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 ;)
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Phil and I near the race track |
Then we went to an amphitheater, and there we met a couple musicians.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| From beneath the Temple of Artemis |
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| 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
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| I saw this little guy when I was walking home, he's pretty cute....for a donkey |
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