Besides the obvious increase in my Arabic skills, I have learned a lot about myself. I now have the confidence to put myself in difficult situations that I can’t control, and know that I will be able to handle it. I now understand that when you travel, you can only plan to a certain extent, and the rest you have to improvise (which is more fun anyways). I know that it is easy to make friends wherever I go, and that trusting in people is always better than making negative assumptions. I have learned that there are so many good people in this world who are willing to help others and share their way of life. And most importantly, I have learned that even when culture, or religion, or opinions don’t match up, we can still accept (and even love) each other. I know, a bit cheesy, but it’s hard to fully believe until you actually experience it.

I have also learned to appreciate my family, my friends, and my country back home. You never love something so much until you leave it and see all the good things you left behind. When I leave Jordan I know it will be the same. I will see all of the good things I loved about Amman and the Middle East, and I know I will miss it.

So long Jordan.

الأردن أولاً

In Jordan, there’s a but of what we call the Tribe problem. Jordanians come from Tribes, which are very much alive and well today. And when you run for President of your faculty in the University, you use your tribe and its status to get you elected, instead of a platform or agenda.

The other day we were sitting in class around 4 o’clock in the afternoon and heard a huge raucous. Everybody ran to the window and we could see hundreds of 20 year old boys in a massive fight, chasing each other down the main street of campus. If somebody insults your tribe, or the candidate from your tribe, EVERYBODY gets involved, and its a big fat mess. There are also no consequences for boys that are involved, because they usually use what we call wasta (connections) and wiggle their way out. So the fight probably went on for a good half hour because teachers don’t step in, and campus police don’t have that kind of control. This problem is apparently ten times bigger on the day of actual elections because of insults and what not. It was over by the time we left class and our professor left with us to make sure it was safe, so don’t worry.

Our friend, Aliet, who is running for President in her faculty, was telling us some of the tricks they use. Sometimes a girl will run and gather votes for herself, and then right before the day of elections, she pulls out of the running and endorses another guy, probably from her tribe, so he gets all of the votes. There is also no spending limit for your campaign, so this is what campus looks like right now.

The main street of campus is even worse because there are trees, and stapled to each of them are about 15 faces watching you walk by. It is a big deal though, because if you win, you get an incredible amount of wasta in the government and are almost guaranteed a government job after college.

On a completely different note, I would like you all to meet the Arabic level 5a class.

Poor Joe was the only boy all term, but my guess is he didn’t really mind…

Standing from left to right is Lina, Rachel, Soraya, Kelly and Caroline. And Sitting is Ayumi, Joe, Me, and Katie.

This Friday we had a little party at Natasha’s house with most of the girls. It was a blast. Here is a picture of all of us.

Left to Right: Farah (Natasha’s sis), Aunt Amani, Me, Mama (Alia), Natasha, Aunt Abeer (Natasha’s Mama), Sara, and Sara’s Mama (our grandma).

Natasha and our cousin Noor. She refused to take that out of her nose.

This is Noor’s brother, Mohamed, but we call him Hamoudeh. He’s cute and he knows it.

Yesterday I went to my peer tutor’s house, which is about a half hour drive outside of Amman. They put on a big meal for me and a ton of family came over. She has 12 brothers and sisters and most of the brothers all live together in the same apartment complex. Her sister-in-law made the food, and it was amazing. Probably some of the best I’ve had my entire time here. It was also a real culture shock. They are a very traditional family, and it was so great to be welcomed into it. I wish I had gone earlier in the term , because I would visit them all the time. It’s also fun when they’re talking about you when you can understand them now, and I got to speak a lot of Arabic while I was over there.

Finals have officially begun. So I’m going to listen to some Christmas music and study (which has been my only way to prepare for Christmas so far). I’m sure I’ll have a few more posts for you before the week brings the end of my stay in Jordan.

Last thing: Our dabkeh dance is up on youtube, and everyone should watch it. It’s hilarious. Unfortunately the person filming didn’t get me much because I was on the end that gets cut out, but I’m there. It will be like an I spy game. Have fun.

I took this picture in the bathroom of the Educational Sciences building. This is called a “Haman Araby”, and yes, it’s a toilet. I’m sorry I’m posting a picture of a toilet, but it needs to be done.

It does flush from a pull string on the wall… sometimes. (At least it has the grippy things right?) We’ve noticed girls’ bathrooms aren’t really used for the toilets, but for the mirrors… But when there is a line for the bathroom, it’s normal to stand right outside a stall door (and knock if you don’t think they’re being fast enough).

We went to the Bake House, which has American breakfast food (again) for my friend Kelly’s birthday. We got a cute picture of the girls. We all are in the same arabic class/level, and have become good friends. I’ll miss them all.

(Left to right: Caroline, Me, Kelly, Katie)

This week was kind of a closing out, as we had a few finals, our last days of class, and a host family dinner. A few of us performed Dabkeh for the dinner, and it was a pretty big hit. It’s a traditional Middle Eastern dance that is done in a big group, and with awesome outfits. The dinner was a restaurant called Reem Al-Bawadi, which is a really traditional, but nice place.

Our Mama’s loved it.

This weekend brings lots of studying, lots of family time (a party at auntie Abeer and Natasha’s house), and a trip to my peer tutor’s house. Tomorrow we have what’s called re-entry orientation, which is to talk about going home and all the changes we’ve gone through. Should be interesting.

Also, I’m hoping there will be a youtube video of our dance. Just type in CIEE dabkeh and last year’s group will show up, but maybe ours will too in a few days. And I’ll of course keep the pictures coming.

Cairo is very polluted, so there’s that constant layer of haze on the horizon. We also visited a coupld mosques up there and a military museum (where pictures were not allowed).

Salahudin Mosque at the Citadel.

King Tut and I.

Natasha and I outside.

That night we had an Egyptian dinner after floating on a falouca on the Nile. It reminded me of a festive Christmas lights exhibition like the one we have at Eagle Crest, only on the river… the boats are all decked out in lights, usually with a little theme. It makes the river look so pretty at night, because it’s actually a very dirty river.

We payed a little extra to get our own falouca so we didn’t have to share with the teenage boys. It was well worth the money (which was not a whole lot, because Egypt is so cheap), and I got a good picture of Christina.

We went to dinner at a little Egyptian place where we had some foul (fool) which is an Egyptian thing, and then got fresh mango ice cream. The insider’s look from our tour guide/friend, Mohamed.

The next day brought the pyramids. We first did the Cairo museum, which had too much stuff in it for them to even bother labeling half of it. There were no pictures allowed but I got one outside of it at least.

There was a ridiculous amount of check points to get into this place. We had to go through one gate three times and another twice because we first bought the wrong ticket, and then found out that we had to leave our cameras in a designated building. A little much, we thought, but we had to go in.

The Pyramids were the highlight of the trip for me. We went around sunset and it was gorgeous. I have a million pictures but I’ll just post a few.

I know… could I look any more touristy?

We actually had really good Korean food that night for dinner, and then did some shopping in Khan Al-Khalili, a famous market place with all things Egypt. Great for tourists because you can bargain, but sometimes they give you a hard time and assume you don’t know what things should cost. Which I guess is a little true…

On Sunday we went to Alexandria with Mohamed’s cousin. It was great to have our own car to do whatever we wanted. We payed for the gas of course. We visited the library, which is built as a rising sun, with water surrounding it. It also has a planetarium outside to represent the earth. The original library in Alexandria (which was quite a big deal) burned down, twice actually, and left only one document, which was in Vienna.

Oh yeah, Alexandria is on the Mediterranean.

December should not look like this… After the library we visited the Citadel and the fortress there. It was swarming with teen boys who thought they had an excellent sense of humor. But it was a cool building.

We went to the palace of the King, which has been converted to a public park since he was overthrown by today’s government. There were a lot of locals and it was cool to see a real hang out place.

Our last day we spent in Cairo, gathering some souvenirs and gifts. We took Mohamed out to an Italian restaurant which was mediocre, but then we went to a concert at the Cairo culture wheel and got a picture with the singer. She sang famous songs from a singer named Fayrouz, which all of us girls love.

It was a great way to end our trip. We were all a little reluctant to come back to the real world where the finals season is starting up, but that means home is just that much closer. I’m just about ready anyways. These have been an amazing four months of experience and learning in all aspects, but I will be happy to be home.

The Turkey.

The complete plate. (without the Pecan pie and apple crisp though )

On a completely different note, there was a bee in our classroom today. Now, this has happened before, but today, our teacher, Salah, explained that if there is a bee in the room, he has to kill it because he’s allergic (or so we gathered from piecing our arabic vocab with the sign language and acting). So he kills this bee by swatting it with his handful of papers and then slowly stepping on it. After that, we had to put it on top of the board so it could “watch” our class. And guess what? I had my camera with me.

There’s the naHla, resting peacefully on the whiteboard. Then he wrote under it “Don’t kill me. I’m dead. Saleh Hamdan killed me”. Just in case someone thought it was still alive and wanted to kill it… Really one of the funniest classes ever.

Tomorrow (Thanksgiving day) we leave for Egypt. I’m glad I get to be with friends on Thanksgiving. Ironically, tomorrow is the one day of the Islamic Eid Al-Adha that it’s required to fast all day. If that’s not irony, I don’t know what is.

Happy Thanksgiving and Eid Mubarak.

It was so surreal to have someone from home come to my house here. It’s kind of like when two worlds, who you have never associated together, collide, and it just makes a person feel pretty weird. We went to the citadel the first day she was here, and then she got to come to my house a couple nights and just hang out and relax. We talked a lot about our lives here, and a lot about home. I only have four more weeks left, which is crazy. I’m getting more and more excited to go home. I miss my family and I miss my dogs. And for the thousandth time, I miss my car, and the freedom I had to leave the house whenever I wanted to. I also just miss the scenery of home. If I see a Ford car here I freak out. And the other day I saw a BIG Ford truck outside my house, and it was the first one I’ve seen the whole time I’ve been here.

Last night we went to a place called the Bake House for dinner, although it’s a breakfast place… We had pancakes and french toast and omelettes, and it was so amazing. So amazing that I forgot to take pictures. Sorry. But anyway, it was a delicious meal that almost tasted like home. Families don’t do pancakes and french toast here. For instance, this morning we had hummus and fool.

While at this place, we were eating our food and discussing some of the things we’ve encountered with the male youth here (which you probably remember from a previous post), and there was a guy, maybe in his 20′s, sitting at a nearby table. We were only discussing some of the annoyances and individual instances and this guy starts talking to us in english. “Excuse me, I’m assuming you’re from the States right? Oh well, I don’t mean to interrupt or anything but I’ve heard so many foreigners talking about this, and I just wanted to say that America is really f***** up too. I mean, I have an American passport even though I’ve lived in Jordan all my life, and the guys in America are so much worse”. Seriously? You just wanted to show off your foul, american-style english and your interruption, which you did mean to do, has no point. Natasha and Caroline and I were just flaming mad that this guy interrupted our conversation, which was not generalizing at all, and were later discussing how it’s a good thing we’re not tourists because we would leave here with the impression that Jordanians are aggressive, imposing people, which is not the case at all. So it was ironic that this guy who was trying to “defend” a population of people he probably didn’t even identify with (because let’s face it, if you hold an american passport you’re not an every day Jordanian), and actually just ended up making himself look worse.  I guess it’s a good thing it happened, because I’ve never wanted to defend America much more than last night, although I know we have issues there too. Ah. Ok. Got that over with.

Home and classes have been great. My arabic is definitely improving (because mama says it is), and I hope that it will get even better before I leave. I also registered for classes for winter term at UofO and was excited that I got everything I wanted. I’ve also been looking into internships for when I get back, and may be looking into a place called Mobility International, that works with disability development all over the world, including the Middle East. I’m excited about it and hope something works out.

I didn’t get any people pictures while Kate was here. They’re all on her camera, so maybe some day, but I do have some from the citadel and one by request for James

View of Amman from the highest hill. That’s the amphitheater in the center.

James wanted to see some “store hours” so I took this picture in the post office on campus. Open 8-5 every day except Saturday 8-1, and of course closed on Friday.

Amman’s enormous flag, and more of Amman, the city in which I live.

We leave for Cairo, Egypt on Thursday (Thanksgiving, I know). I can’t believe I’m going to Egypt… Anyway, hopefully we’ll have a Thanksgiving dinner in the apartments this Tuesday night, although I’m not sure if we’ll do a Turkey. Maybe have to settle for a chicken. Let me know if you all have any suggestions for easy stuff to make with ingredients you can find anywhere.

Inshallah, the next update will include Egypt, unless I think of something to write in between now and then. And if I don’t, I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving. Eat lots for me.

Getting into Israel is quite intimadating because it can any way on any day. We have heard of them refusing entry to people if you say you’re going somewhere they don’t want you to go, especially into the Palestinian territories. But since we were just going into Jerusalem, which is a very touristy place, we think they were a little more forgiving. They did however want to know what we were doing in Syria, and how long we were there, stuff like that.

When we got there it was pouring, which is something we weren’t used to at this point. So our first view of the city was something like this.

The walls behind the car are the walls to the old city, where there’s a Jewish quarter, a Muslim quarter, a Christian quarter and an Armenian quarter. We stayed in a hostel in the Muslim quarter. It was easier because we could speak in Arabic, because none of speak Hebrew.

We went to the church of Holy Supulchre after getting settled into our room (a big dorm with 8 beds). There we saw the place where Jesus was crucified, and we could see the rock where he was laid after.

This is a shrine INSIDE the church that supposedly represents where the crucifiction happened.

People praying on the rock He was laid on.

We were so beat from getting up at 5:30 (after a kickin’ Halloween party), and getting across the border that we only lasted until about 10 o’clock that night. We got dinner at a nice Italian restaurant close to our hostel and then went down the street to a small cafe/bar and had a glass of wine. Hey, that’s legal here.

The next morning we were out the door by 8:30 am. We all bought a loaf of bread for breakfast (that comes with a kind of thyme spice combination  for dipping). After that was the Western Wall, which is believed by Jews to be the last piece of Solomon’s temple.

We were down there on the Sabbath so everybody was going to pray. Then we wandered everywhere. We went to St. Anne’s church where we listened to a few groups sing, because the church is renowned for having great acoustics.But I also really liked this statue.

Natasha got to go in Al-Aqsa mosque and pray while we were wondering around here. It was closed to non-muslims that day, but we were just happy she got to go. We did more wandering around the city and then took the bus to Bethlehem. We only had time to go to the Nativity church, but it was a great place to visit. The church is built over the spot where Jesus was born. This 14 point star marks that spot.

We saw the church, which is broken up into three sections; Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Armenian. We heard Orthodox is the most common around these parts.

I do believe this next picture is the cutest picture yet. (besides the one above, of course )

The next big trip is Egypt! That’s in about three weeks, but I’m sure I’ll be updating before then. Interesting things always happen.

Today I had to perform a poem from memory in my reading class. Yeah, in Arabic. Apparently I did such a good job that I now get to learn the song version and sing it in front of the class. I’m not sure how I feel about this, as I’m the only one having to do it… But the song is pretty. Hopefully I can do it justice.

But on Saturday we went to the Dead Sea to participate in some picture taking for Climate Change awareness. Here’s a picture of us in our awesome outfits.

Cute huh?

After this, we toured some sink holes, which are a result of the massive shrinking of the Dead Sea (which is happening for various reasons; 1. water being redirected from the River 2. not enough rainfall to refill it 3. other reasons I won’t go into) It’s an interesting topic, and I encourage you all to check it out, because it’s something we would have never known about/seen if we didn’t go on this excursion. But anyways, these sink holes are fairly devastating because the land just disappears from underneath, and a lot of times there were houses where the ground collapsed.

You can see they’re really deep. There were at least four like this that we walked around. After that, we headed to some crops nearby and picked some beans and fruit. We’re not sure if we were helping or not, but it was fun. And the scenery was beautiful.

(The Dead Sea is off to the left). After picking, we were parched and hungry, so we got to have a big lunch with the locals down the road. I have three pictures for this. The first; how the bread was made. The second; how the chicken was made. The third; the complete meal with “galayat bandoora” (bandoora=tomato), a spicy tomato sauce type dish.

Delicious.

It was really a tasty meal, but you can imagine how my stomach is feeling the day after. (yes, I ate all of it). The bigger problem was the massive amount of flies in our way. We just sat down on the mats and ate with our hands. Very liberating.

After lunch we went to another Wadi, which is apparently lesser known and therefore full of garbage from the locals. But it was a nice easy hike up to a little hot spring where we could swim, but only some of us did… Here’s what a “Wadi” looks like:

This one wasn’t quite the raging river Wadi Mujib was, so I could take more photos. Here’s the hot spring pool:

Needless to say I did not dunk. But the water was very nice and warm.

Here’s another good picture of us in the fields.

Left to Right: Kate, Caroline, Me, Abby. And the Dead Sea behind us. It was a really fun weekend, and it was nice to get out and see things.

We can tell this week is going to be better than last week. We were all in a bad mood last week probably because of the heat, midterms, and general unrest. But the weather is only in the 80′s now, and we’re keeping busy so it should be smooth sailing from here on out… Yeah. Right. But really, as Dad said the other night, we’re on the downward slope (in terms of time, not attitude )

I’ll leave you all with some pretty scenic pictures that I like, and then I’ll put the rest on facebook.

Bedouin boys.

Downtown Amman. (Al-Balad)

As for some of us girls, we feel we have completely been stripped of our independance. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is to us who have been fairly independant for a couple of years, or even longer. Taking a taxi three times a day gets old very fast. (This doesn’t apply to just women. Women do have cars here). However, us girls have to be much more concerned about where we’re going, when we’re going and how we’re going to get back, or which of the boys is going to walk us home. Something hard to get used to.

American cafe’s here, like certain coffee shops, are over run with couples and it makes for an awkward study place. Same with campus. There’s a good strip of street in a certain area notorious for couples, which makes you feel like your in middle school.

On a happier note, we had a birthday this weekend! Tiffany’s little brother turned 3 or 4, we’re not sure which… so we went over there for a few hours on Friday night. It was fun to hang out with family. Here’s a picture of all the Americans present. Cousin Tiff and cousin Natasha, and of course “auntie” Sarah. (She’s staying with grandma and grandpa).