more pictures

for those of you without facebook:

i nabbed some photos with me actually in them and put them in this album. enjoy

facebook steals

two ridiculous things

here are two things that i feel somehow encapsulate jordan and its commitment to professionalism very well. they entertain me at least.

first, my mudeer (principal) recently bought a new doorbell for the center. it's one of the ones that has a receiver that you plug into the wall that plays the music, and a battery operated button that you use adhesive to stick outside your door. or at leas that is where it is intended to go. my mudeer decided to keep the button in the drawer of his desk instead. that way, after people come in, he can press the button so the music announces their presence. it also allows him to draw more attention to the fact that our center has a doorbell that can play multiple different songs and is operated by battery. so now when someone visits the center this is what you hear: them knocking, someone yells "fuut (come in)", the door opens and slams, a big round of greetings, everyone settles into the office, doorbell rings, my mudeer laughs for a minute and a half, doorbell rings again, tea drinking commences.

second, i went with this woman who works at the government social-support kind of building. i'm not sure exactly what it is, but if someone needs a wheelchair or a walker or something they get it from them. i'm sure they do other things but i don't know what they are. yesterday i needed to go into the city to get my mail. the customs man who has to check all my packages ends his day at noon; my center closes at noon. so i had to leave work early to get a ride to the center of the village so that i could catch a bus to Mafraq. i asked this woman to take me in her car, and she said we had to stop in at her work first. so we walk into this two story government building. inside the first room we come to has about 10 women sitting in chairs, most of them with kids on their laps, shooting the breeze and drinking tea. we go upstairs past lots of empty rooms. on the second floor i hear what sounds like a hair dryer. we open a door and inside there is a mini beauty salon, five women and four little kids. a woman was getting her hair dyed and straightened. i didn't ask why it was there.

Thanks

Hey guys,

just want to take a second to say thank you so much to everyone who has been sending me cards and packages. You are amazing! i have the best support system, and i really appreciate you all making the effort to make sure i know it.

thanks

The pictures i haven't worked up the nerve to take

I lent my camera to my 13 year old neighbor for the day. Don't ask me why, it was a stupid idea and I regretted it immediately. I called her about 3 hours after she had taken it and told her that i really needed it for something so she would have to give it back. but while she had it she took a bunch of pictures around my village. i really want to post pictures of the people and things around me but i always feel weird doing so. she, of course, feels totally comfortable doing so. so here they are, i'll caption where they are for you. since she lives only a few houses away this is what things look like in my immediate vicinity. hopefully i get up the nerve to take a few more myself.

2010_04_25 Shahed

atrophy

hey everyone!

so i went in for a mini trip to amman this weekend. for what reason you ask? to play flag football against a bunch of marines. because i am capable of doing that.

in fact, i found out that i am not. there is a flag football league for the americans in jordan that takes place every year. there are teams from the embassy, the marines, the department of defense, etc. and the peace corps. needless to say we are a little out of place in the league. none of us get to play any sports in the village, and, speaking only for myself here, just sit around and get fat most of the time. this was the second game of the season, and the first that i participated in. aside from the fight to get over my long-developed reflex to only use my feet when playing (the best) sport, i had to fight over my more newly developed reflex to sit down and take a tea break after more than 5 minutes of any work. i'm pretty sure i'm mostly dead right now, and possibly have broken both ankles. how was it that i used to play five or six hours of soccer a day.? i am really excited about the next game though, there really is just nothing better than some good old fashioned competition. if you can even call a 40-something to nothing score competition. anyway i had a lot of fun, and got to frolic in the sun in shorts (sort of, i felt the need to wear long spandex under them) and a tee-shirt. yay.

New Baby!

My neighbor just had a baby! She's a little bitty perfect girl. I'm not 100% on what her name is, i think it's Alaaf. Little insight into Jordanian culture: there's no baby shower before the baby is born, so the party comes after. immediately after. my neighbor came home from the hospital today and what is essentially her viewing began as soon as she did. before she went to have the baby they emptied one of the rooms in the house and filled it with farshas and against one wall they put a twin bed. for the next few days people come in and out all day to see Esthma in the bed and her new baby and sit and drink tea. specifically cinnamon tea with walnuts in it. i spent about an hour there today, listening to all the women that live close by gossiping about the other women and having babies. i realized that none of them were more than 5 years older than me and they all had at least 3 kids. weird.

kids say the darndest things

the youngest student in my center is a tiny girl with down syndrome. any time anyone does something she doesn't like, or drops something, or sometimes for no apparent reason, she yells hiwan (animal). how do you think she learned that?

on an unrelated side note the director of peace corps, from america, the big director, is in jordan right now to reinforce some ties with the jordanian government. he's making a visit to some of the centers and tomorrow he is going to the center where i did my training and where one of the volunteers from my pst group is currently working. i'm going over for a little meet-and-greet. which is pretty cool. since jordan is the only peace corps post in the middle east it is getting a lot of attention in the peace corps and they are trying really hard to step up the number of people here. so they need more places to put volunteers. the next group that comes in is supposed to have 60 volunteers. sounds insane to me, but i'm excited. now if they can only get the people who are here to last through their whole service...

craig ferguson

craig ferguson. delicious. i have come to depend on watching at least a few minutes of ferguson every day to keep me sane. i even seem to start watching late at night to put off sleeping. its just like being home. i mean come on...

(apparently i'm not tech savvy enough to make that fit correctly, but go with it)

eh titles are tedious

soooo this is probably completely cliche, but i just want to take a second to describe to you how completely awesome the littlest things are.

though there are many, many things that make jordan an almost impossible place to live (the last group of volunteers still have a little over half a year to go and they already have an over 50% dropout rate), one great thing about living in a country that is developed is how applicable the lessons that i learn here are to my life back in the states (if i ever choose to return) (jk mom, breathe). what i mean is, i can see having revelations about how little you truly need to survive and be happy while living in a hut in africa. however, upon returning to the u.s. of a. you certainly are going to have access to running water and all of life's little amenities. however, here in the jordan we have almost everything that is available at home, albeit at unattainable prices. the point is: the things that i get used to not having, or realize that i do need to keep me happy can be transferred to my life at home.

for example. my mother (give her a hug for me if you can. no don't, she'll hate it, but maybe offer to shake her hand) sent me some sheets in the mail. for some reason i have not been able to find any fitted and topsheets here, even though a lot of people have regular beds. so i've been going without and just sleeping on the weird fabric the mattress (thats a lie its a thin slab of low-density foam) is covered in. i have no way of knowing if the family who lived here before me ever covered this mattress, washed it, aired it, anything, but i sleep on it every night. or at least every night until this one. today i got to put wonderful, perfect, jersey-knit dark blue sheets on my bed. i thought i was going to hyperventilate with happiness. i was skipping around whistling like snow white while making my bed. Making A Bed. it was heaven. and now i am sitting here, between the sheets, drinking a cup of spiced chai tea and eating easter chocolate, and i can't think of anything that could make me happier. well that's not entirely true, you can always think of things that you would upgrade to; we're just programmed that way i guess. but i can't think of anything that i NEED to make me feel happier. sheets, tea and chocolate. that's it.

now i'm sure i'll get home and go out and eat a burger a night, spend way too much money on a new computer, new (any) clothes, and everything else. and everyone will say 'oh see, isn't america so much better, look at everything you can have.' but i just hope that i can retain some of the joy i get here from the littlest things, and remember not to spend so much time thinking about the things that i want (a panini with lots of melted mozzarella) and more time thinking about how freaking delicious my tea is.

changes in latitudes changes in attitudes

just made the long walk back from the marqez shabat (girls youth center) on the other side of town (about 35/40 minute walk away) and about halfway back had a nice conversation with a lady who popped out of her house to say hey. This is about how the conversation went (translated of course):

Hi! Hi! Where do you live? Up the hill. No where exactly? Near Esthma's ducan. Where? Right next door. On the left? Yes. Oh, come in! Thanks, I can't. Why not? I need to go home. Why? To talk to my parents in America. (always gets me out of doing things, sorry parents) How? On the computer. You have internet in your house? Yes. Do you have a computer or a laptop? Laptop. How much did it cost? 200 dollars. Oh, come in. No thanks, goodbye. Goodbye.

Hope you could follow that. Anyway that was with a random woman on the street. Imagine a stranger yelling at you as you walk down the street and then asking you these questions. The funny thing is, I have been home for a half an hour now, and it just hit me that at one point i would have considered this invasive and/or strange. Now i didn't even notice, it's totally cool. She was really nice; if she invites me in again (and if i remember who she was) i'll probably stop in.

what's in a name

hey all you beautiful people

sorry there aren't more pictures from rum, but my camera died halfway through the first day. i apparently did not find it necessary to charge my camera before a 2 day sightseeing trip. however it was absolutely amazing. i actually firmly believe that it is better not to take pictures, or at least only to take a few. this is of course excluding all you professional photographers out there who im sure just 'see the world better through a lens.' i, on the other hand, think that spending your time trying to get a good shot, and inevitably looking at the screen and bemoaning how little it looks like what you are looking at, takes away from actually taking in where you are. memories are always better when you see them as actual moving memories and not the picture you have on your wall. this is of course with the luxury of having others who took pictures that i could rely on if i decided that was a stupid way to look at it. i also realize that at some point i will get old and forget (not that any of you out there would know what i am talking about) but hey, im 22 i dont believe in getting old so im staying optimistic.

anyway wadi rum was absolutely gorgeous. it is totally unlike anything i have seen. i guess you could say it is kind of like the grand canyon because there are big high rocks, and kind of like arizona because there is desert. but its not. it is bigger than your mind can take in, and i just kept thinking that it looked like a set painting. im not entirely convinced it wasn't. we came in on friday afternoon, stayed overnight in a bait shar (big bedouin tent), and left the next afternoon. we spent pretty much the whole time in a truck bed driving through the desert to the next beautiful spot where we could climb and take pictures and generally marvel. at night we decided to sleep out under the stars instead of in the tent, and when the moon came out over the cliffs that we were sleeping next to it woke me up it was so bright. totally unreal. i was just sitting there looking around for someone else who was awake to see if they were as amazed by it as i was. they were. we ended the second day by hiking up this huge, huge, huge sand dune and then rolling down it. it was amazing, i felt like the little kid in 'where the wild things are.' that movie, however, does not include the fact that every single part of you will then be filled with sand. ears, underwear, nose, hair, everything. it was worth it.

now im back in the village. im not super into it at the moment. its always hard to come back from amman and the pleasure of anonymity and other americans, but it was even harder this time because i was gone longer and was hanging out with 15 of 'em. oh well, things'll work out.

someone out there eat some sushi in my honor. im craving it like crazy.

wadi rum

went to wadi rum for two days. words later. pictures now.

Wadi Rum