Thalj, Thalj! (A Snow Day in Jordan?!)

Ibrahim tossing some snow into the air...

My prayers were answered, Alhamdulillah (thanks be to God)! We got a snow day in Jordan! Tom and I were awakened this morning to the sound of Ibrahim busting into our room and telling us "thalj, thalj!," which means, "snow, snow!" (The link above is to a YouTube video of a popular Arab World song about snow by Fairuz, a Lebanese singer, which I heard several people humming today in light of the flakes--it's very popular, especially in this weather). We looked out the window this morning and found that the world we went to sleep in was now a winter wonderland!

Ibrahim's brother, Nuah, and his cousins, Hashim and Omar, took me on a drive around the area to check out the snow--It was gorgeous! I've been missing snow since I've been here because winter, for me, has always been snowy. And, while today was by no means like the dumpings (what's the word for a lot of snow? I'm spacing...) we get in NH, it was nice to be able to romp around in some snow, have snowball fights, and, yes, make a snowman! (Funny story: when I was trying to say "snowman" for the first time in Arabic, I accidentally called it a "refrigerator man," because the words for "snow,"thalj, and "refrigerator," thalaja, are similar-sounding and come from the same root).

Me and Thaljy the Arabic Snowman

I think that, given the limited resources I had (and the fact that under all the snow was a thick layer of Teen (that's a "dark T," not like the one in the English word "teen"), or mud), my snowman actually came out pretty good. A kid from the village named Laith helped me with it and was psyched to show it off to his family. Also, Nuah, Omar, and Hashim (who had left me in the field with Laith while we completed our snowman, and they went to do some more driving) showed up just in time to help us with the face, and Nuah's shmagh made a great hat. All in all, not bad for my first snowman in Jordan.

As for the snowball fight, I'll chalk my overwhelming victory up to years of practice in NH. Seriously, I don't mean to brag, but I SMOKED Hashim in the snowball fight. (At left: me and Hashim at close-range; at right: the guys in just one of a billion pictures they took with Thaljy).

After we had finished our snowball fight and taking pictures with our snowman, an older gentleman who lives near the field we were in, Abu Bilal, invited us under his house to sit by his fire and drink some shai, or tea. We couldn't stay long, so I wasn't able to even wait for the tea to heat up, but it was a fun chance to practice my Arabic with some new faces and just another testament to the hospitality Jordanians are famous for. Everywhere you go, you hear, "tefuddel," which translates like "please, join me."

Abu Bilal is on the far right with the glasses.

To top today off, our host mom made us some rashoof, which was the perfect stick-to-your ribs lunch after a few hours horsing around in the snow. Rashoof is made of a thin layer of bread with some lentils, onions, jameed (which is a popular yogurty sauce that goes with Jordan's national dish, mansaf), and other stuff that I can't remember/translate/figure out. It's worth Googling. So zaki! (Delicious!) Oh, and it's the same dish we had when we picked zeitoon!

So, I was just as surprised as you all probably are to see snow in Jordan. What's more, apparently there's even more snow in places at higher elevations, and even in the capital of Amman. We've been told that the road from Amman to Madaba has been closed for a couple days on account of the hail, and now snow, we've had. Oddly enough, the forecast for tomorrow is nothing but sun. Just like New England: Don't like the weather? Wait a few minutes; it'll change.

Well, that's all for now. Tomorrow begins the weekend, which potentially holds my first visit to the mosque to check it out (if it's adi, normal/OK), and maybe a FREE trip to Hammamat Ma'in (the hot springs at Ma'in) that was offered to us by a cab driver we befriended tonight. Normally it's 10JD, but regardless, free is always a killer offer. Also, right around the corner next week is our swearing-in ceremony, which means Saturday night is our last night in-village. I'm going to miss this place and the wonderful Shakhanbeh family. I'm not ready to think about leaving...

Hope all is well States-side!

Love you guys,
كمال