Commitment

The post about the culture....and probably my biggest shock, I could just start handling. I was also looking for the most appropriate title, and I found that the key of the whole story is commitment. I will soon give the explanation why.

What made me realize that I'm dealing with cultural and not personal problem was a Global Village. Currently in the same building we are 9 foreigners in 2 flats, covering all the continents (except south pole :P
So we organized last Thursday a cultural night. Everybody was preparing for two days, cooking traditional food (paprikáskrumpli rocks :P ), making presentations, downloading videos and some of us even visiting the embassy for some brochures. So we all really put energy into it.
What shocked me is that how 'welcoming' the situation was and now I'm being bitterly sarcastic. I have never seen Global Villages where people made fun of any presentation, saying that there is not much unique in the country (yeah, it was not Hungary that time, what is clearly different than Jordan, but still). But for all presentation, getting people's attention, not to chat and laugh out loud, why you are trying to introduce your country.
Being a patriot was kind of far from me. But here I did realize I do love my country. Here people are proud of being Jordanian....there is no problem with that, rather it is something I do think many Hungarians can learn from them. But being a guest or being a foreigner living in the country it is something very different. These people here are very sensitive to what is happening with them, internally, causes effecting them from the outside....but sensitivity towards how they effect what is in people who are not 'their kind' is a different issue. Yeah, indeed I am the one, we are the ones (all foreigners here) who should be adapting. This is why we are all here, this is what we aim for. But we all do require a minimum level of respect.....and this is something that Jordanians, the locals here need to learn....that even if they are proud, others are also sensitive (even if not as much) to protect their home (whether it is family, country, or just a corner).
This was one of my points (oh, yeah, and again I gave a harsh voice to this opinion, which I will get back, but I don't mind.....I know that I need to learn a lot, but not I am the only one;) ). This was one point, but I would rather say this is the top of the cake...this alone would make me feel bad for an hour that it ould have been gone.

Commitment....the key to my issue. My comitment? Not really... Other's comitment? Closer to reality.... The contrast between these two? That is the real point!
I'm just coming out from a situation which required comitment to the end. Also I'm not really someone who is giving comitment than withdrawing...if it is given, then it is given....and like here, what is normal. It is again something not good or bad....not like the previous point I wrote about (that one I do judge), but this one, is just a conflict of my values and something different. I do think it can be done in a different way and a small change of attitude would lift the middle east to high grounds they don't have know, but I am noone to judge their choice.
But here if you just don't show up for a meeting that is not a problem, if you promise something and don't do it or cancel in the last minute...no problem.

I do think that this value, the lack of commitment is in the very core of the culture, coz it does explain a lot! Like business culture: Why people doublecheck everything? Why you need to have proven results in business, that you deliver what you promised? Why family is the most important? Why everything is happening through people you know and only through them?
I have wrote about relationship orientation, importance of family and networking....yeah, it is all true, but what forces it? What is not allowing such basics to change or even to get weaker? What is in the core?
I think here the right question - is standing as an answer for everything I just pulled up - is: How would you trust anyone in a country where noone takes comitment for anything?

The best examples just from the close future: I have been hearing for like 3 weeks, that we will have a trip organized for the holiday.....and then having nothing when it starts! (So finally we did it ourselves, with some funny and adventurous mistakes - for what we heard back: you should always have a local with you - a statement which makes me laugh now). Or the mistake we made is that we tried agreeing with taxi drivers (who by the way simply lied that there are no buses working during the holiday) to take us to Petra....and saying fifteen JD as a cost per taxi, then when we arrived they still said fifteen, with the extra that in arabic fifteen means 50 (the debate was kind of harsh, but also made me realize that I can be much more daring in bargaining and 'negotiating' than I thought.) - adding to the situation that I know the numbers in arabic, so they could not even say that I had no chance understanding if they would have told their offer in Arabic :P.
These examples are just to very fast prove my theory - this is why people save phone numbers of taxi drivers they like for example. But besides these examples I would be able to pull up million from daily life: from taxi drivers trying to fool you or companies asking you for one million proof of delivery, meetings getting cancelled with no real reasons, etc.
Again I must say, it is not bad....but you have to know your way in this country (as in any other) to survive. And until I did not really figure this point I could not totally make my way here...and it made me angry, made me feel useless, made me feel fooled and betrayed all the time.
But now it is gone. I know why it works like this, and this makes it super easy to understand how it reall works and how I can work my way through. Like it is cool to be a better networker...I indeed improved, but now I see true purpose, a meaning behind it! That is the feeling which makes me feel good after all the crap happening and after all the time feeling down.

I wanted cultural experience - I got it! And so far I was questioning that do I really know so much more about the middle east and Jordan than others, do I really know enough to say I worked in this environment, I know how it works and in a job I can build on it or I can work with the middle east. So far it was a doubt, coz this is undoubtedly one of the most important learnings from an internship or an MC abroad---- it was a doubt, but not any more! I think again an exciting time is coming, when I can really learn to be successfull here! Yalla, time to succeed!