What Just Happened?

Baseem Al-Refeai, the director of public health, is very well connected in Ramtha.  We get a big kick out of Baseem and lovingly call him a "bee-bee in a barrel" because he is always going in a hundred different directions without a lot of thought about where he's going or what it will take to get there.  His ideas are endless and so is his enthusiasm.  His follow-through not so much.  Some day we hope we'll find something realistic we can do with him because he's trying so hard.

Today Baseem invited us to an event at a center for disabled children in Ramtha. He told us "you HAVE to be with us" so we decided to go.  When we drove up Baseem was standing out in the middle of the road waving to us and directed us to park inside the gate, like real celebrities.

The facility looked clean and new.  We were told that is was built by someone?--or an organization?--from the U.S.? (we think).  Baseem's explanations are difficult for us to understand.  There were a lot of people in the commons area, mostly dignitaries and employees of the school.  They all acted like we were royalty and lined up to be introduced and shake our hands.

Next we were given a tour of the building and talked to the head mistress about what they do and wha they want to do to help the disabled children.  It wasn't clear to us, but we enjoyed the visit.

After that we went into a conference room with the other dignitaries and drank juice and ate cookies.  Everyone took pictures of each other.  It was fun to try to get to know them, especially the people who couldn't speak English.

At one point Baseem came in and gave a speech thanking everyone, especially LDS Charities for all their support.  We wondered what we had done to receive the thank you!  Then he asked Lynn to give a speech, but right in the middle of his talk the door swung open and 4 Jordanian policemen walked in, including the police chief.  We thought we were busted, but didn't know why.  The policemen sat down and Lynn finished his speech and we gave the chief our card.

What happened next was amazing.  Baseem had a big stack of awards and plaques to give to people and he asked Lynn to give them out, which he did and he shook everyone's hand and thanked them for their good work.  By this time we were hardly able to contain ourselves.  They even had a certificate for us!  As far as we could remember, we hadn't done anything to earn or deserve the gift, but accepted it and gave everyone a big hug.  Then we took pictures, shook more hands, and got the phone numbers of some important people, including the police chief.

What just happened?  We have no idea but it was fun.