And That's a Wrap

Well, it had to come to an end sometime, didn't it? I'm torn... I'm excited to be on my way home, but I'm not excited to leave. I won't say that the time flew by and I can't believe it's all over. I can. And now that I'm sitting in the Newark Liberty Airport, I'm taking a bit of time to reflect.

My last few days were great- albeit a bit underwhelming in terms of excitement. As I talked about in my last post, things slowed down. With my internship and proposal paper finished, and having seen the sites I wanted to see, the arrival of Ramadan ended up with my watching almost 2 seasons of Glee. (I'll finish the second season by the time I get to JAX... thank goodness for my lappy!) As dull as that may sound, it was nice to just sit and chill with my friends. And eat lots of hummus. Mmmmm... For our groups final dinner Annie made maglouba again, which was (once again) delicious! I love our group and I loved hanging out with them.

In reflecting on going home, I want to share a few things I'll really miss about Jordan as well as a few things I'm excited about at home.

I'll miss:

• The hospitality... having everyone try to strike up a meaningful conversation with you
• The call to prayer (and along with that, the general openness about religion)
• Arabic language practice time
• Hanging out at the ministry with Mohammed (bubbs)
• The food (mansaf, warabot, etc) sigh...

I'm excited for:

• Food! 
• Mexican (in fact, I'm eating a QDoba burrito from the airport right now!)
• Thai (get ready for it mom!!!)
• My mom's cooking
• Driving
• My own bed
• School
• Seeing my family and friends (and being in the same time zone as them!)

A big thank you to those who followed along for my whole experience. It was awesome, and I learned a lot about the world and (as cliche as it sounds) myself. This marks the end of my international blog for now (probably until the study abroad next year), but check out my regular blog if you care to see what happens in my boring life stateside. I love you all!!!

يرمي

Ramadan: The Adventure Begins

Last night I went with Skye to one of his student's homes for dinner. Due to some miscommunication we were 3 hours late, but they were amazingly gracious and acted as if that was precisely the time they'd been expecting us. True to form, they were extremely kind and hospitable. The whole family spoke English pretty well, and we had a great time with them. They served us six different drinks! Holy wow! Coffee, tea, water, orange juice, pepsi, and 7up. No repeats! And of course the mansaf was delicious. It was most likely my last real dinner before heading back home. Weird. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to make mansaf once I'm back in Provoland. Dinner group? Mmmmm... I had my own little adventure before we headed home. (Just a heads up... it was a bathroom adventure. hehe). While we were waiting for the bus, I decided I should use the bathroom before we took off. A kid led me out to an outhouse with no lights and no toilet paper (just a water bucket). I concluded that I could wait. However, a few minutes later my body gave me one of those handy dandy 1 minute warnings. I grabbed some tissues, utilized a nearby flashlight, and, well, ya know.... conquered the outhouse. Gotta love these experiences abroad! On the way home there was a ton of traffic, it was the night before Ramadan. So many fireworks! So cool...

And yet, as it turns out, Ramadan isn't as exciting as I anticipated. Because everyone's fasting, not much at all is going on. So today I finished my papers, played Monopoly, and watched 5 episodes of Glee. Yeah... that exciting. I can only imagine my future conversations: "Oh! You were in Jordan for Ramadan? What was that like?" "Well... I watched a lot of Glee, and ate pizza." Yup. Luckily we live in a Christian area of Amman, so the nearby stores and restaurants were open. 

Tomorrow I'm looking forward to laundry, reading, more Monopoly, and more Glee. Be excited.

يرمي

Waddi Hassa

This past Saturday for our group's final trip we did a saWEET hike. We met up early in the morning at the tour company's office, which can only be described as a hippy man-cave. The name of the company was done graffiti-style on the wall, and our shaggy tour guides were totally awesome and cool. I felt like I'd been temporarily transported to Santa Cruz! We loaded up the bus and drove for about 3 hours before finally arriving at Waddi Hassa. Now, I was a bit apprehensive about the hike. You see, I'm not exactly the intense outdoorsy type; on Boy Scouts hikes I was always the lone loser in the back stuck with that week's poor unfortunate bishopric counselor. This time around I was still slow, but most of the time I wasn't last! Progress people, progress. Anyhoo...

Our hike was way fun, and reminded me a lot of Arroyo Seco back in California (I believe it was Bro. Hickey who was stuck in the rear with me for that one). After walking a short distance, the first challenge was to go down a waterfall water slide thing which landed us in a narrow canyon. From that point on we alternated between swimming, wading, and hiking through gorgeous, although fly infested, terrain. Not even an hour into the hike was the high point for me, quite literally actually. You see, I've never been cliff/rock jumping. The idea actually terrifies me. However, I was able to watch a few other people do it. They didn't die a vicious death by plummeting into shallow/jagged rocks, and so I was semi-filled with confidence. I climbed up. I counted to three. I counted to three again. And then I jumped. I landed safely in the water. And I didn't die. It was actually pretty fun! Who knows, maybe I'll try it again sometime. The scariest part of the hike for me was when we were supposed to fall backwards into a stream. Like, put your back to the stream, cross your arms, make your body go stiff, and fall straight back. They told me and I was "You want me to do what?" Eventually they convinced me to do it, although I still wasn't happy. Oh well. I lived through that too. At the end of our journey we ended up at some hot springs. I found a nice spot where I could lay down and rest my head, and there I stayed for a long time. Glorious. The only thing to mar the experience was the ri-freaking-diculous fly population that seemed particularly interested in my face. Oh, and I did end up with some pretty fab blisters. (But I got my used sandals for 2JD. I suppose blisters were to be expected). So, all in all, it was a fabulous day. We were hiking/swimming for about 5 hours, but it turns out we only went 2km (maybe a mile and a half). That deflated my ego a bit, but ah well. It was a wonderful trip to finish with.

يرمي

Turkish Bath, Take 2

So last year when I visited Jordan I went to a Turkish bath with some peeps from the Jerusagroup. It was quite the experience: shifty, yet fun to remember. Let's just say, it wasn't quite a BYU approved experience. Anyhoo, now that I've got your dirty minds trying to figure out what the heck I'm talking about, I'll move on to this years experience. 

Austin, Skye, and I decided that we wanted to go to a Turkish bath. Austin wimped out at the last minute, and Skye and I were late, but the owner said we could come in anyway. The place was really nice: lots of fancy furniture, a fountain, and nice stone walls. After getting changed (and by changed I mean we were clad in only sheets) we went into the steam room for a bit. The outside of the room reminded me a lot of a brick pizza oven, and the metaphor continued to gain relevance as it got more and more hot in there. Sheesh! We went out one at a time with the owner. First he scrubbed me with a sponge that's texture can be easily compared to steel wool. It hurt bad, but felt good later. I haven't felt that clean in 3 months... talk about extreme exfoliation! After another round in the steam room he soaped me up and gave me a mediocre massage. It felt OK, but mostly served to remind my muscles that massages do exist and are out there to be had; I want a real massage SO BAD! Maybe I'll trade with a pretty girl when I'm stateside. ;) After getting rinsed off I was dressed in three different towels, one of which was tied around my head, before being led into the lounge where we sat and talked to the owner for a bit before changing and leaving.

So although it was a bit rushed, this year's experience was much better than last year (albeit not as memorable), and felt especially good after 3 months of mediocre showers.

يرمي

Chronic mishmash

It would seem that I have become obsessed with this whole bullet-point-instead-of-a-fluid-blog thing. It's true. One main reason is that I've been blogging less frequently and have less new things to share. So, here we go, in no particular order...

• I have left Sabha for the last time. My stuff is packed, the apartment is [mostly] empty, the squatter is terrifying full.
• I really didn't have too much stuff in Sabha. I was all packed within 30 minutes, and I didn't even have to try very hard to close the suitcases!
• I was able to sell back both my fan and my carpet, both for about 50% of what I bought them for!
• When I rolled up the carpet I was reminded of why I loved it so much... my tile floor was terrible!
• The squatter had put me in quite the predicament. It was full! And stinky! I rejoice that in Amman I have access to a mostly normal toilet that flushes!
• Of course, in leaving, I had a lot of goodbyes to say. I have never kissed so many men (clarification: on the cheeks, you sickos!) in one day in my life! I will miss Mohammed (bubbs) from work the most, others I will kind of miss, and some people I won't miss at all! ;)
• Austin came on Tuesday to visit me, but mostly to visit his friend in Defyana that he'd met earlier. We were both invited to his house for dinner, so we walked part of the way (about a 30 minute walk). We were trying to get a ride, but since we were two guys (shebab alert!) it was hard. I heard a car coming behind us and we turned to see a red sedan driving really slowly about 20 feet behind us. Creepy! So he pulled up to us and we told him where we were going. He told us that he wasn't going all of the way there, but he could drive us part way. The first thing he said when we got in was "I hate the American government." Uhhh... right. That's not the most uncommon opinion here, but it was weird to have him be so blunt right off of the bat. Anyhoo... we tried making small talk, and semi-succeeded. After a few minutes he told us that he wasn't feeling well, and so I asked him if he was sick. He said "Yes... psychologically." CREEPY!!! He let us off at his supposed destination, which was a half-built building in the middle of nowhere. We happily exited his vehicle as he suggested we could pay him money to take us the rest of the way. We politely declined and continued our walk until Austin's friend, Hani, came and picked us up.
• Dinner at Hani's was really good, and the conversation was awesome. We were there for six hours, talking politics for most of the time. And since he was the one that brought everything up, we didn't have to feel guilty about it. In fact, at one point he stopped and made sure we weren't uncomfortable talking about politics. (Anyone who has seen my Facebook recently knows the answer to that question). He is a pretty conservative guy, but also has some progressive views in areas such as education. Basically, he wants Jordan to progress, but on their own terms; he doesn't want the international community or western culture to determine their future. He also had some off the wall views which were interesting to listen to. I'm glad that Austin was there; his Arabic is better than mine (he's taken through 202) and so the more we delved into the discussion (and the more tired I got) the more I needed to rely on him.
• TANGENT! So I mentioned earlier that a lot of people in this area are not a fan of the American government.  (I won't get into it because this isn't the proper place, but it shouldn't at all come as a surprise that Arabs tend to not be fans of American foreign policy.) I should clarify that, although this is true, they love Americans. They are good at divorcing their opinions of our people and culture from their observations of our foreign policy. I have noticed that the opposite tends to be true when Americans observe the rest of the world. Perhaps it's because we are more insulated of a society and aren't constantly meeting foreigners, but we tend to carry our negative views of a government to their people. It's true that there are several Arab governments which are not our friends, and even some that are our enemies. It's also true that there are some extremist groups from the region that have done harm to our nation. However, the actions of a few shouldn't determine our opinions of millions of people. The Arabs have it figured out, let's get on that bandwagon.
• Last night we went to the screening of a new movie. It seemed like it was really good but there were no English subtitles, so although I got the big picture, I can't be sure about the specifics. Basically it was about Iraq, and the millions of people that went missing as a result of Saddam Hussein's massacres of the Kurdish people. Even though I couldn't understand it, it depressed me.
• On Tuesday I taught my last Tawjihi class. I made them a 3 page chart/cheat sheet with all of the tenses (some of which I didn't even realize existed!) and examples of how to use them. Then to practice, we wrote stories together. I would write up a sentence on the board to start out, and then we'd go around the room having everyone add a sentence. For the second one they had to use an irregular verb in their sentence. I must now tell you what their stories were about: The first one was about a man named Khaled who worked at a factory. His friend got stuck in one of the machines, so Khaled called the police. The police helped his friend out, but then Khaled fell in the machine and he died. Yeah. Then, the second story was about a man named John who was a photographer. He goes on a walk with his friend Mark, and then acid falls on John's eyes. Mark takes him to the hospital, where the doctors tell John that he'll never be able to see again... unless someone gives him their eyes. So Mark volunteers and gives John his eyes, but then John is sad that Mark is blind. Yup, those are the stories. And to think that I was worried when I shared my scary stories with them before...
• Last night I ate a hot dog and it was marvelous. It had tomatoes, onions, cheese, relish, ketchup, and mayo. Mmmmmmm... Afterwards I had snickers ice cream. It was a night of delicious indulgence
• This week when I was hanging out at Anas' shop, his brother was playing some terribly violent car racing (slash running over people) computer game. However, all of the in-game instruction was in English. So they asked me to try and translate. Now, you should know, I never really played video games at all, so I wouldn't even be much help if they had been fluent in English! I tried to pantomime, but it was to no avail. A few minutes later, Anas was playing an Eminem song, and asked me to translate it for him. I told him that (thank goodness) I didn't know the words in Arabic for that. He raised his eyebrow, and then told me [essentially] that my Arabic sucks. And this because I can't translate Eminem (I should just say it's all about sex. That pretty much sums that up, right?) or violent video games. Oh well...
• I met some awesome people on Monday night, and I'm really bummed that I didn't meet them earlier. Khalef is in his 30's and is from Sabha originally. However, he received his education in Qatar and Europe. He has a PhD in European Studies. His wife has a PhD in Economics. They were all set to move to Canada, visas and all, when they felt like they should come back to Sabha. They both understand the intricacies of the bedouin culture, and they want to work within that to help the Badia progress. It was really refreshing to talk to him; he has a lot of liberal and progressive ideas, but he understands that the best way to implement lasting change is to work within the current cultural infrastructure. His brother, Mohammed, was just as cool. Since he was the youngest (I'd guess he's about my age), he was the one who served tea to all of the guests. When I told him that I don't drink tea or coffee, he asked "Oh, are you Mormon?" ?!?!?! I was shocked... I learned that he is a tour guide at Petra, and has worked with a lot of LDS groups, including students from the JC! His English was great, and he learned it just from talking with foreigners. He can also speak some German, French, Italian, and Spanish... all from listening. It almost makes me want to rethink my career goals! But really... it was very interesting in the context of my work, which is assessing the English education program here. The more I experience, and the more people I meet who do speak English, the more I think that student motivation/dedication is a really important element that must be focused on here.
• I was hanging out somewhere and in an hour I watched a cat eat 5 cockroaches. Slimy, yet satisfying, eh?
• Yesterday I kind of lost my temper with a taxi driver. Austin and I were trying to catch a taxi from the bus station back home. Because we had my suitcases with us, people assumed that we were newcomers/tourists and that they could rip us off because we didn't know anything about the city. I deal with that every weekend as I travel back and forth, and this week I let it get to me. One taxi driver pulled over, and said 6JD for the ride (It should be 2.5 tops). I just waved him on. Then another stopped and wanted 4JD, and was being persistent. He was the unfortunate soul. I told him "No, I've lived here for a while, I know it should be around 2JD". He told me I was crazy and that it was 4JD. That's when I started yelling about how he was crazy and I didn't arrive yesterday and how I really do know my way around and he was just trying to rip me off. So, I put on my mean face and waved him on.
• I have less than a week left in Jordan. How weird is that? 

يرمي

PS- Happy Birthday tomorrow to my Dad, who is turning 50. He's the best, coolest Dad in the world, and I respect him a lot. I love you Dad!!!

A Typical Day in Sabha

The title pretty much says what this is all about. Here we go:

Every night I am quite optimistic about how amazing the next morning will be; I see visions of manly workouts, amazing vocab study, and wonderful thinking time. However, 9 times out of 10, when my iPhone's annoying sci-fi alarm clock erupts each morning at 8am, those dreams pale in comparison to the dream of another hour of sleep. So, after resetting my alarm clock, 9am it is. I get up and check my profoundly wonderful emails while trying to convince myself to do, at least, a semi-manly workout. (Plenty of pushups and ab stuff, but no running. It's hot!). I am usually successful in my endeavors of self-persuasion, and make sure to keep the fan on me while I'm exercising. Afterwards as I head to the shower I have to peek my head around the bathroom wall to make sure there's no one who could see my nakedness through the huge window in my bathroom. (Who designed this place?!) Shower time here is completely utilitarian— no relaxation or joy comes from the experience— but it could be far worse, so I won't complain. After washing my hair and my face I turn off the water to soap up, thereby saving the precious water in my tank, and allowing me to shower each day that I'm here. Oh yeah. Once I'm done I repeat the stealth window-peek on my way back to my room where lies (or hangs, I suppose) my towel. Once I'm dressed and ready I gather some of my things and head out to work.

I bolt my apartment door on the way out, walking through the corridor of the building toward the heavy green door. As I step out into the street, I'm greeted by the bright hot sunlight, as well as by several random men who have gathered in front of my building to talk to my shopkeeper friend Khaled. After politely greeting them I cross the street and stand close to the bus stop, a few feet away from the curb. Here begins each morning's hitchhiking adventure. As each car drives by I reach out my arm like I'm hailing a taxi. Some people gesture that they're staying in town, others that they're full, others have women in the car, etc. Most mornings I find a ride within 5 minutes, and sometimes I end up taking the bus. It kinda depends on the morning. At any rate, after a 10 minute drive and a polite conversation with my host (sometimes followed up by a dinner invitation) I arrive at "work". On a typical day, this is at 10:15am. The building I work in is the same design as the one I live in: apartments on the first story and offices on the second. Once up the stairs I turn left and begin the long yet enjoyable process of greeting everyone. I peek into each office; they see me and stand up to greet me. Everyone has their own greeting that they pretty much stick to; Mohammad's face lights up as he asks "Where have you been?". "I'm right here!" I'll say, and he gets a kick out of it every time. With Anwar, I started doing that thing where you smile really big and show as much teeth as you can. His interpretation is more dog-ish, growl and everything, but oh well. And of course, each of these involves a lot of man-kissing. Once I've greeted everyone I go into Mohammed's (bubbs) office, and there I stay for a few hours. Mohammed is finishing his bachelors degree in law, and a lot of the study guides he gets have English on them as well. So, we spend some time going through those words and practicing them. I've found that this helps my Arabic as much as (or more than) it does his English. During this time, he usually sends someone to buy some Pepsi or something. (Hehe, this reminds me of a tangent, remind me to talk about it later. Anyhoo... ) Once he leaves for class (usually around noon) I embark on the rest of my lonely time at work. For most of the other people, the novelty of having a foreigner there has worn off, and they have no interest in trying to speak slowly enough to involve me in any conversation. For a while I tried to still participate, but it was clear that I was being more annoying than endearing, so now I stay in the office and use the 3G internet (as opposed to the Flinstone internet at my apt) to check my email and to read the news. Most days I'm able to do some vocab study, and I also use the time to prepare lessons for my Tawjihi class. Occasionally someone will come in to talk to me, which I love, but for the most part I'm on my own. By 2pm I'm pretty bored— most days by this time my productivity has devolved into my playing 'Settlers of Catan' or 'Plants vs. Zombies' on my iPhone. There are drivers employed by the ministry to drive us home, so we squish into a little white truck and make the trek back to Sabha. Usually the driver buys some fruit or pita or something for us to snack on on the way home.

Once I'm home, I'm in the mood for a bit of alone time. You'd think I'd be fine, seeing how I spend half my time at "work" doing my own thing, but it's nice to just relax a bit and unwind. It's also my only smoke-free time during the day. During this time I usually listen to a few podcasts while playing SimCity (don't judge!), read, update my blog (like right now!), finish preparing for my Tawjihi class, study vocab, and occasionally nap. I'm usually practicing my hermit face for about 2-3 hours, maybe from 3-6. (This also ensures that I'm inside for the hottest part of the day. I'm a smart one, eh?) And then...

I wander. Yup, it's about as detailed of a plan as it sounds. OK... I'll admit, most days I have the end-goal of being invited to dinner. Conniving? Nah... Smart? Thrifty? Hungry for rich cultural experience that just so happens to also fill my tummy? You betcha. The shopkeepers call out from each of the stores I pass, each inviting me to sit and talk; at this point I've done so with most of them. If they're especially persistent I'll stay for a bit before continuing on my walk; Annus is always especially persistent (and he's become my friend, and he usually feeds me, hehe) so that's why I see him quite often. When I sit down to talk with someone, it's normally at least an hour commitment. They always offer coffee and tea, and they are always confused when I tell them that I drink neither. Usually once I tell them why they're very understanding, so Pepsi it is. At the very least, this always jump starts our conversation. There are two types of talkers: the dead fish and the jet ski. The dead fish just sits there and waits for me to drive the conversation. These people soon find me boring, as my ability to inspire exciting conversation in Arabic is not quite up to par. Conversely, the jet ski talkers are the ones who direct the conversation and let me come along for the ride. I can often understand enough of what they're saying to have quite engaging conversations. You would think that my dinner invitations come primarily from the jet skiers, but such an assumption would be false! It's about even; when I'm with the dead fish our conversation has completely dried up by the time dinner comes, so we'll eat while continuing the ritual of asking "How are you?" every few minutes. After sticking around for a bit after dinner, I'll keep wandering around talking to people until around 10pm when I head home. Sometimes the walk can take a while, I have to once again greet everyone on the way home and convince them that I really am not hungry and no, I don't want to spend the night and yes, I really do need to be going home.

Once at home, I once again take time to unwind. I'll put on some music, read, work on some HW, and generally bask in my fan's cool breeze. This is also when the biggest mosquito battles occur, with fatalities averaging 5 a night. I have a spray that I spray in my room each night; I seal my room for 10 minutes and it kills all of the bugs in there. Then I open the door, move my fan, and let it air out before I go to sleep. I usually hit the hay at around midnight, although it usually takes me a bit to fall asleep (I think it's all of the Pepsi people give me throughout the day). As I lay there, trying to go to sleep, I think optimistic thoughts about the next day, envisioning that manly workout and productive vocab study...

يرمي

The perpetuation of mishmash

Wow! It's been almost a week. Sorry to leave y'all hanging. (In actuality, I realize that there were most likely zero tears shed over the break. But I'm trying to butter myself up. Deal with it!). Once again, we're going to go with the bullet-points format. You see, as time goes on, my weeks are filled less and less with new and/or different things. It's not that they're not interesting or exciting; they're becoming more routine. Now, I could use this blog as an after-the-fact day planner: "First I had breakfast, then I showered, then I left, etc.", but I think both you and I would be bored to tears. I couldn't write then, let alone read it! So... here we go:

• On the bus from Mufraq to Sabha Monday I saw an acquaintance and waved to him. He moved from the front seat to sit right next to me, which was nice of him, but since both of us have rather broad shoulders it was a bit squishy. I don't remember if I told you about him when I met him about 2 months ago; he's Farah's nephew (Farah is my clingy friend who took me to Irbid last week), and speaks with a major lisp. That makes his Arabic nearly impossible to understand. He speaks English OK, but between his abominable grammar and lisp, I can barely even understand that. We talked for a few minutes, and then I took advantage of some awkward silence to put my earphones back in and kept listening to my Freakanomics podcast. But Arabs, I've found, tend to be impressively immune to hints. He kept on talking to me every few minutes, wanting to practice some English. Normally I'd be down, but his idea of practicing English was reading his IT Systems textbook to me. So I put my earphones in and looked at him like I was listening. Thinking back, I could have been more polite and could have been better at pretending, but I was not in the mood. 
• When I was at the Ministry this week, Mohammed came into the office I was working in. He told me to close my eyes, and when I opened them there was a watch in my hands, which was a birthday gift from him. Have I told you how awesome he is? Definitely my best friend here in Jordan. 
• My Tawjihi class on Tuesday went OK. One of the student's wanted me to teach differently (more of a focus on grammar), and she's the daughter of the people that own the school. She didn't say it in a mean way, just in a "we want to learn different things" way. I gave up on trying to come up with a creative lesson plan. Rather, I just went through the book with them and went through different grammar principles. I would write examples up on the board and have them complete the sentences (mostly focused on tenses). I told them to ask questions if they didn't understand, and that if they didn't ask questions I'd just assume they understood and move on. I don't think that's too big of an expectation for high school seniors, right? Well, the plan was to go for two hours, but after an hour and a half I could feel both mine and their attention weaning, so I ended class early, gave them some HW, and headed home. I believe I made grammar class sufficiently boring, yes? :P
• I met a man this week from Saudi Arabia. He's the first person that I've talked to from there, and so I asked him a lot of stuff about it. He was there visiting family to escape the heat. I didn't realize how hot it got there- 130°!!! 
• This week at the Ministry I was in an office by myself doing work, and so other people started to assume that I worked there for realsies. They would ask me where someone was, and I'd direct them. It made me feel totally legit. And it seems like they assume I'm Arab, cuz they talk to me crazy fast, and then seem surprised at my labored response. Bad lighting, perhaps? Or do I seriously look like a bedouin?
• I have some new clingy friends! I was wandering around Wednesday evening and they invited me into their beyt shar (the tent everyone has by their house where they hang out). I talked to them for a while, but then my stomach started to feel funny so I came up with an excuse and left. A few hours later, the man called me to see if I was coming back. Now, I didn't give him my phone number! That means that he must've asked his neighbors who do have it. Talk about persistence! Since then he's called me four times!!! Holy clingy!
• Thursday night after dinner, I went to the mall with Annie, Kaiti, and Skye to see Cars 2. However, it was only playing in 3D which is stoopid AND more expensive, so we decided not to. We ended up grocery shopping (I know, WOOT WOOT!) and then going to a cafe for some drinks afterwards. I got a really yummy strawberry banana cocktail (it's awesome here. Since Muslims don't drink alcohol, you can get really great non-alcoholic drinks) and Kaiti and I split a WONDERFUL quesadilla. It had guacamole and everything. It was beautiful.
• The elevator. Oh. My. Gosh. After we'd gone grocery shopping we were trying to take an elevator with our cart upstairs to eat. We were first in line for one elevator, but after 5 minutes of it not moving, we determined to switch to the line for the other elevator. Roughly 30 seconds later the elevator we'd been waiting for came. Figures. I'll console myself in knowing that someone in a wheelchair got on instead of us. We got up to be first in line for the other one. The elevator arrived, but it was full. The elevator went up and came back down, stopping again at our floor. It was full... with the same people. The elevator went down and then came back up. Yup, they were still there. This happened a few more times, each time infuriating us a bit more. After what felt like forever (but was seriously about 10 minutes) we determined we were done. We picked up all of our bags and took the escalator. Boo.
• Last night I met up with the girls at the mall to hang out at the bookstore (they play really good music there). Afterwards we went to grab some dinner. We settled on a burger place, and they had a chocolate chip cheeseburger on their menu. I was intrigued and am always a bit adventurous when it comes to weird combinations (ex: chili with peanut butter tastes beautiful. Don't believe me? Try it. It will change your life.). So I tried the burger. It wasn't bad. It was slightly good. I won't pay money for it again.
• The elevators at THIS mall were beautiful.

I'll be in FL in 2 weeks! How crazy is that?!?! I won't say that time has flown by, because it hasn't, but I still can't believe that it's almost over! Crazy talk.

يرمي

Birthday weekend

Breaking News! This blog is totally legit! We're international! I checked the stats for the last month, and I have readers in: the USA, Jordan, France, Germany, Cambodia, Thailand, and Yemen! How totally awesome is that?! There were also at least 150 unique readers! I'm know that that has to go beyond my family and close friends, so here's a major shout-out to any readers I have that I don't know personally. Send me an email and tell me about yourself. I'd love to know more, and maybe even give a shout out!

This weekend was, overall, really good. On Thursday after arriving in Amman, we had our weekly dinner at the girls place. As usual, it was delicious! We had wrapped grape leaves and zucchini stuffed with rice, really good bread, and delicious juice. (Why has the US not caught on to the beauty of lemon-mint juice? Mmmmmm) THEN, for Austin's and my birthdays, we had cake and ice cream. After dinner we went to the mall to see the new movie 'Super 8'. I thought it was pretty good, although it didn't quite live up to the hype I observed when it came out in the States. Friday was relatively uneventful. Church was good. I lazed about for quite a bit once we were home. And some of us met up for dinner at an Italian restaurant we'd heard of, not too far from our apt. The food was delicious, and I'd been majorly craving some Italian.

Saturday was our trip to Jerash and Umm Qays, which was really fun. Both are ruins of ancient Roman decapolis cities, and both are really cool. Jerash is better preserved, and so there was much more to see. We got to climb all over everything (I found a random staircase and went up it to find myself on a ledge with a fantastic view!). We tried to watch the gladiator show for free (6 JD? Psht!) but we were discovered, so we just wandered more. We found a restaurant where we got OK hummus, OK bread, and really cold drinks. Thus, I consider it a success. It was really hot; my tan definitely improved! (I didn't think that I'd gotten burnt at all until the next day I put on a collared shirt. Yup, definitely burned my neck). One fun moment was when we were taking an amazingly touristy picture: Katie and I were posing mermaid style... ahem, self-serving dynast style... at the top of a staircase, Annie was standing in a fountain, and Skye & Austin were up on pillars. When we started, no one was there. But by the time the picture was taken, we had an audience, including a police officer who was not terrible excited about our climbing on pillars. We felt kinda embarrassed at our silliness, but oh well.  Once we'd conquered Jerash we took off for Umm Qays. I slept in the car for most of the way, but I do know that we got lost in Irbid for a bit. We got there and immediately the view was gorgeous. It was very green, and from our vantage point we could see the Sea of Galilee, Israeli occupied Golan Heights, and Syria. We were all pretty hungry, so we went to the restaurant there (which has a great view... and luxurious bathrooms!) which served really good food (Italian two days in a row!). It was nice to just sit and talk with good friends. Once we'd finished eating and dillydallying, we took off to take some sweet pics and wander about. We found even better views, an amphitheater, and Annie found millions of lizards (she is now known as the lizard oracle). On the drive back, we turned a corner and saw an incredible view of Irbid, the city lights against the night sky. It was breathtaking. I muttered "Wow" and the driver was like "Finally! I've been trying all day to get you to say 'Wow' but all you do is sleep!" Hehe...

Sunday was my birthday. 24 years old... I'm old! It was a really fun day. In the morning we all met at the Ministry of Social Development (where everyone else works) to catch a ride to the Parliament. We were ushered into a conference room, and I felt totally legit. Each seat had one of those mics where you pressed the button to talk to everyone else. There we had a Q&A session with members of Parliament who are on the committee for Social Development. They told us about their work, and we asked questions. It was a pretty good discussion, and if nothing else made me feel very official for about an hour. They invited us to observe a session of Parliament later on in the day. We accepted, but had a few hours to kill before it began. First we grabbed some lunch: kabab and falafel. Mmmmmm. Have I mentioned how much I love the food here?! From there we headed to the Abdullah bin-Hussein mosque, which is beautiful. (It's the one I mentioned a few months ago as being across the street from a huge Christian church). After wandering around the mosque, we went to the museum next door, which focuses on the Islamic aspect of Jordanian history. It had a lot of beautiful pictures (lots of Jerusalem, which made me long for it badly), and models of beautiful mosques throughout Jordan that I really wanna go see before I leave. After that it was time to go to Parliament. The session was interesting for a while, but since they were talking really fast in all Arabic (duh!) I was finished after about an hour. I left the group and headed over to get a haircut and a shave. The guy trimmed my facial hair, and even trimmed my nose hair... interesting! (I suppose I can now say that a stranger has stuck scissors up my nose. Can you say that? I don't think so...)  We met up again for dinner, which was one of the most delicious things that has ever happened to me. We made french toast and topped it with homemade whipped cream, sliced bananas, and honey. It was amazing!!! The cool night breeze felt wonderful, and it was great to just relax and talk with friends. So I count my birthday as a major success. If I take this as an hyper-literal omen, 24 is gonna be a good year. :)

And with that, friends, I find myself once again at home in Sabha. Thanks for the emails, they really make my day.

يرمي

Holy OhMyGosh It's Hot!

So yes, as the title suggests, this past week was freaking hot. Luckily it's cooling down and we're back in the 90's, but towards the beginning of the week it was hot as, well, ya know... Thank GOODNESS for my fan. Not only does it keep mosquitos from draining all of my blood as I sleep, but it keeps things [semi]-cool. When people in Sabha hear that I only have a fan, they tell me I'm crazy 'cuz it doesn't do much (It just blows hot air!). But then I tell them that it's better than nothing, and they shrug their agreement.

So on Monday I was kind of a hermit for a few hours after work. I was tired, and it was HOT; I didn't want to leave the comfort of my fan. However, I eventually determined to stop being lame and go outside. As I left, Shlash was walking by, so he talked to me for a while to see what I've been up to. Then he decided he wanted me to meet someone, and so I got in his car and we drove over to his friend Reyada's home. Reyada works for the Ministry of Education, and apparently has the hookups when it comes to English education. I went to his office and met with him on Tuesday. And by "met with him", what I really mean is that I sat in his office, politely declined tea and had to explain why, made small talk, sat awkwardly for forever, talked about work for 5 minutes, and then left. That's how all business is done here. I'm not going to be able to have a direct conversation to save my life once I'm home. I'll sit down with someone, they'll start talking, and I'll be like, "Ahem, aren't you supposed to be offering me tea or something? And will you please ask me how I'm doing, what's new, how's my health, how am I doing, how's my family, how's work, how am I doing, Welcome to Jordan." Anyhoo... he has a great idea, which I plan on implementing. Rather than trying to meet with each English teacher, we'll send out a questionnaire through the Ministry to all of the English teachers in the Badia. That way we can plan our future involvement better.

My tawjihi class on Tuesday went OK. I read them the story of the dog choking on human fingers. Oh yeah... Then I tried to teach them about adverbs and verb tenses. I'm gonna confess, I think I'm sucking at this whole English grammar teaching. Part of it is that I don't know grammar that well anyways (and I'm an English major! I know, I know, shame on me, spare me the ridicule...), and another part of it is that I don't really have any materials. So, I'm trying to teach what I don't really know by winging it. And they want me to do that for 2 hours twice a week. Sooooo... we'll see how this keeps going. 

So I have a profound cultural observation to make. Prepare yourself. I believe that it may be the root of why Arab culture and Western culture have clashed so much. Americans tend be blunt in areas that Arabs dance around the subject. The opposite is also true, Arabs can be cuttingly blunt in areas where Americans would rather not go. A few examples:

• If someone asks a favor of you, you never say "no". It's more rude to say "no" than to not follow through. So, you answer vaguely. "If God wills it" or "After a while" or "I'll call you" all work, and most Arabs I've met get the point.
• When talking about money, Arabs have no qualms about talking about how much something cost, which would be rude in American culture. I've had a few friends get a new phone or a new computer, and they tell me right away how much it cost and how expensive it was. Also, everyone asks me what my salary is here (my answer shocks them: zip!) and what an average American's salary is. Anyone that sees my laptop or my iPhone asks how much it cost.
• When Arabs have come to visit me, when they're done they're done and they make it known. Usually after 20-30 minutes of sitting with me in my apt, they say "I want to go now", and then go. It's actually quite refreshing. In American culture we come up with a reason "Oh I really do have a ton of HW. I'd love to stay, but we'll catch up later", which we all know translates to "I am so done with being here. See ya!"

And now for the experience that brings this observation on. Remember the story I told last time about my friend who wants my iPod shuffle? When he was at my house he kept picking it up to examine it quite dramatically (for my sake, I'm sure) and talking about how beautiful it is. That is the cue in Arabic culture for me to offer it to him, whether or not I want to. However, since I am not an Arab, I didn't. Since that experience he's been quite persistent. The next day he told me that he'd had a dream that I'd given him my iPod. I understood perfectly, but I pretended to have no clue what he was saying (which is quite believable, since it happens all the time) and then changed the subject. Then yesterday I was walking with him and he said that he wanted to talk to me. He reminded me that he'd given me a ring a few days before (which he had since taken back and broken) and wanted to know when I would give him a present. [Thus, the observation of how Arabs can be blunt] Then he specifically told me that he wanted my iPod. He kind of made it an ultimatum; he asked me "yes or no?" I told him no, reassured him that I would give him something (albeit non-iPod-ish) before I left, and told him to stop asking me. That's another difference in our cultures, in terms of gift giving: Arabs give you something which they own, American go out and buy something for you.

Last night my friend Farah picked me up and took me to dinner. It was at the home of the mechanic (named Mohammed) who fixed his car last week. He lives in a town (I can't remember what it's called) right outside of Irbid, which is a good hour drive away. Farah had not met Mohammed before getting his car fixed, so we'd both had the same amount of contact with him (although Farah definitely had the upper hand, him being fluent in Arabic and all that jazz). I'm pretty sure he invited us because he wanted to talk to me about getting help immigrating to the United States. (This has so far been my only experience where someone invited me to their home exclusively to ask a favor from me) When it became clear that my poor student non-connected self would be useless in that endeavor, the hospitality took a nose dive. He talked some politics with me (with Farah translating), although we disagreed on quite a bit. He was was the first Arab I've spoken to that had anything bad to say about Obama. (Everyone here loves Obama and hates Bush, which is not entirely surprising) Of course he disliked Bush, blaming him for the Iraq war which was devastated the economy. But he also disliked Obama. I asked him why, and he started listing off a bunch of things that have gone wrong under his presidency: "Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, etc.". I was feeling a bit bold, and told him that he couldn't blame Obama or America for every single thing that goes wrong in the world. I explained how everything he had listed had happened on it's own, even if some (namely Libya) had eventually produced a US response. He just changed the subject, which was probably for the best. And by change the subject, I mean that he spent the next two hours talking on the phone while Farah played with my pen and notebook and I played Bounce on my phone. I was so bored I just wanted to kick a parakeet. However, we eventually (at 11pm... we arrived ay 7) did eat dinner: mansaf, which made everything worth it! ;) After dinner a neighbor came in and started arguing with him, so Farah and I took that as our cue to leave. We had an uneventful ride home; Farah kept asking me the names of each village we drove through, and teased me for not remembering them all. ("Ummm, excuse me, but they're weird names in Arabic. I can't remember") Occasionally we'd pass a sign with the village name on it so I could escape his jests.

And now I'm in Amman! It's been a great day thus far; as I was walking to the bus this morning a friend bought me a sandwich and a Mountain Dew, and I listened to some wonderful podcasts on the way here. I'm pretty excited for this weekend; we're visiting Jerash and Um Qais. Um Qais is in the Golan Heights and overlooks the Sea of Galilee, which is my favorite place on earth. A large part of my heart still resides in my memories of being there. So, we're going for my birthday. Be excited. And with that, I'm-a-gunna-let you go! See ya!

يرمي