Wadi Mujib: Bumps, Bruises, and Waterfalls

Yesterday (Saturday) we went to a place called Wadi Mujib. We went on a hike, and the trail we were on was in a river (in it, not along it). The river really wasn't that deep. There were several "rapids" and waterfalls that we had to go through/climb up. When we were climbing one of the waterfalls, there was an accident. 

I had just gotten up the waterfall and had taken a couple steps when I slipped (or something, I'm not completely sure what exactly happened) and I got caught by the current. I could feel myself being pulled down, and I tried to grab hold of rocks or anything I could. I was calling out to one of the guys nearby but he didn't hear me right away. One of the other guys, Logan, saw me  and pretty much dove to try and get to me. By this time I was at the top of the waterfall. There were ropes, with a 'danger' sign across the top, I grabbed the ropes, and was trying to hold on, and yelling for help. Logan had almost reached me, he later told me that he was only a couple inches away from hands when I went over. Then, the current pulled me down and the rope from my hands. I went down the waterfall, I know that I swallowed a lot of water, but somehow I got enough air to last me through the fall. I don't remember much. I remember feeling my head hit on the rocks, and getting spun and tossed around and just hitting things. My glasses were torn from my face (I would've been shocked if they had stayed on), and when I came up, everyone was frantically looking for me. Someone, I don't remember who, grabbed me when I came up, to stop me from going any further down the river.

 I was really disoriented and just hurt all over. I was wearing sandals (not flip-flops, but actual sandals), and somehow they stayed on my feet. When I said that my glasses were missing and that I couldn't see well without them, everyone that was at the bottom of the waterfall started looking for them. A couple people went almost all the way down the river looking for them. But, we couldn't find them. I stayed behind, with the TAs, Mark and Dana (they had both gone on the same hike last year) while everyone else went on ahead. Dana made sure to check my eyes every so often, to make sure I didn't have a concussion. She also checked my head to make sure I wasn't bleeding. Thankfully my hair was in a ponytail, and where I hit my head was where the ponytail was, otherwise, my head probably would've been bleeding. We just stayed there, sitting on a sand bar-thing for probably an hour.

When everyone came back, they all stopped to see how I was doing. It really scared a lot of people. Especially the guys. I've noticed that they hate seeing any of us girls get hurt. They always feel guilty when it happens too. Logan felt guilty because he saw (as he put it) a look of terror and fear on my face and he was inches away from reaching me, and he saw me, saw my face as I went down/over the waterfall. The guys I was yelling to for help felt guilty that they didn't hear me until it was too late. And the people that were at the bottom felt bad too. One of the guys, Paul, really looked out for me. He was diving down to the bottom of the waterfall looking for my glasses. He also said that if I needed to find new ones, or if I needed to go to the doctor's or anything, he'd go with me. One of my roommates told me that some people were afraid I had died, especially because everyone at the bottom had seen me go over/down the waterfall, but when I hadn't surfaced, they started freaking out; looking for me.

By now, everyone's coming back, I'm sitting in the water, just looking at some of the rocks, and one of the girls, Christina, sits down next to me and starts talking to me (she had been at the top of the waterfall when this all happened, so she hadn't seen me or anything), then, a few minutes later, our friend Marc sits down next to her. Christina and Marc begin picking up rocks and throwing them in the water just in front of each other, when Marc picks something up, pauses and says "Chelsea, I think I just found your glasses." Sure enough, I look over and he has my glasses in his hands. The arms were folded in all nice and neat like, I took them from him, and to my delighted surprise, I saw that they were unbroken and unscratched. This whole time they were only about 3 feet away from where I had been sitting. It seriously was a blessing, (since even though I have an old pair of glasses here, the prescription is from my first pair of glasses, and my eyesight has gotten worse since then, so the prescription wouldn't be strong enough). 

Anyway, aside from bruises, aches/pains, a headache, and stuffy ears, there isn't much to indicate that I went through such an ordeal. Yesterday, I wasn't feeling so bad. Today, I woke up and I was sore all over. I also have found random bruises all over my body. But, it really could've been a lot worse. I was just bruised and battered.  I didn't have any broken bones, no concussion, my shoes and my glasses came out perfectly fine. I was very fortunate. 

I'm here in Jordan with some of the most amazing people I have ever met, and whom I am privileged to call my friends. Everyone on that trip helped me in some way. Even though I honestly wanted nothing more than to have my mom hug and baby me, my friends helped me, and I know that they honestly care about me. Really, I couldn't have asked for better people to be here with, than the people who have become like my family.

Looking back on this incident, I've come to realize something, I must have guardian angels looking out for me, and they've been working overtime. 

Explosions and Cookies

So, here's something fun that happened, I figured out how to successfully use our over. We have gas ovens here, so to get the oven heated up, you turn on the gas and then use a lighter in a hole in the bottom to light it. Well, my friend Marc, needed to borrow our oven (since his ran out of gas) to bake a cake, so I turned on the gas. I didn't realize that it didn't automatically catch, and heat up. Marc came over about 20 minutes later. When we went to use the lighter, there was about 20 minutes worth of gas in the oven and well, add in open flame and what do you get???? EXPLOSION!!!!! Marc was the one using the lighter, and his arms got singed, but no one was really burned or anything. This happened about a week or two ago. Then 2 nights ago, I was at my friend Lucy's apartment, and she was going to bake cookies, but she'd never used the oven either. So, I, knowing what to do, said I would light the oven. Well, Lucy knew that for the stove burners you had to turn the gas on all the way, so she did that for the oven too, so, when I first tried to light the oven.....it EXPLODED!!!!!! I wasn't burned or even singed. It was super loud, and I just saw a huge thing of flame that was gone in an instant. I'll admit, I was scared, and didn't want to try it again. But, I turned down the gas to almost nothing, and then reached my arm in and stuck the lighter in the hole and lit the oven, without dying! I was really excited about the not dying part ;)

Oh, for the record, the cookies were absolutely amazing! They were chocolate chip, and tasted like a little bit of home. 

Protests...a relatively new aspect of our lives

The last week or two have been rather calm, despite everything going on in the rest of the Middle East. On the 14th, all over the Middle East protests were planned at American embassies (in protest of the film that came out that really degrades Muslims and Muhammad). So, there was one here in Amman, but it wasn't that major, all the protesters were gone by 5pm, and it definitely didn't turn violent. Last week there were multiple other protests planned. One was at a huge bus station (again in protest of the film), but that only had 150 protesters. Last Friday there were 3 protests planned. One was at the bus station (I'm pretty sure that that one was for the film), another one at a mosque downtown and a third at the French embassy. Some people might be wondering why they would want/bother to protest at the French embassy, well, a French newspaper published a very insulting caricature of Muhammad (they claimed they were doing it to demonstrate freedom of expression, in support of the film), yeah, not very smart on their part. However, it definitely didn't get the same response that the film did. It should also be noted that this newspaper also re-published a caricature of Muhammad that was in a Danish newspaper a couple years ago. The French have shut down embassies and schools in 20 countries. But, the protest didn't really amount to anything here. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention, the location of the church is about 1 1/2 blocks south of the French Embassy (but Friday protests don't start until after the midday prayer, so around 2-ish), anyway, nothing really happened, so it hasn't interfered with anything.  

Let's see....what else.....oh, I'm sure everyone has heard at least a little bit about the situation in Syria. Well, something you should all know about Jordan, it is the place for refugees. For some reason, all the refugees from anywhere in the Middle East come to Jordan. There are a lot of Palestinians, Iraqis, Lebanese, etc. and Syrians are no different. There are currently about 180,000 Syrian refugees in the northern part of Jordan. They are in refugee camps, but the camps are way over-crowded (as in trying to fit several thousand people in a camp designed for a few hundred), with several thousand more coming every day and Jordan is running out of resources to provide for all of them. A majority of these refugees have been emotionally and psychologically scarred, primarily the women and children. There is a Syrian psychologist who has set up a center here in Amman, for the Syrian families that are in the city. Sometimes the women and children will come to the center for therapy/support groups, and some of the workers at the center will go and visit with the families in their homes for an hour or so. Dil, is trying to work it out so that some afternoons some of us students will be able to go and volunteer there. Personally, I really want things to work out so that we can. These people just need to know that someone cares about them. 

We also have another opportunity to volunteer and help out here. The Church has a program that is for educating children (and adults) about things like tobacco and alcohol. Well, the Ministry of Health and Education (or something like that) is impressed with the program, and wants it done in Arabic for use in schools here. So, the missionary couple that is in charge of humanitarian aid (and this falls under that category), has asked the BYU students to memorize the lines and perform the program for the Ministry, and if it is done well enough, they will use it here. Oh, did I mention that it is in the form of a puppet show?!?!?! I've seen the puppets, and they are so ugly that they are cute. I've been put in charge of the project, so I've watched the skits in English (there are multiple for each topic), and they are hilarious. I'm really excited about getting to do this. It should be a lot of fun.

Last Saturday I went to Jerash, a town about 30 minutes north of Amman. Jerash has some of the oldest, most well preserved Roman ruins. In short it was awesome, just like every other excursion I've gone on while I've been here ;)

One of the ruins at Jerash

So, like all of my trips, half the fun was getting there. There was a large group of us that went, so we all met up at a bus station, to catch a bus up to Jerash. There was one bus partially filled when we got there, so all but 4 of us rode up on that. The last four took a Service (pronounced with a -vee) up to Jerash. I was in the Service with 3 of the guys (Mark, Marc, and Phil), it was really fun, I just got to talk with them a bit. Mark is the TA, and I don't know him really well, so getting to talk with him was kind of nice.

Initially, we tried to cram us all in the back, then the driver made us divide up.  

Once we got there we had so much fun. Because we were at ruins, we just couldn't resist the urge to climb all over them.

Dana, Christina, Logan and Alex on top of one of the ruins

First we went to the Temple of Zeus, and ate lunch there. There also was a track for chariot races, but we didn't get to see any.

Phil and I near the race track

Then we went to an amphitheater, and there we met a couple musicians.

Chillin' in the shade at the amphitheater

They were wearing traditional Arab garb, one was playing a drum and the other was playing a bagpipe (yes, a real bagpipe), they were playing Irish/Scottish songs, in Roman ruins, and they also spoke Italian. Talk about multi-cultural.

Our multi-cultural musicians, we got them to play Scotland the Brave....it was awesome,  since a couple of the guys started dancing freestyle

After that, we headed over to the Temple of Artemis. There were some tunnels underneath the temple, which we explored. There was a well, and some of us went underneath it and we got a picture of them looking up, there was a grate too, so it looks like they're looking up out of prison bars.

From beneath the Temple of Artemis

The view from the random restaurant

Going home was quite the adventure as well. Some of us went on a bus, then because there were no more buses running, we had to get some taxis. I went with my friends, Logan, Alex, and Emily in a taxi. The driver was alright, and it only cost us 1 JD (as opposed to the 2 JDs some people wanted us to pay). Randomly, he stopped about halfway to Amman, at a restaurant.....just to show us the view.

Which, granted, it was pretty nice, but it was kind of weird. Later, Logan was talking with the driver, and the driver invited us to have mansaf with his family the next day. Logan accepted the invite (since, come on, it was for mansaf), and then afterwords, the driver said "I have one wife right now. She is Palestinian. I want three more wives, and I want them to be American:"......and there just happened to be 3 American girls in the back, who, as far as the driver knew, were available. Alex, Emily, and I all looked at each other and laughed nervously. Logan had already said that we were all his sisters, so he couldn't go back on his story. But, Logan added that our other brother would have to come to to dinner with us as well. We laughed it off, but the driver was serious, he even exchanged numbers with Logan. We had him drop us off a little ways away from our apartments, which was rather smart of us.

The driver has since called Logan several times....and is insistent that we have mansaf with him....when we all are busy with class. Oh, darn.....we really aren't crying. But, if we do end up going there, we will have other guys with us, posing as siblings or as fiances.

Classes are going good. Yeah, I always have a ton of homework, but it is worth it. I love my professor. She just makes class awesome....well, so do the other students. But, that's a given.

Oh yeah, today I bought a 'Chelsea' futbol jersey. Sorry, that was random, but I felt so awesome when I got it that I just had to mention it.

Stay safe y'all!
Love, Chels

I saw this little guy when I was walking home, he's pretty cute....for a donkey

Futbol and Mansaf

So, I realize it's been a while. I meant to post sooner, but life came up. 

Alright, school is still going good, well as good as school can go. But, I'm enjoying it, I have an awesome class. One of the other students, Logan, came up with the idea for a game. Every day before class we'll decide on a random topic, and every time we mention it in class we get points, and at the week, whoever has the most points wins. We haven't decided what the winner gets, but it'll be good. Some of the topics we've had are: Inspector Gadget, Gushers, and R2D2. 

For those that don't know, Soccer is the biggest sport everywhere except the US. Jordan is no different. The final home game for the National Team was last Tuesday, against Australia. This also happened to be the World Cup qualifier game. A group of 12 of us decided that we would go to the game, since it was the last home game and really, when would we ever have an opportunity like that again? 

Because we all are super white, we got figured it would be smart to get jerseys so everyone knew we weren't cheering for Australia

We all took taxi's over to the stadium, and then got tickets (which were 2 JD, or about $3 USD). It was a madhouse. There were so many people. It was near impossible to get into the stadium. A lot of the people trying to get in didn't actually have tickets, and the Stadium didn't have a way of checking to make sure everyone had one, so the people generally would try to mob the guards and slip in. One of the guys, Logan, made friends with one of the guards, and when the guard saw that there was a group of Americans (okay, 11 Americans and 1 Norwegian), he rounded us up and took us off to the side. The riot police, in full SWAT gear had to come out things were getting so bad. Then the guard came up and got us, and led us into the stadium. We ended up walking through a tunnel of policemen. The area we were shown to was for foreigners and families. For the most part, anyway. So, we pretty much got special treatment because we were American. There actually was a guy outside the stadium next to us who had his American passport to show to the guards to prove that he was American. Oh, funny side story: One of the other guys, Mark, wasn't with our group, he was with some of his Arab friends. Mark is Peruvian, so he does look a bit like an Arab and he is one of the best speakers in our class, so when he and his friends first tried to get in, they were chased off by the police, then, thankfully, Mark showed his passport, and proved he was American, so he was able to get in. 

The game itself was awesome (which, coming from mean is a big deal, since I am not a big sports fan). Our seats were behind one of the goals. Right before the game started, the police let more people in, and most of theses people weren't foreigners so we were surrounded by Arabs, predominantly Arab men (women don't usually go to soccer games). But, we made sure that we had guys in our group and they were positioned around us girls for a kind of "defense". But, we still were the oddities, and everyone knew it. Everyone wanted pictures with us or of us, it was a little disconcerting, I felt like I was some exotic animal at a circus that everyone was staring at. 

Logan and the Girls

Some of the guys near us were around 15 or 16 and they became chummy with Logan, they ended up teaching him (and the rest of us) the chants, which was fun. There was one guy who came down and asked to be in a picture with two of the girls, Stefanie and Mary. Initially it was them and him, but then Logan inserted himself into the picture and was pretty much cuddling with the guy. When the guy tried to get a picture with just Stefanie, Logan said he couldn't because she was his sister, and when the guy asked for a picture with just Mary, Logan said she was his sister as well. I'm not sure if the guy believed him, but he didn't want to call Logan out on it. Arab guys tend to treat a girl with more respect when they find out she's related to a guy they're talking to. So, by the end of the night, all of us girls were somehow related to him. 

Anyway, so the game. It was pretty intense. The Australian goalie, in an interview said that this match was going to be a vacation. So, no one was expecting Jordan to win, but everyone was cheering for them anyway. For the first half, Jordan took several shots at the goal, but they either overshot or were blocked. The Australians didn't really get to shoot that much. At the beginning of the game we all were shouting in English, but by half-time we were shouting the Arabic equivalents, which is really fun. One of the words essentially sounds like "eew-aah", and means look-out or watch out, one person saying it is fun, but when you hear most of a crowd yelling it, it just sounds even cooler. 

Nothing says 'Win' like a fireworks display

To keep fans energized there were some guys walking around the stadium with drums and were leading us in chants. They were one of the best parts of the night. 

One of the players after the game

So, second half, things really heated up. Jordan scored the first goal!!!!! And we all went crazy. I don't even like sports and I was getting into the game just like everyone else, the enthusiasm was infectious. We later scored a second goal, Australia did end up scoring one goal, but that isn't important, what matters is the Jordan won the World Cup qualifier!!!!!! 

After the game, things got crazy again, actually, they were crazier than they were before the game. The police, it turns out, hadn't forgot about us, and they herded us down against the fence between the field and the stands, and they made a barrier between us and the other people in the stadium. Once everyone had exited, the police led us out. Things were just as crazy outside. Since we were a group of 12 foreigners, we got a lot of attention, and most of it wasn't good. People wouldn't take "no" for an answer when we wouldn't take pictures with them, and they started getting insistent and really forceful. At this point the guys in our group were getting worried and just wanted to get us out of there, so we tried to make a human chain and just run as fast as possible. Unfortunately, we weren't able to stay together, we ended up breaking up into smaller groups of 3 or 4. Meanwhile people are grabbing at us trying to get our attention, and we're just trying to get away. Thankfully, a group of shabab (that's what groups/cliques of Arab guys are called), saw what was going on and made themselves our protectors. They formed a chain as well, and did their best to keep people away, they tried staying even with us, and keeping us between them and a wall. Eventually, the police and stadium security people realized what was going on, and initially they tried to stop our protectors, but then they quickly realized that they were helping, and the police went further ahead to clear the way, while the security people began getting to those of us who had become separated from the group and herded us back together. At one point we were running over glass, and had to go through a small passage between a shed and the wall, that was probably the scariest part of the whole thing. 

The police worked on clearing the way for us, but the crowds (mainly other shabab, not good ones) wouldn't leave. So, we ended up finding a bakery, and the police tried to get us in there, the store owner was up and at first wouldn't let anyone in, he grabbed a stick and came out with it, swinging at the shabab (Logan thought the guy was going to hit him). I'm pretty sure he thought that the shabab were trying to go inside, but then it was explained to him, and he saw us and he let us in. Once we were in, he gave all of us some bread and water. He constantly was apologizing, and saying that this wasn't the 'real Jordan'. He saw some of the girls crying and told her not to cry, that it was ok for Jordanians to cry, but not for her to. He really was a sweet old man. We were holed up in the bakery for at least half an hour. They had pulled down this thing, like a garage door, that they use when the store is closed, so that people couldn't get in. Sometimes a cop would open it and come in, and every time they did, we could see all the people trying to get in, and the moment we heard the door go up, we all tensed up, afraid that people were going to get in. Eventually a cop came in and asked where we lived, we told him where, and around 15 minutes later he came back and said that they were going to take us home. So, they open up the door, and we see between 15-20 police officers in a tunnel formation, leading to an ambulance that we all got in. So, we rode home in an ambulance, with a police car in front and behind us. Now, quick reminder, Amman is built on 7 hills, and the roads aren't amazing, oh yeah, and I get carsick, and it had been almost 6 hours since I had taken Dramamine (so it was wearing off). The ride home felt like it took forever. I was ready to throw up by the time we stopped. But, the police officers with us were so nice and helpful, they even let some of us use the megaphone thing to shout "Yalla, yalla" to get people to get out of the way. By the time I got home I was feeling sick, but still jacked up on adrenaline, that it was almost another 2 hours before I was able to go to sleep. 

The next day at school, classes sucked. I'll be honest about that, I had gotten a lot of homework done, but I was dead tired. Thankfully 6 of the 8 students in my class were in the same group as me, so we all were pretty much dead during class together. So, the game was awesome, the aftermath....not so much, but as negative as those experiences were they could've been worse (especially if we had lost and if the police and the good shabab hadn't come to our rescue), there were good things, and that's what I try to focus on. 

If you didn't figure it out, the game was on 9/11, which also was the day of the attacks on the Embassies in Libya and Egypt. I am going to say that the attacks saddened me. In the time that I have been here, I have seen and met so many good people. But this reiterated the fact that there are always bad people out there; people who are so vindictive and vengeful, that they feel the need to go out and ruin the lives of others, and then have the nerve to do it in the name of religion. Something that we tend to forget, that the news neglects to remind us, is that these terrorists, these people who do horrible things, are the outliers. They are not the norm for the people of this region, or the members of this religion. 

On a happier note, last night (the 16th) I went  to dinner at someone's house. While at he soccer game, we became friends with a couple people next to us. One was a guy, Ayman, and his sister Yasmina. They invited us to their house last night for mansaf. It was an awesome experience. The family was huge. In Arab culture, at least one son will live with his parents, nad most live close by. Ayman, is older and has 3 sons, who are all in the army. Yasmina is in her mid 20s, and still lives with her parents (and will until she gets married). Also there were a couple other brothers (Majd, with his wife and 3 kids, Muhammad (who was 17), and Mubarak (who was about 14), and a bunch of other nieces and nephews.  8 of the 12 people in our group were there for dinner last night. They brought out 3 huge platters with food on them. 

Mansaf is a dish that has rice, and meat (generally lamb) and some nuts, and a sauce. All of the platters had lamb on them.....two of them had the lamb head in the center (it was the skull, so there wasn't any fur or anything on it). In Arab culture, they will keep feeding you unless you leave some food on the plate. However, sometimes they don't take no for an answer and will keep piling on the food. Ayman did this....at Logan's encouragement. Ayman would ask if we wanted more, and Logan would reply saying how many more scoops we wanted. In my case, Logan said 3 or 4, while for everyone else he stopped after 2. When I saw that Ayman was refilling everyone's plate, I picked mine up and put it on my lap and scooted as far away as I could (which wasn't that far, but enough to make it impossible to get my plate without me handing it over). One of the wives thought it was hilarious, actually everyone did. 

***this next part gets a little gross, so if you're squeamish, you may want to skip to the paragraph after the pictures***

I mentioned that the lamb skulls were the centerpieces, well, the skulls weren't empty, everything was still inside. So, the men, offered lamb parts to the guys. All three guys, Logan (on the left), Joachim, and Phil (below) ate lamb tongue, and lamb brain. Logan actually ate most of 2 lamb tongues and most of a brain too. 

One of the men offered an eyeball to one of the girls, Alex, but she didn't want it (granted, I wouldn't have touched it either). Majd, actually cracked the lamb skull open to get at the brain. After that, I was too grossed out to eat. Logan and Joachim took great pleasure in telling us about the textures of the tongue and brain (they described it as being like pate). And they pointed out that after they ate the brain, there was still bits of brain matter that was stuck to their hands. 

Logan with the lamb brain

Alright, we did a lot of socializing, there were so many people, it was impossible not to. And I'm going to take this opportunity to say that I love my name. Being named 'Chelsea', especially in a country that loves soccer, is great. FYI, one of the big soccer teams is the Chelsea soccer team from Chelsea England. (I know that they're big in Jordan, because I found a big billboard that said "We are all Chelsea", with pictures of the players on it....yes, I am vain enough (when it comes to my name) to take a picture with it). Anyway, Muhammad (he's the one that's 17), thought my name was awesome. So did one of the women, they didn't really believe that my name was Chelsea, until we all told them that it actually was. Muhammad, then proceeded to use my name every chance he got. And he showed me his Chelsea soccer jersey. Which I fell in love with. Logan then chimed in that he had a Chelsea jersey too, that he had gotten in London (since his dad lives there), but that he hadn't brought it to Jordan, and it was back in Provo. But, Logan said he'd go with me down to the Balad (or down town) to the Sport Jersey souq (all of the stores that sell a certain kind of product are right next to each other, these little groupings are called 'souqs', and there pretty much is a souq for everything), so I could get my own Chelsea jersey. 

This is the key chain Muhammad gave me

We finally left around 10:30pm, Ayman and his brother Majd drove us back. We said goodbye to everyone (and that took a good 6 minutes, because there were so many people), and Ayman gave us all a key chain that shows Petra, and says 'Jordan' on it. As we were pulling out, Muhammad stopped by the car I was in, and after the window was opened, he gave me a key chain of a camel that is wearing a saddle blanket that says "I <3 Jordan". It made me feel special. I was in the same car as Logan, and because he ate the most, they were going to give him a 6-pack of beer (even though Logan had made it clear, multiple times, that we don't drink alcohol), at first, Ayman forgot to give him the beer, but when he realized it, he turned around (even though Logan assured him it was okay), and went back to get the beer. Logan accepted it, and once they had dropped us off and driven away, he promptly found a garbage can and threw the beer away. 

It was a great night, another one of those experiences that I will always remember and be grateful for.

Week Two: Still lovin' it

I realize that I'm writing about my second week here a few days late, but I'm going to try to be better about posting in a timely manner ;)

So, week two is come and gone. It was the first full week of classes, and I have to say it is kind of odd, dreading Sunday instead of Monday (because our school week starts on Sunday). It can really mess with your head. For example, I have a speaking appointment on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th days of the school week. You'd think that means Mon, Wed, Fri, I know that is how I think of it in my head, and what I start to say, but then  Iremember that we don't have school on Fridays, so it really is Sun, Tues, Thurs. Plus, now various acronyms are absolete. TGIF (thank goodness it's friday) is now TGIT (thank goodness it's Thursday), Wednesday is no longer "hump day". Oh, and one of the things that messes with my head the most? Looking at my computer and it says the date, then getting on facebook and seeing everyone else's time-stamp say it's a day earlier. The whole time difference thing, really bites. My various family members live in Central standard Time, Mountain standard time, and Pacific standard time....that would make them 8, 9, or 10 hours behind. Essentially, when I call them in the morning, it's late-afternoon or early evening for them, or if I call them later in the day it's super early for them.....it is annoying, but I am lucky that I am able to call them at all. 

I knew that I was going to miss my family (and like 4 people have their birthdays while I'm gone and I'd have to call them for their birthday anyway), so I got this special membership on skype, so that I can call from my computer to any computer or phone, without all the extra costs (I only pay about $6.50 a month). So it is a great thing that I am taking advantage of.

Anyway, about classes, yeah they're hard, somewhat overwhelming, time consuming, at times they're depressing....but I knew that going in, and for some reason I still enjoy them....but you can only do homework for so long before you lose it :)

A majority of my homework is translating news articles, and most of the articles have at least one mention of death/people dying. Lately, most of the articles talk about Syria and trying to accommodate 180,000 -ish Syrian refugees in Jordan, and the issues that come with that. 

But, my professor Dil, does have a sense of humor. He is the one that picks the articles we read, and one of the ones we read yesterday was about a body that was found in a burning car in Dhahiat al-Rasheed. Now, I know that doesn't seem so funny, but here's the funny part: Dhahiat al-Rasheed is the name of the neighborhood where we (the students) all live. He had originally picked a different article for us to read, but went to one of the TAs and told him "Have them read this article instead, they'll love it" and had a big grin on his face.Yup, that's a very Dil thing to do, he has a rather twisted sense of humor. 

Oh, another Dil-ism from last week: Al-Jazeera is the main Arab news station, and some of the articles we have to read are on their website, well, Pro-Syrian activists hacked the Al-Jazeera website, so it showed a screen with a Syrian flag and a message to Al-Jazeera. essentially the message said that they didn't approve of what Al-Jazeera was saying about the situation in Syria (Al-Jazeera supports the rebels, whom the hackers consider to be militant groups of people spreading lies) and that they hacked Al-Jazeera in response. So, that night, we couldn't access the website to get the article we needed (until Dil sent it out in an email), and the next day in class, Dil writes what the hackers had posted on the board and we translate it in class. We get partway through, when Dil says "That is a grammatical error". Part of the reason it was so funny is that of all the things he could've said, Dil commented on the grammatical accuracy, also, he said it in a dead pan voice, as if it was part of the translation. 

Aside from homework, I now have 3 different appointments that I go to. I have a speaking presentation 3 days a week. I prepare a 3-5 minute presentation on a topic and give it to a professor while recording it. We listen to it, with the Professor stopping it to correct mistakes, then you re-record it (in theory with all the mistakes fixed).  Then I also have a speaking appointment (also 3 days a week, but the presentation is at 8:15am and the appointment is from 2-3pm), where I speak with an assigned person for an hour. Last week I had a different person each time (you're supposed to be with the same person every time), and sometimes it went well, and sometimes it was just plain awkward; I'd try to ask questions to keep the conversation going, but the person would give one sentence answers and essentially end that line of thought. Then I also have two writing appointments, where I write 1/2-1 page on a topic and I give it to an assigned professor, who then reads it, corrects it, and goes over the mistakes with me. Of the three, the writing is the least painful. It takes a little longer to prepare for, but I've noticed (at least with my presentation) that the longer I try to prepare for something speaking related the worse I do. Anyways, these appointments are good for me, but they are time consuming and just drain me, so that by the afternoon, I'm ready for a nap. 

My classes are fun. Every week we have a "theme" and then each day we focus on a different aspect of the theme. Last week, the theme was "Window into the Arab world" and eaach day we focused on a different region/country. There are 8 students in my class, so we all have a chance to talk, and we all end up getting to know each other pretty well. My professor, Ustaaza Zainab (Ustaaza means female professor), is awesome. She is young, and lively, and she just "gets" us. She understands/appreciates our humor and is super relaxed with us. The first day one of the comments she made was "american football? That's not football, that's handball....and sometimes they kick" Later she said "American football....men weraring tights chasing after each other".  Then, later in class, she did/said something (I can't remember what exactly) but she said "Damn, I'm good." It just caught us all off guard, to hear a (woman) professor talk like that. The next day, we all were being quiet, and she said "Are you guessing? Do I need to punch one of them? *gestures at where the guys in class are sitting*... because I don't punch women."  I think the main reason we like her is that she is so different from most Arab women. She is muslim and wears the hijab, but she is more open, outspoken, and opinionated. In some ways she acts more Western. 

Alright, so, the school week is hard, and we all find ourselves longing for the weekend. Last Thursday, in celebration of our completion of our first full week of school, some of us went to this place called the Taj Mall (NOT the Taj Mahal) and found this wonderful cafe...... 

Yes, there actually is a Nestle TollHouse Cafe, and yes, we did go get cookies there. 

We also had a Sunday er, I mean Friday night dinner with most of the people on the Study Abroad program (Dil and his wife even came and joined us). It was a giant potluck, and we fit everyone into my apartment, and we actually had room for more. 

There are some married couples here and 3 of them have kids. One of the couples came and brought their 8wk old daughter, Nadya. She is super adorable, and probably the favorite of the babies (mainly because we can hold her; the other two 'babies' are 13 and 11 months old). Nadya has a full head of hair that sticks up no matter what her parents do. She also has big eyes, and we all came to the consensus that she looks like the Troll dolls we used to play with. 

Guess who I found? 

Saturday's are still our "free" day. This last Saturday we went to the Amman Citadel and Roman Ampitheater. It was a lot of fun. The Citadel is a large area that is comprised of several different ruins. There are the ruins of the Temple of Hercules, some Roman pillars, an Umayyad palace, the remnants of an Ammonite settlement, and the hill the Citadel is on is the hill where the arrows that killed Uriah (in the Old Testament) were fired from. 

The Ampitheater was really cool. The acoustics are amazing. When standing in the middle of the floor, you can literally hear everything. It sounds as if there is a megaphone in your ear. Also, there are certain parts of the wall that, if you speak at one you can hear it at one of the others that are 50 ft further down the wall. We had a huge game of telephone, and that was awesome. 

Well, it's getting late, and I have to get up early, so I'll post more later.

Love, always

Chels

Field Trip!

Last Saturday (Sept 1st) we had our first planned field trip. (Our next one is going to be at the end of October) We went to Madaba, Mt. Nebo, the Jordan River, and the Dead Sea. It was so much fun, I wish I could talk about everything we did, but I can't, so I'll just give some highlights:

Madaba: Madaba is known for its ancient mosaics. I'll be honest, they were pretty cool, but after about 15 minutes you're ready to go on.

The main mosaic is a map of the area and is on the floor of a church.

Mt. Nebo: It's a short, maybe 5 minute, walk to get to the top. This is where Moses looked at the promised land before he died. At the top there is a replica of Moses' staff with the brazen serpent on it. The view from the top is pretty amazing. You can see the Dead Sea and Israel on the other side.

My friend, Paul, looking out over the land

I thought this sign was awesome, and you wouldn't see it anywhere but the Middle East.

Jordan River: The Jordan River is shared between Israel and Jordan, and the part we went to is designated as the baptismal site. Both sides have a visitors center kind of thing and while we were there, there was a group of poeple across the river who were all dressed in white and pretty much "baptizing" themselves. They were singing while they did this, so our group sang a song too, then they sang another one (it was almost like we were in a sing-off). There are stairs that lead down into the river, if you wanted to go in it, but most of us took off our shoes, pulled up our pants and stood on the bottom stair (which was underwater) instead of going all the way in.

This is the Jordan River.....it really doesn't look that great, especially when compared with the Columbia back home,

This is one of the many churches by the Jordan River, most Christian denominations have a church in the area.

By far the highlight of the day was the Dead Sea. It was so much fun. We all went out and swam...er more like floated, in it. The Dead Sea has a density of 1.240 kg/L, and while I don't completely know what that means, the gist of it is that our bodies are less dense the the seawater, so we float, as opposed to sinking. It's a very weird sensation and freaks most people out so they begin flailing and getting the water in their eyes and mouth (which, because the water is so high in salt, hurts like none other). Thankfully, Dil and LB (his wife), to spare us this pain, told us to go out in the shallow water and then act like we were sitting down.  

When in the water, you're supposed to splash as little as possible, again because of the saltiness of the water.

I promise I'm somewhere in the picture

The Dead Sea mud is supposed to be really good for you skin. Because of this, most of the mud from the shallows/shore is gone. To find the mud, you have to dig beneath the sand/silt to get it. There is a guy there who sells mud to tourists for 5 JD (or about $7), which we didn't want to spend. Dana, one of the other girls, decided we should look for mud instead........and we found it :)

The "Mud People"

I'm 4th from the right

After cleaning off the mud, we went up to the pool, that had normal water. When we first got in, we felt so heavy and weighted down, because we were so used to floating. By the time we were done and on the bus going home, we were all exhausted.

Because of all the walking and swimming we did, my roommates, another apartment of girls, and I stopped by Frisco, a cake/dessert shop by our apartments, and got ourselves a treat for dinner.

It was a great day, and was the prequel to a pretty good week.....which I will post about soon.