Happy St. Patrick's Day--Brought to you by a Rainy Spring in Jordan

This has been the rainiest spring Jordan has had in about twenty years.  This photo shows green hills and an olive grove.  Usually, these hills are brown, but the spring rain has brought lots of green--just in time for St. Patrick's Day.  In the center of the photo, you will see a lake.  This is one of the main dammed water sources for Jordan.  Even with the heavy rain, it is currently at just over 60% capacity.  But, that is considered a very good water storage level.  Last year at this time, the water level was at about 37% of capacity.  Jordan is the 4th poorest country in the world in terms of water.

Photo by Ayyam Safady.

Watching Television in Amman

We have been stuck inside all weekend while Amman has been pounded by rain, hail, and high winds. Luckily, Jordanian television provides plenty of good choices in English--a constant, varied selection of American TV shows and movies.

The movies are often heavily edited, and I can't figure out any rhyme or reason to the editing.  For example, sometimes a particular word will be cut out and sometimes the same word will be left in.  Some violent scenes are cut out, and others are left in.  Sometimes a kiss is deleted, and sometimes kisses stay in the movie. Sometimes the cuts are hard to detect, but things just don't quite make sense and the dialog doesn't quite match up with the part of the story that you've seen.

The commercials seem to occur at odd moments, as if they are just randomly inserted.  In addition, there are very few commercials and the same ones run over and over again; often the same commercial runs two or three times during the same commercial break.  Here is a typical TV commercial: