Ubiquitous

I would not classify myself as a wordsmith, but I have always loved vocabulary words. I come by it honest; I come from a family of readers. To increase his vocabulary, Dad used to study the page in the Readers Digest that defined often-unusual words. Mom likes to journal.

When I was a kid, I enjoyed perusing the dictionary and in school, I loved vocabulary and spelling lists. By the time I graduated high school, I had read at least two thousand books. In grade school, I read several books a day. I would read during class, after school, and late at night when I should have been sleeping! I even read on my way to school. Have you ever tried to read a book while walking down the street? Trust me, it can be done!

When I began to write books, my interest in vocabulary words was renewed. It is fun to discover the meaning of a word – as well as its synonyms and antonyms – and use it in context in a sentence.

At some point, I happened upon the word “ubiquitous.” I kept it filed in the back of my mind, but never seemed to have the right opportunity to use it. Until now. Because now, here in Jordan, it seems no other word will fit quite as well as “ubiquitous.”

What does “ubiquitous” mean? It is an adjective that my computer’s dictionary describes as “omnipresent, ever-present, everywhere, all over the place, pervasive, universal, prevalent, far-reaching, inescapable.” The dictionary supplies this sentence as an example: “After WWII, television became almost ubiquitous in the United States.”

Here in Jordan, one thing is ubiquitous: coffee. I know I am probably running this topic into the ground (pun intended), but I can’t seem to help discussing it one more time. Why? Because it is the perfect word to describe one thing in Jordan that is “everywhere” and “inescapable.”

Coffee is everywhere! It is a rare thing to meet an Arab who does not drink coffee. Some people drink Arabic coffee and others drink Nescafe, but drink it they must. It is served with ceremony and kept on hand in homes, shops, and government facilities. Walk into a clothing shop and chances are good that you will be offered coffee. Come upon a family having a picnic on the ground beside the road and the pot might very well be held up to you as an invitation to join them. It is not unusual to see a guy walking down the street carrying a tray with tiny cups of Arabic coffee, going to join friends or colleagues for a coffee break.  

We went to renew our visas last week. On the desk of the policemen in the office was a pot of coffee. I suppose they needed the instant energy to deal with people like us, who went to six police stations and spent parts of four days trying to get our visas extended.

When we were in Jordan in 2009-2010, we met a guy who works in the banana fields in the Jordan Valley. We could only communicate by sign language, but he offered us coffee, way out in the middle of nowhere!

A Jordanian friend of ours recently told us that, when a disagreement occurs between two tribes, they bring together a delegation to try to resolve the problem. The two primary parties are brought coffee but they cannot drink it right away. Custom dictates that they must discuss the issue and try to bring a quick resolution. If the coffee gets cold, that means that no peaceable solution has been reached and retaliation or retribution will probably occur. Obviously, it is best to talk quickly and drink the coffee while it is hot!

It is hard for me to wrap my mind around living with caffeine in your system 24-7. I do not drink coffee or soda. I do eat more dark chocolate than I should; it is caffeinated, and sometimes I drink caffeinated tea, but Arabs ingest it into their system at regular intervals! I doubt that their bodies are ever free from it.

If you were to mention the option of drinking decaffeinated coffee, I have a feeling you would be viewed with an astonishment reserved for encounters with space aliens. After all, the goal is to stay pumped up with caffeine, so why would anyone drink coffee without its most attractive ingredient removed?

Next week, the church in Husun will be served coffee. By me. The coffee-hater. Yes. That’s right. This should be interesting.

We have been overseeing services here for a few weeks, but we just learned that serving coffee after meetings is standard procedure, a procedure that I have neglected to follow. But we are going to remedy that.

First, I will have to find someone to teach me how to make Arabic coffee. Sandra, our American-Jordanian friend, taught me how to make Arabic chai (tea). But coffee is another animal altogether and I need another lesson.

Although I refuse to drink it, I am determined to become adept at making coffee. Because to Jordanians, coffee is ubiquitous. Ever-present. It even comes to a church on the second floor of an apartment building in a town called Husun in the Irbid Governate of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Pretty important stuff, I might say. Definitely ubiquitous. Care to join us for coffee?