Random pics from Eid (holiday)

This last week was Eid al Adha, which meant we had fewer classes and more time to visit in people's homes. The Iraqi family had us (Jadyn, Jordan, and I) over the same night their Jordanian landlords came over. The landlords invited all of us over two more evenings that week. You can feel the baby kick, and her name is Fatima. 

Winter is here. Central heating is not. This bum is the result. Catie is my roommate. I made her tea and had her wrap up, but she still didn't get warm. :(

It really makes my eyes pop, our friend, Rania, was doing the Iraqi girls' make up and I decided to join the band wagon.

After drinks, the main course, sweets, and tea, they got us up to dance.  

We're trying to remember any American dances with real moves. This resulted in the Macarana. I did some swing moves with the kids and Jadyn taught us how to Cha cha. They showed us Eastern dancing, which is cool and similar to their singing. I didn't know voices and bodies could move that way, but lo and behold. We have a goal to get it down before leaving.

Rania (can you see similar makeup?), Jadyn the dancer, Jordan, Hilary, Jihad our host, and Nishwan                     

The oldest and youngest of the Iraqi family, Nur and Nishwan

 Also this week, Jarom and I and people from our apartments went to buy keffiyahs in Wust il-Balad (downtown).

Can you tell Peter's loving it

I'm showing my Iraqi colors here

This guy owns the mall our institute is located nearby, but he's been coming in to work at his juice stand for 40 years. He's found what makes him happy :)

As a cultural note, Eid al-Adha means Feast of the Sacrifice. It comes right after Hajj, or the pilgrimage to Mecca. As far as I understand, it commemorates when Abraham was going to sacrifice his son, Ishmael in the Islamic tradition, and didn't have to and got to sacrifice a ram instead. The traditions behind the holiday include the patriarchs of the families (dads, granddads, and uncles) giving money to all the kids. It's also customary to visit every family member the first two days of this four day holiday. Each visit lasts about 5-10 minutes because there're so many houses to visit and so much traffic. My teacher, Dr. Khalid, said this meant he and his family were in the car for 7 hours and visited a total of 3ish hours each day. He's not fond of that aspect of the holiday. Also, every family who's able gets to sacrifice a sheep and give a quarter of it to the poor. Accordingly, on our way to Zarqa one day to eat at Hanady's house, we saw live, as well as butchered, sheep on the side of the road. This was really exciting to me until I realized they were butchering future food on the side of the road. Oh well, I guess it cooks out anyway :) and halal meat is some of the cleanest you can get anyway.