A Hitchhiker's Guide to Jordan

Another great day in Sabha. One of my favorite things is hitchhiking; I've only doubled up a few times, and so every morning I get to meet somebody new. In a month and a half, I've only had one negative experience (A man found out I was from America and proceeded to tell me that all Americans hate Arabs, emotionally citing movies and a few specific stories as the absolute proof. [sounds like there's an Arab version of Glenn Beck afoot! Well... at least he didn't cry. Anyhoo...] I tried to tell him that I really did love Jordan and love Arabs, but he assumed that I was lying and told me to get out of his car. Someone else picked me up within 30 seconds, and we had a lovely experience). So, back to why I love hitchhiking; I get to meet so many different people in the community who ALL remember me. As I'm walking down the street, tons of people stop their cars in the road to greet me by name and find out how my day has been. They always conclude by telling me that if I need anything, to call them. And they're serious! 2 rides have turned into dinners!

Work was good, although (not surprisingly) it went drastically different than planned, mostly because I didn't get to teach my class. A lot of people weren't there today, and so class was postponed until tomorrow. I still had a lot of fun: I ate a DELICIOUS lunch with my coworkers (Where they once again proceeded to direct me to all of the foods that will allegedly increase my fertility. I think it's because I tell them that I'm engaged. More on that later...), made a hilarious video with a friend, and helped a few friends with their vocab.

After work I headed home to read for a bit; I'm almost done with CS Lewis' Mere Christianity. But then a friend came by and invited me to go watch soccer (ahem... Football) at the military school. That was pretty fun. Yeah...

I went and chilled for a bit with my friend Khaled at his work. Him and his friend probably think that I'm totally lame, cuz I don't like anything that they like from America. First they were asking me about music, and asked how much 50 cent and Eminem I have. Nope. Then they were talking video games. Nope. Then they asked me about movies like Saw, Halloween, and other terribly violent sounding ones. Nope. Soccer teams? Nope. MTV? Nope. So yeah... it's amazing that we had things to talk about still. Luckily (?!) my Arabic small talk is pretty limited so at least I'm consistent, right?

Afterwards I went to Shlash's for the evening, which was interesting. He showed me the most gory video that I'm ever seen: a CGI video of some story from Greek mythology that somehow involves everyone getting cut in half or beheaded with ridiculous amounts of blood involved. So, I mostly read the NYTimes while nodding every once in a while to feign interest.

NYTimes, that reminds me. Some of you may know that I'm a sucker for political debates. Perhaps some of you have experienced the mayhem that ensues when I post something political on Facebook. Well... it's happened again. I don't want to discuss controversial politics on this blog, but feel free to check out my Facebook page. There's a pretty good discussion going on. But I will say this regarding Islamaphobia in the United States. We need to allow truth and fact to dictate our society, and our treatment of others. As a nation, we must stop allowing fear, bias, and downright bigotry to lead the discussion. Soapbox finished. Email me if you wanna talk about it more.

It was relatively late (11:30) when I walked home tonight. It was mostly quiet, and I took the opportunity to sing to myself as I walked along. And then I met a young man who acted totally sauced with a cigarette in his hand. He couldn't have been older than 13. Ah, the life in rural Jordan! Hehe...

OK, so I'm getting tired and this post is degrading into nonsense, so I'm going to end it now. Talk to y'all later!

يرمي