The End

Alrighty. This is it. It’s been a good day (had one of the best taxi drivers today, which was a major upper to the day), and we just got back from dinner at Abu Yazin’s (which was so cool! Except I learned that goat milk is... interesting). The programs ending in just a few hours and everyone’s getting ready to go their separate ways. Not for a bit, though. There are still people conked out on the couch and various other places throughout the apartment until the 3 AM departure time for those going back to the US.

This month has been so crazy. I still can’t believe everything that we’ve done. I feel so accomplished, which seems like a really funny thing to say, but it’s true. Whether I look at the this trip from an academic level or from other of the adventures we’ve been on, it’s been a whirl wind.

Coming here with very mediocre Arabic skills and basically no practical Arabic, I can now honestly say that I canget around somewhat efficiently. Jenna and I went shopping today and communicating with all of the shop owners was really cool. We weren’t exactly smooth but almost always we could get the point across. It’s such a great feeling. I really can’t believe what I’ve learned.

And the places that we’ve gone and the things we have seen. I just really can’t believe it. Just in a month, we’ve seen more of this country than many Jordanians have seen in their lives. I really feel redundant from how many times I’ve said this, but it’s so amazing here. So beautiful.

But everything has an end and the countdown begins. In six hours, I’ll be stepping into Palestine. That also means that my blogs end here. So the Israelis will have less to hassle us over, we’re not taking the computer.  

So this is goodbye. See you all on the other side! 

3 June 2012 (Again)

Hmm.... This never officially posted.

The game was so much fun. It was a World Cup qualifier (I knew this before, but forgot to mention it) between Jordan and Iraq. The teams ended up tying. Jordan could have won; the goal was wide open, but something must have happened because they definitely didn’t get it. Tying works just fine, I guess, though. Iraq is a really good team, so not losing is perfectly acceptable in my book (although both teams would probably beg to differ).

I’ve never felt so safe in my entire life. There were so many guards around us, and we were in our own section. It was technically the family section, but there were basically no families and those that were there were along the edges of the section. So it was us just chilling in the middle of an empty stadium section with about 20 guards just around us (there were guards throughout the stadium, but you didn’t really notice them because there are tons of people among the guards). Then being sneakily escorted out after everyone else.

I’ve also never felt so popular before in my life, which is quite the feat after being in Jordan for a month. Everyone wanted a picture with us. Everyone. The first time, Abu Yazin sneakily went to go get a guard to shoe them off and before the guard came, he pretended to be rather buddy-buddy with them. Then after the game while we were waiting for the bus, I found out the story that he was telling the guys to go was that we were friends of the royal family and are waiting for our guards. He was always so happy talking to them. Like saying “Screw off,” with a smile.

There were practically no women there. We were pretty much it. So imagine how strange it was to see around twenty white, American women sitting in a section by themselves among a bunch of guards (emphasis on the first traits). We always stand out here, but at the game it reached a new level.

I met one Abu Yazin’s daughters today, too. He brought his youngest daughter and son. I attempted to talk to Rayin (Don’t hold me to this spelling). She was really nice. My Arabic isn’t very good, I know, but she acted like it was. She had a really nice voice, too, which is something a bit random, but it seems oddly pertinent. 

Tonight was a lot of fun. Now class tomorrow…  

9 June 2012

The trip was really great. Thursday night we went to a little village to sta. We stayed up way to late dancing and talking. I think I might finally have the beat down for dubka! I can do all sorts of dubkas now. Someone from our group also apparently used to give Salsa lessons and so I also learned a bit of that.

There was a group from Romania staying at the same village and they were up with us the whole time. I talked to one of the girls for a while. They are thee on a program with an NGO to work on the environment. In Jordan, it’s usually pretty clear to see that the environment isn’t at the top of everyone’s radar: there’s glass and trash everywhere, the idea of recycling is ridiculously foreign, twenty species of mammal have gone extinct in the last 100 years. Recently there’s been a push and in places like Dana, it pushes a bit harder. It’s a huge nature attraction, especially for bird watchers apparently. They really want to preserve the nature.

That night we climbed up yet another mountain, but this time not all the way to the top. We were able to see the sunset and it was so pretty. That’s such an understatement. You could see the valley stretch into Israel and the village to the left as the sun fell below the mountains to the right.

The next morning we made our way to the wadi and started our hike. It was beautiful as usual. I’m really going to miss canyons and mountains, I think. From this trip, though, I’ve solidified my dislike for rocks that I discovered at the first wadi. My shoes are not made to make friends with all of the tiny, pointy rocks. My shoes are those special hiking sandal things, which were absolutely great for water which was also necessary, but, man. Rocks.

It was a really great hike aside from that. A bit hot, but the scenery was so beautiful. I heard that it was about ten miles I think? We were out there for a while. Halfway through we stopped for lunch, and I am so impressed with how well that turned out. We all helped prepare it, but Abu Yazin brought his son, Yazin, and his nephew, Abdullah, to help this time, and I can’t believe how well it turned out. It might be the best food that I’ve had hear, which is saying quite a lot. We stopped in this neat little cove and just ate there.

The rest of the hike took forever. And unlike the first part it wasn’t through as much rock. There was more water, but a lot more sun. That’s a funny point, though. There was supposed to be water up t our chests, but it disappeared somewhere in just about two weeks. That was really strange.

Probably one of the cooler experiences I’ve had on the trip was when we were on our way back, there was this group of Bedouin guys that stopped our little group for tea. It was really cool to listen (I talked, but not as much). I could understand almost everything. That tea was so delicious, too. Then to get back to our bus, we met up with some people from this other little village to drive us back. In the ride I talked to that man for a while in mostly Arabic. I wasn’t exactly the most exciting conversation partner that he has ever talked to, but it was efficient.

Then we were able to go to the Turkish bath, which was so amazing. I’ve never felt so clean in my life. So clean.

6 June 2012

So classes are finally over. Rather excited, although I’m really going to miss them, I think. I’m especially going to miss Ustazeh Nour. Apparently she has a facebook, though. I found that out today, so that should be really fun. I also found out that as a general rule, Arabs care very little about their street addresses. At least according to Nour. She says that the only time she pays attention to it is when she has to fill out applications and even then she always gets it wrong.

The rest of the trip is closing up as well. The other day we got together and just talked about the trip: how it could be improved, things that we noticed about the culture. Tonight we’re going off for our farewell dinner (a little early, yes) with everyone in our group, our professors, and Abu Yazin.

The rest of the trip looks pretty great from here on out. I can talk about it more later, but this weekend sounds like it’s going to be a really good "ender." Then Sunday it’s off to Palestine with Jenna.

I’ve really enjoyed Jordan, but I think I’m at a point where I’m okay that I’m leaving. Time for the next step.

3 June 2012

Gotta make this quick. Crap ton of homework today plus a presentation on Tuesday. I wanted to update a bit, though, because it’s been a little while.

This past Friday things closed down as usual (a little bit of an exaggeration because things usually open up in the afternoon). We went out late to get lunch this time and one of our favorite shwarma places (the shop owner is so ridiculously nice). We encountered Arab time yet again. Five minutes turned to a half an hour, and then we just decided to get shwarma because we were already late to meet our group.

We all went downtown again (wast al-balad) and went to sook jara. It was just a nice little open-air market open on Fridays during the summer. It was really cool, but I may have spent too much money.  Not really, though, because I think I have made a huge dent in getting things to bring back for people.

Things got a little crazy, though. Not in a bad crazy… well not in a dangerous way, but just as an example, Ustaz was hit on by a prostitute when we went to down to downtown after sook jara. Very interesting. Nothing happened to me or my group though. We walked over to a side rod and it was so cool. Tables and people were everywhere and people were shouting prices of their things. There was a man standing on top of his table.

Saturday was another field trip day. As usual, we went everywhere (another slight exaggeration). We stayed mostly around Amman (within an hour) and saw quite a few different mosaics. Quite a lot. There was so much detail. For those of you that want to look any of these places up, we went to Umm ar-rasas, which is an old castle with 16 churches. The other was in Madaba. We went to both a Greek Orthodox church (which is the more well known. There’s a map of the Holy Land with all of the places of note to Christian pilgrims) and a Catholic church (Which had more mosaics and a sweet basement/passageway). I’ve seen so many churches here, but it was really cool to see a Catholic church again. Even if it was still really different, but as far as church architecture goes, Catholics win out.

Then the day was over. We got back around six o’clock which is practically unheard of. We decided to make use of the free time and go downtown again to Rainbow Street (shari3 Rainbow) and had dinner. It was a cute little caf and then some people had hookah. It was really nice to just sit out. It was a really nice night.

Now we’re going to go to a FIFA game tonight (Jordan v. Iraq). Pretty excited, if you watch the game, keep a lookout. We’ll stand out. ;)    

31 May 2012

We finally got the chance to meet Jordanian students today, which was rather exacting. It’s a little late in the trip, I know, but I talked to a lot of really nice people. Ties for the future now! This one girl that I talked with is studying English literature and is only in her first year in school (granted, she studied English a bit in high school). She spoke better English than I did, though. I swear (maybe not, but she as well have). She really liked my Arabic accent, though, which was a really nice feeling. Then they all asked me if I had ever been in a movie. I apparently looked really familiar to all of them. They were all rather insistent. I told them that I hadn’t, but then accidentally told them about the movie I was sort of an extra in in Howell. I think I just gave them a really skewed impression if the US although I tried to fix it. After all, we all live in Hollywood and know all of the actor and superstars.

We also went to the Jordan River, too. We went to the original baptism site (at least supposedly). Being around that much history in a place that is so important to so many people was really interesting. The Jordan River is also the border between Jordan and Israel, so I was about 15 feet from Israel, too. I wonder how many people have tried to cross. Bad idea. I’ll be there soon enough! 

Then the Dead Sea. Wadi Rum is still my favorite place, but the Dead Sea is definitely ranked number two. For those of you that don’t know The Dead Sea is known for its ridiculously high salt concentration which makes everyone float. To sink you would have a mixture of really mad skill and really bad luck. It has a whole bunch of oil and minerals in it too. It’s really good for you. Dead Sea mud and salts are sold all over the place. Next time you go to the mall, take a look. It kills if you have cuts or bad skin (or if you get it in your eyes. Can tell you that from experience), but if not, you can just float for hours. We were in there in the afternoon after we arrived, but then went up to the pool after a little while (Yup. We were at a resort). There were two levels of pools, and as a crazy story of the day, some guy dove from the top pool to the for foot deep bottom pool (15 foot jump?). The lifeguards were betting with him and urging him on. So strange. Somehow he survived perfectly unscathed.

We went back out later for the sunset later. We just floated out. Made it almost half way out. Wit the sunset, you could just see the sky line for Jerusalem. We “swam” back as the sun was setting, but let me tell you. Swimming in the Dead Sea doesn’t really exist. The only way you can sort of do it is if you’re on your back, but I have a theory that it’s just a lot of hoping. It’s really funny to see people try. For a while, despite trying to make it, we seemed to not go anywhere. Maybe even pushed out further to the side.

I also got the chance to have a nice little conversation with someone in French today. He found out that I spoke a little Arabic and then he said that he knows French and it just went from there. For a lot of this trip it’s been nearly impossible to switch over to French quick enough to actually have a conversation. Arabic always comes out (even if whenever I need to use Arabic, I always seem to think in French). It was really cool to actually speak a language I know well enough to speak.

27/30 May 2012

Today has been so ridiculously crazy. I feel like it’s all been a dream because it’s just been so strange. We went to go see a movie today after class. I cannot express to you how strange it was. It was actually really good because it was just so bad. It was very dramatic and weird things kept happening. It’s a romantic comedy ish thing. The third in the series. The first was when Selma and Omar get married the second they have kids. The third is a continuation of their married life and they are just not getting along. Omar wants to be a rapper and Selma thinks that he needs to be a good husband and father. The you find out that he’s cheating on her. Then after other scuffles, she tries to get a divorce, pretending that he beats her and turning their kids against him. So he gets a fake girlfriend and then she gets a fake fiancé because they still both secretly love each other. But then to show off his hero skills, he kidnaps their kids so he can go save them. Through this entire sequence, he dresses as Spiderman first with Inspector Gadget music in the background. Then he dresses up as a karate master. Then the people he hired to kidnap the first time come and kidnap all of them. Then the truth comes out about the fake partners and Omar and Selma are cool again. Khalas. That’s it. It was cool that I could understand it even if that’s not really because of the language content.

Then I can’t really explain the rest of it, but it included a very pushy (to be helpful woman who followed us around the food court. She was the food court manager apparently). She would continually come over to us and insist on taking us to restaurant or tell us to sit down. Or both at the same time. Didn’t matter if we were already ordering. Then she insisted that we take a picture. The other thing was that I learned that you can stand an egg upright on the Equinox. This is so crazy. I’m just waiting to wake up.

Our taxi ride home was interesting, too. Encountered the first person to truly dislike us (at least openly). Weird looks, sure. But our driver just did not like us. It first started when we got into the car. I think that his car is really sensitive because when Jenna shut the door, it slammed. He freaked out a little bit and told us to be careful. So it started off on a bit of bad foot. Then we just sat quietly for a little while. Then Joel (who is going to share a taxi with us to Jerusalem after this) turned around to talk to us about the arrangements for all of that. The driver turned up the radio so we couldn’t talk. Then we just started talking again after that. But there was just so much negative energy. He didn’t even take us to our door. He just pulled to the side of the road once we were in the vicinity. Then to top it all off, when we were getting out of the car, I shut the door and it slammed again. I turned around apologetically and he just glared before driving off.

To briefly brush over Sunday, though. After waking up, I climbed up one of the rock (walls? Formations? I’m not sure what exactly is the appropriate word here). I feel like I say this way too much, but it was just so nice. The combination of being on top of the rock and looking out across the desert was almost ethereal. It was one of those moments where I could just feel very content.

Sadly we had to leave. We headed to the Red Sea, though and found out that it does indeed rain in the desert. It never really does, but we apparently just caught one of those times. It’s quite interesting (It really was just sprinkling, but that really is a lot by these standards. It never rains). At the Red Sea we went snorkeling. I saw coral, a million types of fish and so. Many. Jellyfish. They were harmless (except for the little brown ones), but they were everywhere. Being taught your whole life to avoid jellyfish, this was a rather odd experience. I made it work, though, and it was really cool. Tricking your body into thinking that it’s okay to keep your head under water is a bit tricky, too.