Musing on one Difference between two Desert Kingdoms

So today I was loitering around at Jordanian University talking with a classmate about her opinions on the King recently dissolving the government and what her dad is going to do now (he was a representative in the parliament up until yesterday). Suddenly, in walks this Saudi Arabia procession coming to give a lecture. Leading them was who I assume was the speaker, an older guy with a beard, walking with purpose in a long black robe with gold trimming. Following him were all the men wearing the traditional, white, Lawrence of Arabia gallibiyas with the red and white checkered kifeyas on their heads with the black-rope ties around them. Following behind there was the procession of women in their long black abayas and black niqab (head and face veil with an eye slit). One called out a greeting to us, "Issalamu wilekum." I said the response greeting in return, "Wilekum issalam," then turned back to my friend in her cute, colorful hijab (head scarf), pretty make-up, and trendy clothes. Suddenly, Jordan felt like the most Western place to me. :)

The Iraqi Family

One of my favorite places in Amman is this Iraqi family's house. They're refugees from Basra and are being moved by the UN to San Antonio in a couple months. Before the war, Abu Nur had a successful construction business. They're so loving and so happy. The mom and dad, Majd and Abu Nur, call us their kids. One of our TAs, Randell, met them because they're on his way to the bus stop every day and Arabs are open and friendly enough to ask strangers to come visit. After his first visit, Randell asked if some girls from the program would come too because there are three daughters in their teens and the only son is eight.

Abu Nur, probably just after confusing my name for Randell's and then calling me Habibti or my sweetheart (Habib or Habiba is thrown around a lot here)

They never fail to feed us, but tonight was another exceptional night. I have a food baby named Fatima and she's growing a lot thanks to this family :) We ate rice and vermicelli, hamburger patties, eggplant, tomatoes, and other vegetables and fried chicken.

The boys, Randell, Nishwan, and Abu Nur. Randell taught Nishwan, 8, 4 phrases in English, but his answers to How are you? is usually Iraq and Where are you from? is usually Good ;) This was the first night where he got them all right!

The girls minus Nouris, Me, Jordan, Nur, Nadia, and Jadyn. Randell asked if any girls wanted to come because it's a family of mostly girls. We're so happy we got introduced to them.

 If the video works, it's of one of the card games we played after dinner, after tea, and before hot chocolate. It got real intense, as you may be able to see. We also played Arab Spin the Bottle. I laughed when Majd, the mom, first spun the bottle, not knowing what to expect but excited to find out. It's like Truth or Dare without the Dare part with the person across the table from you.

Wadi Mujib = The Narrows of Jordan

Last weekend, a lot of us took a trip to Wadi Mujib. It was a great break from classes. Wadi means canyon or indicates a low place where water can flow. It was really cool to see flowing water in Jordan. It's in the top five water deprived countries, so we don't even flush the toilets after every use :) My class and I were telling our professor, Dr. Khalid, about Provo's geography and climate because he'll be a visiting professor at BYU next semester. As we told him about it, I was surprised that Provo seemed like a watery oasis compared to what I'm now used to here in Jordan. There's TWO lakes in the region?! There's a river that flows YEAR ROUND! I always thought of it as a desert, which is true, but it's no comparison to here.

I digress, this is Wadi Mujib. We walked up stream and climbed over small waterfalls. Amazing time.

This is the entrance to Wadi Mujib. On the left is Laura Beth, Dil's wife. She came on her lonesome and hiked all those waterfalls and had a good time. 

Me at the entrance

Beautiful. It was narrow, vertical canyon walls the whole time with only a little sun poking in every now and then.

Jarom under a big widow-maker :) I thought this rock was so funny because one slip along the big Rift Valley Fault line running just a kilometer or two away would drop this rock on top of the Unfortunates below. 

The hike ended at a waterfall. It reminded me so much of Havasupai. As I got closer, the spray made it hard to breath or see, but once behind it, you could dive in easily. The falls pummel you twice before you can come up again for air. It was such a great trip!

Church in Irbid and MANSAF!

So every Sunday, there are 8 of us that take about an hour bus ride up to Irbid to the Arabic-speaking branch there. We help teach classes and do what we can for members. Today I taught Young Womens' or Shaabat. The youth here are spot on and have such strong testimonies. There are quite a few not coming though. So we help out the American missionary couple, the Lees, who are the branch presidency, with whatever the branch needs.


The Lees and Huda take half of us and always feed us lunch after church before we go visit families or head back home. Today, Huda fed us mansaf!


This was legit. The restaurant gave us the mansaf flavor, but at Huda’s house, we got the mansaf experience. So let me explain Mansaf to you. It starts with a giant, deep platter, lay down a large, super thin tortilla, pile it high with a rice-vermicelli mixture, place whole, juicy roasted chicken legs on top, sprinkle with nuts and parsley, and the best of the best parts, the cheese sauce. It’s the savoriest flavor I’ve ever tasted. It’s made of sheep milk and yogurt but the secret is some kind of de-fatted, de-hydrated cheese balls. It was like drinking parmesan cheese, but savory, not sharp or kicky.

The platter of delicious itself.

Huda with the miracle sauce.

We ate it Bedou style with our hands. Samor taught us how to flip and roll it in our hands. Their son-in-law, Christian, the dad Samor, Esther and Griffin (married), me.

A shot of me rolling the mansaf and Christian’s face which you should interpret as pain at getting too full but still wanting to eat more.

Esther down at the non-Bedoui side eating mansaf with a spoon with the three daughters of the family, Heba, Arene, and Haya.

It was really cool to be in their home on a family day like Friday. It feels like home, just different people and different food. I think the gospel does that a lot, unifies across otherwise unfamiliar borders. :)

Jarom's Birthday

Jarom, my cousin who is also on the program, turned 26 yesterday! I did refrain from getting the class to sing to him, sorry Bec. I half-heartedly started it, but he didn’t seem to take and the song didn’t take to the people happily leaving for the weekend. 

We ate mansaf at Al-Quds restaurant. Neither of us had eaten it yet and every taxi driver and speaking partner raves about it while salivating. It was exceptional. This restaurant was also recommended by the only guy on the program with an Arab background as having better-than-homemade mansaf. It was just his my roommates who could go, Randell, Vio, Jarom, Kathlene, Kaiti, and I.

Then people from our home evening group made a cake and surprised him! I sang the special Blackhurst birthday song as a solo. They kept clapping after each verse, and then I’d sing the next verse, etc till the song was finally done ;)

Jarom and I vegging. We stayed up late and talked about the interesting stuff he follows on blogs. That kid does not waste time surfing the net at all! He learns so many interesting things.

Jerash

Last weekend about 12 of us went up to Jerash to see the ruins. It reminded me of the Forum in Rome where the Coliseum and other ruins lay in the middle of growing, modern city. We went up in a bus owned by one of the guys at church. I’m not sure how it went down, but apparently he and a husband of a student got talking and he kindly offered to drive us up in the bus he happens to own. J


The ruins start with a grand entrance, Hadrian’s gate, followed by a colonnaded, flagstone street that leads to a central Oval, and then continues on to a smaller arch at the far end. Off to the sides are a hippodrome (horse racing), the Temples of Zeus and Artemis, two amphitheatres (my favorites), and other buildings.


One of my favorite parts were the track marks in the flagstones carved by metal wheels of ancient carts. It was really cool to see the evidence of people using these ruins back when they weren’t ruins yet.

This is the Hadrian’s gate, built around 100 AD I think, to commemorate the Emperor’s staying in Jerash for six months.

The large amphitheatre. Notice the three entrances just like the Globe theatre in Shakespeare’s day. An Arab dressed in tartan periodically played the bag pipe here. Very cool to hear the echoes and feel like I was closer to the UK and Scotland for a brief moment.

My roommates at the bottom stairs of a ruin of a large Christian church that faced the colonnaded street. 

An overview from the end of the street. In the distance is Hadrian’s Gate, the colonnaded street, and on the right the large amphitheatre and Temple of Zeus. Imagine what it must have looked like before it got “ruined.” Follow the columns up the side streets.

The small amphitheatre. The amphitheatres seemed “living” because the acoustics still work so people can still use if for its original purpose. I thought about what plays I would have seen there back when it was first built, them remembered I’m a woman and probably wouldn’t have seen any unless I was some kind of Vestal Virgin. (I think that’s accurate, Wikipedia it if you’re curious).

The very end of the colonnaded street and the far arch. Great track marks here.

The Colonnade and Oval. I walked up and down the street imagining what each stall might have sold. 

Schedule, Speaking, Institute, and Pictures

So, I've had some questions about what a typical day is like for me, so here it is:

6 - Wake up, pray, shower, eat, scriptures
7-9 - Newspaper reading homework (we translate one article well and skim 3-5 articles for information)
10 - Issues class (Dr. Khalid speaks with us and teaches about current events and Jordanian stuff)
11 - Presentation class (we take turns giving a prepared, 3 minute presentation on an assigned topic which we record for later critiquing)
12ish-2ish - Speaking (I usually go to Jordanian University and talk to girls sitting around. I've met a lot of friends and talked about their families, mansaf the Friday family food, marriage celebrations, why i'm studying Arabic, and today how one lady wants to change the social system for girls here)
3-3:30 - Speaking or Writing appointment (Ibrahim listens to my presentation or reads a writing sample and helps me improve)
4 - Dil's class (my professor, we talk about logistics, colloquial stuff, news translations, and pep talks)
5-6:30 - break, email, and dinner
7-9 - homework to prepare for the next day's Issues and Presentation class
9 - Get ready for bed

So there's a lot to do, but the homework load is less than i was expecting. my favorite part of the day is speaking.

This has been a great week. I went to Haneen's house to practice Arabic and then English. Her family fed me an amazing rice and chicken dish, but it wasn't mansaf. I met and talked with a 37 year old freshman today. She smokes, which is looked down upon here if you're a woman, so I thought she'd be interesting to talk with. She was. She's a mom of four, but is getting her degree in social work because she wants to change the social outlook on women. She had so many opinions and ideas on materialism and the West creeping into Arab society, why Americans don't learn about the Middle East when her 4^th grader is learning about Thomas Jefferson right now, and how she thinks 90% of the young generation can't read the Qu'ran because they don't understand the old style of language, Fusha. It was great.

I also went to Institute this week. That was great for getting to know branch members and their stories. Ask Mom for more details, but it was really captivating to listen to Arupa's, a Phillipina, experiences with getting out of a really bad working situation and hear Salim's story with joining the church and his very sad story of how he's come to live in Amman. He was from Jerusalem but was picking up his father from the Amman airport with the 1967 war broke out. He has been separated from his family ever since and is only allowed to go back for one month every year. He skips some years because of the expense. 

Here's some random pics from the week and last weekend.

The black and white Abu Darwish Mosque. I talked to some girls out front. Everyone is so friendly and willing to talk here.

Three of my five roommates, Violeta, Kathlene, and Angie. Everyone thinks the former two are Arab. 

The most amazing place: Fruit Salad. So worth the 4 dinars to have fresh fruit, ice cream, and nuts. MWAH to the inventor of that. We ate here and then Angie and I waited for Jarom and his roommate/TA Randell to come try it out.

Hey, Cuz, s'up thug

Randell, Jarom, Angie, and I walking down Rainbow Street at night. One of  Randell's Coptic friends, Andrew, showed us a couple Christian book stores and I bought a dual language Bible, or, Al-Kitab Al-Muqadisa.

What really happens in the kitchen

There is a great inequality in ease of finding speaking partners for men and women in the Middle East. Men can strike up conversations easily with any man anywhere. Women are generally more reserved and at home. So Kirk, one of our teachers, tries to point out the perks women have in speaking here. "I've never gotten in the kitchen," he cries, "my daughter has been in the kitchen and she has gotten to hear things I've only dreamed of."

So, this is my first-hand experience of what REALLY goes on in the kitchen.

Apparently getting flashed and felt up isn't outside the realm of "what happens in the kitchen." :) :) :)

(Keep in mind I'm laughing every time I tell or type this story). Jessica and I went back to visit the Iraqi lady, Selma or Um Akhmad, we'd met on the street while asking for directions. We caught her cooking lunch, and when she sat down with us, she said she'd done house work all day. "I cleaned the house, the floors, the laundry isn't put away yet, I haven't even gotten dressed for the day, see!" Flash. Yep, she certainly hadn't gotten dress for the day yet. Crazy.

Later, we followed her into her room and finally figured out she was choosing her clothes for the day. I wasn't sure if she said she had underwear on or not, but seeing as how a lot of underwear was hanging up to dry and that she hadn't put a bra on that day, I didn't want to find out. We started to leave the room and she said, "Normal, normal" it's normal to drop your pants in front of people you just met. I said I was shy and we both left and waited outside the room. Phew, dodged that one.

But to nicely "round" out our first experience in the kitchen, Selma offered me one of her blouses. I tried to politely refuse her gift. She tried to tell and show me that the shirt was too small for her and indicated by sizing up her chest, then indicated to me, by sizing up my chest, that it'd for sure fit me.

I sat back and supressed a smile and thought, wow, that just happened. Ha ha hahah.

It was the funniest thing in the world. I told my roommates and friends, guys and girls, and we all had a good laugh. Here's a picture of my "bosom" friend.

Selma, me, and Jessica. We think she is just really lonely. She just has her one grown son and some neighbors and that's it. She's the most hospitable person I've been with here. We couldn't leave her "kitchen" until she'd cooked us a full meal and fed us a bunch of appetizers too. She's nice.

al Iraq al Emir

This weekend, my teacher, Dil, and decided to visit Wadi as-Seer and al Iraq al Emir and invited any students who wanted to go to come along. Wadi Seer is just a sub urb area with more trees where you can catch a bus to Al Iraq al Emir. (If my variation in spelling and capitalizing Arabic place names bugs you, just know that transliteration is not a correct science. Gaddafi's name used to be Qadafi :)  that blip was for Nancy). We started in these caves from before Christ where Isrealites had carved out the room and even sections that looked like crown molding. There were ancient Hebrew inscriptions in the walls too.

This is the countryside all this was set in. We were surrounded by pomegranite, olive, and fig trees. Figs are surprisingly delicious. Nothing like fig newtons.

This is the group. Notice Dil, our professor and resident legend with us. Andrew, you would love him. We love him, strictness and everything.

We visited a women's co-op where they made crafts and selling them supported their families. It was cool and hearing Dil translate obscure words only added to his mystique.

You can see the animals on the top frieze from here.  The corner is supposed to be an eagle.

The ruin at Iraq al Emir was a 1^st and 2^nd century villa or fortified palace. We scrambled around, ate lunch, and climbed them. There were large animal friezes on top that looked like the Babylonian ruins.

Food, Football, and Friends

So we've had a lot of fun. Arabs are completely open (to members of the same sex) and inclined to make friends. I have a lot of fun meeting new people, laughing with them, communicating bad and laughing with them until i get it right. A guy in the Jordanian Walmart spent 15 minutes helping understand milk fats. Here's some stuff i've been up to. if you have specific questions, let me know.

Us at Mustafa's house, a neighbor. He invited us for dinner because it was Jessica's birthday (far right). It was delicious

 The Jordanian national anthem at the game. Sorry for the shotty camera work. I liked the sense of how many shabab there were and how strange it must have been to be a family group there.

In the soccer stadium. One of Robert's shabab friends gave me the bandana.

Esra'a and Ghadeer, friends I met today on campus. Ghadeer lives in a neighboring town, but invited me over to learn to make mansaf and meet her friends and family

Hey