Clouds!

There are definitely things I miss about home and clouds are one of them.  I heard a rumor that it rained during the night a couple nights ago, but I did not see it.  However, this morning, I woke up to some really all encompassing clouds.  The sky was grey and my knees hurt, so I think maybe we'll have rain for real.

It's made me wonder about things too.  I've mentioned they cover everything in plastic.  Some times it's completely sealed, sometimes it's a loose barrier.  But everywhere, there is plastic.  I'm assuming this is to keep the dust off of actual stuff, although I'm not sure that it's better to have dirty plastic on everything.  I'm wondering if, with rain, now the loose stuff has mud on it, and under it. 

My friend was brought by her host family to the equivalent of a Tupperware party.  She said that during the whole things, they talked about how unhealthy and fat Americans are.  I will be the first to say that I've not seen any morbidly obese Jordanians, and I have seen that in Americans.  However, seriously, these people have a skewed view of what health is.  Many people smoke all the time.  And those who don't do cigarettes are doing Huka, which is like a pack all in one sitting.  There are plenty of fat people here, but since everyone is so much smaller in stature, it seems like it might be less.  Seriously, they are smurfs in size here, and I am a giant.  Their diet is starch, with some meat thrown in once in a while.  They do not exercise.  So, I really don't think the Jordanians have a corner on healthy living.

Discrimination

So the roller coaster continues.

I've had a rough couple of days.  It's not so much homesickness, this time, and it seems to be abating some.  I also had my very first run in with discrimination against women.  Yesterday, before I very unwisely invited a friend to come study with me at my adoptive family's house, we went to get on a bus to get there.  A bus is essentially fifty cents, where a taxi is 2 dollars.  I almost always take it home if I leave from the University in the evening.  On Sundays, however, this is always a difficult experience.

To the bus system's credit, during rush hour, there are buses along every couple of minutes.  All the students form UJ get out at this time, so it is not uncommon for there to be hundreds of people at the main gate, waiting to get on the bus.  Yesterday was the first time they decided to segregate the sexes, and guess which one went first?  And, guess which one could get on the wrong bus, and it not be a problem.  If you said men got their own girl cootie free bus, you'd be right.  Three guys got on the female bus, and that was not a problem.  There were literally 3x as many women as men there, so I can only assume it had been going on some time before I got there, and all the men were of course serviced first.

The female bus rolled up, and there were so many women that they were standing in the street.  The bus didn't care, just slowly started driving into the mass of people, and to get on, you had to follow the door to wherever the guy decided to stop.  We are talking people literally pressed up against the side of the bus while it was slowly moving.  It reminded me of standing concert "seats" where the people in back are constantly pressing against you to get closer to the stage.  One of the couple guys that got on the girl bus, and he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the fact that I was getting squished into him.  The main guy "organizing" the loading of people kept beating the side of the bus to frighten the women away from it, like we were cattle.  The sad thing is that many women flinched away, presumably because it was gun shot loud, and they were actually afraid.

My friend and I got on the bus, and some other women told the bus driver that we did not pay, which was of course untrue.  They actually pointed us out, and the bus driver came back to the bus to accuse us.  We told him we paid and he didn't make an issue of it, but it gave me pause.

There seems to be a shift going on here.  I really don't know what it is about, but my adoptive family has told me that I am now Canadian, and it's not a good idea to be American anymore.  This, in the most technical sense, is actually true, so I can hold to my honesty commitment, even though there's still paperwork standing between my husband assuming his inherited Canadian status, and me attaining it through our marriage.  No one has a bone to pick with Canada, and people are friendlier to Canadians.  I did not experience this before, but recently I've noticed less friendliness now when people assume I'm American.  I meant to ask my adoptive family yesterday, but it slipped my mind.  The whole thing makes me uncomfortable.

A good day!

I realized something today...

A huge part of my homesickness is about missing my family.  I got to talk to my mom for a long time last night, and that made me feel tons better.  The other part, though, is about exhaustion and never feeling like I've caught up.

I'm doing more homework than anyone else in my program, as far as I know.  I have to take a community college class, in addition to my coursework here, so that I will be able to start graduate school next summer.  This works out to 18 credits.  This also works out to me getting to bed between 1-2, and then trying to get up early so I can talk with my family before they go to bed.

Last weekend, us students spent the whole time with intense sightseeing.  There was no time for homework, so the week prior to the weekend was spent getting ahead in my studies as much as possible.  Then, the last week was spent getting caught up to where I needed to be, as much as possible.  It's been two weeks since I last got as much sleep as I needed.

Yesterday, I didn't have plans early in the day, so I did homework for a long time, but then I napped!  This was the first time since I got here that I actually took a nap.  Then, I had gotten tons of homework done all day, and went to bed by 11.  This morning, I woke up at 8, and could not convince my body to sleep more. I did homework, and took another nap!

Now, it's getting to be evening, and I have a few things left I need to do.  However, I will be in bed by eleven for sure.  I was able to get the little bit of shopping I needed done, and almost all my homework is completely ready for next week.

The moral of the story...I need to sleep more!  I am so much happier, and feel much better.  I think I might even have another restful nights sleep.  :)

The only advice I'd give for would be travelers is to be sure to not let people from home say hurtful things while you can't do a damn thing about it.  The world still does spin, and you can't be there to help all the people you used to.  You can't help soothe peoples troubles when you are 10k away.  Sometimes, they will lash out at you, and you need to be able to just let it fall away, or it will ruin the first truly good day in weeks.

Weekends

Weekends are such a two edged sword.

This is the only time I have to catch up on both sleep and homework.  I have a ton of homework, so I'm typically up until one or two, and then back up again around 6:30 to talk with my family before they go to bed.  The weekends really help with that.  Then, there's so much vocabulary that I'm trying to learn, so I am a machine, memorizing everything.  I sleep late, and take naps.  By Sunday I'm ready to go to school with some energy.

But there comes a time my brain is full, and I just can't study anymore.  I have other homework that I can do, but even that ends up needing to come to an end.

Now what?

Well tonight, I went over to a neighbor's house, but a friend had said she wanted to study.  It always seems better if I'm speaking out loud, and learning that way.  So, I left my neighbor's house early, and got here, only to have her not next me she was not coming until I've been sitting at home alone for half an hour.  I'd still be there if she hadn't said she was coming.

Sigh.

So what is there to do?

I can't do a movie.  Too much room for thinking.  I could start another book, but that puts me to sleep, and has been my main mode of entertainment.  I'm kind of tired of reading.

I could clean my apartment, but other than taking out the garbage, there really isn't much to do.  I'm not here much because it feels like a great big prison when I'm here.  Cleaning somehow is an admission that this is my current home.

So Friday night...and I'm homesick.

Lucky for me, Skype exists.  My mom called me, and I talked for a long time, using up most of the rest of my internet.  It was just what I needed.  Sometimes, you just need your mom.  Love you!

Bug...

It appears the bug which was cut short last week has caught up with me.  I woke up this morning feeling really horrible, and could not get back to sleep.  All day has been rough, and I had to cancel on dinner plans because I felt so bad.  After I went to my internship for a couple hours, I thought I'd stop at the Jordanian version of Walmart, which I think is called Carrfor.

Their "Super Walmart" is located in the mall.  I think it's a great marketing idea.  You have to get food anyway, and this way you end up feeling it's easy to go spend money at some of the other stores.

This is just not my day.  While there, I explained to the sales guy what I needed, but he thought he'd take advantage of the ignorant foreigner and steer me to the most expensive option in the store.  I really only need the little box that plugs in to the wall, but he only handed me the whole wire plug in and everything.  He wouldn't show me anything else.  Sigh.

So I found another guy, and he got me the right thing.  This is such a frequently bought item that they have a giant bin a little ways off in the store.  It's behind a bunch of sets of shelving, so I didn't see it.  I bought comfort food, and then went to go home and get to bed really early.

Of course this wasn't easy either.

It is really busy outside, and there's people getting into cabs.  It's rush hour, and the first guy who was getting me a cab told me it would be a little more than twice the normal price.  I told him no thanks.  Then I got into a different cab, and told him to start the meter.  He told me it would be twice the price this time.  So I got out again.

I was feeling pretty put out and was almost willing to pay the rip off price, but I decided to walk far away from the mall, and maybe find a busy street with cabs.

I waited for a very long time.  One guy got dropped off by one cab, and when I finally flagged my cab down...and he got into my cab and they left.  Uhhhh!

I did make it home, finally, and about to get to bed really early.  Been a very rough week with lots of tests and stress.

Petra

The town just outside of the ancient city of Petra is full of donkeys.  Loose, and running around

I've mentioned the massive feral cat population in Amman.  In this town, there are donkeys running around every corner, no fences, and just...there.  It's bizarre.

Petra was used in the filming of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  I think it would be awesome in the winter.  However, it was really hot, and people were grumpy.  Two days of intensive sightseeing does not make for a happy group of people.

When you enter the Petra area, you walk down a very long path until you reach the opening in the mountains.  This area is really like the slot canyons near Moab.  They built this place far before the Romans came and made it theirs.  They managed to get an entire watering system in there, with canals for livestock to drink out of, and a very long ceramic pipe to protect the water for human consumption.  This piping goes on through the mountain and ends in the center of the city.

The current people of Petra offer rides on carriages or on horses until you reach the city gates.  Inside, just past the big famous temple, they offer camel and donkey rides through the rest of the city.  I was really tempted, since I adore camels, but I am trying to save a little money, so I did not partake.

There were many different faiths in the area over time.  There were Pagans, Christians, and now Muslims.  It was normal for this people, the Nabatians (sp?) to live with their dead.  They had great crypts carved out of the soft rock.  They dotted the mountain side, and were interspaced with temples of worship.

The big, famous temple is this one.  You peek around a corner, and it just emerges. like it was already there.  They carved it out of the rock, and they estimate it took about seven years to make.  The local people believed the stone urn at the top of the temple was full of gold, so they thought they'd shoot at it.  It's just a rock, so nothing came of that.



There are structures like this throughout the city.  It was once a very busy city, but after a major earthquake, it was partially covered in sand, and forgotten.  Later, there were more earthquakes and it disappeared almost entirely.  Eventually, it was found again, and was excavated.

Dinner at the end of the day was Mansef.  It is the traditional Jordanian dish, so by now I've had it plenty of times.  I have not, however, had it like this.

 
You're supposed to scoop a handful of rice out of a communal dish, squish it until the water is out, and it sticks to itself like playdoh, and then pop it in your mouth.  Oh, and you wear your food everywhere because we're not using utensils.  The main guy leading the trip saw I wasn't eating, and so he snuck me a spoon.  I still didn't eat...after the trip, every semester, many students get sick.  I'm sure being exhausted plays a role, but I'm pretty sure there is NEVER a line to wash your hands before you eat, so who knows what bugs they shared.

Aqaba

The weekend continues...

The next morning started early. I know we got 8 hours sleep, but I could have used
more. They got breakfast in us and then put us on a bus to Aqaba. 
This sea seems far saltier than the ocean, and it burns the eyes pretty bad if you let it get into your mask.  It also tastes horrible.  This sea is what separates Jordan from Israel and Egypt. I was told on a clear day, we could see Saudi

Arabia too, but this was not one of those days.  Here is Egypt, and the other half of the horizon without land is where Saudi Arabia would be.  I can now say I've seen Israel and Egypt, although not in the sense that I'd have liked.

There is a coral reef there to see, and I spent most of the time we were here snokling in
the water. Some people came on the boat with no intention of getting wet. It was hot
and boring for them, I'm sure. I had a great time, and my friend and I have decided we're
coming back here for the Eid break to do it again.

Most of the rest of the time was spent relaxing on the boat.  They fed us lunch here, and were constantly bringing out tea and soda for us to drink.  One big thing I have to say about Jordanians:  they have an amazing work ethic when it comes to the hospitality sector.  They are so accommodating, and everything is always very clean and tidy.

We did not see any other parts of Aqaba. Instead, we went straight from the boat to our
buses, and then proceeded on the 2 hour drive to Petra.  We were all exhausted, but we still ended up at little Petra.  It was kind of neat, but really, with as tired as we were, it was hard to appreciate it.

In retrospect, the timing of the light made for some really nice pictures.  They gave us a brief tour, and they pointed out the different styles of architecture which are present.  They said the reason for this stylistic combination was to make all the people from different areas feel welcome.  Consequently, you might see Egyptian symbolism combined with Greek architecture.

The purpose of this little area outside of Petra proper was to let people do their religious thing before they got to the business portion of their lives.  Petra itself is a little way off from here.  It is a gigantic place.  I really thought it'd only be a couple temples maybe and that was it.  It took me a little more than an hour to walk across when I was coming back to the bus at the end of the day.

Wadi Rum

I have a TON of pictures from the three places I went.  I'm going to post them separately, or these posts will be forever long.

Thursday morning, I woke up after a really rocky night. It appeared I was going to be
sick the whole weekend. This weekend was the trip to Wadi Rum/Aqaba/Petra, and was
the last big deal that we were giong to experience as a group. I was really excited right
up until Wednesday night when I was up repeatedly with varying levels of sick.

Thursday morning, I met a couple of people from my building, and went to UJ to meet
the rest of CIEE. While at school, I started to feel a little bit better. I got on the bus, and
off we went.

We went first to Wadi Rum. This was a five hour drive from Amman. Part way through
they brought us to their favorite tourist trap, where we could buy trinkets and "old
stuff." After that, we continued on the journey for another twenty minutes before
we made another stop. They told us one of the other buses had a "minor" mechanical
problem. It was an oil leak, and after waiting a few minutes, they kept us going while
supposedly the other bus waited for more oil. As we passed this other bus, I saw a long
trail of dripped oil. I turned to my friend and pointed out that this bus is garbage, and
they had more serious problems then they were letting on.

When we arrived in Wadi Rum, we had lunch. It was going to be a long lunch while we
waited for the other bus. The other bus, however, didn't show up. They herded us into
4x4's with no bus in site.

They called these 4x4's Jeeps, but I don't think even one of them was a Jeep. Most were
Toyotas with som Nissans, and none were SUV's. They were all little tonka pick up
trucks, which had benches and shade set up in the back. They were old, and suprisingly
running, especially since our truck's driver door didn't even close. The guy was holding
the door for the first part of the drive while he tried to steer and shift.

We saw what looked like Moab or Coral Reef Canyon, combined with Little Sahara in Utah. It was beautiful, but really hot. They had described it as a 4x4 ride, but really it was a 4x4 stop every couple
minutes and sit around in the hot for half an hour. I was not really enjoying this part
of the trip because I was pretty bored. The only highlight was when we drove by the
Petroglyphs. They were 6k years old, and that was a timeless moment to imagine some
guy, as bored as I was, trying to etch into the mountain.

***

The 4x4 ride ended with an arrival at the camels. The camels were so cool. Many of the mother's had calved, and so there were adorable babies running along beside our little caravan.  Most animals make really loud protesting noises when they are not happy.  Camels make a noise like the velociraptors on Jurassic Park.


They didn't give us any instruction on how to ride them. They only told us to get on them, and then
the camel's stood up, ready to go. There were groups of camels tethered together, and
the front camel was led by a guy in Bedoin attire. All of the groups, except mine. I was
on the front camel and he handed me reins. Then he just chased after our little group whacking at the camels
with a stick. The saddle was really uncomfortable. It was more like a pack saddle with some blankets thrown on it. Camels move totally different than horses, with more of a pace then a normal walk, and the trot on a pack saddle was agony. it turns out, you are supposed to ride it like a side saddle, and it was only in the last minute of riding that we saw this. It was far more comfortable.

This tribe makes it money through tourism, and they clearly are so at home in the desert.  Our guy started singing songs, and taught us one.  He'd sing it and wait for us to repeat it, like when I was a kid in grade school.

The camels were so affectionate, and would drink from our water bottles. We waited at
the end of the trail for the sun to go down, and for that people from that other bus to show
up.

Hours had gone by since we left the other bus, but they still had not arrived.  It turned out that a truck had overturned on the road to Wadi Rum, so they had been stuck in traffic for a very long time. It is unlikely they got to spend the time we did
experiencing things.  I think they got to just be rushed through things when their bus finally
showed up. I'm really glad we had picked the bus that did NOT break down.

They finally caught up with us at sunset.  It was beautiful.

Dinner was served at our campout site. This was a bunch of tents set up with
questionable wiring. I know it was questionable because when we wanted to go to
bed, we wanted to turn out our light. There was no switch, so we tried to unscrew the
lightbulb. In so doing, all the lights on our side of the camp shorted out. I don't know if
it is like Christmas tree lights, where one bad light screws everything up, but it will be
fun for them to try and redo the wiring.

The dinner was pretty good, but it was not the highlight of the evening. They had a guy
playing an Arabic mandolin, and a couple guys with drums. The live music was so cool.
They were singing, and then they started dancing. They got almost the entire population of students in the circle dancing too. They had people holding hands and doing what appeared to be a really simple country line dance, but was instead a traditional Bedouin one.  It was so fun. When the music ended we sat around a fire drinking tea and  watching for shooting stars.  Many people smoked hooka, and ended up with bellyaches.  I'm not really a fan, so I didn't get that experience.

Brief interlude...

I have so many pictures to post of my Aqaba/Wadi Rum/Petra trip...but they planned it before a bunch of our first tests.  So...I'm trying to stay on top of things, and will probably post a real post on Wednesday.  Until then, know I'm doing better.  I had attack of the horrible homesickness on Friday, and it was far worse on Saturday.  Today, I could barely stand to function all day...but then I went over to my adoptive families house...and felt better.

It seems that for me to feel less isolated, and feel like I'm part of something, that is the place to be.  It is a huge time commitment, but at the end of the night, my friend there helped me with my homework so I would pronounce things correctly.  Plus, I speak in Arabic almost the whole time, so it makes my skills improve.  I am so glad I've met these people.  They invite me over every day, but I've only taken them up on it once a week or so.  Maybe some more frequency would be good for me.

Language Partners

I have so much on my plate, but I decided to add just a little more, and join the language partner program.  I met my partner, who we will call Jill.  I don't use people's real names because privacy is really valued out here.  So, any name you find on my blog is not real.  It just makes my stories easier to talk about.  Anyway, so I met Jill, and her English was pretty bad, just like my Arabic.  Between us both, we found communication somewhere in the middle.

It happened to workout that my roommate from orientation has a language partner who is friends with Jill.  In fact, there is a group of four or five girls who were already friends, so we ended up in a big group together.

It is Arab culture to be really touchy.  It is not uncommon to see people of the same sex walking down the street holding hands.  They are really, extremely affectionate to each other, although publicly, this does not cross gender lines.  At my adoptive family's house, a few of them greet me with kisses on my cheeks.  In this situation, my partner was immediately wanting to lead me around by the hand, and stood much closer than I am used to.  It is such a different culture.

Many people do not allow their daughters, even at the college age, to travel much alone.  Part of the language partner experience was to go downtown, and then explore.  This group of girls did not know how to get down town at all, and could not remember where anything was from previous excursions with their own families.  For them, it was just as much of an unknown as it was to us.  They had just as much trouble as I do with transportation.

The natives were as giddy as middle school girls.  A lot of the time, Jordanian women have a fairly stern, non-smiling face.  This does not mean they are mean or upset...it's just how they are.  These girls were a huge contrast to what we were used to.  I really loved seeing them so happy, but I also didn't really know what to do with it, since I could not understand much of what they said to each other.

So, we rode a bus downtown.  There could not have been more people put on that bus.  We were standing on the stairs that go out the back, and we worried the doors might open and we'd fall out.  Eventually, we got there, and we walked to try some new things.  I had Kinafa, and it's my new favorite dish.  I can not say how much I loved it.  It's some kind of cheese, with sugar and nuts mixed in.  I don't know how else to describe it, but it was so very, very good.  I'm going to ask my adoptive family to teach me how to make it.

On the way to our next destination, we saw lots of traditional stores.  I saw this woman walking with her shopping on her head. I was impressed by her balance.  I don't think I could have done that.














The next thing we tried was this drink made from sugar cane.  It was made literally, right in front of us.  They took the sugarcane, and then put it through the equivalent of a wood chipper/juicer.  I expected it to be sweeter.  It kind of tasted...I don't know...earthy?  I didn't like it at first, but it grew on me.

There were fruit stands all around, and little winding streets.

We then went to the sook samik, which translates to fish market, and which was, as expected, full of fish.  It smelled horrible, and I was glad when we moved on.

We walked by this beautiful mosque.  It is the masjid hussein, I think, and it was almost like a castle.  By this time, it had been a really long day, and my back was aching from the heavy backpack.  I really was ready to be done.

The next stop was to buy a scarf.  I did not understand exactly what this scarf represented, but the colors were based on the countries of and around Jordan.  I got a red one, which I was told represents Jordan.  Jill told me to tell this random guy to put it on my head, so here it is.  I needed something to put on my head for the camel ride this weekend, so here, now I have it.

One of the last things we saw was the butcher, with dead stuff hanging in the window.  I like to pretend the food at the grocery store wasn't recently walking around.  Jill was raving about how fresh the meat was...so I guess it was probably walking around yesterday or the day before.  It felt morbid to look at these corpses hanging on hooks, but as an American, I like to be far removed from my food's origins.

I really enjoyed this experience, and I have the entire semester to get to know Jill and her friends better.  Hopefully, as my Arabic improves, so will our communication.

Honeymoon is over

So, it turns out it's not just me.

Today, I was with a variety of other students, and the overall message is clear:  the honeymoon phase of this trip is over for most everyone.  I've noticed people are definitely a little more aggro, and they are frustrated over many things.  Many are disappointed at the lack of response from their people back home.  Many are sick of not being able to communicate with any level of effectiveness.  Many are feeling they are not improving fast enough to feel any level of competence here.

This is the phase where I need to remind myself of the purpose of writing this blog at all.  I began this blog for the reason of personal reflection, and to fulfill my requirement project for the Gilman scholarship.  So, should this be read by anyone traveling in the future, let's explore some coping mechanisms.

My program administration gave us a presentation at the beginning of this program about culture shock.  They mentioned the honeymoon phase and how much we would love Amman, and then grow to hate everything about it, and that it would get much worse before it finally got better.  They mentioned that there would be spontaneous crying for no reason.  There would be frustration with the people, and ourselves.  They mentioned crippling homesickness.

They specifically said not to lock yourself away from the world in your home stay or apartment.  This will just isolate you further, even though you may feel like you want to never hear another Arabic word again and simply must get away.  They mentioned the possibility of depression, and seeking treatment if this condition lasts for extended amounts of time.  They mentioned sleeping too much as escape, and an additional sign of depression.  Do I have any of these symptoms?  Well, I don't sleep to escape...I have far too much to do for this to even be a consideration.  I have taken a day or two to stay in my apartment, though, watching a couple movies and taking a break.

This was a horrible idea.

By the end of my periods of "escape" I felt so trapped in Jordan that I was falling apart.  Fortunately, my classmates have come to my rescue.

I've been invited to go on a couple of trips, and this first weekend here is the Wadi Rum/Aqaba/Petra trip.  Next weekend, I am going rappelling and seeing the dead sea with an adventure company.  A couple of my classmates have taken it upon themselves to invite themselves over and rescue me from my apartment for an evening of cooking or anything else.  These girls are awesome.

My Arabic professor from home emailed me, and offered some advice.  I told him what I've been doing, and he approved of most of it, but his first words to me were something along the lines of..."Next month, you're going to want to come home so bad.  You're going to be miserable, but don't end your study abroad.  Stick with it, and it will get better."  The idea of it getting WORSE terrifies me.  This is not as bad as it gets?

Like everyone else, I'm struggling.  But, I'll just have to keep going.  It is supposed to get better.  I just wish that would happen sooner, rather than later.

Mail

I had written a bunch of post cards to send home...and I went to mail them today.  Holy crap...1 JD EACH!  That's ridiculous postage!  So, people who write me will get post cards in the future.  That was just unreal.  And it costs the same as a regular letter too.  I thought USPS was expensive...ooh...man....

In other news, I was walking under a tree at school today.  All the Jordanian students just started school today, so the place was packed.  This was particularly awesome because they watched my friend and I have a bird crap on our heads.  I know, we all like to laugh at the Americans, lol.  My friend didn't want to touch it, so she was just going to leave it in her hair, but I was much more horrified that it was on my head then on my hands.  So, I got mine off, and then worried I was getting avian bird flu or something.  I was so disgusted, walking around with my hands as far away from my body as possible in disgust.  Then she remembered she had napkins and sanitizer, so we were both happy, although I still have residual bird flu hypochondria.

Yesterday, I went to my adoptive family's house for dinner.  Usually, when I get there they have food ready and are already piling my plate for me.  This time...no food.  Not even the smell of food.  They had me go into the kitchen...and I got to help make it!  I was so excited!  So I took copious notes, and made it.  Sadly...I've already misplaced them...but here's what we had.

They put beef, parsley, onion, and some oil, and then rolled it like sausages.  Then they put diced tomatoes on top of that with more onion and some chicken stock.  That dish was really good.  The other one was the same meat, but instead of tomatoes, they put humus and yogurt on it.  That one was my favorite.  Of course, there was salad and pita bread.

For desert, we made Nescafe and Biscuits, which translates to a layer of vanilla crackers, hot chocolate spooned over that, and then vanilla pudding put over that.  Then repeat, and top it with pudding again and just pieces of chocolate.  That was really good too.

My pictures are unfortunately not coming off my phone, so sadly I do not have pictures to update.  However, when I get back, this is something I'm planning on making.  :)  Y'all are going to have some good food.  Once I teach the husband how to make it, he'll likely take it over and make it better.  He's just awesome like that.

Today's cab luck has been miserable.  This morning, the guy decided he'd "take me for a ride" and try to rack up some extra money.  My 15 minute trip took 35 minutes, and he didn't even drop me off where he was supposed to.  He wanted an extra 1.5 JD and I was really mad and told him he could shove it.  I gave him what it would have cost if he hadn't wasted both our times.  Then tonight, I had a major language issue, and the dude kept asking random people on the street where to take me where I told him to go.  I've not been here long enough to know my way around, and and since every building is white, it all looks the same.  I did manage to direct him once we found al-Hind street, but that was a nightmare.  Sigh.  So...now I guess I'll do homework.

Facebook Post

So, I know I'm really far away.  I worried it would be like I'd died...because I'm not there.  A classmate put up on his wall the following:

"Just going to throw this out there - I realize I'm 7,000 miles from home, but if we were/are good friends, then I expect that you'll take the initiative and time to shoot me a message once in a while....or at least respond when I send you one. Don't be surprised when, once I get home in December, you never hear from me again...:
So I guess I'm not the only one who's not hearing much from home.  I resemble this remark.

White Noise

After class, I went to the IT business which my work contracts out to.  Now, first, let me say that I can understand far, far more than I can say.  So, I do ok getting the gist of what is going on.  As they say, though, the devil is in the details, and I miss just enough that when I clarify, I feel like an idiot because I'm always slightly wrong.  Also, if I try to explain myself in Arabic, my co-workers look at me like I have a second head.  I said one thing today, "hathehee lassa saaab" and he could not understand.  I explained that I said this is not hard in English.  He said, "oh I had turned off Arabic in my head."  I told him his Arabic would improve, no worries, and they all laughed heartily.  At least they can all take a joke.


Today's meeting was explaining how to run the administration site for our website.  It's pretty basic, and I've had done a lot of it before back when I used to show dogs.  "If I didn't show dogs, I'd never be able to do my job at work."  Yep, I just said that.

So, my semi boss went back to work and she sent me home.  Sunday, I'll go by there again, and we'll start working on a lot of the content related items for the website.

Bonus family

Being homesick is rough, but I'm so glad that this family has adopted me.  Day before last, Friday night, I didn't really have much to do.  Most of my homework was done, and I was pretty blue.  I thought I'd stream a movie, and see how long it takes before I run out of bandwidth.  Turns out it's about the same cost as a Redbox...maybe a little more.  But then I had no internet.  I figured I'd run down to the university and pick some up.

They take TGIF really seriously here.

Nothing was open, except this cafe where I had breakfast.  They have free wifi, but since I had statistics homework, I was a little worried.  That homework tends to take a really long time, and it's online through the community college. I also, while I'm there, realize I ought to download the videos, rather than stream, since it's free here.  So now I have a couple movies on my laptop for when I have time again.

My husband said I can't really afford another day of blue, and I should find something social to do.  So I facebooked a friend I have out here, and she invited me to dinner.

Oh I love this family!  Today, in the house they had their grandfather of their family, Baba, and more cousins I had not met yet.  They fed me, of course, and then I went and did the massage therapy for him, and a couple other members of their family.  After this was done, they fed me some more, and then Baba told me that I would be his doctor, but he was was my madaress, teacher, and gave me a list of words he wants me to learn.  He also was really strictly correcting my grammar.  Yes, these people are going to make me fluent.

On that front, Arabic is coming right along.  I still need to learn so much, but I've lost my fear of sounding like an idiot.  I've embraced the fact that I am likely going to sound that way for a very long time.  I will not get better unless I keep trying.

Last week, I told a fellow homesick classmate some really good advice which I'm trying to follow myself.  If I think about how long I still have before I come home, it's overwhelming and really makes me feel like a panic attack is on my horizon.  But, if I only think about getting through today, then I'm ok.  The people here help too, so I know I can do this.  I just miss my peeps.

Home life - there will be pictures this time!

I almost feel like I'm falling into a routine.  After the last two weeks of no routine, this is a welcome relief.  I have scheduled classes, and am doing homework.  Well almost.

So I got this internship with the free zone people from USAID.  I really wanted this internship, and I'm so glad it happened.  It has to do with what I want to do for a living, which, very generally put, is to bring investors to Middle Eastern countries.  In my vision, this brings mutual stability and increased good will to both parties.  I get to work with the people I love, and use this language I also love.  I may want to actually hold a real big girl, paying job with USAID one day, so getting an internship with this organization was really awesome.

But it's going to be intense.

For my graduate program, I have a pre-requisite which did not get mentioned to me until about two months ago.  This means that I have to take it online while I am here.  I got permission to drop one class from my program, making my course load 12, instead of 15 credits.  This would leave me room to take this 3 credit class online through the community college, and all is well.  Except with the internship, I'm up an additional 3 credits, making my course load 18 credits, in addition to the other stress of trying to live in a country I don't know much about and only speak a passable rendition of the language.  Wimper.

I'm challenged, but I can do it.  Probably.









Today, my mom pointed out that I should be taking pictures of more daily stuff, rather than just the pretty stuff.  So, keeping with how I always do what my mother says (ha) I took a bunch of pictures.

It's hard to visualize a completely foreign people's manner of cooking and eating unless you're actually there. I've mentioned that there's lots of veggies, and there may or may not be any meat at all.  Tonight, I ate at R.'s house, and I had three items.  Well, unless you count the pita bread, that comes with every meal.  First, the red thing is something that sounds like ra'ia...but it's probably not actually called that.  Let's just say it starts with an R.  It has eggplant, tomatoes, and other stuff, and it is best with the pita bread.  Then there's the lentil dish in the middle...this is something that starts with a g.  I think.  It has more than lentils, and by itself, it's good, but not great.  But mix it with the salad, and oh my word it is so good.  I have really come to appreciate the value of a good fresh lemon or lime.

I was there for the making of the salad...it has vinegar, olive oil, parsley, mint, lime juice, some kind of lettuce, and garlic.  All of this is minced, and like I said...mixed with the lentils, it is heaven.

During this time, I visited R.'s dog.  He kind of looks like a panda.  His name is Bonny, but I bet that in Arabic it isn't really Bonny but something else that sounds like Bonny.  His main goal is to escape outside, and eat one of the hundreds of cats that run feral through the streets.

I really miss having a dog.  Bonny is a little intense, and I miss my lazy dogs.  This guy walks around on his hind feet like a person.  I'm not sure why she has a shirt on him, but he gets treated like a baby.  She always says, "oh spoiled he is!"  Not having a dog makes my apartment really too quiet.

This cat, which has a name and gets fed, always is near the door.  I've only heard it's name once, but it mostly goes by naughty kitty.

 He's quick to sneak in the door if it's left open at all.  True to cat nature, he doesn't really want to come in.  He just hangs out there because he's not allowed to be there.  He recently decided I was ok to stand by, and I got to touch him today.

Sadly, there is probably the real possibility that he speaks more Arabic than I do.

The back of R's house has a view similar to mine.  She, however, gets to have a garden.  Much of her food comes from this garden.  Those vines on the trellis are grapes, and we've had those leaves wrapped around a really yummy rice and meat concoction.  There are some citrus trees and flowers.  Here, gardens are not really frequent, but if they are there, they are almost always beautiful.

This time, I remembered to include some pictures of around town.  I think I remember mentioning the other day about the donkeys.  Well, here is the picture of that mother and foal.  What she's eating is beyond me.  It looks like something my horse would rather go hungry than eat.

All this walking has given me an interesting tan line.  I always have long pants, and most of my arms are always covered.  I had some brown there before, but I have a distinct tan line on my toes.  It looks like I wanted to just test the spray on tan and got a little orange happy.