Do I look German?!

I must look German. About ten people yesterday asked me if I was from Germany, no kidding. Do I look German?! I also got told that I look Jordanian for the first time yesterday. That was a cool thing to hear.

To be honest, I’ve kind of been avoiding the blog lately due to my negativity. I’ve been homesick and nothing seems to be going my way: was excited to find out we get out of school a week before expected, but there’s no way to find an earlier flight home; class has been rough; I’m sick of not being able to communicate with anyone around me; I’m tired of the feeling ostracized everywhere I go; the town we live in is quite possibly the most boring town in the Middle East; and there are a few issues with our group… enough said. We have a long weekend coming up and it couldn’t have come at a better time. I’m really excited about the trip to Aqaba, Wadi Rum, and Petra. Also am trying to keep things in perspective. Only 30 days left… I can do 30 days. It sucks I won’t be spending my 21^st birthday in the states but you win some you lose some. I’ll get over it.

I have a lot to catch everyone up on:

First, at the beginning of this week a few of us went and helped in a kid’s camp sponsored by the Catholic Church with the priest we met last week. It was an extremely fun and rewarding experience. I cannot remember the priest’s name for the life of me because I never really picked up on what to call him. It seems like a simple thing but he had like five different names: one the kids called him, one the adults called him, the name for priest in Arabic, and I think the name for father in Arabic. Very confusing for an American, so we’re just going to call him “Father Abu” from now on. So, Father Abu picked us up at the hotel right after class on Tuesday and we headed to a small, Christian village about 5km outside of Irbid. I was really impressed with the facilities when we got there. Father Abu explained that it was his second parish, so he converted it into a campus for kid’s activities, camps, and the like. This was the first of three camps he would be hosting and was for the younger children, 7-11 to be exact. We ate our second lunch when we got there and were introduced to the two guys we’d be working with the rest of the afternoon. They were around our age and seemed to be part of the Jordanian equivalent of the Boy Scouts. Our first task was to organize some water games for the kids. We filled up water balloons and tossed around ideas on easy games. After some misunderstanding we settled on a game and formulated a plan to secretly barrage the kids with water balloons from the roof. All went off without a hitch and the kids had a blast!

After that, we were put in charge of the game station in their afternoon rotation. It tooks some trial and error (“Duck Duck Goose” failed miserably and dancing the “Macarena” was awkward) but we found a few games the kids seemed to enjoy. Before we left, Father Abu wanted to take all of the kids on a walk up the mountain to get them tired before bed. So off we went, all 100 something kids and only a few adult chaperones. No counting, no lines, but a mad rush up a windy road to the top. I don’t think this would have gone over well in the States. I made a few friends and learned a lot from the conversations I had with kids. They are much more understanding than adults and don’t ask hard questions, so it’s always encouraging. Father Abu gave us a gift of Holy Water Olive Oil from Jerusalem before we left. It was a nice gesture, to say the least.

We had two extremely difficult tests yesterday and I didn’t do so well… that’s all I’m going to say. So after school I was excited about taking a trip to Amman to see a movie. I’m juts going to go ahead and come clean: I went to see Twilight, don’t judge me. What can I say? It’s boring here and it seemed like my best option. Plus if you didn’t know, I read the books. Once again, all of you haters can back off. Seeing this movie in Jordan reaffirmed the simple fact that Jordanians are, on the whole, completely more immature than Americans. It has to do with the culture here and the separation of the sexes, as my friends and I were discussing earlier this week, but in every single kissing scene during the movie the theatre erupted into laughter, with whistles and catcalls going on for minutes after the scene had ended. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it was a a theatre full of 12-year old girls, but most people I saw had to be at least 20. I was annoyed. It was kind of entertaining at the same time, though.

When I left the theatre I came to the startling realization that the buses back to Irbid had stopped running. I asked a cab driver how much for a ride back to Irbid and he said 50JD! I felt lost. There was no way I was paying that much. It should only cost about 1JD to get back to Irbid, max 3JD. There for a second I felt really stranded and started to worry. No one around me spoke good enough English to understand my question and my phone was about to die… what to do?! I sat around twiddling my thumbs for a while contemplating my predicament before deciding to head back inside on a hunt for someone who spoke English. My saving grace came at a coffee shop. His name was Alazim and he just so happened to be an Arabic Instructor during the school year and knew exactly how to help. So off I went, following a complete stranger, hopping into a random bus, getting off at a random stop and following another stranger, then hopping into a random cab with the hopes I would make it back to Irbid. Long story short, I made it home safely and met some nice people along the way. We got back in about 35 minutes. It usually takes about an hour and a half. As scary as the ride was, I was happy to get back quickly.

I really like Amman. It’s so refreshingly western. Significantly more women are uncovered than covered and society seems to be a bit more liberal and free-thinking. I wish we were studying there. So, a man who was riding with me in the cab asked me an interesting question on the way back last night. To paraphrase, he asked me how my time in Jordan so far has changed my impressions of the Middle East. I’m still thinking about that. I think I’ll have an answer later this week.

Salaam,

-Alex