Yesterday was a very unexpectedly pleasent day. So last weeks we took a trip to the 2nd biggest city in Jordan called Irbid where we met with university students. You may recall if you have read this blog before that the bus driver refused to take us to a castle because he "wanted to go home". Well I guess after some complaning, they got the same bus driver to take us back to Irbid and go to the castle with the same students. Of all the castles I've been to, this one has to be the most impressive. It was built by the people who were fighting the crusaders, so they put it one the top of a very tall mountain so that there was almost no chance of the castle being overthrown. The university students all had their favorite people from the time before who they followed around, and even one of them is coming down here to Amman to pick up some of our group, take them back to Irbid for a barbeque, and take them back to Amman and drive back (the drive is 2 hours one way).
Latter that night when we returned the news was set on Al-Jezzera, which for those of you who don't know is kind of like the CNN of the middle east except that al-jeezera will show just about anything. Well anyways, there was a story about a building in Lebanon which had been bombed by the Israelies who were using AMerican bombs, and killed over 50 little kids and maybe 2 adults. The owner (who I think I've discussed before in this blog) was absolutly furious! He started yelling at the TV as they showed pictures of childrens dead bodies being removed from the ruble of this building. He then started complaining about Geroge Bush and how he is a evil man because he supposedly told the Israelies to keep bombing. I started talking to him about how many Americans don't support what he is doing. A few minutes latter, my friend Faud called his dad in Florida to see what the news was there. According to Faud, his dad didn't see any thing on the news about it, but on al-jeezera (they get it through satelite) there was no signal. Coinsidence?
That brings me to today. After classes were finished with, I was going to walk out to the front of the university with my friend Eman to get Filafil when we noticed that the front gate had been stormed by a few hundered people holding up signs and chanting "allah akbar" which is what they say when they are getting very emotional about something. The protest was because of the bombing yesterday, and at that momnet I was scared out of mind to be an American!
I'm seeing things being reported about this whole Lebanon thing here in Jordan which they don't show on TV in America because it makes Israel and us look bad! There is a whole part of this conflict which America just isn't seeing and it's really upsetting me a lot right now. I've lost almost all respect for President Bush (there wasn't much there before) since I've arrived here in the middle east and I can now understand how bad he makes America look to people over in this part of the world who are watching their fellow brothers and sisters being slaughtered by Israel, and the United Sates who is all the way across the world is supporting them!
Well that's all I can right for now. Sorry about the over zealous nature of this entry.
cheers
Monday, July 31, 2006
Friday, July 28, 2006
Today we went on a trip around western Jordan which included the babtisim site of Jesus, Mt. Nebo, and the famous mosaic which is thought to be the first map of the middle east. Our tour guide was Daud, and was the same one who we went to Petra with. It was kind of an awkward situation because a lot of people have been making fun of him lately because of his "twenty sick soldiers" joke (you have to hear the joke, it can't be written). So when we found out two days ago that he was goingt to be our guide, there was kind of an awkward silence. But he's a really nice guy. We started off this morning by Daud giving us a speech about how horrible the situation is in Lebanon because it effects the tourism industry. He tried to get Alex into an argument over the U.S.'s role in the whole thing, but Alex wouldn't give in.
According to certain evidence in the Bible and archaeological findings, they think that they have found the site on the Jordan known as Bethany, or also known as the place where Jesus was Baptized. The area in which it's located is extremly sensitive because it's on the border of Isreal. To get there we had to pick up a speacil gaurd who acompanied us into the sight, and then we had to get permission from the military to let us in. Once we got there, it was a long walk to the place that is where they think Jesus was Baptized which isn't actualy on the JOrdan River but a little ways off. Then we went to the actual Jordan river. The problem with the whole site is that once you cross the river, you're in a different country. So there is a place where a Jordanian soldier is standing on a deck that goes out looking onto the other side of the river where there are a lot of other people accompanied by Isreali soldiers all consintrating on this tiny river. The guard told us that we weren't aloud to talk to the people in Isreal. I found this all very ironic that a place that is key to the message of peace and brotherhood that Jesus taught is a military hot zone, pretending to be a tourist attraction.
We then went to Mt. Nebo where Mosses died. It was very nice, and so was the mosaic map we saw in Maddaba, but I pretty much just summed it up in a few sentences.
When we returned to Amman, we went a restaurant that was in a Bedouin tent but was really nice. The problem with the food here is that because it's so good, it's really horrible for you. I'm begining to realize that I'm going to come home with a few extra pounds even though I do a lot of walking around.
Tonight, a lot of people are firing of their guns into the air in celebration of getting their TOJEHE scores back today. The TOJEHE is kind of like the ACT and SAT except that if you don't get a 90 or higher you don't graduate from high school.
The place I'm writting this is a flea bag internet caffe which is a 5 minute walk from my appartment. It smells like smoke, and some guys are yelling at each other right now. I'm not sure about what but it's pretty commin over here for grown men to get into big arguments over little things, but in the end, everything is just fine.
-inshallla
According to certain evidence in the Bible and archaeological findings, they think that they have found the site on the Jordan known as Bethany, or also known as the place where Jesus was Baptized. The area in which it's located is extremly sensitive because it's on the border of Isreal. To get there we had to pick up a speacil gaurd who acompanied us into the sight, and then we had to get permission from the military to let us in. Once we got there, it was a long walk to the place that is where they think Jesus was Baptized which isn't actualy on the JOrdan River but a little ways off. Then we went to the actual Jordan river. The problem with the whole site is that once you cross the river, you're in a different country. So there is a place where a Jordanian soldier is standing on a deck that goes out looking onto the other side of the river where there are a lot of other people accompanied by Isreali soldiers all consintrating on this tiny river. The guard told us that we weren't aloud to talk to the people in Isreal. I found this all very ironic that a place that is key to the message of peace and brotherhood that Jesus taught is a military hot zone, pretending to be a tourist attraction.
We then went to Mt. Nebo where Mosses died. It was very nice, and so was the mosaic map we saw in Maddaba, but I pretty much just summed it up in a few sentences.
When we returned to Amman, we went a restaurant that was in a Bedouin tent but was really nice. The problem with the food here is that because it's so good, it's really horrible for you. I'm begining to realize that I'm going to come home with a few extra pounds even though I do a lot of walking around.
Tonight, a lot of people are firing of their guns into the air in celebration of getting their TOJEHE scores back today. The TOJEHE is kind of like the ACT and SAT except that if you don't get a 90 or higher you don't graduate from high school.
The place I'm writting this is a flea bag internet caffe which is a 5 minute walk from my appartment. It smells like smoke, and some guys are yelling at each other right now. I'm not sure about what but it's pretty commin over here for grown men to get into big arguments over little things, but in the end, everything is just fine.
-inshallla
Thursday, July 27, 2006
As-sallamu allaykum from Jordan. I just got back from a trip to Yarmouk University in Irbid, Jordan way up near the sea of gallilee. When we left, we weren't quite sure what we were even doing there, so when we arrived and were greeted by about twenty students it was kind of a shock. I feel bad for the people who organized this trip because everything fell apart because of the bus driver. He was almost an hour late, and refused to take us to a castle in Irbid because he "wanted to go home" even though we had reserved the bus until 7:30 that night. But I had a really great time talking to all of the students. Most of them are studying English Literature so it was interesting to get their take on Shakespeare and MArk Twain.
One of the funniest things ever happened at the begining of this trip, but I didn't hear about it until just a few days ago. A girl in the group wanted a take away box at the restaurant down stairs from our appartment and thought that the waiters wouldn't understand her english, so she drew a picture of a box on the placemate and even gave it an extra touch by putting a smily face on it. The waiter thought that in stead of drawing a take away box she had drawn a picture of a trash can and that she wanted them to throw the food away. So they did just that. Pretty soon the manager and the cook came out to ask what was wrong with the food, and they had to explain in Arabic what whe really wanted. They made her a new what ever it was she ordered and made her pay for both.
Fuad (one of my roomates) and I finnaly got the opportunity to move out of our cramped room into the old girls room, because they finaly found enough host families for the girls. We moved and found the place to be a complete dirty mess. Now when I say dirty, I'm talking about actual dirt. Here in Jordan, they don't use carpet but tile floors. So to clean them they pore water on the floor and scrup out all the dirt and use a scweegie (I have no idea how to spell that) and push the water into a drain. Once we had scwegied all the floors in the apartment, we had come up with water that looked like Lake Erie, and then when we opened the drain in the kitchen a whole bunch of little tiny insects swarmed out. After all of this cleaning we had a perfect room. But, unfortunetly the next day, a girl had to leave her host family so we are currently in the process of moving everything back to are old room.
Today was my last day of volunteering at the King's Academy. I think I'm going to miss this the most from the whole experience because all of the people there are just so nice. The school itself hasn't officialy opened except for the two week summer program I was involved with, so a lot of things are still in the makings there. Most notibly is the food situation. They decided to have all of the meals catered because it was only two weeks. And of course they insisted on feading us when we came on tuesdays and thursdays, but it was food of the healthy but not very interesting kind. When we showed up this past tuesday, they gave us a big box with chicken, fries, and peta bread topped of with Pepsi. We soon learned that the catering service had been fired because they kept giving the kids really small portions or something, so instead they go out and by fast food for them. So much for trying to change their eating habbits. When we showed up at the kings academy today, they were eating McDonalds and had forgotten to get us lunch. Even though we insisted that we didn't need lunch, they had someone drive all the way out to Maddba and get us Shwarma.
When we went to dinner tonight, we went to a FIlafil shop that most people in the group have been to and liked. But when we arrived and started looking at the food, Fuad noticed that there was funguss growing on some kind of mixture of meat and potaatoes. After a failed attemot at trying to explain to the manager that there was mold on the food we had to leave. As were waking out we noticed him mix the mold back in with everything else.
-cheers
One of the funniest things ever happened at the begining of this trip, but I didn't hear about it until just a few days ago. A girl in the group wanted a take away box at the restaurant down stairs from our appartment and thought that the waiters wouldn't understand her english, so she drew a picture of a box on the placemate and even gave it an extra touch by putting a smily face on it. The waiter thought that in stead of drawing a take away box she had drawn a picture of a trash can and that she wanted them to throw the food away. So they did just that. Pretty soon the manager and the cook came out to ask what was wrong with the food, and they had to explain in Arabic what whe really wanted. They made her a new what ever it was she ordered and made her pay for both.
Fuad (one of my roomates) and I finnaly got the opportunity to move out of our cramped room into the old girls room, because they finaly found enough host families for the girls. We moved and found the place to be a complete dirty mess. Now when I say dirty, I'm talking about actual dirt. Here in Jordan, they don't use carpet but tile floors. So to clean them they pore water on the floor and scrup out all the dirt and use a scweegie (I have no idea how to spell that) and push the water into a drain. Once we had scwegied all the floors in the apartment, we had come up with water that looked like Lake Erie, and then when we opened the drain in the kitchen a whole bunch of little tiny insects swarmed out. After all of this cleaning we had a perfect room. But, unfortunetly the next day, a girl had to leave her host family so we are currently in the process of moving everything back to are old room.
Today was my last day of volunteering at the King's Academy. I think I'm going to miss this the most from the whole experience because all of the people there are just so nice. The school itself hasn't officialy opened except for the two week summer program I was involved with, so a lot of things are still in the makings there. Most notibly is the food situation. They decided to have all of the meals catered because it was only two weeks. And of course they insisted on feading us when we came on tuesdays and thursdays, but it was food of the healthy but not very interesting kind. When we showed up this past tuesday, they gave us a big box with chicken, fries, and peta bread topped of with Pepsi. We soon learned that the catering service had been fired because they kept giving the kids really small portions or something, so instead they go out and by fast food for them. So much for trying to change their eating habbits. When we showed up at the kings academy today, they were eating McDonalds and had forgotten to get us lunch. Even though we insisted that we didn't need lunch, they had someone drive all the way out to Maddba and get us Shwarma.
When we went to dinner tonight, we went to a FIlafil shop that most people in the group have been to and liked. But when we arrived and started looking at the food, Fuad noticed that there was funguss growing on some kind of mixture of meat and potaatoes. After a failed attemot at trying to explain to the manager that there was mold on the food we had to leave. As were waking out we noticed him mix the mold back in with everything else.
-cheers
Monday, July 24, 2006
Well I'm in the process of trying to add more pictures, but for some reason it's not working. So please be patient as I try to make ajustmants to this ever growing blog.
This past weekend has been quite rough. All of us who have been stuck back here at the Al Amera appartments have been getting on each others nerves. After spending a mounth with some people and never having a break from them you start to go insane. It might be partialy because we don't have much to do that we've already done. Some days we just don't feel like going anywhere, and instead just get mad at each other over some pretty stupid stuff.
We went to our Jordanian Arabic teachers house for breakfast the other day, and it was absolutly wonderful. I think I'm going to miss the food so much here such as Hummus, Falafil, bread with all kids of stuff on it, shworma, and mensf.
More to come dawgs.
This past weekend has been quite rough. All of us who have been stuck back here at the Al Amera appartments have been getting on each others nerves. After spending a mounth with some people and never having a break from them you start to go insane. It might be partialy because we don't have much to do that we've already done. Some days we just don't feel like going anywhere, and instead just get mad at each other over some pretty stupid stuff.
We went to our Jordanian Arabic teachers house for breakfast the other day, and it was absolutly wonderful. I think I'm going to miss the food so much here such as Hummus, Falafil, bread with all kids of stuff on it, shworma, and mensf.
More to come dawgs.
Friday, July 21, 2006
I find it interesting that the news is slanted from country to country. Here in Jordan, the news makes it seem like Israel is the wicked satan nation while in the United States and on the BBC the news is in favor of Israel. For example, on the BBC when they show a Israeli led attack against Lebanon it’s “an air raid”. But if the any force from Lebanon (hezbollah or not) it’s an “attack”.
Everything here is kind of tense because of the conflict but it’s still very safe. Today at church, I the branch president let out church an hour early so we could get home before Friday prayers at the mosques were over because sometimes the speeches at the mosques are politically charged. In church today, two Arab guys got in an argument over wearing white shirts with the sacrement. Things like this don’t usually happen in Utah so it really shocked me. The church was packed to maximum capacity because all the BYU students were there today. I met up with two who live behind my apartment who I commute with to church.
Mrs. Ann Kok, from the University of Green Bay left us the other day which was really sad. She was here setting up all of our service projects and also as just another adult. We had a going away party for here at this really fancy restaurant which is designed to look like a Bedouin tent. The food was incredibly expensive at 10JD ($16), but well worth it. On the ride home, the cab driver was really friendly and told us that he was mad about Ossama Bin Laden attacking America. It just mad me feel really good inside.
All the international students went on this big excursion to a famous restaurant called Kan Zemat which is the first restaurant I’ve ever been to where you had to go through metal detectors. We all payed 5JD ($8) to go. When we arrived, we were led through the gift shops for a while (and interestingly, the gift shops were aimed towards Christian tour groups), until we arrived at the actual restaurant. We walked in and were impressed by how luxurious it was, but were then led to the family section which was a bunch of coffee tables with stools. When they brought out the food, it was bread, just Bread. It was good bread, but I don’t think anyone realized that that was just what we were getting. At one point the waiters got up and danced Depka (Jordanian folk dance) around the restaurant and forced people to dance with them. Then the bus got stuck between two cars and it took a long time for the driver to maneuver it out. What a night.
I spent my second day volunteering at the King’s Academy by helping kids write Tanka’s (form of Japanese poetry) in their English classes. Now I’ve never heard of a Tanka before, so I was really worried I was going to screw some kids poem up. The teacher is from Ireland and has a very thick accent. She was quite strict at first so she reminded me of Cruela Deville at first but by the ned when she read the Frog Prince to the kids, she completely changed. All of the kids are so happy to talk to us because America is this huge icon for them. Their English ranges from perfectly fluent to perfectly un-fluent. I really wish I could live with the kids like the counselors who are graduates of Deer Field Academy are. The University is paying for a car to take us out there everyday because it’s about a forty minute drive. But unfortunately the bus driver is different everyday and they never speak English, so that has caused some interesting situations when the people at the gate wont let us in and we have to make a lot of phone calls.
We went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2 last night at Mecca Mall. It was one of the most confusing and boring movies ever! Everybody in the group was really mad that they had wasted JD 5 on it. Before the movie we went to a place called “Chips and Dips” which had real live Utahn fry sauce. It was wonderful. And then these two women got in a fight and hundreds of people gathered around to watch it but it was broken up pretty fast. I think Arabs get really excited when they see that kind of stuff because nothing quite like that has ever happened before my eyes.
Something funny happened this afternoon. We frequently eat at this restaurant called Al Bal because it’s just downstairs and it’s really good. Well today we were eating lunch and this guy came over and asked us why we always ate there. We had never seen him before, but it turned out that he was the owner. We told abut how much we enjoyed the food and the people are really nice. Someone asked him where a good place for ice cream was and it turned out that he owned a ice cream store across town. He asked what flavors we wanted and had someone drive across town it. Now we just kind of assumed for some reason that it was on the house because of the way he talked about it. But when they came back, it turned out to be 14JD ($20) for about 12 scoops of Ice Cream.
Well that’s it for today.
-cheers
Everything here is kind of tense because of the conflict but it’s still very safe. Today at church, I the branch president let out church an hour early so we could get home before Friday prayers at the mosques were over because sometimes the speeches at the mosques are politically charged. In church today, two Arab guys got in an argument over wearing white shirts with the sacrement. Things like this don’t usually happen in Utah so it really shocked me. The church was packed to maximum capacity because all the BYU students were there today. I met up with two who live behind my apartment who I commute with to church.
Mrs. Ann Kok, from the University of Green Bay left us the other day which was really sad. She was here setting up all of our service projects and also as just another adult. We had a going away party for here at this really fancy restaurant which is designed to look like a Bedouin tent. The food was incredibly expensive at 10JD ($16), but well worth it. On the ride home, the cab driver was really friendly and told us that he was mad about Ossama Bin Laden attacking America. It just mad me feel really good inside.
All the international students went on this big excursion to a famous restaurant called Kan Zemat which is the first restaurant I’ve ever been to where you had to go through metal detectors. We all payed 5JD ($8) to go. When we arrived, we were led through the gift shops for a while (and interestingly, the gift shops were aimed towards Christian tour groups), until we arrived at the actual restaurant. We walked in and were impressed by how luxurious it was, but were then led to the family section which was a bunch of coffee tables with stools. When they brought out the food, it was bread, just Bread. It was good bread, but I don’t think anyone realized that that was just what we were getting. At one point the waiters got up and danced Depka (Jordanian folk dance) around the restaurant and forced people to dance with them. Then the bus got stuck between two cars and it took a long time for the driver to maneuver it out. What a night.
I spent my second day volunteering at the King’s Academy by helping kids write Tanka’s (form of Japanese poetry) in their English classes. Now I’ve never heard of a Tanka before, so I was really worried I was going to screw some kids poem up. The teacher is from Ireland and has a very thick accent. She was quite strict at first so she reminded me of Cruela Deville at first but by the ned when she read the Frog Prince to the kids, she completely changed. All of the kids are so happy to talk to us because America is this huge icon for them. Their English ranges from perfectly fluent to perfectly un-fluent. I really wish I could live with the kids like the counselors who are graduates of Deer Field Academy are. The University is paying for a car to take us out there everyday because it’s about a forty minute drive. But unfortunately the bus driver is different everyday and they never speak English, so that has caused some interesting situations when the people at the gate wont let us in and we have to make a lot of phone calls.
We went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2 last night at Mecca Mall. It was one of the most confusing and boring movies ever! Everybody in the group was really mad that they had wasted JD 5 on it. Before the movie we went to a place called “Chips and Dips” which had real live Utahn fry sauce. It was wonderful. And then these two women got in a fight and hundreds of people gathered around to watch it but it was broken up pretty fast. I think Arabs get really excited when they see that kind of stuff because nothing quite like that has ever happened before my eyes.
Something funny happened this afternoon. We frequently eat at this restaurant called Al Bal because it’s just downstairs and it’s really good. Well today we were eating lunch and this guy came over and asked us why we always ate there. We had never seen him before, but it turned out that he was the owner. We told abut how much we enjoyed the food and the people are really nice. Someone asked him where a good place for ice cream was and it turned out that he owned a ice cream store across town. He asked what flavors we wanted and had someone drive across town it. Now we just kind of assumed for some reason that it was on the house because of the way he talked about it. But when they came back, it turned out to be 14JD ($20) for about 12 scoops of Ice Cream.
Well that’s it for today.
-cheers
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Where to begin? It’s been over a week sense I updated this blog and there is so much that’s happened that I don’t think I can write it all down. First of all, I am fine and am not in any danger from the Israeli and Lebanon conflict which is currently in it’s 7th day right now. It is kind of frightening because I stopped in Beirut on my way to Jordan at the airport that was heavily bombed by Israel. There was a demonstration in front of the university of Jordan the day that Lebanon was invaded, and that’s about all that has happened in Amman relating to that.
I’m still living in an apartment because they can’t find any families willing to take in men because of cultural issues relating to either the fact that a family has daughters and doesn’t want men to be a threat to them, or the hijab issue. The hijab is the scarf that Muslim women wear over their heads because women aren’t supposed to reveal their hair to any man who is not closely related to them. If I was to live with a Muslim family, the women would have to always cover their hair inside their house. They have found plenty of families for girls and all of them are living in a host family except for one.
I guess the first thing that I’ve been needing to right about is the final game of the world cup. I’m currently living in a apartment above a restaurant called Al Bal. Al Bal is one of the restaurants that you can eat at everyday and never get tired of it, which is the reason that we eat at least one meal there every day. During the world cup, they would show the games on big screen TVs inside the restaurant, and project them on a big screen outside. Listening to the nose from the games from are apartment had become a nightly ritual over the weeks and it finally came to the last game between France and Italy. Italy was by far the most popular team, so even though I was going for France, I wanted Italy to win so that everybody would go crazy downstairs and I could take pictures. Luckily Italy won and there was a riot in the street. The police should up a couple of times to get traffic moving but once they left the party just got wilder and wilder by the minute.
Arabic classes that week were long and tedious. I go to school for 4 hours every day taking 2 classes in Jordanian Arabic, and Modern Standard Arabic. The problem with the language is that it is so dynamic that depending on the region your in, the language changes so much from country to country. For example, a person from Jordan can’t speak their own dialect to a person from Egypt and be understood. There is however modern standard arabic which can be understood by everyone because it’s basically the language of the Qu’ran updated with 21st century vocabulary. So I’m pretty much learning two separate languages which is like learning French and Spanish at the same time.
This past Friday, we took a trip to Al Karak, which is a town down south kind of near Petra who’s well known for it’s crusader castle roughly the size of any normal English castle. We were invited to visit a family who lives in a village near Karak who has some kind of relationship with our current group leader. We were warned that they were very traditional Muslims with strict rules about gender separation and very large with 10 children and a large extended family who was there as well. When we arrived at their house, the father was the first person we met who waiting outside and gave us the traditional Arab greeting where you kiss them on the right cheek 2 times, and on the left once. I did the same with all of them men, and when I came to the women, they all looked a the ground and acted like I wasn’t there. I wasn’t affended or anything, but I felt uncomfortable about it. When we were upstairs the men sat on one end of the room, and the women on the other. Ann, our group leader who had told us about all the gender separation rules completely ignored them and sat with the men and began taking to them. Once this happened, it was like everyone broke with rules and everyone was taking to each other.
The national Jordanian dish is what’s called Mensef, which is lamb, rice, and a sauce made out of yogurt which you eat using your hands. I had Mensf the week before, but the Mensf which was given to us in Karak was the real stuff complete with the sheep head (the eyes are supposed to be the best part). We took a lot of food initially, but family members kept insisting that we eat more, and more until I felt Like I was going to go into a food induced coma. Once we were done with the Mensf, they led us into the sitting room where they had even more food waiting for us.
It very interesting to listen to Arabs talk about America. They despise the government and our president but absolutely love the people, culture, and everything else. Many of the children are studying to become doctors, engineers, and dentists, so it is very important for them to go to America to study so they could get the best jobs. I started to really appreciate what I have at home because I can do what ever I want in my career and live the way I want to, while people here have to compete to get into schools and don’t have to become a doctor in order secure my future.
That was that day.
The next day we went to the Dead Sea with the international students from the University of Jordan. The university has provided us with some really nice cars, and mini buses in the past, but what we drove to the Dead Sea was pretty frightening. The air conditioning was a fan at the front of the bus which had been rigged to only blow air on the driver, plus we had to stop at all sorts of military check points where men in military uniforms and machines guns would get out and walk around the bus, so it was a very long and tedious drive. The whole Lebanon thing had just started with Israel so I guess the Jordanians had taken extra precautions on the road to Israel which is also the road to the dead sea.
The Dead Sea is the worlds lowest point at a few hundred feet below sea level, and the hottest place I’ve ever been. When we got to the beach, I didn’t feel like going out into the salty water, put mud all over my body, and get sunburned. So I took refuge under a canapé with Eman who is Muslim, so she has a hard time going swimming around men because she would pretty much have to wear a wet suit and bathing cap. We talked for a while, listened to her iPod, and fell asleep. When we left, everyone was shocked that I didn’t go in, but I was fine with it because in the end I had more fun than them and didn’t get sunburned or have an allergic reaction to the water.
On Sunday, we had a meeting with an organization called World Links. I had been dreading this for a long time because we were supposed to make a power point presentation about technology in American Schools, and Jordanian kids would do the same. Sounded pretty stupid and pointless at the time, and it was, except for the fact that I had a great time talking to the other kids. I met one kid in particular named Otti who shared all of the same interests in music and politics. We had a very lengthy discussion about communism in America.
I started volunteering yesterday at the Kings Academy which is a prep school copied after Deer Field Academy in Massachusetts where his majesty King Abdullah the 2nd went to school. It’s brand new and not even officially open except for a summer camp aimed towards underprivileged children in rural areas around the age of 12-15........or that’s what they told us. The rural part might be true, but most of them all come from pretty well off families. The kids are so nice though, and so excited to talk to us in English. When they came back from classes and saw us standing in the dinning hall, we were practically mobbed by little kids introducing themselves. Because the king is in charge of everything, the school is very nice. I didn’t feel like I was in Jordan, but at some high class boarding school in New England. The king paid for graduates from this year to come and be counselors for the kids and to Americanize them. I have mixed feelings about this because I think that the kids are learning valuable things about eating good food and learning to throw trash away in garbage cans, but at the same time I don’t think they should force girls to play soccer with boys and stuff like that which is not part of their culture.
My friend Rashadd was visiting my room and broke the bed when he sat on it. So we had to go ask for nails at a construction site to repair the bed without the owner finding out. The manger is one of those people who puts fear into you when you look at him. So we repaired it ourselves and it‘s better than ever.
Today instead of going to modern arabic class, our teachers took us to the Jordanian parliament. It was just like going to congress except for the fact that there was a thrown for the king (which I couldn’t sit in, but I sat in the prime ministers seat).
That’s pretty much all of the big stuff that’s happened since my last blog. I’ll try to keep up, but I’ve had to pretty much fight to the death for internet access for the last week because there’s a class in the computer lab at school when I’m not in class. So that’s that.
-Sallam Alykum
I’m still living in an apartment because they can’t find any families willing to take in men because of cultural issues relating to either the fact that a family has daughters and doesn’t want men to be a threat to them, or the hijab issue. The hijab is the scarf that Muslim women wear over their heads because women aren’t supposed to reveal their hair to any man who is not closely related to them. If I was to live with a Muslim family, the women would have to always cover their hair inside their house. They have found plenty of families for girls and all of them are living in a host family except for one.
I guess the first thing that I’ve been needing to right about is the final game of the world cup. I’m currently living in a apartment above a restaurant called Al Bal. Al Bal is one of the restaurants that you can eat at everyday and never get tired of it, which is the reason that we eat at least one meal there every day. During the world cup, they would show the games on big screen TVs inside the restaurant, and project them on a big screen outside. Listening to the nose from the games from are apartment had become a nightly ritual over the weeks and it finally came to the last game between France and Italy. Italy was by far the most popular team, so even though I was going for France, I wanted Italy to win so that everybody would go crazy downstairs and I could take pictures. Luckily Italy won and there was a riot in the street. The police should up a couple of times to get traffic moving but once they left the party just got wilder and wilder by the minute.
Arabic classes that week were long and tedious. I go to school for 4 hours every day taking 2 classes in Jordanian Arabic, and Modern Standard Arabic. The problem with the language is that it is so dynamic that depending on the region your in, the language changes so much from country to country. For example, a person from Jordan can’t speak their own dialect to a person from Egypt and be understood. There is however modern standard arabic which can be understood by everyone because it’s basically the language of the Qu’ran updated with 21st century vocabulary. So I’m pretty much learning two separate languages which is like learning French and Spanish at the same time.
This past Friday, we took a trip to Al Karak, which is a town down south kind of near Petra who’s well known for it’s crusader castle roughly the size of any normal English castle. We were invited to visit a family who lives in a village near Karak who has some kind of relationship with our current group leader. We were warned that they were very traditional Muslims with strict rules about gender separation and very large with 10 children and a large extended family who was there as well. When we arrived at their house, the father was the first person we met who waiting outside and gave us the traditional Arab greeting where you kiss them on the right cheek 2 times, and on the left once. I did the same with all of them men, and when I came to the women, they all looked a the ground and acted like I wasn’t there. I wasn’t affended or anything, but I felt uncomfortable about it. When we were upstairs the men sat on one end of the room, and the women on the other. Ann, our group leader who had told us about all the gender separation rules completely ignored them and sat with the men and began taking to them. Once this happened, it was like everyone broke with rules and everyone was taking to each other.
The national Jordanian dish is what’s called Mensef, which is lamb, rice, and a sauce made out of yogurt which you eat using your hands. I had Mensf the week before, but the Mensf which was given to us in Karak was the real stuff complete with the sheep head (the eyes are supposed to be the best part). We took a lot of food initially, but family members kept insisting that we eat more, and more until I felt Like I was going to go into a food induced coma. Once we were done with the Mensf, they led us into the sitting room where they had even more food waiting for us.
It very interesting to listen to Arabs talk about America. They despise the government and our president but absolutely love the people, culture, and everything else. Many of the children are studying to become doctors, engineers, and dentists, so it is very important for them to go to America to study so they could get the best jobs. I started to really appreciate what I have at home because I can do what ever I want in my career and live the way I want to, while people here have to compete to get into schools and don’t have to become a doctor in order secure my future.
That was that day.
The next day we went to the Dead Sea with the international students from the University of Jordan. The university has provided us with some really nice cars, and mini buses in the past, but what we drove to the Dead Sea was pretty frightening. The air conditioning was a fan at the front of the bus which had been rigged to only blow air on the driver, plus we had to stop at all sorts of military check points where men in military uniforms and machines guns would get out and walk around the bus, so it was a very long and tedious drive. The whole Lebanon thing had just started with Israel so I guess the Jordanians had taken extra precautions on the road to Israel which is also the road to the dead sea.
The Dead Sea is the worlds lowest point at a few hundred feet below sea level, and the hottest place I’ve ever been. When we got to the beach, I didn’t feel like going out into the salty water, put mud all over my body, and get sunburned. So I took refuge under a canapé with Eman who is Muslim, so she has a hard time going swimming around men because she would pretty much have to wear a wet suit and bathing cap. We talked for a while, listened to her iPod, and fell asleep. When we left, everyone was shocked that I didn’t go in, but I was fine with it because in the end I had more fun than them and didn’t get sunburned or have an allergic reaction to the water.
On Sunday, we had a meeting with an organization called World Links. I had been dreading this for a long time because we were supposed to make a power point presentation about technology in American Schools, and Jordanian kids would do the same. Sounded pretty stupid and pointless at the time, and it was, except for the fact that I had a great time talking to the other kids. I met one kid in particular named Otti who shared all of the same interests in music and politics. We had a very lengthy discussion about communism in America.
I started volunteering yesterday at the Kings Academy which is a prep school copied after Deer Field Academy in Massachusetts where his majesty King Abdullah the 2nd went to school. It’s brand new and not even officially open except for a summer camp aimed towards underprivileged children in rural areas around the age of 12-15........or that’s what they told us. The rural part might be true, but most of them all come from pretty well off families. The kids are so nice though, and so excited to talk to us in English. When they came back from classes and saw us standing in the dinning hall, we were practically mobbed by little kids introducing themselves. Because the king is in charge of everything, the school is very nice. I didn’t feel like I was in Jordan, but at some high class boarding school in New England. The king paid for graduates from this year to come and be counselors for the kids and to Americanize them. I have mixed feelings about this because I think that the kids are learning valuable things about eating good food and learning to throw trash away in garbage cans, but at the same time I don’t think they should force girls to play soccer with boys and stuff like that which is not part of their culture.
My friend Rashadd was visiting my room and broke the bed when he sat on it. So we had to go ask for nails at a construction site to repair the bed without the owner finding out. The manger is one of those people who puts fear into you when you look at him. So we repaired it ourselves and it‘s better than ever.
Today instead of going to modern arabic class, our teachers took us to the Jordanian parliament. It was just like going to congress except for the fact that there was a thrown for the king (which I couldn’t sit in, but I sat in the prime ministers seat).
That’s pretty much all of the big stuff that’s happened since my last blog. I’ll try to keep up, but I’ve had to pretty much fight to the death for internet access for the last week because there’s a class in the computer lab at school when I’m not in class. So that’s that.
-Sallam Alykum
Sunday, July 09, 2006
The other day was one of the most rediculous days of my life(maybe not my life, but it was pretty ridicoulous).So that morning I went to church. Now in Jordan, Church is on Friday becasue it is holy day of the muslims and Sunday is Monday in Jordan. Grechen had the card of the branch president who we had called the night before to get the time. It was in english in Arabic so we figured that if we gave the card to the driver, he would just be able to take us to the church. Amman isn't like other cities. In New York, for example, if you have an address, you can find your destination very easily. In Amman, they don't have addresses, just post office boxes. The driver was very frustrated and droped us off at the king abdullah mosque thinking that that was good enough. We called the number on the card and he told us to flag down a taxi and let him talk to the driver about directions. So we did just that. It turned out that the church was on the other side of town from where we had been droped off. The cab driver was very eager to practice his English on us. He told us that he was getting married the next week and wanted to come to America to get a masters degree. He was the nicest cab driver I've ever had, and will probably ever had.
The Church owns a very nice and large house in the embassy disterect which they have turnd into a church and humanitarian headquaters for Jordan. There were about 100 people there, 20 of them BYU students. I really enjoyed going to church here because it was so basic. There was a puplit, a table for the sacrament, and chairs. That was is! Instead of normail bread for the sacrement, they used pita bread. Sacrement meeting was in both English and Arabic which was extremly confusing. Sunday School was even more confusing, and Priesthood was pretty much in English. We met a lot of people who were mostly Americans who live in Jordan or are just visiting. But there was a suprising amount of Arabs, Indians, and Africans. I sat next to boy who looked like he was 12 from Nigeria named Mathew. The Hymbooks are in Arabic and English and alternate laguages every other verse.
When we returned from Church eveybody had been worried about us because we were gone for three plus hours. When we told them that our church was normaly 3 hours, they were shoked. Some of the Muslims in the group had just returned from Friday prayers where the Emman (the head of the mosque) gives a sermon which lasted about 45 minutes and they though that that was long.
Alex decided that we should take a field trip to a cave on the outskirts of Amman which is belived to be the sight of a story in the Qu'ran. In the story, seven people were being persicuted for there religon, so god led them to the cave and put them to sleep for 300 years. When they woke up they weren't persicuted anymore. The drive was about 30 minutes by cab and costed 4 dinar each way. We had to drive through the industrial section of town to get to the cave which is situated next to a factory on a hillside. We got out, saw the cave which wasn't very interesting because it was just a small room that had been built over the actual cave by the ummyads. There was a mosque further up the hill, but we weren't aloud to go, so it was time to go back home. Cabs aren't to frequent in that part of town so he had to walk to the main road. After 10 minutes a cab cameand three girls got in the back and wanted a boy to come with them because women aren't safe by themselves in the middle east in general. So I got in the front seat and went home. I got the key and went up to my room where I read for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and eventualy almost 30 minutes had gone by and no one had returned. Eventually Erik came back and told that no taxis had come. A bus came by and offered to take everyone back to the hotel so they got on. The driver thought that they should get 20 dinar for the ride and Alex talked them down to 11 dinar. The bus went the really long way through the old city and was a few miles away from the hotel when it broke down in the middle of the road. Everyone got out and had to take taxis to the hotel which was and additional 2 dinar per cab.
That night we decided to go to dinner as a group. So we had past this restauraunt a couple of times called "Pollo Rancheo: Latino Flavor". Someone got his idea that they would like to try Jordanian Mexican food and so half of the group including me got dragged into going. We took a short but tedius cab ride to Pollo Rancheo where we went in and found out that there was nothing Latino about it. First of all, the only thing they had was chicken, lot's of fried chicken which I don't think is a Latino food. We were considering eating there when I noticed that the waiters were all wearing pirate suits. The menu was all in english but with many errors like "Chiken Prest" or "Maxican Food". We decided to go somewhere else, somewhere with more traditional food. We went out side and were approached by an old man with a black plastic bag. He struck up a conversation with Rashadd (who's family is from Jordan and speaks really good Arabic). The man gave Rashadd a small box from the bag which turned out to be French Perfume and went on to give a few other people standing around him a box and take 2 dinars from each of them. I walked away as to avoid the situation because I didn't want French perfume, but decided to approach again to take a look at the bottle when the old man shoved a box into my hands. I tried to give it back to him but he wouldn't take it back while giving compliments to me like "you are handsome man". I decided to just giv him the 2 dinars because the rest of the group was moving away. I took out my wallet to get 2 dinars when he saw that I had a 5 dinar bill and he started asking me for that. I refused and he kept asking for it. After a while I just left with the bottle giving him 2 dinars for it.
We could see a restaurant across the street that looked pretty good but crossing the street was suicide. Everyone in the group except me Erik and Eman ran across the street just barley making it. We decided that we would just either go back or eat at Pollo Ranchero. Somone in the group flaged down a cab and had them drive to the other side of the street and pick us up against our will. Because this street was so busy (it's one of the main streets in amman) we had to drive a mile before we could turn around and drive another mile to the restaurant.
The Restaruant was huge. It was set up so that all the tables faced the front where a band was set up in front of a giant waterfall. We were the only people in the entire restaraunt for about an hour when a few other people showed up and the band started playing. The band consisted of a keyboard player who had done something to the keyboard so it could play arabian scales, a fluetist, two drumers, and a vocalist in a very skimpy dress. The food was pretty good but xpensive. So after drinking a lot of water at dinner, naturally, I had to go visit the restroom, right? So I walk into the mens restroom and there is a guy just siting there with a little table set up with a tip jar full of money and some pictures of what were probably his family. This kind of thing is uncommon outside of America, but it was the fact that he was inside the actual bathroom with one toilet and a urinal against the wall and no dividers. Extremely akward.
That was that day.
The Church owns a very nice and large house in the embassy disterect which they have turnd into a church and humanitarian headquaters for Jordan. There were about 100 people there, 20 of them BYU students. I really enjoyed going to church here because it was so basic. There was a puplit, a table for the sacrament, and chairs. That was is! Instead of normail bread for the sacrement, they used pita bread. Sacrement meeting was in both English and Arabic which was extremly confusing. Sunday School was even more confusing, and Priesthood was pretty much in English. We met a lot of people who were mostly Americans who live in Jordan or are just visiting. But there was a suprising amount of Arabs, Indians, and Africans. I sat next to boy who looked like he was 12 from Nigeria named Mathew. The Hymbooks are in Arabic and English and alternate laguages every other verse.
When we returned from Church eveybody had been worried about us because we were gone for three plus hours. When we told them that our church was normaly 3 hours, they were shoked. Some of the Muslims in the group had just returned from Friday prayers where the Emman (the head of the mosque) gives a sermon which lasted about 45 minutes and they though that that was long.
Alex decided that we should take a field trip to a cave on the outskirts of Amman which is belived to be the sight of a story in the Qu'ran. In the story, seven people were being persicuted for there religon, so god led them to the cave and put them to sleep for 300 years. When they woke up they weren't persicuted anymore. The drive was about 30 minutes by cab and costed 4 dinar each way. We had to drive through the industrial section of town to get to the cave which is situated next to a factory on a hillside. We got out, saw the cave which wasn't very interesting because it was just a small room that had been built over the actual cave by the ummyads. There was a mosque further up the hill, but we weren't aloud to go, so it was time to go back home. Cabs aren't to frequent in that part of town so he had to walk to the main road. After 10 minutes a cab cameand three girls got in the back and wanted a boy to come with them because women aren't safe by themselves in the middle east in general. So I got in the front seat and went home. I got the key and went up to my room where I read for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and eventualy almost 30 minutes had gone by and no one had returned. Eventually Erik came back and told that no taxis had come. A bus came by and offered to take everyone back to the hotel so they got on. The driver thought that they should get 20 dinar for the ride and Alex talked them down to 11 dinar. The bus went the really long way through the old city and was a few miles away from the hotel when it broke down in the middle of the road. Everyone got out and had to take taxis to the hotel which was and additional 2 dinar per cab.
That night we decided to go to dinner as a group. So we had past this restauraunt a couple of times called "Pollo Rancheo: Latino Flavor". Someone got his idea that they would like to try Jordanian Mexican food and so half of the group including me got dragged into going. We took a short but tedius cab ride to Pollo Rancheo where we went in and found out that there was nothing Latino about it. First of all, the only thing they had was chicken, lot's of fried chicken which I don't think is a Latino food. We were considering eating there when I noticed that the waiters were all wearing pirate suits. The menu was all in english but with many errors like "Chiken Prest" or "Maxican Food". We decided to go somewhere else, somewhere with more traditional food. We went out side and were approached by an old man with a black plastic bag. He struck up a conversation with Rashadd (who's family is from Jordan and speaks really good Arabic). The man gave Rashadd a small box from the bag which turned out to be French Perfume and went on to give a few other people standing around him a box and take 2 dinars from each of them. I walked away as to avoid the situation because I didn't want French perfume, but decided to approach again to take a look at the bottle when the old man shoved a box into my hands. I tried to give it back to him but he wouldn't take it back while giving compliments to me like "you are handsome man". I decided to just giv him the 2 dinars because the rest of the group was moving away. I took out my wallet to get 2 dinars when he saw that I had a 5 dinar bill and he started asking me for that. I refused and he kept asking for it. After a while I just left with the bottle giving him 2 dinars for it.
We could see a restaurant across the street that looked pretty good but crossing the street was suicide. Everyone in the group except me Erik and Eman ran across the street just barley making it. We decided that we would just either go back or eat at Pollo Ranchero. Somone in the group flaged down a cab and had them drive to the other side of the street and pick us up against our will. Because this street was so busy (it's one of the main streets in amman) we had to drive a mile before we could turn around and drive another mile to the restaurant.
The Restaruant was huge. It was set up so that all the tables faced the front where a band was set up in front of a giant waterfall. We were the only people in the entire restaraunt for about an hour when a few other people showed up and the band started playing. The band consisted of a keyboard player who had done something to the keyboard so it could play arabian scales, a fluetist, two drumers, and a vocalist in a very skimpy dress. The food was pretty good but xpensive. So after drinking a lot of water at dinner, naturally, I had to go visit the restroom, right? So I walk into the mens restroom and there is a guy just siting there with a little table set up with a tip jar full of money and some pictures of what were probably his family. This kind of thing is uncommon outside of America, but it was the fact that he was inside the actual bathroom with one toilet and a urinal against the wall and no dividers. Extremely akward.
That was that day.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
World Cup fever is pretty big here is Jordan. We live above a restaurant called Al Bal which is very popular among the world cup fans because of it's big screen TV's that broadcast every game. Every night after someone wins the game there will be party with people singing and chanting uintil early in the morning.
We went to dinner at The Royal Autombile Club of Jordan the other night with Daud, whio is a university of Wisconsin Green Bay graduate. This place is kind of the country club for Jordan, very ritzy. The cab drive who brought us hereripped us off though.
WE were supposed to attend a 4th of july party at the US embassy, but Alex, the current group leader decided that it was taking an unnessasary risk because Ossama in Laden recently released a Video in which he talked about overthowing King Abdullah and attaking westerners. We ended up having a party on the roof of our hotel.
We went to dinner at The Royal Autombile Club of Jordan the other night with Daud, whio is a university of Wisconsin Green Bay graduate. This place is kind of the country club for Jordan, very ritzy. The cab drive who brought us hereripped us off though.
WE were supposed to attend a 4th of july party at the US embassy, but Alex, the current group leader decided that it was taking an unnessasary risk because Ossama in Laden recently released a Video in which he talked about overthowing King Abdullah and attaking westerners. We ended up having a party on the roof of our hotel.
I just got back from a weekend excursion to Petra and Wadi Rum. If you've never heard of Petra before, I'm sure you've at least seen a picture of it before. Indiana Jones and the last Crusad was filmed there and so were a couple other movies which I can't think of at the moment. But it's a 2000 year old city which was carved out of the sand stone. Our tour guide Daud was a nice guy withg a lot of information who had visited the place a couple hundered times. He talked us into taking a hike up to what is called the "high place". The trail is 4000 stairs carved out of the mountain. It was shoking to see how many people in my group are out of shape. For some it was their first time hiking. But the view was amazing. On top the call to prayer came over the mountains from the modern city of Petra. My new friend Duff from Ft. Lauderdale is training to become an Islamic Scholar. Upon hearing the call he stood up on a rock and started reciting the call. I will never forget it.
We ate lunch in a resaurant that was 8 dinars (which is a rip off) for the buffet which was food that had been made the other day and left in metal trays. To leave Petra you have to go all the way back the way you came through a canyon called the Siq which was carved by water from flash floods. Are Hotel was on top of a surrounding mountain and looked out over Petra. Besides the fact that dinner gave me and a few other people food poisoniong, it was a really nice hotel. Though I have never had to walk through metal ditectors to get into a hotel before.
The next morning we went to Wadi Rum which is a very famous desert where lawrence of Arabia spent some of his time. Wadi Rum is beautiful with different rock formations and various clorous of sand. To get out into the desert we got in the back of jeeps (they called them jeeps but they were really toyota's)and rode out. The drivers were Bedouin and kept trying to talk the tour guide into paying them more money. To start the "jeep" the driver would hotwire the engine. It was quite an experince.
And of course here are pictures:
We ate lunch in a resaurant that was 8 dinars (which is a rip off) for the buffet which was food that had been made the other day and left in metal trays. To leave Petra you have to go all the way back the way you came through a canyon called the Siq which was carved by water from flash floods. Are Hotel was on top of a surrounding mountain and looked out over Petra. Besides the fact that dinner gave me and a few other people food poisoniong, it was a really nice hotel. Though I have never had to walk through metal ditectors to get into a hotel before.
The next morning we went to Wadi Rum which is a very famous desert where lawrence of Arabia spent some of his time. Wadi Rum is beautiful with different rock formations and various clorous of sand. To get out into the desert we got in the back of jeeps (they called them jeeps but they were really toyota's)and rode out. The drivers were Bedouin and kept trying to talk the tour guide into paying them more money. To start the "jeep" the driver would hotwire the engine. It was quite an experince.
And of course here are pictures:
I have made to Jordan. My first impressions of the middle east are very different than what I was expecting. For example, it's not really that hot, and people here don't hate americans. I'm living in an apartment across the street from the University of Jordan which gives me the opportunity to walk through the local shoppng area where you can find all kinds of fantastic middle eastern food cheap. In fact everything is cheap.
Our journey here had a lot of obsicles we had to jump over. Once we got to London. We found out that we couldn't store are luggage in the airport we had to take it into london with us and store it in the British Museum. And of course everything was expensive. On return to the airport, a girl in the grioup was told that she had to get a new passport before leaving for Jordan. After many phonecalls to the state department they let her go. After a quick stop in lebanon we arrived in Jordan.....without my luggage which had been left in London. All I had were the clothes on my body and an extra pair of socks. Me moved in and have had a great time with many great experiences. oh and my luggage did come two days latter.
The university of jordan is across the street from my apartment, but you have to walk all the way down the street and go under the street through a tunnel because the road is too trecherous to cross. My appartment is comfortable but quite frightening when it comes to the bathroom. We have learned to take semi-sponge bathes instead of showers because there is no curtain, just a hole for the water and taking a shower means that the whole bathroom will be flooded for the next day.
My Arabic classes are frustrating right now because the language is so insanely hard to learn after speaking English all of your life. The grammer, the alphabet, and the way your mouth feels when you speak is totaly different. In fact the other day, a gril in my class started crying because she was so frustrated and the teacher had to calm her down by telling her that she was just a beginner. If you wan't to talk to the people in Jordan and Syria, you have to learn their colloquial dialect which is completely different from that of other parts of the middle east which makes things difficult. The other Arabic is called modern standard or classical which is the language of the newspapers, literature and the Koran.
Amman is a fairly new city. In roman times it was the city of philidelphia which was pretty big. But up until the 1950's it was just another city in Jordan. Ever since the British partition of the middle east, Amman as expanded quite a bit in size. It's built on steep hills covered with white stoned houses everywhere and minurete's from mosques. In fact I think there are more mosques in Amman per capita than mormon churches in utah which is really saying something. Five times a day all of the mosques begin the call to prayer at the same time which is an amazing experience.
The language barrier has caused a few bumps in the road while I've been here. The other day, me and three other people decided to go to Mecca Mall(which is completely western unfortunetly). We flagged a cab and told him where we were going. He wouldn't run his meter (it's the law to run your meter)and tried to talk us into to paying 5 dinars for the ride. 5 dianras is the equivalent to $8 which isn't bad for U.S. standards, but if the meters running, the ride would cost about 1 Dinar ($1.50). We finally talked him into 2 dinars and continued are ride. He started asking questions in broken English about where we were from. We replied in our broken Arabic that we were American. He started talking about much he liked President Clinton and we agreed with him. He then tells us that he's palestinaian and hates Bush but not Clinton (which is very understandable since clinton tried to help palestine and bush has obviously hasn't). Then he starts shooting people with his fingers shaped like a gun. If that's not scary enough he starts talking about how much he likes Sadahm Hussein. When we got to the mall, we practically jumped out of the car. He might not seem scary when reading this but I had a homicidal maniac as a cab driver.
I haven't just learned a lot of Arabic, but also a lot of sign language. We had to get our pictures taken for our Unbiversity of Jordan ID's at a fuji film place near are hotel. Nobody there spoke english, so I found myself trying to communicate that I wanted my picture taken for ID. Once I had gotten the point accross to the man running the store, he led me up into a dark room and started taking pictures of me. I went back to wait for them and watched as my face came up on a computer screen across the room. I watched as he photoshoped my face so that I didn't have any acnee, gave me crystal white teeth and put a soft focus effect on my head. I thought I was just getting one picture but ended up getting 8 wallet sized pictures and one large picture of my face. I started worring because I thought I had only ordered one picture and didn't want to pay for everything. It turned out that everything came to 3 Dinars ($4.50) which is very good.
So that's it at the moment.
-cheers
Our journey here had a lot of obsicles we had to jump over. Once we got to London. We found out that we couldn't store are luggage in the airport we had to take it into london with us and store it in the British Museum. And of course everything was expensive. On return to the airport, a girl in the grioup was told that she had to get a new passport before leaving for Jordan. After many phonecalls to the state department they let her go. After a quick stop in lebanon we arrived in Jordan.....without my luggage which had been left in London. All I had were the clothes on my body and an extra pair of socks. Me moved in and have had a great time with many great experiences. oh and my luggage did come two days latter.
The university of jordan is across the street from my apartment, but you have to walk all the way down the street and go under the street through a tunnel because the road is too trecherous to cross. My appartment is comfortable but quite frightening when it comes to the bathroom. We have learned to take semi-sponge bathes instead of showers because there is no curtain, just a hole for the water and taking a shower means that the whole bathroom will be flooded for the next day.
My Arabic classes are frustrating right now because the language is so insanely hard to learn after speaking English all of your life. The grammer, the alphabet, and the way your mouth feels when you speak is totaly different. In fact the other day, a gril in my class started crying because she was so frustrated and the teacher had to calm her down by telling her that she was just a beginner. If you wan't to talk to the people in Jordan and Syria, you have to learn their colloquial dialect which is completely different from that of other parts of the middle east which makes things difficult. The other Arabic is called modern standard or classical which is the language of the newspapers, literature and the Koran.
Amman is a fairly new city. In roman times it was the city of philidelphia which was pretty big. But up until the 1950's it was just another city in Jordan. Ever since the British partition of the middle east, Amman as expanded quite a bit in size. It's built on steep hills covered with white stoned houses everywhere and minurete's from mosques. In fact I think there are more mosques in Amman per capita than mormon churches in utah which is really saying something. Five times a day all of the mosques begin the call to prayer at the same time which is an amazing experience.
The language barrier has caused a few bumps in the road while I've been here. The other day, me and three other people decided to go to Mecca Mall(which is completely western unfortunetly). We flagged a cab and told him where we were going. He wouldn't run his meter (it's the law to run your meter)and tried to talk us into to paying 5 dinars for the ride. 5 dianras is the equivalent to $8 which isn't bad for U.S. standards, but if the meters running, the ride would cost about 1 Dinar ($1.50). We finally talked him into 2 dinars and continued are ride. He started asking questions in broken English about where we were from. We replied in our broken Arabic that we were American. He started talking about much he liked President Clinton and we agreed with him. He then tells us that he's palestinaian and hates Bush but not Clinton (which is very understandable since clinton tried to help palestine and bush has obviously hasn't). Then he starts shooting people with his fingers shaped like a gun. If that's not scary enough he starts talking about how much he likes Sadahm Hussein. When we got to the mall, we practically jumped out of the car. He might not seem scary when reading this but I had a homicidal maniac as a cab driver.
I haven't just learned a lot of Arabic, but also a lot of sign language. We had to get our pictures taken for our Unbiversity of Jordan ID's at a fuji film place near are hotel. Nobody there spoke english, so I found myself trying to communicate that I wanted my picture taken for ID. Once I had gotten the point accross to the man running the store, he led me up into a dark room and started taking pictures of me. I went back to wait for them and watched as my face came up on a computer screen across the room. I watched as he photoshoped my face so that I didn't have any acnee, gave me crystal white teeth and put a soft focus effect on my head. I thought I was just getting one picture but ended up getting 8 wallet sized pictures and one large picture of my face. I started worring because I thought I had only ordered one picture and didn't want to pay for everything. It turned out that everything came to 3 Dinars ($4.50) which is very good.
So that's it at the moment.
-cheers
Monday, July 03, 2006
So as I was saying, I'm in Jordan finally.It's been over two weeks since I left and haven't left much on this blog to to the lack of interent access. So now it's time to catch up.
I flew to washington d.c. on tuesday the 20th (and were my arms tired). The group of students I met with and am currently living with are a very diverse group. Half are muslim and manly participating so they can learn more about there heritage, and the others are like me and just want to learn Arabic. Oyur first meeting was at a Indian restaurant across the street from our hotel. I didn't know anyone except for Grechen and zaineb and Sarah whom I had met at the airport.
The next morning was a trip to National Security Agency. It was in fact very secrative. We were given directions as how to get there which included taking a train to BWI airport and getting on a shuttle. Once at BWI there was no shuttle. The person in charge, Jay Harris, called his contact who was in charge of our visit only to be told that the NSA could not confirm or deny that that person even existed. We were frustrated until a few minutes latter when the contact from the NSA called Jay back and told him that the shuttle was on the way. A few minutes latter an unmarked very plain van except for the word hubers on the side pulled up and took us to the NSA. The driver was supposed to drop us off at the visitor center but mistakenly droped us off at the actual NSA. Long story short: when we finnaly found the right place, the people waiting for us were really sorry about all of the security precautions.
Are next stop was the embassy of Jordan which on a street with all of the other embassys of the middle east. We were given a speach about the current economic situation and such. But there was this guy who was just standing around us the whole time we were there who looked like anything but Jordanian.We then visited the Palestinain center where we talked to a euiropean looking women about politics in palestine. We then walked to the mall and saw all the usuall stuff like the white house and lincoln memorial.
We visited places such as the Kato Institute (a libretarian thinktank), and freedom house. The grand finale of our visit in Washington was supposed to be our visit to the State Department. For the record I hate meetings. This meeting was with "security Jay" who was really proud of his $22,000 Passatt which he had recently bought. All of his stories were in some connected to his car. He was suppossed to talk about being "situationaly aware" in the middle east.
So that is a very breif summary of my trip to washington. More to come on the interesting stuff.
-Bruce
I flew to washington d.c. on tuesday the 20th (and were my arms tired). The group of students I met with and am currently living with are a very diverse group. Half are muslim and manly participating so they can learn more about there heritage, and the others are like me and just want to learn Arabic. Oyur first meeting was at a Indian restaurant across the street from our hotel. I didn't know anyone except for Grechen and zaineb and Sarah whom I had met at the airport.
The next morning was a trip to National Security Agency. It was in fact very secrative. We were given directions as how to get there which included taking a train to BWI airport and getting on a shuttle. Once at BWI there was no shuttle. The person in charge, Jay Harris, called his contact who was in charge of our visit only to be told that the NSA could not confirm or deny that that person even existed. We were frustrated until a few minutes latter when the contact from the NSA called Jay back and told him that the shuttle was on the way. A few minutes latter an unmarked very plain van except for the word hubers on the side pulled up and took us to the NSA. The driver was supposed to drop us off at the visitor center but mistakenly droped us off at the actual NSA. Long story short: when we finnaly found the right place, the people waiting for us were really sorry about all of the security precautions.
Are next stop was the embassy of Jordan which on a street with all of the other embassys of the middle east. We were given a speach about the current economic situation and such. But there was this guy who was just standing around us the whole time we were there who looked like anything but Jordanian.We then visited the Palestinain center where we talked to a euiropean looking women about politics in palestine. We then walked to the mall and saw all the usuall stuff like the white house and lincoln memorial.
We visited places such as the Kato Institute (a libretarian thinktank), and freedom house. The grand finale of our visit in Washington was supposed to be our visit to the State Department. For the record I hate meetings. This meeting was with "security Jay" who was really proud of his $22,000 Passatt which he had recently bought. All of his stories were in some connected to his car. He was suppossed to talk about being "situationaly aware" in the middle east.
So that is a very breif summary of my trip to washington. More to come on the interesting stuff.
-Bruce
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