'Eid al-Adha: "Educational Experiences, part 1"

Alright, I know that I'm a little behind, so the next few posts will be posted close together, so I can try to catch up.

Here's a little background information:

At the end of the Hajj, there is a big feast, called 'Eid al-Adha, or the feast of sacrifice. During this 3-day feast, everyone sacrifices a lamb, and the streets run red with blood (it is symbolic of Abraham almost sacrificing Ishmael in the Qur'an). Because it is such a huge deal, we technically got a week off from school. Classes were cancelled from the 24th through the 30th. However, we still had class with Dil on the 24th and 25th. But, on the 27th (the second day of the 'Eid), we went on a big trip...er, 'Educational Experience' (two administrators accompanied us, and Dil said that we don't take vacations, we take field trips and have educational experiences, and that the administrators weren't to hear our trip referred to as a vacation). 

During the 'Eid, things get really crazy, and by things, I mean the people (more specifically the shabaab), and Dil didn't want to risk anything happening (on the 26th, the first day of the 'Eid, we were under 'house arrest', meaning we couldn't go anywhere without a guy, even if it was daytime, and were just supposed to stick close to our apartment).

Anyway, the 27th, we left Amman, and went to Southern Jordan for the weekend. Now, you can't visit Jordan and not go to Petra, so, that was what we did. On our way to Petra, we made a couple of stops. We stopped at two Crusader castles. Karak and Shobak. They were old, crumbling, and pretty cool. It was fun to climb on them, and explore all the different tunnels. Actually, except for the crumbling castles, the area looks a lot like the Tri-Cities.

I was one of the only people who could pass through the door without bending over. My head cleared the door by about 1-2 inches. My friend Jimbo (standing behind me), who is 6'3, had to double over

 At Shobak, we were able to exit the castle via a smuggler's tunnel. It was super dark, and dangerous. The danger was because the stairs have been eroded, to the point where in some places the tunnel is rather smooth, and if you aren't careful you'll fall and slide. Three of the couples here have babies. One of the kids, Sadie, she's 1 yr old, really did not like the tunnel. She screamed almost the whole way. Part of it was the fact that the tunnel was so dark, and that she kept getting passed from person to person, and she really doesn't like being held by anyone other than her parents. At the end, we made a human chain and passed her up the ladder to her parents. The other two babies did really well (one didn't cry at all, and the other didn't cry until the very end when she hit her head on the ceiling). 

Ascending the stairs at the end of the smuggler's tunnel

Afterwords, we went to "Little Petra". If you couldn't guess from its name, Little Petra was carved by the Nabateans, and is like Petra, just on a smaller scale. Pretty much, it was a lot of random staircases carved into sandstone, that didn't lead anywhere. But, it was fun to climb them and then try to climb the rocks to get somewhere else. Even though it is nowhere near the scale of Petra, it is equally breathtaking, and I got some awesome pictures.

Standing on the edge of a cliff at Little Petra

That night we stayed in Wadi Musa. Near our hotel were a bunch of restaurants. My friends all went to one, that was more expensive and didn't have anything that sounded good to me, so I ended up going to a different one, all by myself. First off, I'll just say that going on my own (even though there were people from the program at the restaurants on either side of the one I was at), was not a great idea. But, I was safe and I got a really funny story out of it. 

So, I was at this restaurant, and the waiter guy took my order. Then, a different waiter, who was a lot younger, heard me speaking Arabic with the first waiter and asked me where I was from, and what I was doing in Jordan. I told him I was from America and was studying here in Jordan. He asked what I was studying, I told him Arabic, then he said that he was studying English and that we should talk more together and help each other. That right there put me a little on edge and on the defensive. Then he asked how long I had been studying Arabic, I told him I'd studied for two years in America and was spending a semester in Jordan. Then he asked what year I was in college, I said I was in my third year. He paused for a minute, then said, "So you're 20? You were born in 1992?" I said yes, and he asked, what month. I told him June, and he smiled and said "Oh, I"m older than you by six months", he looked down at my hands, and saw that I didn't have a ring on (I used to wear one, just because I could, but I can't find my ring anymore). He started to say something, but the other waiter showed me to a table. Yeah, he saved me from a potentially awkward situation. So, I was sitting at my table, all alone, and the young waiter who was hitting on me was kept busy, but he would look over at me and smile every so often. After about 5 minutes, I started feeling anxious, and texted one of the guys who was at a restaurant two places down, asking if he could come sit with me. I didn't tell him any details as to why I wanted someone there, but he came, no questions asked (I just love the guys in my program). He called me, and I was explaining where  I was, when the waiter who took my order, saw him on the phone, and then saw me on the phone too, and asked "He's with you?" I said yes, and he led my friend, Phil, over to where I was. The other waiter (the one who was 6 months older than me) saw Phil join me, and didn't look at me again the rest of the time I was there. I explained what had happened to Phil, who said he was happy to help. So, we enjoyed a pizza dinner, and our friend Michael (aka Saucy Mike) came and joined us too. 

I can look back and laugh about the incident, while at the time, I found it a little unnerving, but, it turned out to be the start of a great "educational experience".