrians. He had the advantage, of course, of not needing to wait for traffic lights, and we lost him in the city while we were stopped at the first one. Shiookh (Arabic plural form of sheikh) stared at us wide-eyed, and children shrieked and pointed at Andrew and I, hanging out of the windows of the truck in our matching uniforms and taking pictures. We saw the last of the running teams on Aqaba’s sidewalks having an even rougher time of it, dodging around robed men and slow-moving tourists, sprinting as fast as they were able to after almost 22 straight hours of running. To make matters worse for all of us, through bad luck we happened to be going through the city exactly as the noon Call to Prayer had finished, causing the streets to be especially busy and people to be paying more attention to chatting with their fellow congregants instead of what was going on in front of them as they stepped out into the street.

We caught up with Rami on the far side of the city, just in front of the second-to-last huge hill separating us from the Tala Bay hotel and finish line. “That looked pretty dangerous,” I told him as I took the bike from him and started up the hill, but of course I wished it had been me on the streets like last year! The smell of the salty air tickled my nose and the truck followed me slowly up the hill, filled with my hooting and hollering teammates and the faint sounds of Arabic dabkeh music coming from the radio. This last road on the way to the resort was wide, clean, and flanked by palm trees, and I was (almost) sorry to give up the bicycle to Omar, our champion, in the face of the last big hill. Okay, to be honest, I was right next to a giant docked freight ship that was unloading a few thousand sheep at that moment, so I was happy to be back inside the car with the air conditioning and the windows sealed!

Omar gamely chugged on, up the last hills and past the public beaches that I had visited with Haitham a year and a half ago on my first visit to Aqaba. Andrew had the truck pull ahead of him for the last few hundred meters so that we could capture our champion’s breathtaking finish under the gently-waving palm fronds and violently-shaking Red Bull inflatable arch. Samir was there at the arch to greet us, and his fellow officials were immediately on hand with our participation medals.

Third place in 9 hours, 11 minutes!

"Red Bull gives you sponsorshiiiiiiiiiiiip"

Now, I should point out that Dead 2 Red started out as a fun run, just a bunch of runners like Samir and his friends who wanted to do something big like run from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea. Originally, there wasn’t even a bicycle component to the relay – that was only added three years ago. But now, it’s evolved into something much more competitive and serious. There are major sponsors, like Red Bull, Aramex, Total, and the Radisson Hotel chain who provide so many things like these medals, the subsidized dinner, and the hotel rooms at cut-rate prices. And with so many things to vie for, there’s slowly but surely becoming a problem with cheating as the relay suffers its growing pains into becoming an international event. They never really bothered to monitor it before, but several of the biking teams were accused of it this year. Several dropped out, including some Tareef teams and some Cycling Jordan teams, or were disqualified.

We learned that we had gotten our third-place finish specifically because two other teams had been embroiled in some sort of cheating mini-scandal, but had they finished, we would have been in fifth place instead. That diminished some of my personal glee over our victory, but it strengthened my resolve to help Samir out with ways that the bicycle competition might be improved upon. I spoke with him a little bit on the subject after the night’s Awards Dinner, and he requested that bicyclists with suggestions were encouraged to submit them, because the officials were still working out better ways to manage this relatively-new aspect of the race.

Last year, all each placing team received was a small trophy. This year, everyone got placement medals and a much larger trophy!

It was great to spend the rest of the day and the next relaxing at the Radisson, compliments of Intracom’s wonderful sponsorship. I had experienced the beach last year after the race, but never the comfort of the hotel itself. I got the chance to do a little bit of snorkeling with Rami and Omar, and although I had to leave early to have a business meeting in Aqaba, I heard that they did some exploration of a sunken military tank in the bay later in the afternoon. To my parents: don’t worry, I remembered to wear sunblock this year and I only got a little burned on my upper arms and nose.

Even though our time was an hour slower compared with last year’s 8 hours and change, I’m still pleased with it. Without the powerhouse team of Galen and his amazing bike, we definitely lost ground, especially on the uphills. And then that wind almost knocked us flat. I heard from my choir friends in another team that the winds became even worse later on, eventually turning into a sandstorm that lowered their speed to 10 KPH. So, all things considered, I think we did just fine.

Who knows? Perhaps next year, we’ll have the opportunity to give it yet another try – this time, hopefully, with both bicycles functioning at 100%!

I was at work late today setting up a new computer, which directly led me to be late getting home to start on the spaghetti. I brought down all the pots, pans, and spices, as well as a few cans of tomato paste I’d purchased last autumn. Daniel was helpful in saving me by chopping onions, as I was trying to keep track of too many things at once and sliced open my index finger pretty badly. We saved the onions, don’t worry.

The interesting thing happened right after Omar and Rami arrived…I took the can opener to the small, six-ounce can of tomato paste and without any warning whatsoever the thing exploded with a sound like a dozen pop cans opening at once. Rami, a few meters away from me stirring the meat, looked at me in shock as his black jacket is covered with tomato paste, and I wiped chunks of it off of my chin. This has got to be a new record for an exploding-can-of-tomato-paste because it not only reached about 10 meters horizontal distance, but did quite well going straight up, too.

I can only be glad that Philip wasn't here to see this (if you're reading, don't worry, I stood on the table with a sponge afterward!)

That mishap aside, most of the paste stayed in the can, and the rest of the dinner proceeded deliciously and without issue. Although Andrew wasn’t able to attend, Micha came a little later and we all got to try on our Intracom-sponsored jerseys to make sure that they fit…not that we’d have time to do anything about it if they didn’t, and they were one-size-fits-all anyway!

The Intracom team chows down on some carbohydrates

In other news, Dozan had another choir concert last night, all the way on the other side of Amman in al-Hashmi Shmali. Apparently there’s a weekly concert with classical muwashahaat (folk music) instruments and singing. This time, Dozan was invited as one of the acts. We sang four songs in Arabic, with titles like “White Pigeon” (possibly dove, actually, I don’t know if I translated that right), and “Raise Your Hands” while accompanied by instruments like the six-stringed, guitar-like Oud and what looked like a harpsichord. We also had backup singers too, although they were more like the regular singers, and we were encroaching on their turf! They were docile, friendly looking middle aged and older Arab men, many placidly clutching prayer beads which they twisted absentmindedly as they sang their low, ululating tones. They had a soloist, too, who sang Arabic love songs in a beautiful baritone and really milked the audience.

For their part, the audience loved it and went wild for all of us. As wild as 70 elderly people can go, clapping gently along with us and nodding and smiling happily, sometimes snapping their fingers and waving their arms shakily in the air. It was all quite adorable, and I wish that Dozan could have sang for them longer.

The only problem was with the sound system, which appeared to have been set up by monkeys that only knew how to go up to “eleven” – they put our group in the corner of the room to wait, right next to these massive speakers that crackled ominously with way-too-much reverb and barely-contained power. After the concert started, it seriously felt like my ears were going to start bleeding at any moment, and most of us crowded away towards the other side of the room to try to escape, probably a futile effort.

Only 2 and a half hours until Andrew arrives. Time to put the camera on the charger and get to bed. Personally, I’ll be happy if we can beat 8 hours and 12 minutes, our team’s time from last year. Wish us luck!

The above video sums up his research, in which he also adds his advice for an easy resolution.

In fact, you can manage it. It’s not something that’s impossible to manage. A simple ionic change, a softener, would remove the radium from the water. Reverse osmosis distillation would do the same.”

I found Doctor Vengosh’s address at Duke University and emailed him to ask him about showering in radium-filled water in Aqaba. He replied to me within a few hours, reassuring me that although he certainly advised against consuming any of the water in the area, showering should not be a problem because the radium is not entering your body and being absorbed into your bones, which is how it affects people who drink it.

It’s not for certain now, but there’s a strong possibility that I’ll be doing some work or projects down in the Aqaba region, Jordan’s southernmost city, which will necessitate me visiting the area much more frequently. If the fix that Vengosh proposes is so simple, I can only pray that it’s been brought to the attention of the Jordanian authorities by now and that subsidized softeners (at least) have been provided for the citizens. More than anything else, I’d worry about the safety of the Bedouin, native Arabs who still live out in the desert with original wells who are probably not buying filtered bottled water from corner markets like the average Aqaban.

It’s something I’ll definitely ask around about in Aqaba when I’m there in five days for the Dead 2 Red. But no matter how hard I’m panting at the end of the race, I won’t be swigging down the first open bottle that’s proffered to me.

I forgot I hadn’t set my new LG mobile to go off on the weekends. Rami called me 10 minutes before our scheduled 8:20 meeting time and warned me that he was going to be late, to which I blearily told him not to worry about it, I’d also be a little behind. The road-bike tires on my borrowed bicycle did not enjoy the wet, cracked road and the climb to the summit of Jebel Amman, but at least I didn’t have to worry about puddling here…unlike later. Rami met me at 3rd near his house, and we called Hussein and told him we were on our way.

Rami and I prepare to start out from 3rd Circle

Zahran Street was a roaring torrent of improperly drained rainwater, fog, and what suspiciously looked like oil slicks. I felt like I was in a bad 80’s video game, dodging honking taxis that came at from me behind like angry bees, swerving around overflowing sewer grates, and trying to see farther than 10 meters in front of me so I wouldn’t smash into a partially hidden curb. “ISN’T BIKING FUN” I bellowed to Rami, who was grimly hunched over on his mountain bike behind me. “IN MY STATE IT CAN BE THIS WAY FOR WEEKS.”

I’ve only realized in the past week that there is a 4% grade from 3rd circle up to 6th circle, something I never noticed in a taxi or when walking. But when you’re on a bike, a four kilometer slow uphill slowly saps you until you want to fling yourself under the tires of the next smog-belching semi that wheezes past you. And today as I crested 6th circle, I found with a sinking feeling that a sudden downhill in the rain on a bike with no fenders is a recipe for leg drenching. Rami roared with exultation (he loves downhills and he was wearing Gore-tex) and tore past me, vanishing into the fog.

Hussein wearing a hat you don't see very often in Jordan, which he uses as raingear - or to dress up as a cowboy.

By the time we reached Cycling Jordan, I weighed an extra three kilos from the water I was carrying in my jeans. Hussein guffawed at my bedraggled appearance and pulled up a chair for me next to the electric heater under his desk. Apart from a couple of Cycling Jordan guides and Omar, the place was deserted. He explained to the three of us that they were canceling the beginner group’s ride because of the weather. We decided that discretion was the better part of valor and postponed our own ride, too. No sense in getting sick a week before the largest ride of the year.

We finished off our morning at The Bakehouse, an excellent American-style pancake and waffle place near the Anglican Church on first circle. While we were in the restaurant, hail started pouring out onto the metal roofs of the buildings nearby, stilling conversation and making us and all the other patrons stare out the windows with amazement. So what if we had only done 7.5 kilometers instead of 80; it isn’t every week when you find your city in the middle of a monsoon!

Rami enjoys a "Bakehouse Grand Slam." Unfortunately, that's only beef bacon on his plate, not ACTUAL bacon.

In case you’re wondering about that little bit of almost-unintelligible Arabic we stuck in at the end of Ascot Gavotte, I’ve been told that what we’re singing is a bit of an old Jordanian folk song about romance, the woman asking to be taken to Zarqa’ and teasingly calling the man “little boy” (ya Walaad), then the man being insulted and telling her that he won’t take her, then telling her to be quiet, (ay Ooskut). Obviously, the last bit is a play on the fact that the phrase to tell someone “be quiet!” in Arabic is almost the same as the title of the song.

Why not make your breathing mask fun? You're going to get stared and hollered at anyway; might as well go all the way.

Biking in the streets of Amman is nothing like biking back when I was in college in Madison. For one thing, you fear for your life a lot more, either from being pancaked into the grille of a Hummer or from being asphyxiated by vehicle fumes. It’s a common joke here in Jordan that most of the heavy transport trucks seen around the city were purchased on the cheap by local companies from Europe because they simply wouldn’t pass European emissions laws. Well, Europe’s garbage is our treasure here in Jordan, I guess, because these smog-belching vehicles from the last century are quite prevalent. Whether you’re on a bicycle or in a car with an open window, you can always tell when one of these beasts is coming up behind you, because somehow they’re so foul that their pollution actually precedes them, causing eyes to water and vision to blur.

Ironically, the opposite quality of vehicle is proportionally just as prevalent in Jordan. There are Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, and Hummer dealerships all within a few kilometers of each other near Mecca Street where Cycling Jordan has its shops, and it seems as if drivers here have a mindset that the nicer their car is, the more right they have to crush you like a bug if you do something as foolish as obey common traffic etiquette rules.

So yes, fearing for my life was how I started out the morning. I had successfully made it back from choir to my house last night, even without my helmet, a light, or any reflective clothes. But that was a 3 minute drive at 10:00 at night when the roads were comparatively empty. My heart sank at the thought of biking 22 KM to work, all the way in Ayn al Basha, and then coming back up the hill. I left home at 10:25 in the morning, but immediately ran into problems when I discovered I couldn’t shift into the lowest gear on my front set. Not a huge deal in the Jebel Amman area with its moderate hills, but there’s a 350 meter climb from Ayn al Basha back into Amman and I knew that would be impossible without that low gear. I decided to head to the shop first to have the specialists look at it.

It was an interesting trip, just like I knew it would be. Amman during the work week is much busier than the silent Friday holy day, and my colorful yellow and green jersey, helmet, and facemask got a lot of stares and calls from peanut gallery. “HELLO WHAT THIS? WHERE YOU GO?” was a frequent phrase bellowed at me from the sidewalk. Bikers here just learn to smile, wave, and ignore everything else… “Polite Indifference” is the best way to deal with gawking hecklers. Then there are the busloads of soldiers who whoop uncontrollably at you, the drivers that play chicken with you, and the aforementioned black smoke following behind 15% of the vehicles on the road. But of course there are the fun parts, like when little children stare at you from their driveways, awestruck, and rush out to the edge of the road, jumping up and down with huge smiles, waving and crying “HELLO! HELLO! HELLO!”

Hussein, the lanky young Egyptian man who manages the shop for Sa’ad, looked me up and down and chuckled as I entered. He’s a wizard with bike maintenance and had the gears readjusted and a new water bottle holder installed in 5 minutes. He asked me where I was heading, and raised his bushy eyebrow when I said I was going down into the Ayn al Basha region. And you’re going to go back up the hill then, too? he asked, to which I merely replied, “insha’allah!”

Of course, the ride down that magnificent hill wasn’t without problems. A hidden pothole got me as I was only a few hundred meters from the bottom of the hill, causing the handlebars to slide downwards a little bit. The bike itself was completely undamaged (although I almost had a heart attack after narrowly avoiding being struck by a manure truck) but I knew that before I would attempt to return up this hill, the handlebars would need to be re-aligned. My coworkers found my getup to be hilarious, especially the mask and shorts. Shorts are an article of clothing that just isn’t worn in Jordan unless you’re a child or on the beach. One of the other teachers asked to buy the bike from me for reasons I can’t fathom (Taher’s never biked a day in his life) and our janitor, Wusam, wanted to know if he could join the Dead 2 Red team.

Khalil drove me back up to the top of the hill in his truck, after Wajih and Aaron derided me for not biking the behemoth instead. “Next time!” I told them, “when the whole bike is working in perfect condition!” The sun was going down by now, and I suddenly realized that just because I was in a desert country in February didn’t mean that it wasn’t February. I was wearing a biking jersey and shorts, and I was cold. Jordan doesn’t usually have much wind chill (or wind for that matter, except for about 50 days in April and May) but that becomes moot when you’re biking down a highway at 30 km/h.

Honestly, regardless of the small mishaps of the day, I really enjoyed re-introducing myself to the practicality of a bike. I joke about how terrifying the drivers can be, but actually they were a lot better than I was dreading. I’ve never biked in New York City, but I imagine that this is how New York would be for bikers if they didn’t have nice things like emissions laws and biking lanes. And the time saving! It normally takes me 50 minutes to walk from 6th Circle back to my house, but on the bike going along the same route I’m able to do it in 15-20 minutes. I’m going to be sad to give the bike back to Sa’ad after the Dead 2 Red is over…but maybe this experience will be the thing that pushes me in the bike-owners category!

Bishop Williams greets everyone outside Aheliya's main gates

Besides the morning practice, the exciting event of the day was a visit from Rowan Williams, better known as the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury. As the primary church that I attend here in Jordan is Anglican, this is major event for my fellow congregants, both Arab and expat, and there was a large turnout of about 75 people at the Aheliya Girls’ School next to the church for a meet and greet with the Archbishop. This small amount of people were exclusively invited, there was no public announcement of this gathering, but Pastor Lex let us know a few days ahead of time. That morning, His Grace had held a service at the Baptism Site and placed a cornerstone for a new Gothic-style church funded by HRH Prince Ghazi, who’s apparently an appreciator of that particular type of architecture (who could blame him?). That service was attended by approximately 600, or so I’m told, and tomorrow morning he’s going to be holding a regular Sunday service for the Arabic congregation of the Anglican Church, in the same building that our English congregation meets in the night before.

The last time I had been in the Aheliya School was almost a year ago, when Whitman held the Fiddler on the Roof musical in the school’s auditorium. This is the first time I’d seen the place filled with so many students, high school-aged girls and boys in their best school uniforms to greet the Archbishop and his entourage of purple-robed Bishops from all over the region.

We were all milling about outside, enjoying the wonderful Jordanian February weather, when Bishop Williams appeared, wearing the traditional simple black robe with a purple sash. He looked similar to his Wikipedia pictures – yes, I did do the obvious simple research before meeting the man; I wanted to be able to know which gray-haired gentleman he was, after all – and he and the other Bishops glided towards us easily, chatting amicably and smiling for the half-dozen TV cameras and journalists that buzzed around them. His eyebrows gave him a somewhat owlish appearance, but his manner was immediately warm and empathetic as he greeted us, shaking hands and exchanging a few words with each person before Arab men in gray pinstripe suits gently moved him onto the next group of people.

Inside the building, servers flitted about noiselessly with platters of hot hors d’oeuvres and sweet tarts, as well as juice and the mandatory mouth-scalding Arabic “visitors” coffee. A friend of mine encouraged me to go up and introduce myself to the Archbishop. I replied nervously that I wasn’t Anglican and I wouldn’t know what to say if he suddenly quizzed me on the formation of the Church Doctrine or something!

Archbishop Williams stopped to have a little chat with me...

I shook the Bishop’s hand and introduced myself, saying that I was from America. He smiled and asked me what part, to which I replied Wisconsin. “Really!” he chuckled. “I stayed there a night in a seminary once while I was traveling through America.” Very neat that he’s been to our comparatively-unknown state. I asked him if he’d be able to stop by and visit our English-speaking service after the meet and greet. He shook his head somberly and said that he knew he was going to be in meetings and ceremonies for the rest of the night, but that of course he wished he could. I realized then that when you’re the Archbishop, or the Pope or something, your professional life is nothing but a series of meetings and ceremonies. He patted me on the back in a friendly manner, and then he had moved on to the next group of people waiting for him.

From left to right: the Mayor of Amman, the Bishop of Ireland, and Archbishop Williams

About forty minutes into the gathering, the Archbishop was joined at the front of the room by his traveling companion, the Bishop of Ireland. After being introduced by the principal of the Aheliya school and the Bishop of Jordan, His Grace gave a small speech about his love of Jordan (this being his third visit) and his pleasure that it was always a safe and welcoming country for all Christians, Muslims, and everyone else to enjoy. He made a momentary comment about how he and the rest of the church were very concerned with staunching the flow of Arab Christians leaving Jordan for the West, saying that these original Christians were incredibly important to the stability of the region. I loved listening to his voice, a deep, warm, and musical baritone which must be amazing to hear sermons in. Check out some of the clips with him on Youtube and you’ll see what I mean.

The last thing I saw before I left to go and attend my regular church service across the street was one of the Aheliya students singing a song in Arabic on the stage, of which I only understood the title, Wahtuhnnee, which roughly translates into “My Country.” As I approached the exit, I was passed by a group of black robed and cowled men; members of the Orthodox contingent of Jordan who kissed their Anglican counterparts twice on each cheek. Privately, I wondered why they were so late to the festivities; by the schedule of events the Archbishop was only going to be at the school for another fifteen minutes or so.

I know that the Archbishop is doing a tour of the Holy Land (it seems to be a primary reason for religious leaders of all denominations to visit) and that he’ll be entering Palestine today. I hope you enjoy the rest of your time here, Your Grace!

My schedule has never been busier, that’s for sure. I just finished the Training for Trainers (ToT) class last week, with much fanfare. I discovered that the Italian government was sponsoring the majority of the cost of the training, much in the same way the United States BPRM is sponsoring most of the regular refugee training. My students finished their one-month course on the 9th, and to celebrate, the Italians threw a gala at the fancy Meridian Hotel in Amman, a suit-and-tie affair to commemorate the graduation of our trainers into new and more challenging curriculum for their students back in Iraq. I had the tie, but not the suit, unfortunately…I was planning on wearing my dishdash like last time but I was nixed on that one.

The entire gala was excellent…several of the other EGT trainers showed up besides myself, like Talal the art instructor, Taher the mobile phone repairman, Imad the car repairman, and Abu Eid the plumber. Wamidh and I both were present as the dynamic Iraqi/American computer repairing duo, and of course the guest of honor was my colleague Jeff, the ToT program facilitator, who decided that he was going to go above the call of duty (giving a speech) and beyond it (giving a speech in Arabic). To clarify, Jeff is not an Arab. The car ride from work to the hotel had a lot more Arabic in it than usual.

The speech went amazingly well, in which Jeff neither sneezed nor panicked (although the provided translator missed a few jokes; I told Jeff that he should have brought Wamidh up there with him but of course that would have been a faux pas since we were guests), and the dinner was delicious. My four students looked their best, and Ali Habeeb (literally Ali the Darling/Lover) even insisted that I take his extra suit jacket and wear it for the occasion. I had told them in class I didn’t have a suit jacket here in Jordan with me, and Ali told me that he had brought an extra one. “Which do you prefer, the gray or the black?” he asked me the day before, and I told him that I didn’t have anything that went with gray, and he happily handed me the black jacket. It’s the Arab way, I tell you – become friends with an Arab, and he or she will literally bend over backwards to make sure that you have anything you could possibly wish for – or that you didn’t even know you’d need!

From left to right: Ali Habeeb, Ali Farouqi, Ashwaq, and Imad

In other news, training for the Dead 2 Red 2010 has begun. It’s going to be tough without Galen with us this year, but I’ve been rejoined by my two friends from last year, Omar and Rami. The two of them work for the Intracom company here in Amman, and not only were they able to find two new members to complete our team, but also single-handedly secure our sponsorship from Intracom. As members of the newly-christened Intracom Cycling team, we’ll be getting all of our entry fees paid for, a transport pickup truck to carry our bikes, a hotel down in Aqaba, and perhaps even matching red-and-white biking jerseys. What style! I’ve never worked with Intracom before, but let me tell you I’m more than happy to be biking with their sponsorship – you guys have got my vote in whatever tech support stuff you do! (and a link from me too!)

Introducing the Intracom Cycling Team 2010

Finally, the title of this blog post – “Yohm al-Huhb.” Literally translated, it means “Day of the Love” which of course is the common Arabic translation for Valentine’s Day. As far as I can tell from the past two years, it’s not celebrated here in Jordan beyond a small percentage. It was kind of a dual-personality day for me. I spent the first half of the day taking ICDL (International Computer Driver’s License) tests at the Baptist School. ICDL is the sole course that I teach over at Whitman, and my students have always found it ironic that I’ve never actually taken the tests that I’m teaching for (my employers figured that my decade or so of experience made up for my lack of certification for some reason) but I was given the opportunity to take the exams through Whitman’s program, free of the regular charge. I elected to take the first three of seven exams all at once today, and performed admirably – 100% on the “Information Technology” section (who would have guessed it), 94% on Microsoft Word (confusing questions that were probably haphazardly translated from Arabic) and 100% on Microsoft Access, which downright shocked me because I’d been spending the past 5 months telling my students to be careful on Access’ trick questions. The latter was the only test I had any worry about at all, and some questions definitely made me sweat. But apparently my diligent reading and re-reading of the questions before clicking anything onscreen paid off with a perfect score. I look forward to sharing my tactics and strategies with my students tomorrow on Monday.

I had purchased packets of Saudi cookies (the Arab-world version of Oreos, really) to give to my students for Valentine’s Day and thanking them for coming in on a Sunday to take a test. I had a few left over, and I walked the 3 kilometers back from the Baptist School to my home. I gave out the remainders of the cookies to random street cleaners and beggars that I saw on the road on a whim. I told them that it was a custom in America that people should give sweets to people they care about, and in my own clumsy way I wanted the less-appreciated people of Jordan’s society to be thanked for their thankless work. Most of the street-cleaners here are Egyptian, and my Egyptian-Arab accent isn’t too good but I hope my message was clear…I was just a strange guy on the street handing out cookies because it was Love Day or something. Not something they see every day, I imagine.

Now that the ToT training class is over, my schedule is back to “normal” which means relaxed mornings in which I can choose the exact time that I need to come into work. Feels good to be back to the schedule I’ve kept since August of last year when I finished my last BPRM/IRD class! Training for the Dead 2 Red is going to be of the utmost importance, though, and I went out and bought breathing filter masks to wear for training here in Amman over the next couple weeks. I’ll borrow Philip’s bike (unused and untouched for the past year on my house’s balcony) and bike to Whitman tomorrow, I think. Will I be able to make it from 3rd circle to 6th circle without either being hit by a cement truck or asphyxiated from toxic diesel fumes? Only time will tell!