So I had an eventful weekend, to say the least. Friday night was just a normal night. We all had had a pretty chill day, I had studied a bit for my midterm on Sunday and was actually relaxing with a rare bath. (We finally figured out how to work it, even though I don't want to make it a regular thing to help save on water).
About 11:30 PM I hear screaming and door slamming. Allison had been in her room and heard noises outside. She went to investigate and saw a guy standing in our garden. So we have this private garden, which incidentally is right next to my window (thank goodness I had my grate down), and connects to her room via a small screened (and barred) in patio. Our walls are rather high, even though there are a few spots where you could jump it if you have some good dexterity.
Anywho, so she sees this guy, and asks him if he's lost, or a new neighbor. We just had some new neighbors move in and while it was unlikely, it was worth a shot to see if he was lost. However, he was NOT lost and came up to her and was like, oh , no worries, no problem and grabbed her waist and her wrist. That alone was a big no no. So she screamed loudly, ran to the patio and slammed the door in his face while locking it.
Instead of immediately running, he started shaking the bars on the door, so she continued to scream and he then jumped back over the wall in the garden. Needless to say, it was a rather jarring experience. We've been lucky in that our neighborhood is pretty safe. In all honesty, I don't even think any of us have been out to that garden since like the first few weeks we were here.
We locked everything up, and made sure to roll down all of the grates on the windows just in case. Even still, Allison and I talked, trying to help calm her down, until about 2 AM. Even still, neither of us really got to bed until 4 because we were so wound up.
Ashley hadn't really heard the whole details of what happened since she was skyping with her family, and just helped with locking up before going to bed at a normal time. (Keep this in mind for the rest of the story).
The wall with the newly installed broken glass on top, yay cheap security
About 9 AM, I hear Ashley screaming Allison and my name and going, fire! There's a grease fire! Help!!! Apparently she had gotten up early, as usual, and instead of her normal egg breakfast, decided that she wanted to make some french fries.
I've not told her that she should avoid them at home since this is now the second bad incident she's had with them. (The first time she got sick for 3 days).
So neither Ashley nor Allison knew how to put out the fire. I (thankfully) remembered some fun times being dragged along to Scout activities with my brother and remembered sand. So I told Ashley to go across the street (they're doing construction) and grab some to help put it out. As she ran to go do that, I remembered that you can also put baking powder/soda on it because it helps neutralize it since the grease makes the fire extra tricky.
So I went ahead and dumped the whole container into the pan. Thankfully it went out. Ashley came in and just for good measure, dumped the sand on top as well.
So the whole apartment had been filled with smoke at this point (all could have been avoided if there had been a fire extinguisher in the apartment...) and it started to really smell chemically. I started coughing like crazy because of the fun stuff that was burning. But since we didn't see a flame, we were confused as to what was still on fire.
Then plastic dripped down from the overhead component of the stove. The grease fire had then started an electrical fire which was then burning/melting the whole component.
Dead...
Very dead...
After we saw what was on fire we rushed to put it out with water. About a gallon later, we were able to get it out and only then noticed that it had started to burn our wooden cabinets. That would have been a fun experience to have our kitchen burn down...At least the whole apartment is made of stone so it *hopefully* wouldn't have spread too far.
So here's a bit of the immediate aftermath:
We had already called John (our landlord) because of the incident the night before so it was rather convenient that he was there. We explained to him what happened and he called his maintenance guy to come and look at the stove and put in the glass on the wall by our garden.
The good news is that our oven and stove still work. Yay! The bad news is that the fan, light and electrical component on the top was completely ruined. So they took it out. But the cabinets weren't as badly burned as we thought. So that was some good news. And it's not *as* bad since cleaning it up, but the whole front of the apartment (along with the entryway into the building) still smell like burnt plastic/chemicals.
What an experience! Needless to say, I emailed my teacher asking for an extension on my midterm, which they both very kindly have allowed.
So after all of this was cooling down, and the workmen were fixing everything, Allison, Ashley and I were like, uh oh, bad things come in 3's, Casey, You're next! So I was thinking of hiding for the rest of the weekend, but then Allison realized that she was missing 60 JD from her wallet. The likely scenario is that the night before as she was getting out of the cab, she dropped it, and since it was so dark she didn't notice. Unfortunately people pick up money on the streets VERY fast here. I've yet to even see a 5 quirsh coin on the ground.
After such a day, and Ashley had already had dinner, I treated Allison to dinner at Fuddruckers. A nice American burger, fries and milkshake was in order after such an ordeal. *Knocking on wood* Here's hoping that this is the last of THIS type of adventure while here in Jordan.
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