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.