First off, God works in mysterious ways.
(...in case you didn't already know that.)
The story of how Nicole and I wound up with VIP tickets to a Pontifical Mass is one of those series of disastrous situations that somehow lines up in the end - like they always do - to produce something unexpectedly amazing.
It's not exactly easy to practice Christianity in a predominantly Muslim country. My roommate - the other Nicole - is also one of us, which I was overjoyed to discover, because despite Amman's ridiculously low crime rate, I was terrified at the prospect of wandering by myself around a city with a population of four million people and an official language which I barely speak, searching for a Catholic Mass. It certainly doesn't help that I'm a nineteen-year-old white girl with an uncovered head, but if that isn't enough to do the job, my perpetually-confused expression and stupid accent definitely make me stick out like a sore thumb. I was prepared to do it alone, but since God knows that, yes, I really am that stupid, He sent me Nicole.
In our quest to fulfull our Sunday Mass obligation, we found a website that listed four churches in the English-Speaking Parish of Amman and their Mass times, but since there were no addresses, further Googling proved fruitless, and we couldn't understand the little hand-drawn maps yet, Nicole and I bravely climbed into the backseat of a taxi on Sunday evening and asked the driver, "Taarif al-madrasat al-faranseia 'De La Salle'?"
Do you know the French school 'De La Salle'?
He nodded. He lied. By the time we'd run up nearly three dinar on the meter, he was shouting over the traffic noise into his cell phone: "Madrasat faranseia??"
In the end, he dropped us off at a French boys' school - I'd forgotten to use the word for 'college' instead of 'school' - where my favourite language turned out to be extremely handy. "Je cherche une messe catholique; il y en a un ici ce soir?"" The guards let us in, and Naim, the gym teacher, explained to us that there was indeed a Mass at 6:30, and we were more than welcome to have a seat outside until then. We sat down to watch the little boys play soccer and taunt each other.
Over the course of our mixed French and English conversation, however, it became obvious that something had been lost in translation. Naim thought we'd come to the school for an Arabic class. Nicole and I stared blankly at each other, and I reiterated our situation bilingually.
"Wait, Mass?" said Naim, looking surprised. "No, this is a non-denominational school."
I wanted to stomp my feet. "Then do you know where De La Salle is?" I asked frantically. Our original Mass was supposed to start at 6, and Naim's digital watch read 5:45.
"Of course," he said, and wrote an address in Arabic on one of his tardy slips. Full of apologies, he led us to the corner of the nearest busy street and wished us well. Hailing a taxi was awful in the midst of Jordanian rush-hour traffic, because ninety-nine percent of the cabs were full, and the other one percent were driven by the Saudis in red-checked smaagh who will occasionally refuse to pick up non-hijabi women.
Nicole paced back and forth next to me while I pointed my index finger at the curb. "Dear Lord Jesus," she said, "You can see that we're trying really hard to get to Mass, so if You could just send us a taxi, we'd really appreciate it..."
The next taxi stopped.
He dropped us off at a huge marble building bearing the words Terrae Sanctae above the doorway. It didn't say 'De La Salle' or 'Frères College', but I told Nicole, "It's Latin - our chances are improving, at least."
"Do you speak English?" I asked two men on the stairs, and they nodded. "Is there a Catholic Mass here, by any chance?"
"No," said one man. "This is the college. The church is back the way you came, about half a kilometer."
I briefly considered killing something.
"What language?" A woman had appeared next to the two men, short and tan, with large sunglasses and hair that had clearly been dyed several times.
"Excuse me?"
"What language for the Mass? English or Arabic?"
"We don't care!" Nicole cried, waving her arms emphatically. "We just have to get to Mass!" It was 6:15. Maybe we could make it in time for the Gospel reading...
"There's an Italian Mass at 6:30 in this building. You're quite welcome to join us."
Thus, Nicole and I spent nearly two hours navigating and negotiating in a jumble of French, English, and Arabic, only to wind up at an Italian Mass. Less than ten other people were in attendance. The deacon, who was cute as a button and looked more like a walnut in a cassock and cardigan than anything else, waddled up to me and thrust a song sheet into my hands, babbling cheerfully in Italian.
"No, no," said the nameless woman. "No parlo italiano."
I smiled apologetically.
"Maybe he speaks French!" Nicole laughed.
The deacon said, "Hm. Parlez-vous français?"
I stared at him. If the day didn't quit getting stranger with each passing minute, my brain was going to shut right down.
I bumbled through a Mass I didn't really understand, working with Nicole to toss in a bit of Spanish and Latin until we sounded like we belonged there, and at the very end, the deacon announced that there would be tea in the basement afterwards.
"C'est du thé, pour mes amis qui parlent français," he added, and everyone turned to look at us. I must have blushed for ten solid minutes.
We drank sweet tea and ate almonds in the basement, where we discovered that the priest was actually Australian, and everyone there spoke English, Italian, and Arabic, at the very least - except the deacon, who kept laughing at me for misunderstanding his quiet, mumbled French through that thick Italian accent.
Out of the blue, Nicole had the bright idea to ask a new acquaintance of ours, named Simeon, whether he knew anything about Pope Benedict's visit to Amman or how to get tickets to the Mass. The deacon interrupted Simeon's answer with a new question, and at his reply, shuffled out of the room for scarcely a minute. When he came back, he was carrying these:
Just like that.
...it's crazy how things work out, huh?
:)
1 comment:
This post made my day!
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