whoa

so i realize that it has been a ridiculously long time since i have last posted. all kinds of new and interesting things have happened and i am going to try to go back and fill you all in at some point in the future. i am putting it off again because i still do not have good access to the internet (this is the first time i have been on since i got to get a few hours in at christmas) and so i want to just get the basics across. here they are:

-i have moved into my new house. im putting a pictorial tour on my picasa account now, which should show up over in that little slideshow thing, and if you click on the slideshow it should bring you to my picasa page. my new house is extremely well furnished for a peace corps house, not to brag but i am probably in the top ten nicest houses of my group of volunteers, at least as far as i know. be jealous. but not too jealous because i didnt have a heater for the first few days, and its damn cold here. i had both an electric heater and a gas heater in my home but neither was capable of producing heat because i didnt have a gas can and my electric one melted (see pictures) which produced a bad smell and some interesting smoke so i left it alone.

- i have gotten a post office box, so if you had something against Amman (and who doesnt) and were waiting for a new, high-class, Mafraq address to send things to me at, here it is:

Stephanie Paulick-Maloney

PO Box 155

Mafraq, Jordan

-i do not yet have internet but chances are high that i will be able to get my house wired within the next month. i am currently using a friends computer at her house on the other side of my village so that is promising that someone nearby was able to accomplish it. the hardest part about getting internet to your house (and the reason that i have yet to do so) is that you have to tell the internet man in the nearest big city where you live. no problem you say? well that is because you are living your coushy, address-having, road-following, ordered lives in the good ol u s of a. jordan, on the other hand, does not believe in this and so i honestly dont think my house even has an address in any capacity. you have to go in and say "i live in this village" "you get to my house by going up the first street, past the blue ducan, to the fourth mosque, turn left and my house is the third one with the green gate." this is not how you actually get to my house, i have no idea how you get to my house if you are not coming from one of the three places that i have been in the town, and i also would have to be able to say all of it in arabic and everything. so when i get that together ill have internet. in shallah.

ok maybe more later but i have to go now. hope everyone had a happy new year and christmas and everything.