damned if if don't almost know an almost universal language

today i went with the teacher from my center to her sign language class. she knew that i have been wanting to learn some sign language to use in the classroom (i actually think she is taking it because i freaked out a little bit the first day i met her because we had a deaf student and no one in the center knew any sign) and i just like it, so she told me to come tag along with her to class. it turned out to be really fun because...i actually understood what was going on for once!

i took a year of ASL in college and even though i forgot a lot of it, most of it is intuitive and the more you try to use something you thought you had forgotten, the more it comes back. so i was able to have a nice chat with the sign language teacher, and learn some good new vocab. i actually think that i would learn the spoken arabic better if i could learn it all along with the signs. that's partly because it is much easier for me to learn something if i have a practical application; it is also much easier to communicate via sign language because you have to be so expressive. even signs that aren't based on the actual gesture you make while doing or miming something usually require you to make a sound or an expression to go along with it, often a hugely overstated expression so that you can see it even while focusing on the hands and not the face.

i don't think it is generalizing too much to say that jordanians tend to be very very reticent in expression or animation in speech. this makes it hard sometimes to interpret what is being said if you don't know the vocabulary, and incidentally has made me stand out even more with my american tendency to throw my hands around, be loud, and generally put on a whole performance every time i speak. so sign language and i are a perfect match.

anyway it was a really nice break to understand and be understood and almost as nice to actually be considered intelligent. everyone was very impressed with how quickly i picked up words and the fact that i was able to talk with the deaf students and the teacher. my teacher was actually bragging about me and calling me shatra (smart, basically) instead of apologizing for the fact that i am new and don't speak any arabic at all (which is what she typically says).

we had a nice afternoon together aside from the class as well. to pass time before it started she helped me look for velcro and chocolate chips; my desire for either made no sense to her. until i had such a hard time explaining why i wanted the velcro, i hadn't even realized how little she understood about the classroom props i have been making. most of them revolve around having the kids follow the weather, the date, the schedule, things like this, and putting up or changing pictures to match these things each day. anyway i thought she knew what i was going for until i was like, no it will not work the same if we just glue them on. she was equally confused as to why i would want chocolate chips to make chocolate chip cookies when they are available for purchase in packets that only expired a few months ago. i couldn't convince her that homemade are not even comparable, and i have heard horror stories about americans sharing their delicious home-baked cookies with their jordanian friends and being told that they are not sweet enough. (everything here is super super sweet)

hopefully that all made sense, i am just typing this to pass time while i can't sleep. i have also watched way too much six feet under, and started like six books. that's the only problem with the kindle: it is too easy to start multiple books and too hard to tell how far in you are or how much of a book is left.

also, this weekend i am going to help with an operation smile mission, which i am really excited about. honestly i haven't read all the details about it yet, so i don't know how many kids are involved or really anything like that, but i'll have to read all about it tomorrow before i go.

peace loves.

cocoa pebbles

i had cocoa pebbles for breakfast. thank you amman. and ate it with milk that doesn't go bad for a year. thank you science.

so i have this blog

i totally forgot about this thing. not as a result of being too busy (my day is over at 12:30), not because i'm studying too much (i have honestly not looked at an arabic book since my first week at site), or because i've been out and about visiting (neighbors are probably pissed). i just completely forgot. i seem to be getting more and more involved in my own little routine in my house, and fear that i am quickly turning into the crazy cat lady. i just need to get a cat, which is honestly a goal of mine. getting a cat here, however, would involve stealing a kitten wandering the streets. this act, should a neighbor notice, would probably result in more than a few gossip circles.

aside from planning a kitten kidnap i haven't been up to too much. i went into amman this past weekend, don't tell the peace corps. technically we are still under 'house arrest' which means we aren't supposed to be out of site. especially not in amman. mostly because amman is america and it is easy to blow all your money, get homesick, and start hating on your village because of visiting it too much. at least this is the theory. i, however, felt like although it was amazing to have more than falafel as the choice for eating out, amman is just kinda sleazy and overwhelming. not to mention to expensive to exist. don't get me wrong, it was fun to be there, but mostly because when we are there we can all hang out, even if there are BOYS. and no one notices or cares. it's certainly freeing. but something better left as a very occasional excursion.

by far the most amazing thing that has happened to me is the kindle. that thing is heavenly. my uncle sent me one from the good ol u s of a and despite only having it for two days i would guard that thing with my life. i was all indignant about it before i left, its the death of books, publishers can't afford to produce actual paper books anymore, blah blah blah. all of which i totally still believe. and so i am making myself a hypocrite and worshipping the damn thing anyway. i'll still buy books again when i get home, and i still think libraries are the best places in the world, but you can not beat the convenience of this thing when you don't have the luxury of a library, or lugging one around in your suitcase.

so in a nutshell, i'm still truckin. sorry it has been so long. stay tuned for an oh so exciting upcoming entry on laundry!

a note about juice

there is an unbelievable lack of juice in the jordan. there is no lacking in juice cocktails, nectars, or juice drinks, but it is nearly impossible to find a bottle of juice that contains more than 30% actual juice from an actual fruit. this has been a considerable tax on my mental health since i tend to buy and consume multiple boxes of orange juice a week in the states. however, somehow (probably due to a lack of nutritious yummy juice) i was unable to think clearly enough to realize that the tons of fresh fruits available could be made into juice whenever i chose. this oversight has been remedied thanks to a suggestion by a friend and i now have juice in my house! i bought an entire box of oranges for 4 JD, which is more than i usually spend on food in 2 or 3 weeks, and proceeded to juice the crap out of them with a little bitty juicer that looks like an upside down lemon. i had completely forgotten the existence of these wonderful little pulp-scrapers; with the emergence of modern juicing machines ("you can juice ANYTHING!") it just kind of dropped out of my consciousness. now it is my most used utensil and i feel like it is the greatest step i have taken since being here to feeling like a am really owning my life and not just seeing how it turns out. coming soon my philosophical novel on how hand-run juicers are the symbol of modern mans quest for self-determination.

a change in the weather

well it's warming up just a bit here, humdillah. it was nice enough that the teacher at the center decided that we weren't going to do any teaching today because we were going outside. the no teaching thing isn't a huge change; as much as the teacher clearly loves the kids, it would be more appropriate to call her a babysitter, or a maintainer of the lowest level of chaos. anyway we went outside to go for a walk in the fields around the center, and have a little picnic with chips and coffee. it was a beautiful day and the kids enjoyed getting to run around a bit.

it was a nice enough day that my neighbor called to see if she could come over and join me for a sit up on my roof. as i've probably mentioned before, whenever the sun is out and the temperature is warmer than my house i head out to the roof and read or just lay and soak up some sun (via my hands and face, the rest of me is oh so modestly covered in case someone on the other hill happens to look down my way). she just sat up there with me for a bit and we looked at pictures on my camera of my family at home. i was especially glad she called because she caught me talking to a boy on the phone a few days ago. i thought she hadn't heard the voice on the other end so when i hung up i said 'oh that was just my friend calling to see how i was doing' and she was a little appalled that i was so loose. i had tried to convince her that, despite what she may see in american movies and gossip girl, boys and girls can be friends without sleeping together. she didn't seem to buy that at the time and i'm glad that, even if she thinks i'm a slut, she still wants to hang out with me.

two questions

so these are the two most pressing questions in my life right now, please weigh in if you feel you have an answer to either or both:

How many times is too many times to watch The Hangover?

Is it true that the less you wear in a sleeping bag the warmer it is (because they are designed that way or something, this is the rumor circling the cold areas of jordan right now)?

that's all i have for you today, i'm still just chugging along at work and trying to convince my neighbors that my life is not the same as lindsey lohan movies.

cultural exchange

it doesn't take much to act like an american. my 5-year old neighbor decided to drop in for a visit, and immediately picked out everything worthwhile in my room and settled in: i-pod, headphones, laptop and bed. he was then lost to me.

my first snow day in jordan

we had no school today because it was too cold and none of the students showed up. so i have been sitting in my room with all the curtains drawn for the past seven hours. the curtains are drawn because i feel that it helps to retain the little bit of heat that is in my bedroom. the rest of my house is 40/42 degrees, but its a bit warmer in my room. i have had my heater on all day (big splurge) and have a choice between using one, two, or three of the heating panels. my default is one and i crank it up to two when i can see my breath too much to see the computer screen clearly. this system seems to be working.

all in all though it was a pretty nice day; it felt like a snow day at home. i spent the whole day just curled up reading and watching movies. i made a bomb fried noodles, veggies and eggs dish for lunch, and some stuffed cabbage (malfoof) my neighbor dropped off for me for dinner. the night couldn't have ended any better either: i made some popcorn on the stove (thanks mom for preparing me for life without a microwave) which i flavored with these essentially solid msg chicken cube things thanks to a suggestion by a fellow pcv which turned out quite zaaki (delicious), and watched the big lebowski which never, ever, fails to make me laugh and leave me in a good mood.

the weekend starts tomorrow and my big plans should be to do laundry but if it keeps raining/snowing that is out of the question. in which case i will not be looking too sharp next week. we are currently in 'standfast' mode here in peace corps jordan, which means that i am not supposed to leave my house. this is part of the emergency plan if any kind of adverse event occurs, and it is in effect now because there is supposed to be a big snowstorm. hopefully its lifted by saturday though because i had plans to have a get-together with some of the other pcv's in the area. gooli inshallah (basically: wish me luck, literally: say with the will of god) for me.

a note about shebob

so shebob. i don't recall if i have explained what shebob are up to this point, and that is leaving out a major focal point of my life here. so shebob (sheb being the singular form) are young men. the men that fall into this category are somewhere between 18 and 30 and usually unmarried. however, i have come to find that shebob-ness is not a demographic so much as a state of mind and course of behavior.

one almost always talks about shebob, it is unusual to hear about the actions of a single sheb, and that is because a key aspect of shebob culture is the group. shebob wear tight jeans, often of the sparkly variety. they are not above rhinestones and the more useless zippers and rivets on the jeans the better. most of the time the jeans seem to be borrowed from their younger sisters. shirts are tucked in, usually some shade of purple, and similarly sparkly or shiny. they prefer their hair to be unrecognizable as a natural thing but instead coat it in handfuls of gel that is bought in jars the size of the mayonnaise sold at kostco. the hair can be swirled into a kind of faux-hawk, spiked, or the more basic and always classic combed straight back and weighted down with gel. they travel in packs, never less than three, thus the oddity of a single sheb acting alone. there is a very clear correlation between the number of shebob in a pack and their confidence.

when shebob are confident they will yell. they seem to yell whatever is on their mind, though there are predictable phrases. usually it starts with a simple "hello." one will assert himself as the brave one and yell at the passing, sweaty, grocery-laden Americee "hello" "how are you?" "whats your name?" usually a few others will take it up as their rallying cry. through puffs of smoke the yells get steadily louder and followed by more laughter. depending on where you are, and how crazy the shebob feel, it may turn to propositions in arabic, or insults. in the cities it may go so far as to lead to one breaking from the group to go for a butt-grab. this is only attempted on the crowded streets of a city and is something that many of the girls here have already had happen. by the time that you process the fact that your butt was just grabbed the offending shebob have already melted back into the crowd.

in my particular village the shebob are not bad at all. humdullah. they seem more entertained by watching me then trying to interact, and usually im past them and out of earshot before they can pick up enough steam to move on to more insulting fare. or maybe they are just more polite than most shebob, in which case they could cross over into the category of "good shebob." good shebob are elusive. you usually can only identify them if you meet them in their parents home, and then they are out of their element and are behaving as a sheb all on their own.

this brings me to the point of defining shebob not so much as men of a certain age, but an entity onto itself when young men are together. shebob are to be avoided if at all possible. it goes without saying that you cross the street if there is a group of shebob ahead of you, and streets where shebob tend to hang out are better left untraveled. these streets are usually those with bus stop shelter things (these are particularly frequented when it comes on towards night and all the shebob are out and looking for places to sqat), auto shops, and obviously those with high-schools. its not that the shebob are dangerous, or really all that threatening at all, its more just an annoyance that you can do without; like avoiding the greenpeace dudes with clipboards at the top of the escalators on the metro lest they trap you.

just a regular day, but a good one

i feel like it is easy to end up sounding really negative in journals and blogs (and i view this to be somewhere in between) just because when i am happy i don't tend to dwell on it, i take it for granted that 'this is the way life should be' and just let it pass. shitty days on the other hand lead me to sit and brood, which leads to venting. so on that note i decided to share my ordinary, pleasant, overall fulfilling day.

the past few days i have been feeling a little down because i just came back from aqaba where i was reminded just how alone i am here at site, it had been about a month since i had been amongst friends who speak english and so the shock of coming back to site was kind of harsh. (end of negativity) so i decided to suck it up today and when i got home from work i sat out on my roof and read, which is always my favorite thing to do, for a few hours then called my neighbor. im still trying to get used to the fact that the whole hospitality, visiting process is kind of the opposite here, so i have just been sitting around waiting for someone to call me and invite me over. i realized that i just need to get over that quickly when i saw my neighbor at a wedding and she was really mad at me; when i asked why she said it was because i came to visit her only once and never came back. i tried to explain that i was waiting for her to invite me, but since that is not how it works here she was more than dubious. (we've smoothed it over, don't worry.)

anyway, i called my favorite neighbor and was just like "i want to visit you today." actually, what i really said, in arabic, was "you want to visit you (masculine form) today." i was a little nervous about my first self invite. after an awkward silence and my correctly stating my needs she was like 'great!when?" me: 'when do you want me to come?' her: 'now.' so i changed into my visiting pants (literally, not like 'put on your party pants') and went over at about 2pm.

i was ambushed on my way over by one of her kids, who is the absolute coolest kid i have met here, one of the coolest kids i have met ever actually. his name is abdullah rahman and he is five i think, almost six. already the idea of leaving him here when i go home makes me feel like crying. so he came barreling at me as i walked next door screaming "steeeeeeeephneeeeeeeee" which is amazingly close to the real pronunciation of my name. he led me into the house and i was greeted by the delicious smell of sambusik. which i believe in 'murica is called sambusas, they are sandwich-sized triangles of bread filled with spinach and onion and spices. Asmah (my neighbor) was in the middle of starting another batch and so i was like 'oh yeah i want to learn how to make them.' surprisingly she did not invite me to participate in that batch as i had just finished telling her that 1)i hate cooking 2)pretty much the only thing i have cooked here are sandwiches and rice and 3) i hate doing dishes so my sink contains all three of my dishes and both my pots (at which point she mimed bugs crawling around the sink and told me i need to wash them). so i bided my time chitchatting and such before i offered again to help/have her teach me. this time she accepted and you know what, i am a sambusik-making machine. all except one which was really ugly that she proudly displayed on top of the pile when we were all done.

of course after we were done making them we had to eat some, then we had to eat some with shai (tea) because its better that way. then we waited till her husband came home to eat some more for the official lunch. basically i spent the whole day on the floor of her kitchen just chilling, doing our very best (which is noticeably better than just a bit ago) to communicate about whatever passed our fancy. i hung out with the little love of my life, and helped his older brother Takeet (that is an impossible name to transliterate, its pretty hard for me to even say), who's seven, with his english homework.

we then moved into the tv room to eat some sort of sweet flaky bread stuff that her husband got at the bakery and some roasted chesnuts. this roasted chesnut thing is really big here and i love it, i sing the christmas carol the whole time in my head while im eating them. however here they are not roasted on an open fire, they are piled on the metal top of the gas heaters, and they often explode and send red hot chunks of tasty chestnut everywhere. still, they make me feel somehow old-timey.

over the course of a few hours, we watched: gossip girl, castle, a six year old preaching from the Koran, footage of mecca, and a special on national geographic on the use of maggots and leeches and the like in modern medicine, not in that order, none of them for very long, and interspersed with the inevitable tom and jerry for the kids. i also had a very interesting non-committal discussion with my little friend about why i don't cover my head. in the past he had asked me my favorite line of questions in regards to my religion that went something like this: "do you pray? (pointed at his mom who was praying)" "no, i don't""do you eat breakfast?" "yes" "do you brush your teeth?""yes." confused silence. for him the idea of praying five times a day is absolutely no different than eating, and the fact that i did everything else put me somewhere in the realm of human, but not exactly. so tonight he asked me why my head wasn't covered. i found myself stumbling because, although i have been asked this question many times before by many people, i'd never talked to a little kid about it before. basically i couldn't come up with an answer for him because he's just a kid and at that age your parents are just trying to teach you whatever religion they feel is the right one and for the kid it is just acceptance. there is no dialogue about cultural relativism or different approaches to respecting god, there is just 'haram' (forbidden by god) or not. so i went with "i like my hair, don't you?"

in the end i slipped out at 8:30 to 'talk to my mom in america on the computer,' which is a tried and true way to end a visit. of course they asked me to please stay longer, six hours is so little time, and they sent me away with a plate of sambusik for tomorrow so i dont have to eat another cheese sandwich. humdullah.