Meeting with Obama

That's right, I "met with" AKA "saw very closely" President Obama. When he came to Jordan at the end of last month, he invited all American personnel to come to a short "meet and greet" in this hotel. However, only a few of us actually got to reach his hand and shake it on his speedy pass through the crowd post-speech. I didn't get to actually "meet" or "greet" the president, but it was cool to see him up close. Sadly, my camera died in the middle of his speech, so I'll have to get the photos/videos from other volunteers. In the meantime, here are some shots of the meeting with one blurry photo of Obama, Kerry, and the ambassador to Jordan Stuart Jones:

The bummer, in addition to the fact that we didn't get the "meet and greet" we were promised is that Obama didn't mention one thing about the Peace Corps presence and work in Jordan, especially when we made up probably a fourth of the people in the room. He just said thanks to all the military and governmental foreign service workers, and we all looked at each other like, "OK, but who actually lives with the people, learns the language and the culture, and forges connections that are arguably more important than those of the government or military? That would be us." Pretty ridiculous, Obama. C'mon. Anyway, cool to be invited, if not explicitly recognized.

Gettin' Professional

That's right--I facilitated my first teacher training seminar in Jordan. With Jamal as my counterpart and 15 local teachers in attendance, I think the seminar went over quite well. We focused on techniques for teaching listening and speaking in the language classroom. The seminar took place in the UNICEF-funded computer lab at my school--as you can see, the lab is beautiful and has a lot of technological resources. Here are some shots of the seminar (since, we have put on another seminar in Jamal's village and are slated to work with Hussein Faqeer, the supervisor of English, to put on 2 seminars a month):

Also, Jamal and I are now working at Tafila Technical University two days a week as a secondary project. We each teach a conversational English course for the students in the English program. Here are some shots of us in the classroom:

 Life is sure getting busier...but, the university classes are really a lifesaver psychologically.

My PO Box

To Whom It May Concern:

I finally set up a local post office box. If you want to send me anything, you can send it here:

Jordan - Amman | الأردن - عمان

Governorate of Tafilah - Bseira | محافظة الطفيلة - بصيرا

Mailbox 44 | ٤‎٤‎ صندوق البريد

Let me know if you do send something, though, so I can keep track of if it actually shows up or not. Insha'Allah, the mail system will work out. Also, it might not be a bad idea to include both the Arabic and the English on the package, just to ensure that everything gets to the right place.

Love,
Conor

Not the Dead Sea, Not the Red Sea...

No, my first swim in Jordan was in neither the Dead Sea nor the Red Sea. And, no, it wasn't in a hotel pool either. It was in the middle of this epic valley called Wadi Ghweir. Jamal, my fellow volunteer in Qadisiyya (a village about 20 mins from me), and I joined this very generous man named Abu Hatim on a sweet adventure into the Ghweir Valley. Little did we know, our hike would be cut short by a crazy river that flowed through the valley as a result of heavy rainfall in the week before. (Bear in mind that this all happened on Feb 7/8, and I'm just posting about a month late).

Here's our crew:
(Jamal is second from left, I'm (obviously) fourth from left, and Abu Hatim is fifth from left).

Here is one of the sections of river that we had to ford.

Sadly, I don't have any pictures of the craziest section of river (but a video is on the way, insha'Allah). It was 4 meters and then some deep, and Jamal and I jumped off this cliff and swam to the other side of the pass to explore our options because our Jordanian pals couldn't swim. It was awesome! So cold, but so refreshing, especially given how infrequently I'm able to shower here. Anyway, it was at this section of the trail that we had to turn back because the water was too deep for anyone but Jamal or me to safely continue.

Another shot of the shallower section of river--yours truly and Abu Hatim:

Below, from left to right: Jamal, Me, and a local teacher who joined us on the hike. He was hilarious.

As soon as I get a copy of the video of me jumping off the cliff and swimming in the deepest section, I'll try to put it up. Hope all is well!

Love,
Conor

P.S.
I just realized that my first swim was technically in a small area of hotsprings across from the Dead Sea. But, it was really shallow, and mostly like wading. Since this trip to Ghweir, I have also been to the hotsprings in Tafilah named A'fra, which were awesome. Pictures to come.

Counting Sheep...and Hyenas?!

I know what you're thinking:
"Conor came into contact with hyenas in Jordan, consequently learned the word for hyena in Arabic, and potentially had to count them, but probably didn't because his title suggests a sort-of-clever-but-mostly-obnoxious pun not inspired by truth but stemming from wordplay for wordplay's sake, the kind of thing for which Conor is infamous. What's more, this blog post will probably recount the tale of how he came into contact with hyenas and maybe had to stand by while his hosts fired rifles at them. But, Conor will probably have no pictures of the hyenas or the shooting-at thereof because it was probably one of those times when it's best not to be the guy trying to whip out a camera, especially in front of the shepherd whose marble-mouthed Arabic is effectively unintelligible, but whose kind heart speaks a language common to all humanity. Conor will ask me to take his word that it's the truth, and I will, because I'm Conor's family/friend/life partner, and I trust in the unusual nature of his life trajectory and his propensity to tell a good story while sticking mostly to the truth."
You're right.
You're spot on.
Here goes...

So, at this point, I've procrastinated this blog post for so long now that I'm not even sure when this adventure happened. It was at least a week ago. Probably more. Sometimes I curse my horrid memory. But, mostly I forget why I want to curse it and don't bother. Anyway, by now, I'm far more settled in here (though by no means "settled in here") in the village and am even observing classes at my local school in preparation to begin teaching the week after next. But, I'll get to all that stuff in a later post. You want to hear about the hyenas.

At least a week ago, but decidedly--no definitely--more, my landlord, Abu Bakir (his real first name is Omar, but as Bakir is the first name of his first son, he goes by Abu Bakir in the Arabic tradition of paternal nomenclature), invited me to spend a night with him and some of his family "in the wild," as he said in his limited English. Something about his choice of words, his slightly comical accent in English, or maybe the fact that I would otherwise sit at home alone in my room and lament my decision to live alone in Jordan for two years, inspired me to join him for what would turn out to be an adventure I would never forget. (In theory. Consistent with my limited memory, it's already such a stretch for me to chronicle this story no, so far from when it took place, that the odds don't look good for me to remember this beyond March without the textual proof. And so I write!)

The night began with me grabbing a sleeping bag and a backpack full of supplies and cramming myself into an overstuffed pickup truck with my landlord and a bunch of his brother-in-laws and cousins (some of whom share both titles...welcome to Jordan and marrying your uncle's daughter). As we drove off towards the desert-like area where my landlord keeps his sheep, the guys in the front of the truck were blasting some old Bedouin music. A man was playing an instrument called the rababa, which, if you can imagine, is a sort of upright guitar with only one string that's played with something like a violin bow. Scratch that. It's nothing like an upright guitar. It's more like...hmmm...as a kid, I used to try to make guitars out of shoeboxes, toilet paper tubes, tacks, and rubber bands. It's more like one of those with just one string...if I played it upright with a stick. It sounds pretty similar. This, coupled with a shrill voice whining out Arabic that's indistinguishable from the noise a baby makes when it means "I shat myself, but I'm incapable of speech so I'm involuntarily crying until someone makes the poop disappear from the blasted sack that keeps it strapped in close proximity to my genitals" makes for an altogether ridiculous sound. All that said, it's slightly intoxicating.

With this Bedouin love song as the soundtrack to my experience, I bounced along in the back of the pickup truck as it dodged potholes in the dark on our way to the halal, the "farm" where the sheep are kept. One of the guys in the front seat turned back to me with a grin, which I know to mean, "I'm about to practice my English, but likely the pronunciation or word choice will confuse you. Even so, I want you to smile and pretend that you understand. Otherwise I will become upset with you for not understanding me. It will be your fault. Make the right choice." Luckily, in this instance, I understood both the pronunciation and the choice of words...well, sort of. My grinning Jordanian counterpart, mid-pothole-bounce, looked around as if to indicate that his words to follow would describe the whole experience and said, "American cowboy." I thought to myself sarcastically, "Yes, Mohammad. I feel just like an American cowboy." I said to him, "Yes, Mohammad. American cowboy."

I should fastforward a bit. We rode in the truck for some time, bouncing along, until we descended down a winding path to the area where the sheep are and where my landlord's shepherd lives. We gathered wood, built a big fire, and planned for a night of sleeping outside. My landlord and his brother cooked Mansaf, the Jordanian national dish made of rice, jameed (a kind of yogurty sauce), and chicken, on the fire. We ate it in the traditional way by using our hands, making little balls out of the rice and chicken using the jammed as a glue, and popping the Mansaf balls into our mouths.

I should fastforward a lot because I'm honestly quite tired from writing this post and, as you know, there are no pictures to go with it, so I don't want to lose you, you know, as future blog readers by writing an obnoxiously long post that will make you never want to read my stuff again. But, I supposed I should at least get to the hyenas. (fastforward sound effects)
The Mansaf was delicious.
We drank tea with milk fresh from sheep utter.
We talked and laughed by the fire and watched the stars.
We fell asleep.
The shepherd descended into the herd of sheep and slept within their ranks. Awesome.
I awoke to men frantically whipping out rifles and screaming duba'a, which is Arabic for "hyena."
The rest of the night was essentially sleepless, as every hour or so one of the guys would frantically wake everyone up to go on a hyena hunt to keep the sheep safe.
As it turned out, we only heard the hyena laughter and saw their eyes light up in the distance.
No contact with them.
And, thankfully, no killing, either by the hyenas or the guys.

The end. Hah.

Joining the Village People...

...not those "Village People." But, if it were, then YMCA might stand for Young Man's Celibacy Association or You Must Chant "Allah." Something along those lines. Haha. Yikes, life here is different. But great, truly!

Anyway, please accept my apologies for the delay in updating this blog. Transitioning into new life in my village has been intense, to say the least. As it's been so long since I've posted anything, I'm not even sure where to begin with the last two-ish weeks of my life. Hm...let's see. On the first night of moving to my new village, I crashed with my future landlord because my house was COMPLETELY unfurnished. Right away, I got a taste of how conservative this village is. I was not introduced to, nor did I even see, any women in the family (and, to date, have seen perhaps only 5 or so out-and-about; by which I mean, on their rooftops hanging laundry, or stepping outside for a moment to corral their little ones indoors). The gender separation here is strict. The following day, when my landlord and I were out in Tafila city (the closest thing I have to a city near me, which is about 30 km away) getting things for my new place, he had to give his brother-in-law and wife a ride. Before she got in the car, he instructed me not to look at her or greet her, as it might be problematic. Even he did not make eye contact or greet her...welcome to my life for two years.

Let's move on to the furnishing process. My first big purchase for my house (rather, my room, as I only really use one room of this mansion) was a bed. But, not in the way you're thinking. It's common for beds here to consist of a headboard, footboard (is this what you call the thing at the other end?), and a sort-of pallet made of wood that actually supports the mattress. This way, when everything's all dressed up with sheets, it looks like a sturdier sleeping apparatus than it is. I had my reservations about the pallet's ability to hold me, but my landlord insisted that it would be fine. That night, on my first night in my new house, after a long day of shopping for the "essentials" (it's incredible how little one actually needs, how little the PC allowance affords, and how much I really was "splurging" on a bed, which was a nonessential upgrade from the cheaper sleeping farshas that many people use; I just thought it would be nice to be up off the cold floor), I carefully lay down on my new mattress on top of the pallet of suspect quality, zipped myself into my sleeping bag, tried not to think about how cold it was, and held my breath. Several seconds later, I smashed through the pallet and into the floor.

Yep, it was, in retrospect, a hilarious start to my first night. I cried, sure. But, I also laughed. It was too late to call my landlord to explain, so I moved my mattress onto the cold floor, bundled up with an extra blanket, and thought that things could only look up from here, literally.

And they have. Everything has been going great. Of course, there have been a lot of challenges, setbacks, cultural faux pas (how do you pluralize "faux pas"?), and the like, but overall things have been great. Below, I've included some shots I just now took of my room and kitchen, the only two rooms in the house which have anything in them and look remotely different from the pictures of barren rooms I posted a while back. I'm still figuring out where to fit clothes and how to organize. Forgive the disarray.

Here you can see the door to my room, my cheap plastic table/chairs set, and a bunch of junk that hasn't found a home yet. I'm going crazy with no system of organization. I keep thinking, "Oh, I would put this here and that there if I had a desk and some shelves," but I definitely can't afford them. I think of making something out of recycled water bottles. Haha...we'll see how that goes.

To your right (he says in his best tour guide voice), you can see the bed on which Conor sleeps and through which Conor occasionally smashes. I have my soba (Arabic name for small heaters like that) propped on the chairs to take some of the edge of before bed--it's so cold here! Also, taking my guitar was the best decision for my sanity. I've been working on a couple new songs! Inshallah, I'll find a way to record them to YouTube soon. The curtain you can see was a gift from my landlord--one of the two things he was able to spare to help me furnish the place; the other one was the 7-shaped rug that adorns the floor and makes it bearable for me to walk from my bed to my closet.

The closet, at left, was my other big purchase: 25JD (where 1JD is approx. $1.40). A lot of people were confused as to why I wanted a closet (hizana in Arabic). In general, houses here don't have rooms with closets built in and, yet, it was reacted to as strange that I would want to buy one.  How am I going to keep my dress clothes nice without one? Plus, I needed a source of organization, even it was at the expense of a bulk of my move-in allowance. Here you can also see how my free 7-shaped piece of carpet doesn't cover the entire room. But, I made it work. I strategically arranged the voids left by the 7 to be where I take off my shoes, sandals, and slippers (the last of which is necessary indoors here for going from one room into the bathroom), and the other empty space is under my bed, where I wouldn't need carpet anyway.

The text-wrap thing has stopped working for some reason, so I'll just write the rest of the commentary via caption. The maps that I brought from home have been great to fill the white walls, as well as for pointing out where New Hampshire is to the boys who come to visit and ask where I'm from. As you can see, I have a TON of books and am in dire need of a bookshelf. The plastic set of drawers was a recent purchase that set me back 10JD, but it's worth the piece of mind I get from being able to keep most of my clothes out of sight. 

Here's the door to my kitchen. I've been trying to sort and recycle all my trash, as you can see to the left, but there's no infrastructure here to deal with it, so I'm not sure how that will work out. To the right of the door is my one electric hot plate for cooking and my essential tea kettle, which I've been using to boil water to take hot bucket baths because my "shower" has no water pressure, and the water is bearably cold, at best.

This is my space for kitchen creations...pretty nice, huh? Don't mind the dishes--I didn't have a chance to wash them  before taking this picture because I'm waiting until morning when the water won't seem as freezing.

 This is the drying line I rigged up. The only spot in the house with anything to tie my rope to, and the windows help (somewhat) to get some sun to the clothes. I would dry them outside, but there's no place to really that doesn't involve me encroaching on my landlord's space where his wife hangs the laundry out to dry. That's more trouble than I want to invite. So inside works. Haha.

I can't believe I'm doing this, as it's the same thing I used to think was funny when the international students at SMC would do it, but I'm actually including some pictures of me with food I made. This is mostly to show my mom that I'm not starving, as she might think (I love you, Mom!). Food-wise, I've mostly been living on bean and vegetable soup, which is easy enough for me to make and really nice in the cold. However, I made a delicious pasta with grilled eggplant (baithinjan in Arabic), tomato (bandura), and onion (baSal) (at left), as well as did some french fries/eggplant fries with grilled tomato (at right, and so good!). Also, after recently finding out where I could buy eggs, I had a great breakfast of homefries and eggs this morning, but forgot to get a shot for proof. Take my word for it. ;)

OK. That's all the energy I've got in me for this post. Be on the lookout for my next one, which will, inshallah, recount the epic adventures of my times out with the sheep, especially the one where we slept by the fire and had to ward off hyenas...that's just a teaser for now! Love you all!

You Done With PST? Yeah, You Know Me!

This post is a little late, but...

The Thobe Bros. at the swearing-in ceremony
(from left: Daniel, Me, and Cody)

As of January 15th, I was officially sworn in as a Peace Corps "Volunteer," which constituted a step up out of "Trainee"-dom into the real thing. That said, I'm not sure if the swearing in is officially recognized, because I, along with most of the PCTs soon-to-be PCVs, butchered the repeat-after-me session with the U.S. Ambassador to Jordan. It was one of those "I [state your name]" deals. Luckily, almost of all us avoided embarrassment at the predictably troublesome part by saying our actual names instead of "state your name." But, what followed was a series of phrases that no one got right on account of the ambassador ("His Excellency" or some shenanigans like that) being a little generous in his estimation of our capacities for short-term memory in a high-stress environment. Oh well...whether we said "and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter" or "and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office about which I am going to mumble," it doesn't really matter. It's the thought that counts with these things, oaths and swearings-in and whathaveyous...right?

Above are shots of (at left) my group from the village of Al-Hilaliya and (at right) Tom and me with our host family: Abrahim (our host's brother), Mosa'ab (our host), and Nuah (another of his brothers).

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

All Hopped Up on Moses Water

Hey all,

I am writing this blog post as much for myself as an account of the epic-ness that was today as I am for all of you who are checking up on me. Today was epic--ep. ic. Nothing short of serendipitous. And I think we owe it all to Moses. Here's how...

So, today started with me trying to organize a group of folks to visit Mount Nebo, a mountainous area famous for being the place where Moses died (at 120!). If you're not up on Moses lore, as I wasn't prior to coming to Jordan, there's a lot of cool stories about him. Besides the whole parting of the Red Sea business, Moses was the only prophet to ever speak directly to God, and he was apparently the strongest and coolest prophet ever. Yes, the coolest. I'm sure many of you know the story about him showing up the Egyptian pharaoh by turning his staff into a snake (with God's help, of course--Moses was many things, but he was not a magician). Whether you're religious or not (and I am certainly not fundamentalist, i.e. I don't take this stuff word-for-word), I think we can all agree it's an awesome story. And, in general, Moses seems to have been pretty awesome. 

Anyway, a bunch of the volunteers from different village groups met up in Madaba and we took some taxis to Mount Nebo to see Moses' old stomping grounds. This taxi-driving sheikh who had seen us the previous day hounded us all through the streets of Madaba to give us a ride to Nebo, but his price was too high. Finally, after like an hour of him following us and shouting new prices, we got a pretty good deal on two taxis for 4JD each, but it meant squeezing 5 of us into one and 6 into another. Consequently, I was pretty squished on the way to Mount Nebo. But, it was a hilarious ride, and this is how Rami and I felt when we got out of the car:

I think Rami had just made a haram (prohibited) joke. More like Ha-rami, right? Ohhh, Arabeezy (a blend of Arabi and Engleezy, the Arabic words for Arabic and English) puns!

When we got to Mount Nebo, I noticed this funny sign on the way in to the touristy part at the summit. Only in this area of the world will you see not only a prohibition on eating/drinking and smoking in some tourist locales, but also a demand to "dress modestly." Awesome, zay hake:

Dress modestly, or, according to the picture, don't wear shorts or...a Batman mask?

The tourist center at the top of Mount Nebo was cool, and, per usual in Jordan, there were some neat old fusayfusah (mosaics). But, I'll only show one picture here because I'm sure you've had your fill of Conor's mosaic shots by now:

Peacocks, man. Those guys would make anything into a mosaic.

The views from the top of Mount Nebo were breathtaking. It is from here that Moses was said to have been able to see the "Promised Land." I'm not sure if the shot below is a picture of said "promised" land, or just other land that wasn't necessarily promised but was close enough that Moses probably saw that, too. Either way, it's land, zay hake:

Mmm...landscape.

Here's where the story gets interesting...

So, I had picked up a copy of Lonely Planet: Jordan from the Peace Corps library just in case I needed some information about a potential travel destination, and I didn't have internet access. Before leaving this morning, I checked out Mount Nebo in the Lonely Planet and found that it was also suggested for visitors to Jordan to see "Uyun Musa," which is a nearby area with a natural spring and small waterfall named after the prophet Moses, as he was said to have been here. People drink the water at the spring, and some think it has spiritual powers, I guess. In any case, if there was natural spring water with potential spiritual powers to be drunk, then I had to go. So, three other volunteers decided to join me, and we trekked to a sign, zay hake:

A sign for Uyun Musa. Insha'allah, I will also see the Ma'in Hotsprings before leaving the Madaba area.

The volunteers (Briana, Erin, Sarah L.) and I were skeptical of the several mile hike down to Uyun Musa and were lamenting the distance when, all of a sudden, a van pulled up next to us, and some dudes that Erin and Briana knew from their village were insisting that we hop in. So, of course, we made the logical move and jumped in. Hahaha...truth be told, it was quite a safe situation. The guys gave us a ride directly to Uyun Musa, which was where they were headed, too, to fill up a ton of jugs of Moses water. You can see them below, zay hake:

Yes, the Moses water springs forth from that shady hole. Looks clean, huh?

Now, I'm not about to visit Uyun Musa and be turned off by the fact that the environs suggest a dirtier-than-expected water. There might be spiritual powers, after all! So I drank some, zay hake:

Well, not exactly zay hake...I did actually use my mouth.

The water tasted fine, not unlike most water I've had in my life. After we had all quaffed (I think this means "drank"--I seem to remember getting it from Scrabble), we walked/climbed down to the other side of Uyun Musa, where the waterfall is.

Lots of green, which is unusual for this part of Jordan. Thanks, Moses!

We went under the cavernous overhang and looked out from behind the tiny waterfall. It certainly felt like being in an oasis...despite all the trash. On second thought, it would have been oasis-like, if not for the trash. Luckily, this is a trash-free shot:

Phenomenal cosmic power! Itty-bitty waterfall. (Aladdin reference anyone?)

Post-would-be-oasis, we found that our ride had taken off, so we decided to trek back to the road on foot. We took a "shortcut" at my suggestion, and we ended up a little off the beaten path. But, on the up-side, we saw this cool shepherd and got to pose with his goats! I took a great video of how attentively they follow him (which includes a donkey-and-dog caboose to the goat train), but I can't seem to get videos to play. One of these days I'll figure it out and just do a "Videos I've Promised in the Past" post. Anyway, goats and me, zay hake:

Goats are enza in Arabic, and just plain awesome regardless of language.

We passed the shepherd and his flock and kept trekking up the side of this hill, when we came upon a bush. It was too reminiscent of my mental image of Moses' own burning bush for me not to get a picture with it.

As you can see from my facial expression, I'm pondering all the wisdom I've received from the bush. Moments after this photo was taken, the bush burst into flames. Nah, not really. I wish...

I don't have any pictures of the next phase of our saga, but it goes something like this:

We continued making our way up the side of this hill when we realized we were lost. I mean, not totally lost--we could see our endpoint, but we couldn't figure out how to get there since we had diverted from the road on my "shortcut." Haha. Anyway, we ended up on the outskirts of this zeitoon farm, which we had seen on our way in. For a long time, we debated calling out to the woman who was looking down from her house high on the hill for help, until finally Bri just went for it. In broken Arabic, we tried to come up with a way to say, "Hey, we're lost! Could you help us get to the street?" It came out like this: "Peace be upon you! How we go? (gesturing) Like this?"

The woman came down from her perch and through the zeitoon trees to help us. We opened with "We are all sorry. We don't know how to go," which she appeared to understand as she greeted us warmly and insisted that we join her for tea. Now, this is not an out-of-the-ordinary invitation. Everyone you see everywhere always insists that you join them for tea, but we've figured out that usually this is just polite, and it's polite for us to refuse. In this case, however, we all agreed that whether the woman's invitation was just polite or not, we were taking her up on the tea. We were all pretty thirsty and in need of a rest. She seemed happy to have us as guests.

We spent the next 20 or so minutes sitting on our host-and-savior's porch, which overlooked all of the valley that contains Uyun Musa and the like, drinking tea and smiling a lot to make up for everything we couldn't say in Arabic. The view was beautiful, and we told her so (something we could say easily in Arabic). The rest of our conversation was pretty piecemeal as she had effectively no English, and our Arabic is still, at best, toddler caliber. No matter, the whole experience was great, and our host and her son (who returned shortly after we had sat down to tea) were so hospitable and helpful. They pointed the way back to the main road, and we made it in no time!

The next dilemma was finding a ride from the road back to the Madaba city center. Given that today was a Friday (the beginning of the weekend here and a day that many Muslims don't work), we knew finding a taxi, bus, or service (shared car/van) would be tricky and expensive if we did get one. Sure enough, our Moses juice kicked in again, and a man pulled up to us as we were walking along the roadside and offered us a ride. I asked him, "From here to Madaba, how much?" and he said, "It's finished," or "Don't worry about it." Now, sometimes this can be just polite, and I'm expected to say "No, no, I insist," but this man seemed genuine. And, we tried to give him money, but he refused.

As it turns out, he worked at the surgical hospital in Amman, and his English was great. So he talked in English, and we talked in Arabic (an altogether funny experience), and we had a great ride back to the city center. We thanked him profusely for his generosity. Immediately after touching down in Madaba, we got some falafel and shawarmas for cheap because we were starving. While we were eating in the restaurant (owned by an awesome Egyptian dude who gave us some free falafel), we got a call from Rami who reconvened with us to show off his new purchase...

His new purchase was the hat, not this goat-horn-turned-moustache that I found on our adventure today. 

Going under the pseudonym of Rami-ana Jones, our cowboy friend joined us while we ate and then took us to the secondhand clothing street to look for some new shoes (I had been wanting to get some new dress shoes). Erin and Sarah L. made some purchases (I couldn't find anything cheap or worthy enough), and we decided to keep walking down the street when we came up none other than...buza! Buza, which is Arabic for ice cream, is oddly in short supply around here. Tom and I have been talking about going on a buza quest for some time now, but haven't had any luck. Now, with Moses water coursing through our veins, all the forces of nature aligned and plopped us unknowingly right in front of a new buza place in Madaba. Too perfect. So, of course, we got some, zay hake:

Team buza. Jealous? (This is funny because the word for "sit" in Arabic sounds like "jealous," and sit is exactly what we did next).

 I got two flavors, "Mars" (which tasted like a Mars bars) and some sort of raspberry cheesecake. Unreal. Thank you, Moses!

Zaki! (Delicious!)

While in the ice cream place, a girl from the other table in the place came up to us and wanted to practice English, as she had heard us talking. She was in eighth grade, and her English was very good--we were all impressed. As it turned out, her coming over to talk to us had been merely a way of telling me that the group of girls thought I was cute. Haha! Then all of these little girls from the same group kept running up to me and saying silly Arabic things, like "I love you" and "So-and-so loves you" and the like. It was cute because they were so tiny, and one of them was still in the "I walk like a robot, and you can count on me to fall down every ten to fifteen seconds" phase. Rami and the other volunteers agreed that it must be something in the Moses water we drank that was again bringing positive attention to our group. Whatever the case it was flattering and harmless, and I smiled at the little ones as they shyly left the restaurant. Like clockwork, the youngest one wiped out right outside the door. Haha...oh babies.

We left the buza joint shortly thereafter and headed home.

Wow...this whole thing was tiring to type. Not to mention the time it took to upload these photos. I'm pooped. I'm sure I left out a ton of stuff, but suffice it to say, that today was a good, good day. :)

Well, I love you guys, and I hope you enjoyed this little slice of my life.

Best,
كمال

P.S.
Theresa, you have no competition from my little admirers. Just thought you should know that I love you the most. ;)

Go Big or Go...Thobe!

So, yeah, the title of this post doesn't actually make any sense. I just like to pun (poorly) on idioms.

A thobe, for those of you who might be wondering, is easier to show a picture of than to describe. It's traditional Jordanian clothing that's kind of like...a cloak/dress-with-sleeves? I don't know. But anyway, in preparation for our upcoming swearing-in ceremony (where we'll OFFICIALLY become Peace Corps Volunteers), I decided to get a thobe tailored, which we were told was an option in lieu of wearing a fancy suit. Actually, a common look here is to wear a suit jacket over your thobe, so I think I'll do that. To top it off, I'll wear my shmagh and, inshallah, look totally Jordanian.

The tailor was awesome, and it was a neat experience to get measured up and then see the final product. It fits great! Plus, Cody (a fellow volunteer/thobe-brother) and I opted for this really silky fabric, which is wicked comfortable. We got some cool collars (sort of priest-like) and cuffs, and the thobe also has pockets--what more could you ask for from your man-dress?

Testing out the thobe...

And, of course, a pocket shot--so cool!

I just thought I'd blog in (a phrasal verb meaning to check in via blog?) to let you all know that, yes, I do have a thobe. I'm sure this was a burning question.

In other news, elections are right around the corner, so Madaba is full of political posters, zay hake (which means, "like this"--an essential phrase in any beginner's strategic vocabulary. In fact, today a fellow volunteer came up with this catchy adage, "zay hake it 'til you make it" to explain the gestural way I've been getting around not knowing how to say something but needing to communicate an idea)...so, yeah, political posters, zay hake:

The funny thing is: what are these people really "running for" when Jordan is still largely tribal (big extended families make the decisions for all the members) and, no matter, the king has final say on everything?

Also, today while we were cruising around Madaba, we came upon some ruins that had only been dusted off within the last few months...WHAT?! This dude lead us into what we thought was the "Directorate of Tourism" in Madaba, and he proceeded to show us some ancient ruins and mosaics that they'd only recently fully uncovered. Nuts. Ruins and mosaics, zay hake:

The classic columns-and-mosaics look

If there's a face of a dude with a cool beard, how can I not get a picture of it? Especially if it's a mosaic beard...it just goes to show that my former look was timeless.

Well, that's all for now.

I love you all!
كمال