Odd Night Out

After I wrote last night I got my ukulele and went back to the net cafe to hang out with my local friend Rami. It started raining again (3rd day in a row) and I played a couple songs outside under the awning. The rain was powerful and brought a cold to the desert town that I hadn't felt before. Thankfully the owner of the restaurant next door brought me a couple cups of hot tea and some sweets and after about 15 minutes he told me to come inside the restaurant and to bring the uke. I thought that he felt sorry for me being out in the cold where my fingers were cramping up but as soon as I walked through the door he announced to the room, packed to capacity with British tourists, that I was going to play a song for them. He also added that my dinner would be free.

My face went flush and I think that I took a step back but then I swung my uke into position and belted out my best rendition of Island in the Sun that my trembling fingers could manage. I earned an admittedly charitable applause from the half of the crowd that could even hear me over all the other racket and then I sat down near the end of the long table and played a few more songs. Between ballads I got some questions from nearby tourists who wanted to know where I was from, the names of the songs, and what the hell a ukulele is.

After the longest 10 minutes of my life I was told to move to the back room and play for another smaller tour group, 16 in size. Before I played I announced to them that I'm known as Steve, this is an ukulele, and yes, I was playing for my dinner. This got a lot of laughs and I played a few songs (Island in the Sun, Breakdown, All My Loving, On the Road) and learned a bit about the group between songs. They were an Australian group with a tour company called Intrepid. The also passed me a couple beers and I ended up spending the rest of the night conversing with them and eating my well deserved mensaf dinner. In Syria, mensaf is made with chicken and not lamb, but it was really good anyways. The Intrepid group is on a 3 week tour through Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey and several of them remembered me from the ferry from Egypt to Aquaba. I had played some songs at the ferry terminal that day. I didn't recognize them but then I was getting to know about 10 backpackers that day so it's not surprising.

The tour was lead by a Dutch guy named Mark who has been traveling intermittently for 12 years and leads tours half the year to pay for the other half of his year of backpacking. He's been to some pretty remote places but he was still impressed by my list of locales visited. I like that. Anyways, he said that his company is looking for a new guide and he thought that I'd be great at it. I got his card and I guess that I'll send an email and hear some more about this idea. Basically they're running tours through the middle east until November and I'd have a week or so off between tours. You make about $50 a day profit, a tip at the end of each trip, and per diem on the days off... he emphasized however that it's forbidden to take kickbacks from restaurant/shop/hotel owners though physical gifts like food and drink are ok. I think that I'd also have to file taxes in Australia. I can't decide if this is a great opportunity to try my hand at something new or a regrettable waste of my opportunity to travel unhindered for a large chunk of time. It does sound kind of fun though.