Like Rain in the Desert

The End of an Era... For Now

2010-11-04T06:15:00.004+02:00

As I look back on my year in Jordan, I realize that I have learned so very much about myself and about what I can do when I put my mind to it.

I have learned that it is the people around me who make my life special, not where I am or what I am doing.

I have learned that I truly love teaching English and can actually stand children. Who knew.

I have learned that I am strong enough to travel alone and have fun doing it.

I have learned that life isn't always fair, that bad things will happen even when it's not your fault and you didn't do anything wrong.

I have learned that holding bitterness in your heart is a sure way to be miserable but that you should stand up for yourself when you need to because no one else is going to do it for you.

I have learned that I love living a healthier lifestyle in which I walk everywhere and don't eat Texas-sized portions just because they are there.

I have learned to slow down, to relax and to maybe even have a little smoke break (argeeleh of course) from time to time.

I have learned that though there's definitely a time for relaxing, there's a time to work hard too, which means I really should get over that huge lazy streak I have.

I have learned that I am beautiful as long as I feel beautiful inside. I don't need to be or do anything else except love myself for who I am.

I have learned that I can make and keep some of the best friends I will ever have just by being the person I am.

I have learned that I can master a foreign city, that I can be comfortable in a place where I don't understand the language or the culture because it's still my home.

I have learned that you meet people when you are supposed to meet them and that love doesn't always come at opportune times.

To that end, I would like to thank all those special people who have traveled with me through Jordan. You will always be in my thoughts and memories.

As will Jordan herself. My desert home has a permanent place in my heart.

Traveling Tips and Woes

2010-11-04T05:51:00.004+02:00

I left on a 2:30 in the morning flight, which is, I'm convinced, the very best way to travel from the Middle East.

First of all, you're exhausted. You've been up all day, getting in all the hours with your friends that you can, and the weight of all the pre-leaving stress is upon your shoulders. You've just made it through all the tough, tearful goodbyes because, quite frankly, all you want to do is leave these people and get it over with so you can finally go to bed. If you can make it through the maddening stupidity that is in every airport across the globe at this point without strangling someone or falling asleep standing up, you are golden.

(I nearly slugged a security guard on the way to my gate for trying to take away my water. Why have airlines suddenly declared war on water, btw? I was in Turkey, flying to Albania, and the guy took away my water bottle that I had gotten in the airport with a receipt to prove it. He totally ignored the three large bottles of hair products in my suitcase. None of them looked suspicious. But that unopened water bottle you have a receipt for! Trash that at once, you terrorist! It was the same in the Amman airport. I looked carefully at my gate and observed that there was nowhere to buy water before you get on the plane once you are through the gate security. So I bought a bottle of water AFTER I got through the main security and made sure I kept my receipt on me. I get through the gate security even, but one on the other side, the individuals manually searching the bags tried to throw it away. It took a good deal of yelling and a sobbing fit to get my water bottle on the plane. I was dehydrated from all the crying, damnit! And they tell you to "drink lots of water!" and "stay hydrated!" when you are on the plane. Well how the bloody hell are we supposed to do that anymore? It isn't enough that we can't take our own bottles of water and have to buy them at exorbitant prices in the airport. Now they are taking away bottles we buy in the airport. Wow, good thing water isn't a precious natural resource or anything. Whew. Ahem. Apologies for the war-on-water rant.)

Once on the plane, pop your Ambian over dinner and you will CRASH for six hours. Mercifully, you will also make it to America and be relatively cheery for the remainder of your travels, which helps a lot when dealing with the turmoil of international travel.

The other thing I would recommend not doing (besides possibly not fist fighting over a water bottle) is traveling with three rolling suitcases as checked luggage and one small rolling suitcase as your carry-on. And a backpack and purse as carry-ons two and three.

Shockingly, it is actually impossible to pull four rolling suitcases at the same time. It was news to me, but I only had two hands with which to pull the luggage. I get out of the taxi at the Amman airport. The driver conscientiously hauls the bags out of the truck for me and sets them on the curb. And then takes off, possibly laughing hysterically at my attempts to pick up four bags at once, three of which weigh just less than 50 pounds each. I finally had to enlist the help of two flight attendants, who graciously pulled two of my bags over to the cart stand while I hauled the other two.

Don't even get me started on small overhead luggage bins.

My un-lasts, or how I screamed my way into a club

2010-11-04T05:14:00.007+02:00

So as you all have perhaps surmised, I am not in Jordan anymore. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

In the weeks leading up to my departure, I concentrated on not thinking whatsoever about my impending goodbyes. I did not count down days. I did not have "lasts" (My last shwarama. My last trip to Carrefour. My last sugaring... eurgh. Back to the world of shaving.). However, I did try to do everything I always meant to do but never really did, such as taking all those touristy pictures and going on road trips just because I could. And, just for the sake of those lasts I wasn't having, I headed to our usual clubbing haunt, Cube, for one un-last night on the town.

You see, Wednesdays at Cube are 80s night. And by 80s, they mean anything from before the year 2010. But not always because I have heard music from this year there. Occasionally, they actually play an 80s song. Regardless, it's tons of fun, if you don't mind sharing that ton of fun with a ton of people and a ton of cigarette smoke.

But the problem is that Cube and I go way back. You see, Cube thinks it's cooler than it is. It thinks it's located in the classiest heart of New York City and only caters to the super cool instead of being off of a dark, rather unpopular street in the center of Jabal Amman. It all started the first semester I was in Jordan. I thought I was doing everything right. I knew that to get into Cube, you had to have a reservation. So like a good girl, I got the number of the club and made the call. Not only do you have to leave your name, you also have to say how many people are coming, what time you are coming and whether your boy ratio surpasses your girl ratio (It better not!). Check, check and check. Everything is hunky dory, right?

And no. We get to the club and, wouldn't you know it, my reservation is nowhere to be found! Wow! How could something like this happen in a country as efficient and well organized as Jordan? Whatever, I talked to the guy, yelled a little bit, and we were in.

The next time, I called the day before we wanted to go. Then I called the day of just to confirm. We're in like Flint, the guy promises. Not a problem. Checkarooni. We get there? Oh... Sorry. Not on the list. I yell a bit more. What is it about this country that loves to hear me scream?

A few more times go by with much the same occurring. A few more "missing reservations." A few people less or more than the reservation says. Always a problem. Every single time I end up yelling. It is not good for my blood pressure. Good thing there's always some stress relief in the form of beverages and dancing on the other side.

So for my un-last time at Cube, all I wanted was a drama-free night. I didn't want a fight. I didn't want a missing reservation. All I wanted was to dance and drink with my friends. So I called up Cube the day before. Then I called Cube the day of, only hours before. Then I sent a follow-up text message to the guy with all the information. No worries, he claims. You're in. You're golden.

We showed up a mere 15 minutes late, and all of our party was there. We had one more girl than guy. "I'm sorry, your name isn't on the list." Are you freaking kidding me? I showed the guy the text message; I talked to the manager. I was finally forced to yell.

At least that was the last time.

Getting fat during Ramadan

2010-10-16T00:15:00.003+02:00

I have now survived two Ramadans in Jordan. And I have gained weight during both of them. Why is it that we Americans manage to put on five pounds while the rest of Jordan isn't even eating? The culprit - snacking.

Think about it. Every restaurant is closed. You can't even pick up a juicy shwarama from down the street. It's 1000 degrees in the shade. And in the kitchen, so cooking? Out of the question. We are stuck at home all day with no work to distract us. What do we do? Head to the supermarket and get some chocolate. And some chips. And maybe some bread and cheese. And some more chips. Oo, and some dip. And then we commence our afternoons of sitting on the couch and snacking.

Then all our friends get home from work. And it's time for iftar. So we all go out to dinner. Are we hungry after all that snacking? Not one bit. Do we eat because it's there and it's tasty? You betcha.

Apologies, jeans. You won't be fitting for a while.

Traveling Solo

2010-10-15T23:59:00.002+02:00

Before coming to Jordan, I'd never really traveled by myself. Oh sure, I'd gone to see friends and grandparents around the U.S. and physically got there by myself. I even went on a trip to Australia "by myself..." at least up until I met and made friends with the rest of my group in Los Angeles... So technically I had friends before even getting to the Land Down Under.

No, what I mean is, I had never gotten on a plane by myself, flown to the destination by myself, stayed in a hotel by myself, eaten by myself and completed all activities by myself. Now I have done all of those things.

My first attempt at sightseeing solo was coming back from my delightful trip to Albania. I had a six-hour layover in Istanbul, and who wants to spend six hours in an airport when the famous Blue Mosque is right outside?

So off I went. And thank GOD I've already lived in the Middle East because if not those Turkish men would have eaten me alive. As it was, I was able to ask them for directions, get what I needed out of them and then take off WITHOUT being guilted into buying any of their cheap souvenirs OR getting hit on by them. Score. Saw the Blue Mosque. Check. Saw the Hagia Sophia. Check. Saw the Underground Basilica. Check. Saw the Topkapi Palace. Check. Back on the plane. Done.

Then, buoyed by my successful navigation of Istanbul, I immediately turned around and went to Dahab, Egypt, by myself. Snorkeled by myself. Saw the absolutely fantastic Blue Hole by myself. Ate by myself (does the flock of hungry cats constantly surrounding me count as company?). Got saddle sores from a camel by myself. Had a very relaxing, wonderful time.

And THEN, while I was in Palestine with Lena, I skipped out early and went to Bethlehem by myself.

And then I realized. Traveling by yourself opens up some wonderful options. You don’t have to wait or synchronize schedules with anyone. You only have to do exactly what you want to do. The world is open to whatever YOUR budget can handle; you don’t have to limit yourself to what your friends can afford. The world is your oyster, as they say.

But it is not half as much fun as going with friends.

The new love of my life...

2010-10-15T23:50:00.003+02:00

For the last three months, since my laptop crashed at the end of June, I've been scrounging, borrowing, begging for, and outright stealing all of my friend's computers for my online needs. Thank you everyone who loaned me a computer! You are the best.

But now, thanks to my daddy's unlimited amount of love and overindulgence, I once again am the proud owner of a laptop that belongs to me and only me! Ah! It was love at first sight.

She is small and shapely. She is super fast and has all the latest gadgets. She is pure white and has a tattoo of an apple that lights up on her back. Best of all, she has enormous... amounts of data storage. My kind of woman.

So now, with the help of my lovely new Macbook, I shall attempt to fill you in on the events of the last couple of months.

To be honest, I was thinking of doing a goodbye blog post, cutting and running, but I realized I just couldn't do that to my fans. And by fans, I mean my friend Sabine, the only person left in the world still reading my blog. Thank you, Sabine! I dedicate this blog and all my future blogs to you. You have stuck with me long after even my parents got bored of my ponderings.

And so we continue...

The Joys of Laptop ownership

2010-08-03T01:57:00.003+03:00

Apologizes for being off the air for more than a month. I haven't wanted to spend too much time on anyone's computer when they need it, which has resulted in my never having time to do blog posts. Oh, the joys of laptop ownership.

But I shall try to catch up in the next couple of weeks with some posts when my glorious friends allow me access to their computers.

Until then, I wish to send my darling Meme birthday greetings (her birthday in July and I am a total flake and forgot to call her) and my awesome PopPop birthday greetings for tomorrow, August 3.

Also, if you need updates about my life, please check out these three posts by my roommate Heather, which should give you a tiny bit of insight into what's been up in my life lately: her post on sweets, her post on all of our Ahmads, and her post on our latest trip.

Update

2010-06-26T18:06:00.002+03:00

I've been off the air for a little while due to traveling and now computer problems. That's right, my trusty Macbook Pro, with its little screen problem where only half the screen shows up, has decided to go whole hog and shorted its screen entirely. Hugely helpful, espeically as it happened right before my new job started. I now am borrowing my fantastic roommate's computer for all my lesson-planning and communication needs.

School is going well, though it started out rocky with a bit of Jordanian drama the very first day. After contacting me the night before and confirming I would be at school the next day, I arrived, fully armed with lesson plans, to find that they had made a mistake and I did NOT have a class after all. Whoops.

This change of plans would have meant no money for Gretchen until September and no way of getting a Syrian visa ahead of time for our trip at the end of August. Fortunatly fate and a large quantity of new students intervened and forced the school to split one existing class into two classes just for me.

My students range from 11 to 15 years old, and I even have one of my girls from the Ahliyyah School. The overall level of the students isn't quite as high as what I'm used to, but they are eager to learn and a lot of fun to teach. Plus, only having nine students after attempting to manage 28 in one class is just SO refreshing. Classroom management, managed.

I'm just thrilled to have a real, actual weekend again even if it is from Friday to Saturday! Weekend trips, here we come!

Albanian Realizations

2010-06-08T17:32:00.007+03:00

Several days ago, I returned from a whirlwind weekend of traveling in one place I had never even considered: Albania. In fact, the only thing I knew about the country was that Voldemort's essence fled to a dark, lonely forest in Albania when it was ripped from his body by his spell that had rebounded off of Harry Potter. And somehow I didn't think that pertinent piece of information was going to be super useful in Tirana, the capital.

So why did I follow Voldemort to such a small country I'd barely even heard of? To see some of my wonderful Mizzou friends as my good Albanian friend got married. And so I could show off my new dress of course.

As I readied myself for the voyage, I learned several slightly more useful facts about Albania. Apparently about 80 percent of the population is Muslim; however, unlike Jordan, the country has separated church and state and is located in Europe. Okay, so staying in the Islamic way of life but boy howdy was I getting the heck out of the Middle East for a weekend. Or so I thought.

My first preparation was deciding on finances. Three hundred dinar should do it, I thought. I consciously packed up 300 dinar and boarded the plan, set to stop in Istanbul. Although Albania probably wants nothing to do with my strange, colored Monopoly money, Istanbul, another Islamic, Middle-Easternish country should of course be able to change my dinars into something usable, right?

It turns out that no, Istanbul will NOT change Jordanian dinars at the airport. So all the sudden I went from having tons of money to having a handful of colored paper good for nothing except possibly rolling tobacco, except that sounds superbly unhealthy. Funny how monetary values and personal wealth can change in the blink of an eye.

Fortunately, after arriving in Albania, I was able to find an Internet cafe and Skype my mom for more money in my bank account, so the crisis was averted. But more about money troubles later.

As my plane touched down onto the wet concrete in Tirana, the first thing I noticed, seeing as how I live in a desert, was how GREEN everything was. The rural countryside on the outskirts of the capital was a brilliant verdigris, speckled with beige and red farmhouses and multiple forests creeping up into civilization. It reminded me of both the Italian and German countryside but with even more trees and forests. No wonder Voldemort ran for the forests here.

I got off the plane and through customs, with the guard there pretty much waving me through and, much to my disappointment, forgetting to stamp my passport. I found my German friend Sarah after about half an hour of waiting (the airport is about as big as a shopping mall, so locating her after her flight wasn't exactly hard), and together with two other German wedding guests, we headed for our hotel.

It was about a 45 minute drive, and afterward, everyone was talking about how crazy the drivers were and all the honking they did. But wait, I thought. That's what I think about Jordan. The driving and honking in Albania was positively mundane compared to what I am used to. However, they had a point. It was way worse than in Germany or the other European countries I've been to. This was my first inkling that perhaps this wasn't quite as far away from a Middle Eastern experience as I had thought.

Our first task was to find some freaking food because we were starving. We headed out toward the center of Tirana, a very small town that you could walk through given about an hour, and found a delightful little creperie. Unfortunately, we couldn't read the menus. This was when I realized, surprise surprise, I didn't speak any Albanian. No. Actually, I was aware that I didn't speak Albanian from the start. However, what was unusual was that I had come to Albania without learning any of the language, something I have NEVER done in all my travels. I always learn some token phrases first to get in good with the locals and ease my way into the culture. Way to be unprepared, Gretchen.

After a bit, we discovered some words that looked similar to our languages and figured out one that could be Four Cheese. I ordered it and thus learned the Albanian word for cheese. I then realized what was keeping me from learning a lot more Arabic. It's not the fact that Arabic is freakishly hard, even though it is. It's that I can't learn words by seeing them constantly on menus or on signs or in brochures like I can in other countries. Silly Arabic alphabet.

The other thing I noticed on the menu was, and it took me a minute to realize its significance, ham. Prosciutto. Jambon. Bacon. Pig. Pig, in an 80 percent Muslim country. It had been so long since I saw ham on a menu, I wasn't even sure what to make of it.

We ate our delicious crepes, said hi to our beautiful bride and called it a day. The next morning, we set off to explore the city. Halfway through the town, my friend was remarking on all the birds in cages in front of every shop. Once again, I was confused. I thought that was a Jordanian thing? No, it appeared that the custom of keeping birds in cages as pets or for good luck had followed me to Albania as well. We'll have our pigs and keep our birds, too.

The streets of Tirana were a cross between Europe and the Middle East. They were tighter and taller, like European villages, but the shops and open bazaars looked distinctly Middle Eastern. However, unlike in Jordan, there were plenty of stray dogs or people out with their beloved canine pets, just like in Europe.

The wedding that night was absolutely amazing. The ceremony was a mixture of Albanian and German traditions (nothing in English, sadly), and the bride and groom couldn't have looked happier. The reception consisted of much dancing and many MANY courses of food. I finally learned a version of the Arabic dance, the Dabka, and I rocked out to both Armenian and German tunes. We sampled some of the universal Ozo (in Greece) Arak (in Jordan), that strong licorice drink that makes people act silly. And we all stayed up WAY past our bedtimes.

The next morning, a group of us went to a nearby town to visit an Albanian castle and a bazaar. The castle was much smaller than we thought, but we had fun eating together and enjoying the beautiful Albanian countryside. Once again, I was just thrilled about the amount of greenery in the area.

However, it was on this day that I realized just how conservative about clothing I've become. My German friend, noting the heat and humidy threatening to confine us to our rooms, put on a tank top and shorts to wear on our day trip. I jumped into my jeans and a spaghetti-strap, white t-shirt combo. As we grabbed the last of our possessions in preparation for boarding the bus, my German friend made sure I didn't want to put on shorts before I left. "Sarah," I said, laughing. "I don't even own any shorts at this point."

And even if I did, after a year of hiding my legs and making sure my necklines are way past conservative, I honestly can't see myself jumping back into short shorts or skirts even once I'm back in the U.S. Jordan has taught me that I don't need to let it all hang out just to be in style; you can dress conservatively and still look great: long dresses, such as what I wore to the wedding; long skirts; tube tops to bring my necklines up. After a year of being looked up and down, even when completely covered, has totally nixed my desire to be stared at by guys. Who knew.

As my new friends and I hunted through the bazaar for anything worth buying, my friends suddenly ran to me and said, "Gretchen, Gretchen, is that the call to prayer?" I listened for a second, and sure enough that slow, haunting call was echoing up through the valley. I hadn't even heard it until the mentioned it. I am so used to hearing the call to prayer so many times a day that I don't even register it as a noise I need to listen for anymore. "Yep, that would be the call to prayer," I replied to my delighted new friends, who were sure they'd just experienced something extremely rare and culture. I'm surprised I didn't notice the LACK of a call to prayer while in Tirana. It's four in the morning! What's that noise? Silence? How quaint and odd!

That night, I had my second bout of money problems. I wanted to get enough Albanian Lek out of the ATMs to change into Euro to change into Turkish Lira for my four hours of sightseeing time during my layover in Istanbul the next day. This involved much muttering frantically to myself and about ten minutes with a calculator. I also had to switch my brain wildly back and forth between three different currencies: the Lek is about 130 Lek to the Euro / 100 Lek to the dollar; the Turkish Lira is about 2 Lira to the dinar. Talk about crunching numbers... or in this case, the other way around.

Thus ended my one-and-only trip to Albania, one I shan't soon forget. More than anything else, it allowed me a breath of fresh air, a chance to get away from the Middle East, just for a couple of days, and reevaluate everything I've learned here, both the good and the bad.

Silly Arabic alphabet...

The days of luxury flying are back - just not in America.

2010-06-08T10:42:00.003+03:00

The United States of America is, at least according to most Americans, at the forfront of all that is classy, innovative and popular. We set the trends, we have the most media influence on the world, we are a haven for all things luxurious.

Except on the airplane. Back in the early days of flying, air travel was a sophisticated, comfortable way to get around. You got meals on every flight; clean, fluffy pillows when you wanted them and personal service from the attendants that went beyond the occasionally distribution of peanuts. The seats, while not spacious, were comfortable enough, and your knees were not getting up close and personal with the seat in front of you.

Nowadays, any American-based airline you take offers none of these basic amenities. The flights, even the three-hour ones, contain no food service beside a flight attendent throwing a miniscule bag of pretzels at you, and comfort is not even an option even when reclining. You can get pillows and blankets if you're lucky, but cleanliness appears to be optional. Oh, sure, the international flights are usually bearable, but luxury domestic traveling in economy seats? A thing of the past, I thought.

And then I started using airlines from other countries. Qantas Air out of Australia remains my favorite, with individual, personalized televisions and tons of leg room. And I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Air Lingus, the Irish airline. But now I'm realizing that these airlines that treat their customers as people, not cargo, are the norm, and it's America whose standards are declining.

Royal Jordanian, for example, offers at least a sandwich for passengers on flights just over an hour long. Also, they don't cancel flights just because they don't have enough people on them, so the chances of getting empty seats next to you while flying is pretty darn good. Turkish Air, the airline I used this past weekend, gave me a small meal on every single flight, even the hour-long one from Istanbul to Albania. They walked around with newspapers and drinks anytime, and were always available with individually wrapped blankets and pillows. Now that's what I call service.

It's possible that Americans are just so used to flying that they've forgotten that getting there is supposed to be a pleasant part of the journey as well. In this case, I think we should cater to the beliefs of countries who still believe that flying is a treat and a luxury to be enjoyed, not delt with as fast as possible and forgotten.

Learn, American-based airlines. Learn.

Alternative Definitions 2

2010-06-03T12:39:00.002+03:00

And here are some more alternative definitions from the remainder of the girls.

Waddle: wiggle. A girl asked me to waddle her cat.
Intimate: is when two people are dressing the same colour.
Denote: a sign for something. My friend couldn't read the denote.
Indecent: not able to make decisions. I was indecent to what colour my new pjama would be.
Mince: the plural of mouse
Jut: a long pole. Look at this jut!
From one girl - Trudge: You trudge me. Strut: You strut me.
Surpass: we pass. Please let me surpass.
Rabble: My friend rabbled all over the place.
Heap: My teacher is going to teach me what heap means.
Prick: hand held. I used the prick to dig a hole.
Fatigued: fell down. I fatigued on the ground.
Trudge: an insect like a grass hopper eats an other insect. I found a trudge in my farm altho it looks like a grass hopper.
Mouldy: the hair on his chin. My dad is mouldy.
Trudge: I didn't study these words Ms. Gretchen.

Reevaluating Student/Teacher Relationships... via Facebook

2010-05-30T21:30:00.002+03:00

Gretchen's status: Gretchen Marie is still trying to decide how to approach being a teacher on Facebook.

Social medias such as Facebook have completely revolutionized the way we deal with relationships across the board. You are now not "official" until your relationship is there for all the world to see on Facebook. You are not "friends" until that relationship is concrete and the person is added to your friend list. And of course no day would be complete without the obligatory mundane status updates.

Although I fought this invasion into my personal life for quite a few years, I finally succumbed to the madness about three years ago. And even though I'm on the old side of college life, I still consider Facebook for my generation. I'm still almost a student, right?

Except then I noticed that all MY students are on Facebook. And they all want to be my Friend.

Now don't get me wrong. My Facebook account isn't juicy by any stretch of the imagination. But there's still some line I'd like to draw between what my kids know about my personal life and what they'd see if they were my friends on Facebook. Some questionably written wall posts. Some pictures of me at parties. Even some pictures of me with, gasp, BOYS.

My unwritten rule when I was still a student was that I would not friend my teachers until I was out of their classroom AND if I had had a bit of a personal relationship with them. As I was a grad student, I had fairly good relationships with most of my teachers. And then there were my TAs in some classes, who happened to be some of my good friends in real life... Grad school gets complicated when it comes to teachers and friends.

So when 50 or so of my girls started sending me friend requests on Facebook, I had a decision to make. Should we be "Friends"? Should I take our student/teacher relationship to a whole new level and give my kids a new outlet for pestering me about grades?

I decided that no, I did not want to be a Friend to my girls while I was still their teacher. But... I won't be their teacher anymore in a grand total of four days.

So I've already created a group that will SEVERELY limit their access to anything personal on my site. They will be able to see my information and send me messages. And that's pretty much it. No pictures. No wall posts. Nothing remotely juicy.

And no student/teacher relationship to influence. Besides, it will be a good way for me to stay in touch with my girls.

Bring on the Friend requests.

Alternative Definitions

2010-05-22T15:16:00.002+03:00

Heather just posted a similar post on her blog, but as these are my students, I wanted credit for their cuteness as well.

Recently, they took a vocabulary test in which they had to write the meaning and a sentence containing ten of 35 vocabulary words they chose and memorized. Even though the original definitions were from a dictionary, my girls still got a bit confused about what was what. Some of my girls had brilliant meanings and sentences. And then there were these.

Grumpy: something is nice.
Clumsy: something is not tidy. I hate someone is clumsy.
Vibrant: a thing that move. My mobile vibrat when I was at school.
Trudge: a deep hole. I love to go inside a deep hole.
Shiver: to move the water behind the boat.
Waddle: were we put the boat. I like to waddle the boat.
Toss: plural of toes.
Grumpy: is to made or because something wet. My brother made my room grumpy.
Portrayal: a tall plant that is grown in wet places.
Intimate: in bissness.
Caught: something you were in the winter. he is warring a nice red and blue caught.
Crept: like a potato that is grown in large quantities.
Vacant: a vacant is a person who workes for help. I saw a vacant in the park.
Sting: something so sticky. There is something stingy over there.
Odd: person that is helping people. This odd is not working anymore because it was fired.

Or Door Number Three?

2010-05-22T15:04:00.002+03:00

I had my life frantically set in to some semblance of an order. Until Door 3 opened up.

Instead of running back to America with my tail between my legs in mid-July, I am going to be teaching English at a summer English program/camp with Bell Amman. I will teach about the same amount of hours I do now but for WAY more money. Plus, because it's a camp, I'll be doing way more fun activities instead of teaching straight from a curriculum like I was doing this year.

The other great thing about it is that each session is three weeks long, then some days off. So I'll also have plenty of time to get in all the traveling I still need to do before I get the heck out of here.

So far, my schedule looks like this:

June 4 - 7: Go to Albania for a friend's wedding.

June 12: Last day of school at Ahliyyah.

June 13 - 16: Go to Dahab, Egypt, by myself, if I can work up the nerve. Apparently it has some spectacular snorkeling. I just have to talk myself into being braver about being a single woman in the Middle East. And, frankly, Dahab is NOT scary. Zip up your man suit and go snorkeling, Gretchen.

June 20: Start work at Bell Amman

June 25 - 26: Wadi Rum with Lena and her family

July 7 - 17: First vacation! Israel and Palestine with Lena.

July 18: Start second session at Bell Amman

August 4 - 8: Second vacation! Go to Tel Aviv.

August 19: Last day of working for Bell Amman

August 20: My birthday!

August 21 - 31: Syria and Lebanon with Heather

September 1 - 9thish: hang out in Amman with Lena

September 9thish - End of Eid: Travel with Lena

End of Eid: Go back to America for a month

Mid-October: Move to Toronto with my Jimmy and my children!

Note to self: Find job in Toronto before moving.

I'm tired just thinking about it.

Door Number One or Door Number Two

2010-05-12T00:02:00.003+03:00

As it turns out, I'm going with Door Number Two.

Yes, that's right. For all of you anxiously awaiting news of my pending future, I am in fact leaving Jordan and coming back to the U.S. (or Canada) next year.

I will finish out the semester at my school, travel frantically with whoever lets me tag along on trips and then sail back to the U.S., loaded down with all my Middle Eastern booty, hopefully in mid-July.

I will then travel a bit around the U.S., seeing old friends and staying in the house just long enough to enjoy being with my parents but not long enough for me and my father to start bickering. Then my hope is to move to Toronto with Jimmy in mid-August.

Before I leave, however, I will attempt to cross out quite a few more must-see places on my Middle Eastern itinerary. I'll go to Syria, Lebanon and Dahab in June and I'm aiming for Israel and Palestine in July. Anyone in the Middle East want to join?

The one flaw in my oh-so-perfect plan is, of course, that I don't actually have a job in Toronto... And it turns out that, despite all of the If-Bush/Obama-gets-elected-I'll-move-to-Canada threats, Canada does not seem to appreciate Americans waltzing in and demanding work. It appears I have to find a job before I get a work permit. Who knew.

SOOOOoooo, if anyone has any contacts in the writing/editing/communications/publishing/public relations/teaching/event planning/administration/anything else willing to give me money fields over there, I would LOVE to hear from them.

Until then, I have two months left to enjoy my Middle Eastern home and all that it has to offer (i.e. cheap spa treatments, argeeleh, hills that keep my butt in shape, cheap dvds, shwarma, and of course my very wonderful best friends who I will miss very much.).

Gretchen sacrifices a few fingers for a kitten

2010-05-09T17:04:00.003+03:00

If you'll recall, a while ago I blogged about the relentless mating cats all over Jordan were doing and the inevitable offspring that would start appearing after these unions. Up until today, I hadn't seen many of the fruits of said couplings.

Until today.

Lena and I were taking our customary Sunday walk (for the first time in about a month) up some stairs. We spotted an offshoot to the right of said stairs, and right in the middle of the path was an adorable little kitten. We stealthily followed cute kitten down the path and met not only him but his sibling and mother. Just at that moment, an obnoxious little boy came out of the apartment next to us and proceeded to chase cute kitten down the stairs and almost out onto the busy road.

I overtook obnoxious boy with the intention of beaning him on the head if I got close enough, but he ran away. I was then stuck with the task of reuniting cute kitten with mommy and sibling.

I attempted to gently chase cute kitten back up to mommy and sibling, but the stairs were twice his height, and he was exhausted. Feisty, too. He was hissing at me like nobody's business.

I couldn't just leave him so close to the road, however, so, telling him that it was for his own good and that I was very sorry, I scooped up cute kitten.

He did not appreciate this high-handed rescue attempt and proceeded to reduce my fingers to shreds with his teeny kitten claws. Fortunately, I've had a lifetime's experience withstanding cat attacks, so I calmly kept my grip on him and deposited him back down the alley where we first saw mommy and sibling. His high-pitched screaming should have been enough to call mommy back over to where she could find him easily.

Good cat deed of the day, accomplished. Now to put anti-bacterial on my bleeding hands...

Me talks English reel good

2010-05-06T19:59:00.005+03:00

I have spent a considerable amount of both time and money throughout the years perfecting my knowledge and usage of the English language.

I've read like a maniac since the day I could first hack out sentences in my Easy-Reader. I actually loved English class for teaching me grammar and how to diagram sentences, a sentiment the majority of my classmates did NOT share. I had a college-level vocabulary in the eighth grade and pretentiously use big words in everyday conversations. I've done two degrees in English-related fields, and the last one contained a grammar-INTENSIVE course that pretty much knocked out any English mistakes that creep into my writing with a mallet the size of the Washington monument.

Before I got to Jordan, I could write 3,000-word articles for magazines with not a single mistake in grammar, spelling or typing. I could edit articles all day for the same. I was an almost foolproof proofreader who took the time to look up grammar rules at work if I was the least bit unsure. They called me the comma queen at my last job because I knew a rule for placing or taking out a comma anywhere in the sentence almost every time.

I was GOOD at English. Not just James Brown "I Feel Good" good but Mohammad Ali "I AM the Greatest" good.

Then I got to Jordan. Now I spend all day every day listening to broken English. I read children books more than I read adult books. I constantly correct 5th grade English essays that, while good for their age and ability level, can contain every type of grammar, punctuation or spelling mistake out there.

And tragically I'm absorbing English mistakes into my own writing at an alarming and disheartening rate, and my English level has plummeted down to a barely passing 5th grader's. Yep. I just might fail my own class.

When I speak on the phone to someone I know doesn't understand English very well, I find myself saying things like, "No, that's bad time. You come later? I wait you." or copying phrases such as "near to" from my foreign friends.

When writing, I have homophone trouble the likes of which would make my Magazine Editing teacher burst into tears of frustration, and today I managed to spell "their" on the board as "thier." Twice. And my kids had to correct it for me. SO embarrassing.

I'm starting have the urge to read incredibly long, intellectual novels in flawless English... just to prove I still can. WHILE I still can.

Because tomorow mine english mite not is so good.

A normal day in Jordan

2010-05-05T17:14:00.002+03:00

So yesterday, after an uneventful yet taxing day at work, I come home and Heather tells me the news of the day. (disclaimer: I have read none of the news reports on this myself as most of them were in Arabic. Therefore all of this info is exponentially second hand.)

Up in part of the city where we used to live, there was apparently a trio of Bedouins who were dealing drugs of unknown specifications. The police attempted a drug bust and the dealers retaliated by attacking the fully armed officers with long freaking swords. Now the sword is a mighty weapon indeed, especially when wielded by a master, but they didn't reach quite as far as the police guns. And the police were a bit peeved that drug crazed sword bearers were slashing at them.

End result - one of the dealers got killed. As is the norm here in the Middle East, his extensive family was a bit ticked off as well. They showed their displeasure at the death of their relative by subtly rioting in the streets, shooting off guns and setting fire to things.

Many people couldn't run errands or go to work because of the ruckus. Apparently it's a totally legit excuse if you say you couldn't make it to work because there was a shooting going on outside.

Comparatively, doing grading analyses all day is sounding positively cheery.

Cake Cake Cake

2010-05-05T17:09:00.003+03:00

Just a side note. It took us a very long time to find decent cakes here in Amman. All the cakes were too... fluffy... and fake tasting... for lack of a better way to describe them.

But we have now found the mecca of cakes. Mirabelle Cakes, in Abdoun just behind the Abdoun Mall, has phenomenal cakes and excellent baklava just in case you need to indulge that sweet tooth just a little bit more.

I can highly recommend Mirabelle Cakes from plenty of experience; last month I ordered three different cakes for three different birthdays, and each cake was rapture in chocolate form.

Try the snickers. Just the right amount of crunchy goodness.

Should I Stay or Should I Go Now

2010-04-26T23:28:00.004+03:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I am still happy here in Jordan. I have my routine, my friends, my life here. I have my favorite cafes, and we are always discovering new places to go.

That being said, I am getting a little tired of Amman. I'm tired of the shebab (guys) hanging out all over the streets at all hours of the day, making it impossible for me to be completely comfortable walking around even my own neighborhood. I'm tired of them saying "Oh my god" or asking me where I'm from or welcoming me lecherously to Jordan every time I walk by. I'm tired of not being able to go out to a club for a reasonable sum of money, and I'm tired of not having any parks or green grass to sit on.

I am NOT, however, getting tired of Jordan. Every time I leave the city, I see more and more things I haven't seen yet. With my mom, I saw Petra and Wadi Rum, two magnificent places of which I don't think I could ever get tired. We are going to Aqaba this weekend, for two days of sun, snorkeling and refusing to think about work or obligations. We still have so much to see in Jordan alone, including the desert castles, Wadi Mujib, some towns up north, the Ma'an Hot Springs, Faynan and others. No, Jordan. I am definitely not tired of you.

Nor am I tired of the region. There's still so much for me to explore here in the Middle East. I haven't made it to Syria or Lebanon, Israel and Palestine or Oman, all places on my must-go-before-I-leave list. Possibly an end-trip to Greece and Turkey wouldn't go amiss either.

But Amman is losing some of its appeal for me, and I think that loss coincides with the departure of so many of my close friends.

Last fall, I started out with nothing and built up an amazing friend base that made Amman the amazing place that it was. As more and more of them leave to resume their lives in their home countries, they leave spaces in my life that I have not yet begun to replace. And the more end-of-the-year schoolwork overwhelms me, the less energy I have for going out and meeting new people to fill the void. It's a problem.

I also think I'm starting to feel how far away my family is and how much I'm missing by not being able to jet home for the weekend. In the next year, I have one family member and two friends getting married, a family reunion and my brother's graduation from the Air Force Academy, all things I really don't want to miss.

So what to do? Do I go back to the states (well, to be honest I'll most likely follow Jimmy to Canada), lose my routine and healthy life here but gain back the convenience of my family and friends? Or do I stay and spend one more year being annoyed with Amman but still getting to experience the wonder and fascination of the Middle East?

Time to go flip a coin I guess.

Through her Eyes

2010-04-26T23:21:00.005+03:00

After living in Jordan for almost nine months, so much of what I found fascinating or different about this country has become everyday, commonplace sights and activities.

But at the beginning of this month, I had the extreme pleasure of hosting my mom here in Jordan. And seeing my new world through her eyes was one of the best things I've done for myself in a while. It gave me a fresh start to being in Jordan and reminded me why I love this place so much. On the flip side, it also made me recognize just how annoying some things here can be...

As I drove to the airport in my barely moving rental car, I examined the scenery surrounding me. My mom was lucky to come to Jordan in the spring; flowers are blooming (unfortunately for my allergies) and even here in the desert we have beautiful greenery and vegetation. I, however, showed up in Jordan in August, a much less scenic and much drier time of year. The dust-colored August sky was not quite as pretty as the baby blue we've got going on now.

My mother hadn't been off the plane for more than three hours before we got stuck in our first sheep crossing. Over the four-lane highway of course. Go, sheep, go.

And of course she got to experience the joy that is driving around in Jordan by shutting her eyes and praying every time I got within ten feet of a Jordanian driver. What she still fails to realize is that if you wait patiently for traffic to ease up or for other drivers to let you in, you don't move. Obviously her Oh-God-I'm-going-to-die reflex has not been as severely numbed as mine has over the last few months. If I'm in a taxi and I think I'm going to die, that guy is SERIOUSLY scary.

But she did brave my driving long enough for us to journey pretty much all over Jordan. We saw Madaba, the Dead Sea, Petra, Wadi Rum and, of course, the fabulous tourist sites in Amman... all two of them.

She was fascinated by the call to prayer and was even woken up by it once or twice, something that hasn't happened to me in about eight months. She thought all of the Jordanian architecture, with all the beige house replicas all over the hills of Amman, was just as interesting as I did when I first got here. She got horribly lost while we were driving around within the city (which I still do, unfortunately) and thought schwarma and falafel were exotic, novelty foods. Haha. How quaint!

And if she thought those were exotic, she was blown away by the rest of the cuisine. We ate. And ate. And then ate some more. Well, she had to try everything, right? So we had the basics, like hummus, baba ghannush, muttabul and labneh. We also had maglubeh and a mansaf night. And then on her last night here we took her to a fancy Arabic dinner, which consists of about a million small appetizers called mezze, grilled meats called mashawi, and fruit for dessert. And just because we weren't stuffed enough, we had cake for our second dessert.

One thing my mother did have trouble with was the engaging-strange-people-in-conversation faux pas we all make our first couple days here. You would have thought she was in Texas the way she smiled at people on the street and wished them good day. Weirded me out to no end. And she said she would never get used to having to bargain for everything you buy because you know they are giving you the "tourist price." Those silly Jordanians. They mistakenly think I have money.

But the best part about having my mom here was that I got to show her all of those little, insignificant things that make up my life here. She got to walk down Rainbow Street with me. She got to worry about running out of water halfway through the week just like I do. She even got to come to school with me, meet my girls and find out how annoying + cute they can really be.

And somehow that made all the little things here that much more meaningful.

This day in history

2010-04-17T20:23:00.002+03:00

Today, April 17, 2010 marks the day when Gretchen, Lena and Heather finally received their residency cards. Yes, that's right. After eight months of working, they are finally legal to work in Jordan, just in time to finish the year. There was much rejoicing in the teacher's room.

Even better, they spelled my name correctly on the card.

You try being a journalist when...

2010-03-18T15:09:00.002+02:00

For the last month, I've been trying to get back to my journalistic roots and write an article for a business magazine here in Amman called Venture. To make a long story short, it hasn't been going so well.

I might not be the best journalist/reporter in the world, but I've written many MANY articles in my time and talked to hundreds of sources. I know what I'm doing. I know how to call, when to call, how to talk to them, etc. However, it appears I haven't quite learned how to deal with the working eccentricities of most Jordanians.

For one thing, no one here, and I mean NO ONE, has voice mail. It's like it doesn't exist. You have to keep calling and calling and calling and calling. That or you text message. I have in fact sent several professional text messages asking about interviews or job opportunities for this very reason.

The second hurdle I'm having to overcome is the fact that I work until 2. And so does the whole of Jordan, apparently. A normal workdays seems to start at 10 a.m. and finish around 2 p.m. because I cannot for the life of me get anyone to answer their phones after 2 p.m. on a workday. A representative for a source today told me they usually left by 1:30 p.m. and that I would have to call before that. Having a full-time job (until 2 p.m.) is making freelancing in this country an absolute impossibility it seems.

The third, not completely unexpected, obstacle in the way of my writing a decent article is of course the language barrier. No one wants to speak to me in English. They all speak English, of course, at least the higher-up sources I'm trying to talk to, but they think it's easier to have me send multiple emails and annoy the crap out of them as opposed to talking with me on the phone for ten minutes. And meeting up? Ha! When would they have time for that?

In my last interview, which was indeed in person, the guy managed to misunderstand most of the questions I asked him, responding to the small part of my questions he was sure he understood. He finished the meeting by informing me that it was 3:30 p.m. on a Thursday (which is like America's Friday) and that he had to go home.

Needless to say, I missed my deadline.

Moving furniture and missing friends

2010-03-09T20:34:00.006+02:00

It all started with a dresser. It just didn't feel right in that corner anymore, I thought. And, well, actually, that bed could flip around too. And what about those bookcases?

It wasn't about the bookcases. Or the bed. Or the dresser. It was about my exchange student sister leaving me.

This was the first time I'd dealt with someone I loved leaving me, possibly for good. And of course I knew I'd see her again. But we'd never have another year like the one we had. We'd never get to have unlimited time to spend with each other, without it being planned, with it being natural and part of everyday life.

The first time I rearranged my furniture was the week she left. For me, it wasn't about making the bed face the window. It was about changing something, a change I could see to match the change within myself, to hide the gaping hole I now felt. It was caring about something trivial to mask the pain of losing part of my heart. It was moving things around so I could move forward.

When my boyfriend at the time moved away, I redid the living room. When my new exchange students left the year after, I rearranged my boyfriend's living room. When I moved away to grad school, I had a whole new apartment to make my own, my new change, my new life.

I was never any good at making friends. Not good friends anyway. Not lasting friends. But somewhere along the way, I got lucky. And in the last couple of years, I've been blessed with more good friends than I can count.

You know the ones who will stick with you. You know the ones you will keep in touch with once you aren't in the same city anymore. And you know that if you are truly meant to stay friends, if they truly touched your life in some way, you will make sure you stay in touch and see each other again.

For one who travels as much as I do, making friends just to have them leave you or to have you leave them is part of life. At first it was hard. I couldn't fathom how I could love my sister so much yet not have her be a regular part of my life anymore. I was afraid that it was the end. But it wasn't. We still talk. I still talk to all my best friends on a regular basis. Now I'm not afraid to lose friends. I'm not afraid to move couches and buy new wall paintings. Because I know that moving away is not the end of the book, it's just the end of a chapter. A new one is just around the corner.

I knew my life in Amman would be transient. It's part of the reason I love it here so much - the constant flow of people. But the price of that change, that freshness is that you lose some of the friends you have on a seasonal basis.

It all started with a dresser. It's continuing now with moving around a chair and buying a new lamp for the living room. It's a week to change, to look forward, to move on but never forget.

To the friend who's leaving this week: you have been such an important part of my life here in Amman. I shall miss you. I hope we can be those friends that continue on regardless of location, but if time does separate us, I wish you luck and happiness in everything that you do.

To the new friends waiting to be made: my living room is arranged and ready for you. Ahlan o sahlan.

Sidewalks? In Amman?

2010-03-08T15:27:00.002+02:00

Recently, two different people sent me the same article from the New York Times talking about the new sidewalks Amman is installing to make it easier for people to walk. Read the article.

It's true that Amman does have a problem with sidewalks being rather unusable. As we like to say, only the tourists walk on the sidewalks. This is because the sidewalks in Amman are filled with things like holes, trees, shrubs, buildings and other fun things that make in impossible to walk in a straight line. When you walk on the street, people honk at you and try to hit you. Win/win.

Fortunately, it looks like Amman has realized this error and is looking to correct said sidewalks. Unfortunately, I have not yet seen the fruit of this project. I'll let you know when it's safe to walk on the sidewalks.

Sugaring and Other Consequences of Cultural Experiences

2010-03-01T22:49:00.004+02:00

So about two weeks ago, I was sugared for the first time. No, tragically, this process did not involved cupcakes.

What it did involve, however, was lying with only a towel wrapped around me while a woman ripped out most of my body hairs violently from their roots. Sugaring, it appears, is when a professional hair removal artist takes a handful of what looks like a wad of thick, clear, orange Gak (yes, that awful stuff we used to play with as kids) and stretches it tight and hard against your skin. Then she rips it off of your skin in pieces. The hair comes with it. Fortunately the skin stays put. Regardless, I too would have preferred the cupcakes.

But that's what they do here. Women in Jordan get sugared. It appears that any body hair is just not attractive, so Jordanian women routinely get everything removed. And when I say everything, I mean everything.

In the spirit of trying out new cultural norms, I decided to go with my friend for my very first sugaring experience. Note: I have never, ever had any professional hair removal done in the U.S. My total hair-be-gone experience has consisted of a razor. No waxing, no cremes, and definitely no sugaring. But we had a Dress-To-Impress party coming up, and I thought I'd give it a try.

The most traumatic thing for me going in was the undressing and lying there pretty much naked part, I have to admit. I wasn't even that concerned about the pain part. I really just thought it would be enormously awkward having someone rip the hair off of parts of your body that you can even see. I really shouldn't have worried.

I walked into the softly lit, beautiful room with an older woman, who promptly left me alone. "Well crap," I thought to myself. "I have NO idea what I'm supposed to be doing." The logical thing was to take all of my clothes off, wrap the towel around myself and curl up on the table/bed type thing. So I did.

Once I was firmly seated and just as firmly clutching my towel, the woman came back in. She had to be the sweetest woman on the face of the planet. She made delightful small talk with me, and it seemed completely normal for her to be ripping the hair off my legs as we chatted. The legs went well. She moved on to my arms, which I had decided to sugar as well to enter into the spirit of the Jordanian full-body sugar, and armpits. And then it was time for the clincher: the bikini area.

This was the part I'd been dreading. The painful, excruciatingly embarrassing part. But to be honest, it wasn't that bad. Yeah, it hurt. It hurt quite a bit in fact. But she was just so matter-of-fact about the entire procedure that I wasn't embarrassed at all. Or perhaps I was too busy trying not to cry to be embarrassed. She also kept apologizing to me with every rip. "It's not fair," she told me after one particularly painful separation of skin and hair. "The men, they get to keep the hair. But us? So much pain." I agreed completely.

Once the bikini area was complete, (And this is the part I debated on whether or not to write... But in the interests of honest service journalism and perhaps the chance to make someone out there chuckle, I'll tell all the facts as they happened.) she straightened up and said, "5alas." Finished. Great, I thought, about to hop off the table. Survived. "No, no," the woman said, pointing me back into place. "Turn. Fi hair here," she added, pointing to the very center of her butt.

Well, that was news to me. Yet I obediently rolled over and let the most awkward part of the entire scenario take place. But you know what? Even that was so matter-of-fact that it wasn't even as embarrassing as it could have been. And now my arms, legs... and everywhere else are as smooth as can be.

So if you'd also like to experience the thrill that is the Jordanian full body sugar, I would recommend Sara from Amber Spa. Darling woman. Is now my best friend, based solely on the fact that she has now seen more of me than I have.

Cheers to new, albeit painful, experiences.

A Plug by Any other Name

2010-02-28T23:52:00.002+02:00

America has the two pronged, sometimes three pronged plug. Europe has the oh-so-fun Europlug, which can be both thick and round. But Europe can also have a variation of the Europlug that is skinnier. The UK has weird, overly large square prongs. Jordan apparently couldn't decide between these magnificent specimens and chose to use all three of the latter options.

When buying electronics, it's pretty much the luck of the draw. Most will have the thick Europlug end. Some have the UK square end. No electronics have the skinny, round Europlug, which conveniently is the only socket available in our apartment.

To compensate for this, we have to buy numerous adapters and power strips. It is completely normal here to have cords with two to three different adapters stuck on the ends of them, changing things from American to Europlug to skinny Europlug. Even better, you can have American three prong changed to American two prong changed to thick Europlug changed to skinny Europlug. Another fun one is having a power strip plugged into a power strip plugged into a power strip.

All the sockets at school, however, only take the UK plugs, which I do not possess adapters for. Ma fi mushkala, as they say. My coteacher showed me the proper Jordanian way of handling such problems: you shove the Europlug haphazardly in the UK socket as far as it will go and stick a pencil in the third hole so that it will think there's a prong there. Problem solved.

Another fun twist to the plug problems here happened to Lena about a month ago. She and her roommates had just gotten a new washing machine from their landlord. They moved it into position, grabbed some dirty clothes... and discovered that their washing machine did not even have a plug. It ended in bare wires. What to do?

Why pull out another ingenious Jordanian solution, of course! Twist the wires together yourself and stick a plug on the end! Now that's a safe way to handle an electrical appliance filled with water!

As if all these problems weren't bad enough, the electrical current in Jordan is not exactly what anyone sane would call stable. We have surges, spikes, lags, you name it. Surge protectors? What are those?

It's a wonder we haven't all electrocuted ourselves into toaster strudels by now.

Gunshots and Fireworks. A'adi

2010-02-28T23:44:00.002+02:00

In America, we see fireworks on the fourth of July. And that's about it.

In Jordan, however, they are pretty much a daily occurrence and are usually accompanied by gunshots, honking of car horns and much cheering. They do this for weddings, engagement announcements, exam scores, graduations, job promotions, dinners, you name it. You get used to it. Really fast. Or you develop a nervous complex and twitch a lot.

Newbies here, however, might not take such celebrations in stride. Here is an email Heather forwarded to me from the American Embassy, warning us of just such festivities.

"On Saturday February 6th, the Jordanian Ministry of Education intends to release the interim results of the high school exam (the Tawjihi). Families throughout Amman often celebrate when the test results are announced, and for some the celebrations are exuberant. Groups of young adults may drive around in cars blowing horns, and some individuals may shoot into the air. The direct threat is minimal, but traffic may be congested. Please do not be surprised if you hear shooting."

The Tawjihi mentioned here is a high school exam that determines what fields you can enter in college. For example, you have to make a certain score to be able to study medicine or engineering or something like that. (I wonder what you would have to make to study journalism?)

Regardless, the Saturday in question was unremarkable in its shootings and/or fireworks. Or perhaps I'm just so used to these sorts of things to even notice at this point. But thanks very much for your concern, American Embassy.

Dear Mother Nature,

2010-02-28T23:22:00.003+02:00

As much as I appreciate all the water you are giving to this desert region, don't you think four days straight of freezing rain and sleet are a little much? My toes are cold. My toes are very cold.

And what is with this frigid air on the tail end of two beautiful weeks in which I needed nothing but a t-shirt? You're just being a tease now.

My sinus drainage would appreciate a break and a jump back into warmer climates before I get the flu. I think I've already developed emphysema, based on the amount of hacking up a lung I've been doing lately. Do you not hear the emphysematic death rattle in my throat? Not to mention that I can't take my walks now and I have asthma attacks when I try to exercise in my room. And I've been drinking hot, sugary beverages like they are going out of style. That really can't be healthy.

So thanks again so much for the beautiful rain that turns the city into a haze of luminescence, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, yeah? Maybe it's time to heat up just enough for my nose to stop running.

Regards,

~Gretchen

Mac Discrimination

2010-02-28T23:05:00.002+02:00

Sorry about the lack of blogging this month, but it's been a doozy.

On that note, one thing that has been making my life even more stressful lately is the complete obliviousness about Mac laptops here in Jordan. It's like they've never even heard of them. You can't get programs for them, you can't find anyone to fix them, and people get mad at you for having them.

At my school, for example, we are attempting to implement a new font on to all our laptops so that all our worksheets match the font in the textbooks. However, to install said font, you need Windows, which I do not possess.

Not only that, but the IT department has NO idea how to work with Macs or that you need different software to install programs on Macs. Super fun. So now I get to write all my worksheets on the grand total of three school computers, which we have to fight over between all of us teachers already and which don't work half the time.

Tonight, as I attempted to create some report cards in a new Internet program that the school is using, I discovered that the javascript in the program cannot be read properly by Safari or Mozilla, the two browsers I had on my laptop. I downloaded the Mac version of Internet Explorer, which I strongly dislike, but even the Mac version of that was not compatible with the program's javascript. So I had to do all my report cards on Heather's computer. Oh, except for the 11 or so names that had not been translated into English and were still squiggle.

Even better, my Mac's screen has been acting up lately. As in not working if you so much as bump it. I have to keep it perfectly still at all times, which is super fun with a laptop. The reason I can't just drop it by the Apple repair shop is that there's a grand total of one Apple shop in Amman that is reportedly ridiculously expensive. I have not been, needless to say.

My coordinator even mentioned that I should perhaps sell my computer and buy a new one. That sounds like a cheap option. Good thing I have oodles of extra money running around.

Regardless, I've gone Mac. I'm not going back.

Half a year Anniversary!

2010-02-06T23:22:00.001+02:00

Shoot, two days late.

Happy six month anniversary, Jordan!

So happy together...

Staying Warm Fail

2010-02-04T18:37:00.002+02:00

In response to the horrific winter weather happening outside my apartment, I decided to make myself a little warmer by putting plastic on my windows.

Let me explain.

The headboard of my bed is pushed up against an extremely large window in my room. Our entire house is a bit nippy (we have no artificially produced heat, only body heat), but it's especially chilly right against the windows. I am very warm while in my bed, but I worry that the cold air right around my head will aggravate my already irritated asthma. Heather brought some of that sheet plastic you get in America to stick on the windows and seal them against drafts. Sounded like the perfect plan to me.

So I anal retentively followed the instructions about putting the double-sided tape up around the windows. I carefully measured my plastic. And I began sticking it up.

First of all, that was the sorriest excuse for double-sided tape I have ever had the misfortune to experience. It had basically no stick on the double side. So the plastic fell right back off. I attempted to tape the plastic to the walls themselves before I began blow-drying the plastic to dry it and make it seal itself to the windows, or so the instructions claimed.

They were mistaken. Or perhaps they just don't work on windows that slide past each other, so that when closed, one of the windows is a good two inches deeper into the wall than its partner. The plastic didn't stick. It didn't stick at all. And when I tried to just pull it taunt over the sunken-in area, a breeze would blow through and make the plastic crinkle like a plastic bag caught in the wind. Not a pleasant noise to listen to while trying to fall asleep.

Needless to say, the plastic idea failed miserably, and I now have a towel stuffed in the bottom of the window. It's still cold.

Walking in the Diet Coke of Winter Wonderland

2010-02-04T18:24:00.003+02:00

So school was canceled today. We didn't get four feet of snow on the ground. People weren't sliding around over black ice. There wasn't six inches of frozen solid snow on people's cars that they had to hack at for an hour and a half just to be able to pry open the car doors (Oh Missouri, how I don't miss thy winters).

When I woke up this morning, it was raining. To be fair, it was a cold rain, but it was definitely just raining. They delayed school for an hour. When I got to school, chaos ensued, as none of us knew the new timetable and were severely unprepared for the unexpected delays of the day. We shouldn't have worried.

We held classes for a grand total of an hour and a half before it started raining again and they decided it was too dangerous for the kids to stay there. They called the parents and the buses and packed them all back home. My friend texted to tell me his work had been canceled for the day as well. It had stopped raining by then.

We had some errands to run, so we walked around in the rainy and freezing yet not incredibly dangerous weather. While we were in one shop, it did start snowing and sleeting for about 15 minutes. The perfect description of a wintry mix.

At this time, it is bitterly cold out there, and people are predicting snow for the next two days. I'll believe it when I see it. In the city's defense, we live in the lowest and warmest part of the city, and I heard that elsewhere it did actually snow and freeze.

Maybe it's because people here don't see a lot of winter weather, but it seems that they get overly concerned about the weather. I've had people cancel plans on me, delay school, etc, just on the possibility that it might rain or snow. If we canceled plans every time we had weather in America, we'd pretty much stay inside the house from November to late March.

I'd write more on this topic, but I better bundle up quick before it starts snowing again!

Sweet manna from Heaven, I have found you

2010-02-02T22:22:00.003+02:00

Three days ago, I discovered something better than boys, better than shwarma, better than, dare I say it, chocolate. Or at least healthier than all three of those anyway.

I have found: pomelos. A sweet, citrus fruit shaped much like an overly large yellow orange, the pomelo is a juicy, absolutely delicious way to enjoy a healthy dessert. According to Wikipedia, a reliable source, the pomelo is native to Southeast Asia. Even better, it's pretty much a workout in itself to get all the fruit out of it, so Heather got dinner and a show as she watched me maim this humongous "lusho fruit" as it is also called.

Mmm. Vitamin C overdose, here I come.

Nerdy Journalism Friends, this one's for you

2010-02-02T22:03:00.007+02:00

I was recently handed a copy of a genuine article written in the Jordan Times on January 12, 2010. Right between two delightful, not to mention cheery, articles about backlash toward Israel and Palestinian reconciliation talks was a photo box that showed a local with an enormous swordfish he caught down in Aqaba.

But that wasn't what made the article interesting. What WAS interesting was that the journalist had thought to include a bit of helpful trivia about the usual size of swordfish... trivia found on the best friend of journalists everywhere - Wikipedia.

How many times did we discuss Wikipedia in pretty much ALL of my journalism classes? When is it EVER ok to use Wikipedia as a source? Why would you ever want to when Wikipedia provides such handy links to actual reliable sources at the bottom of their pages?

This spawned a rash of Wikipedia jokes and Facebook threads from many of my Western friends here in Jordan. My Jordanian friends don't particularly see what all the fuss is about.

Kudos to Ali for the photo.

We don't need no education...

2010-01-31T23:58:00.003+02:00

After pretty much a month and a half of being off work (those January days of giving exams didn't really count), we teachers finally have to buckle down and get back to our jobs tomorrow morning. Woe is us.

But seriously. It is NOT going to be fun to get up at 6:30 in the morning after a month and a half of sleeping in. My sleep schedule is not amused by this. At all.

On the other hand, it will be great to see my kids again! I've gotten many, MANY email and Facebook messages from my girls telling me how much they've missed me. Probably just angling for a grade increase, but I'll take the love where I can get it, I guess.

Home Talk

2010-01-31T23:57:00.001+02:00

To learn a little more about our lovely kitchen appliances, see Heather's blog post. Don't miss the kudos to me for cooking in our ghetto oven.

Tough Luck Case, huh Taxi Cab Driver?

2010-01-31T23:35:00.003+02:00

So early on in my stay here, I commandeered a taxi, and, as always, the driver began to talk to me. This one, however, had fairly decent English and seemed to be a nice guy. He showed me a picture of his daughter and talked to me about America. About halfway to our destination, he started his spiel.

Apparently his daughter was sick and he needed money desperately for an operation. The operation was scheduled for the coming week, and could he borrow a couple hundred dollars from me and pay it back in installments? He was of course good for the money, and he was so sorry he had to ask me for it.

I told him no, I didn't have a couple hundred dollars he could borrow and I didn't know of anyone who did. I told him I only make a local salary and did not have unlimited money like some ejnabiyah (foreigner) here.

And then I forgot all about him. Until a couple of days ago. When I found myself in a cab with a driver who looked vaguely familiar (and much of the time I go out of my way NOT to notice the cab drivers in case they get too friendly) and spoke great English. He seemed to be a nice guy and talked to me about America. And then he started his spiel. Oh. THAT'S why the guy looked familiar.

This time his father was sick and had to have an operation tomorrow. I received the plea for money again and the sincere apology that he had to even ask me for money. Once again, I declined that oh-so-tempting offer.

You know, Amman may cover a large area, but as we expats are fond of saying, Amman is a small world after all. It is possible to get the same taxi customer twice in a row. And if you couldn't scam me the first time, you are DEFINITELY not going to have any luck the second time.

End of the Month Again

2010-01-31T23:34:00.003+02:00

Why is it that the end of every month finds me frantically saving every dime I can and/or begging friends for both handouts and loans? Could it be because I insist on treating myself to an American lifestyle by making spa dates, traveling to ridiculously cool places, buying unnecessary accessories like scarves and eating American food like it's going out of style? Nah. I'm going with they don't pay me enough.

Take this month for example. I go on one little trip to Egypt. Who would have thought that would burst the bank so much? By the end of the month, I am literally living off of cents. I have two dinars to my name. And that's after getting two loans from various friends.

Last night, Heather and I went to Gafra for some dinner. I had five dinars; she had five dinars. We each ordered exactly five dinars worth of food. Then the bill came. 10.26 dinars. I threw down my five; she threw down four... and fifteen cents... and that was all she had. We were a dinar short, and that wasn't including tip.

Crap. We stared at each other. "Think they'll let us wash dishes?" I suggested lamely.

She was just considering telling them that we would pay them the remainder next time we were in the restaurant (hey, it works with our local fruits + veggies shopkeeper) when we remembered another option.

"Credit card?" asked Heather, grinning rather hysterically. "Ok," the waiter agreed.

Whew. Crisis averted. And I got to keep my five dinars until today. I feel richer already.

Storms on the Horizon

2010-01-17T23:43:00.003+02:00

So far in Jordan, I've seen cold rain, hot rain and medium rain. It consistently pours water from the sky for hours, making the entire city turn into a mudball, then stops. But what I have yet to see here is a good old-fashioned storm, like the ones in the Midwest and in Texas.

Tonight, however, we have the makings of one that could make the tornado watches in Missouri sit up and take notice. Well, in a couple of hours maybe. To be honest, I haven't seen a storm in so long that I was wondering who was taking pictures outside my window. And then I was cleverly wondering who was banging into dumpsters behind my apartment.

I've got lightning flashing through my room and thunder claps booming in the distance. Ah. Joyous.

CATS The Musical 2: "Kitty" Porn

2010-01-17T20:50:00.008+02:00

I might have alluded to the fascinating cat societies that exist here in Jordan, but it's definitely time to describe them in greater detail. So here goes. There are cats here. There are tons of cats here. As in tuna-factory-just-exploded-all-over amount of cats here. All strays, all fairly harmless, all cute to admire from a distance (they're kind of dirty) when walking.
(Photo by Lena)

Even more interesting are the societies they set up. A group of about six-ish cats lives on the roof next to Lena's house. We throw food at them occasionally. Not as pack-animal-ish as dogs, these cats negotiate ways of working together to survive and even thrive by creating communities in which to exist. Imagine, CATS The Musical, only all of them are like the scraggly one that sings Memories.

They make their livings, as it were, living out of dumpsters, though I have to admit that the people on our block do a GREAT job of feeding them. It's always something to have a cat shoot like a cork out of the dumpster you are walking by. And boy are they appreciative of handouts.

Normally I enjoy interacting and baby talking to the cats of Jordan (is that like werewolves of London?). But lately... well, let's just say that the winter season has officially started, cat nip is in the air, and every cat in Jordan is set on producing an abnormal amount of baby meowlers this spring.

Pretty much every night we are serenaded by the melodious yowls of frisky cats. This can go on for hours. Really guys? How long can it possibly take? You don't even have to take her out to dinner or anything.

We were even treated to a couple of exhibitionist cats who decided to put on a show on Lena's roof. It ended with the girl punching the guy in the face and running off. Ah. Young love.

Let's hope the hormones and cat fur settle down by the time we get back from Egypt.

Tighter butts; blacker lungs

2010-01-17T20:30:00.007+02:00

Today, Lena and I took a great walk up and down many fabulous hills... to a cafe where we smoked argeeleh.

This is actually quite frequent. Maybe once a week, we will march our happy butts down the thousands (or hundreds or something) stairs to downtown Jordan where we will then negate all the health benefits we just gave ourselves walking by smoking an argeeleh for two hours. That, or we'll take Heather and instead have a humongous meal at Cairo Restaurant (GREAT mansaf) or Gafra, then waddle up the stairs with overfilled bellies.

Granted, we usually share one argeeleh, so we aren't being quite as unhealthy as those guys nursing a single "black lung" (coal right on top of the pure tobacco) argeeleh. And to be honest, it's a great destination and way to relax on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

On this particular outing, Lena and I attempted to retrace our steps to a cafe we discovered on the way to the citadel with a friend before Christmas. We ran around downtown a bit, and after a wrong turn or two, we finally made it up a hill to our destination: Embareh (as we later learned it is called).

Embareh turned out to be a delightful cafe set in a beautiful old house. It is subtly colorful and has beautiful light fixtures. Fortunately it was beautiful outside today, so Lena and I were able to sit on the porch with our 2 dinar Lemon and mints and our 3 dinar argeeleh. Delightful. Even better, the waiter complimented me on my nearly nonexistant arabic, and we got to shoot the bull with him about Egypt (he was from Luxor, a city we will visit next week).

When the bill came, we found out he only charged us a little over half of what our bill would have been. What a great surprise! Instead of the usual eshnabiyyeh (foreignor) fees added on to bills, Lena and I actually got a "cute eshnabiyyeh" discount. We tipped him well.

The downside of walking for an hour to find a cute cafe in which to smoke argeeleh is walking an hour back from said argeeleh. With smoke-filled lungs. After gasping and panting at the top of the million-stair staircase, I remarked to Lena that this possibly isn't the cleverest way to enjoy our walks together. She agreed.

We'll probably go again later this week.

AAAAAAAAAAAAH!

2010-01-12T00:36:00.003+02:00

So I started my new Arabic class today. Aside from recopying all of my Arabic notes into a compact, friendly, organized set of studying material, I had not studied since mid-December. Something about being in America for Christmas really throws off the Arabic practice.

I jumped into the cab with plenty of time before the class, promptly got very lost and consequently arrived twenty minutes late to the first class of the semester. I snuck past the teacher, rolled into a seat beside my friend and sat back to take in the learning.

My last Arabic class consisted of my instructor telling us pronunciations for words and having us say them back to her. In fact, the first time I had put together more than one sentence at a time in Arabic was during the oral test I had to take to get into this level 2 Arabic class. But ten seconds into the lesson, I knew I was not only going to surpass my previous Arabic speaking by about a thousand percent, I was actually going to be expected to understand this crazy language.

My ostaz, or professor, was speaking entirely in Arabic. He continued to speak entirely in Arabic for the first hour and a half of the two and a half hour course. AND, to make matters worse, he actually expected ME to speak back to HIM in Arabic. Full sentences. Correctly. AAAAAAAAAAAAH!

As if this Arabic shockwave weren't enough, I am taking the class at a French School. The majority of my classmates are French and thus speak better French than English. So I spent the time during break and after class speaking in French. If my brain wasn't confused enough before class, it was definitely mush by the end of it.

Fortunately, I discovered I could understand a lot of what he said merely by listening carefully and dredging up unused vocabulary I'd forgotten I knew. Also, the man is amazing at acting out words and repeating similar vocabulary to make you understand. For the last hour of class, he spoke in both French, English and Arabic to explain some grammar/verb rules and words we hadn't been able to catch. I filled up three whole sheets of paper with vocab I learned just in his hour and a half of speaking.

Must commence studying frantically so I can understand him next lesson. One thing's for sure. If I survive this course, my Arabic skills are going to skyrocket. My French, too, strangely enough.

Keepin' Clean

2010-01-09T16:20:00.002+02:00

Lubbock is a dusty city. It takes years to get that tough Lubbock dust out of pores, clothes, car upholstery, etc. So I thought I knew all about cleaning up dust.

But Jordan dust is different. It's not as stubborn as Lubbock dust, but boy is it plentiful. I dust a surface one day and wake up the next morning to find that the previous dust bunnies had already told all their bunny friends what a great place they found and to come on over.

Actually the dust probably wouldn't be that bad if I could get used to Jordanian cleaning techniques. Instead of mops and buckets, the way to clean floors here is that you dump a bunch of water on the floor, then squeegee it with a long window-cleaner-looking thing into the drainage hole in the middle of pretty much every floor. I'm apparently not very good at this.

The other option is to dip a small towel into water, then put it around your window-cleaner-looking thing to clean the floors. I have trouble with this as well. My towel always falls off. And it's tough to get into corners.

Fortunately you can hire a cleaning man or woman to come clean your entire house for 10 dinar, which we have now done. Unfortunately, getting them to show up, as evidenced by today's lack of cleaning, is a mite more difficult. Fingers crossed for a clean house next Saturday!

Can I Rephrase that?

2010-01-04T13:32:00.003+02:00

Less than four hours after I write a heart-felt post about how independent I am and how much I love taking care of myself, I have a horrific nightmare about mutilation and the oh-so-popular hacking people up into body parts. And unfortunately for my sense of timing, the first thing I thought when I woke up was, "I want my mommy."

I zipped up my man suit and didn't call her shaking at 3 a.m., but boy was that poetic justice.

There's no place like homes?

2010-01-03T22:53:00.002+02:00

As I finally collapsed into my seat to begin my set of flights back to the states, I leaned my head back and thought, "At last. I am going home."

When I boarded my plane for Amman in Chicago, I leaned my head and thought, "At last. I am going home." As some of you brighter cookies in the bunch may have noticed, it was the exact same thought.

How did Jordan suddenly become my home? When did my love and longing for my life here become equal to that of my longing for what I miss back in the states? Can you even have two places that you consider a "home" with the strength of emotion I do for both of my homes?

I think part of the answer to at least the first question is the unbelievable confidence I have to have in myself to be able to survive and be happy in a place like Jordan. Here I do not have my father to call anytime I screw something up. I can't phone my mom from the grocery store and ask her inane questions about life. Here I am completely and utterly independent, or rather, dependent on only myself and my capabilities.

I say that, but the other part of my attraction to my life in Jordan is the group of wonderful people I've discovered here. In lieu of having family to help us out, we have formed an incredibly strong group of friends on whom we can depend. They are like my family; they are always there when I am unhappy, just need to complain or have an annoying questions about how things are done in Jordan. We are all equals in tackling life here; there's no parent/child relationship, only give-and-take on a level plane on which we all can benefit. Even while I was in the states, Lena, Heather and I were Facebooking and chatting throughout our time apart. When you get used to seeing people every day for months, even two weeks apart seems like a long time.

The final and most mundane reason for my attraction to life here in Jordan is how much simpler it is to be healthy. I walk everywhere. My transportation to work each day consists of a seven-minute walk. I regularly walk up and down the numerous stairs leading to The Balad several times a week. Today Lena and I took a two-hour walk to and through Jabal Webdeh just because we could. Plus, even though I am stuffing my face with unhealthiness like falafel and shwarma pretty much constantly, I don't have the same urges to overeat the way I do in America. I probably couldn't afford to even if I did.

All in all, of course I miss my people back in the states. I wish it were possible to zip home on the weekends so I wouldn't vicariously experience special events through other people's pictures. I wish I could be there to go on walks with my brother, or goof off with my mom during a pedicure or hug Jimmy. But for right now, at this point in my life... I want my home here in Jordan more.

This American Life

2010-01-03T00:48:00.003+02:00

As I knew it would, my vacation back home in the states flashed by faster than a modest streaker. But it was pretty close to everything I thought it would be.

I hung out in fabulously interesting Lubbock for about six days, goofing off with the cats and the fam while eating way too much. Mom and I went shopping for some new jeans because my old ones decided to fall off when I wear them without a belt, so now I actually get to wear jeans that fit me. That's exciting. My brother and I took some walks to keep my Jordanian legs in practice (kind of like sea legs, but not), and Jimmy and I pretty much went everywhere together.

We decided to have Christmas Day on Christmas Eve because we were scheduled to leave Lubbock for Raleigh early on Christmas Day. We went to bed early, as Santa refuses to stay up too late these days, and awoke to find that Lubbock had given us our second white Christmas ever. Unfortunately that meant my add-on brother Jimmy had to plow his way across the frozen tundra in his highly ill-equipped vehicle before we started opening presents. Yet safely plow he did, and people were most generous this year.

I received everything I asked for and more, including a pretty fabulous Nook from Barnes and Noble (I had told my father how hard it is to find books here in Jordan, not to mention the outrageous prices of those you can find, so he provided a solution for his reading-on-the-computer-refusing daughter.), an almost complete set of the Charlaine Harris books from Jimsies, a gorgeous dress from mon frere, and numerous other nicities.

During the proceedings, Jimmy and I proceeded to indulge in a bit of Crown Royal and Non-Dairy Egg Nog. Once finished with the presents and now two egg nogs along, we proceeded to down two Hot Toddies each, thus demolishing 2/3rds of the bottle and sending us into unprecedented peals of laughter at only moderately funny things. We watched some movies, the rest of the family laughing more at the two of us than the movie, and then I attempted to pack all of my worldly possessions into two <50 lbs suitcases for the trip to the East Coast. We settled down, and I prepared myself for my last night in Lubbock and thus the last night with my kitties.

We awoke to find that Lubbock was indeed set for a real white Christmas and that American had cancelled our flight out. SO we spent the next day goofing off, watching movies and playing with the furballs before hopping on a plane one day later than expected.

We spent a delightful two days in Raleigh, where I saw my mom's family and got to practice my extremely limited Arabic with my cousin's adorable kids (my immediate family was fairly tired of me practicing it on them and had commenced making fun of me) and then headed to Baltimore for a day and a half to see my father's family. We also played Duckpin bowling, and I got to see my dad fall flat on his face. That was memorable.

Although Mom and Dad were staying an extra couple of days, Jimmy and I conveniently had matching flights back to our respective homes, so I had someone to keep me company for the wait for the plane, which fortunately did not include the nervous breakdown that accompanied my first flight to Jordan. I also did not have an annoying guy from Delta tell me that I wasn't allowed to board the plane without a return ticket from Jordan, so my mom did not have to buy ANOTHER $2,000 refundable ticket. Score.

I had a slight scare as the weather turned nasty in Chicago, but I made it to the Windy City with only a 45-minute delay. Once there, I wandered around the terminal wondering why I didn't have a gate number until the genius that I am figured out that my flight was leaving from the International terminal. I booked it over to that terminal, through security and on to the plane in record time, jumping into my seat a good half an hour before the plane took off, which is excellent for my family's record for missing planes but still cutting it a little close by Royal Jordanian's standards.

And then the highlight of my flight happened. No one sat in the seats next to me! So I slid over a seat and had empty seats on each side of me for the entire flight. Ah, leg room! I slept for seven hours straight. That's the only way to fly.

Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T21:53:00.002+02:00

It's two hours til midnight on December 31st here in Amman. Happy 2010 everyone!

It's a Small World After All... at least in Amman

2009-12-28T07:11:00.004+02:00

So I brought my mom some extremely good looking glass ornaments and decorations that I got downtown in Amman from a delightful Armenian man named Kokozian, who makes and paints all his own goods. She pulls her present out of the box, gave the customary ohs and ahs and then said, "Wait a second. Kokozian. Doesn't your Uncle Jim know him?"

The back story is that my Uncle Jim also spent a year in Jordan a few years ago. He apparently found the same shop Lena, Heather and I found and became fast friends with Kokozian. Unbeknownst to either of us, I found the same shop and befriended the same man. Kokozian was so fond of Uncle Jim that he called him his brother and gave him free stuff to send to my grandparents, who he called his parents.

I can't wait to get back to Amman to tell Kokozian that I'm the niece of his friend Jim. My wasta continues.

The Re-Entry

2009-12-21T06:51:00.003+02:00

So here I am, curled up in my comfy bed, deep in the heart of West Texas. I went to a club last night to dance the night away with my best friend, who has barely left my side, my brother flew in this evening, I've spent lots of quality time with the 'rents, and, best of all, I have my kids rolled up into balls, sleeping happily against my legs.

My first meal in the U.S. was a rush to Chick Fil-A after my plane landed in Dallas at 10 p.m. But my first REAL meal in the U.S. was what I've been craving for four months now: Tex Mex. My family and I went to On the Border last night, where I salivated over a plate of Southwest Chicken Tacos. Today, we went to see The Princess and the Frog (cute, but somewhat forgettable) and thus had to go out for Cajun food tonight. I have plans to visit Rosa's, another Tex Mex place, and Saigon Cafe, a Vietnamese place, in the next few days, and Jimmy promised to make a vegetarian lasagna for me soon. My culinary dreams are met. My mouth is loving America, even if my stomach and my waistline are not.

Some things I've noticed about being back in America, in no particular order:

1) Your cats will not remember you if you are away for five months. Then they will start to remember you but will be pissed off at you for leaving. It will take a good two days for them to consent to sleeping with you. This process can be sped up by offering kitty treats.

2) Holy water pressure, Batman! I didn't think our shower in Jabal Amman was that bad, but compared to my parents' shower, it's a mere trickle. I can rinse my hair in about ten seconds flat. AND I don't have to wake up 45 minutes early just to turn on the hot water. Wow.

3) There are a TON of freaking squirrels here. Silly critters. And there's a serious lack of scruffy cats.

4) No one walks. Anywhere. At any time. And they stare at me when I do. And I actually miss walking around Amman just because.

5) Everyone speaks English. And they do not respond to "Shukran," as evidenced by the bartender who gave me an extremely funny look when all I did was thank him.

6) On that note, it's harder to stop saying "Shukran" and "Yella" than you might think.

7) I am now behind the times when it comes to the latest cool songs to dance to in nightclubs.

8) I love happy hours in America. $2 well drinks. Heck yeah.

9) These drivers are passive. And relaxed. And do not attempt to speed by each other or run over pedestrians. Surreal.

10) I have lost the art of friendly conversation with overly chummy Texans. They now think I am rude despite the fact that my Texas accent is indeed coming back. Must curb that before I attempt to teach anyone English again.

Overall, life is grand.

Recap: Ending the year in Jordan

2009-12-21T06:47:00.002+02:00

So December turned out to be a busy month for me, what with Christmas parties, packing and school stuff. We did have a Christmas party in our apartment that was a roaring success, despite (or perhaps because of?) the crowds of unknown people who showed up at our apartment.

I finished up all my Christmas shopping, much to the anticipated glee of my family members, especially my brother, who will be stoked when he opens his gift. I'm sure.

But the highlight (almost) of my preparations for leaving Jordan was my last day of school before I took off for America. It turns out that my kids absolutely love me after all. I was treated to a day of powerpoints on how much they would miss me, love letters telling me I better come back and a surprise party in one class, complete with presents and food galore. This makes coming back to Jordan a whole lot easier!

Everything in Jordan is an Adventure. Even the Internet.

2009-12-02T19:44:00.005+02:00

So for two weeks now, we've been without Internet at the apartment because we were deciding what to do with our old Internet and figuring out how to get a new Internet service.

The provider we used at our old apartment is a satellite technology, which means that we basically have a modem router that collects an Internet signal from outside, not from a land line or cable. But I wasn't sure if we would be able to pick up that signal from our new house. I asked around and was told to check with the biggest service provider. I wandered over to their store, didn't like what I saw (they said we would have to wait EIGHT DAYS for Internet! Pff!), and called our old standby.

First of all, the dude on the phone asked where I lived. I gave him a detailed mental map of our area, down to the school across the street and what I could see out my window. He said that only parts of our street were covered. So they would have to send a man out to see if we were even on the right side of the street for a signal. A'adi.

So I waited around for the gentleman to show up. He did, brought a modem with him and proceeded to tell me we have an excellent signal in our TV room. First bit of good news all day. We discuss prices, grab the contract and are ready to go. And then he asks to see my residency card. Oh crap.

"Um. Ha ha," I said cleverly. "I don't really have one yet. But we are right now in the process of getting them!" I added with a feverish grin, all the while thinking I would cheerfully hold everyone involved in my residency application process over hot coals if I would not get Internet until I was a resident. "Do you want to see my visa? My passport? Anything? Ha ha?"

It turns out that no, the visa was not good enough. Neither was the passport. I finally had the bright idea to pull out Heather's contract with the school to prove we worked and lived here in Jordan (the fact that we were standing in the living room of my apartment was apparently not enough proof, nor was the pile of cash I was attempting to hand over.). This is good, the guy said, but I need to know that you STILL work here. (Apparently the fact that the contract was until June of next year wasn't good enough either.)

(P.S. The guy was actually super nice about all this; it was just a frustrating situation.)

So we worked out an arrangement where I would keep the modem, pay him the money and then go to school the next day and get a letter from my boss that said I still worked there. We signed the contract, and everything was peachy.

But why on Earth is nothing in Jordan ever simple?

Random Bits of News

2009-12-02T19:34:00.002+02:00

First of all, a big hip-hip-HOORAY because we finally have Internet at our new apartment! No, it is not wireless yet, and yes, only one of us can be on it at a time, but it's a start. It's a start.

To make matters even more attractive, we also have HOT WATER! Today was the first hot shower I've had since Thanksgiving. It was nice. It was very nice.

I also got a great haircut today from an excellent hairdresser. So my hair is clean and curled AND I took a hot shower. Life is good.

We did have a bit of annoying news today. Heather, Lena and I had asked for some days off before Christmas so we could all go home and see our families. We are leaving on the 18th and are all coming back the 30th, 31th and 1st, respectively, because we had to be at school on the 2nd. NOW they tell us that we don't have to be back until the 4th. I know it is just two more days, but I would have really liked to have spent that time with my family. Uncool. And the reason behind the change? Shockingly, the school realized that the 1st of January is New Year's Day and thus a holiday. Who would have guessed it.

Water Troubles

2009-11-27T17:10:00.000+02:00

Water. We drink it. We bathe with it. We use it constantly in every part of our lives. And now I live in the desert, where water is a precious, precious commodity.

Unlike in America, where water appears magically in our houses via pipes, the water in Jordan is delivered to each apartment every week. The complexes all have water tanks on the roofs that are filled up once a week. That is all the water you get for the entire week unless you pay more money.

Once in Daheit al Rasheed, we ran out of water. We don’t know how, but we speculated that it involved a leak because we had never before nor after used up our entire tank. We spent the remaining two days of our week with no water. It was unpleasant.

Since moving in to our new place, we’ve had even more water trouble. We moved in on Monday and found out Tuesday morning that our water heater wasn’t working. No hot water. On Wednesday night, a repair man came over and fixed it. We were fine until Saturday morning when we ran out of water completely. Apparently, no one had opened up our tank so that we got our share of the delivered water, so we had been using up whatever was left from the people before us.

As we had a dinner the next day, we ran around all afternoon trying to remedy the situation. A guy came over and ran a line from another empty apartment’s tank into ours so we could steal their water. Our tank was refilled for real on Wednesday, so we are back on the water circuit.

This time, we made it five days without a problem. Yesterday, Heather was doing a load of clothes and found out that the entire socket that the washing machine and the water heater is plugged into isn’t working. So once again, we have no hot water. Even better, it’s Eid right now, so we probably won’t be able to get it fixed until after the holidays because, again, the entire country basically stops for Eid.

Normally, we could run over and take showers at Lena’s house, which is only a seven-minute walk. That indeed was our plan until last night, when Lena told us that her apartment was out of water as well. They had gone through their entire tank in a day and a half. Somebody has a leak.

The three of us might be a tiny bit smelly by the end of Eid. Methinks it might be time to hit the Turkish baths.

A Jordanian Thanksgiving 2

2009-11-27T17:09:00.000+02:00

As if one day of absolute digestive nightmares wasn’t enough, I actually had two days of edible bliss. Yesterday, I was invited to two separate Thanksgiving dinners, one right after another. I got up yesterday morning fully intending to go to bed that night with an extremely upset stomach. And I was not disappointed.

It started out with a dinner at my dear cousin’s father-in-law’s house in Abdoun. At 1:30 p.m., I headed over to Samir’s absolutely magnificent house. Once there, I played with the kids while Melissa made Aunt Sue’s famous crab dip in the kitchen. I alternated between hanging out with the kids and speaking to three American girls I just met while the food was being prepared. We stood in a group drinking white wine, which I found out was a dangerous pastime as servers kept walking around filling up our wine glasses every time we took a drink.

Finally at about 3 p.m., supper was served. It was magnificent. There were two turkeys, one overflowing with stuffing. There were several vegetables and three different kinds of sweet potato. We ate our fill, then chatted amicably until dessert. Lissa and the kids had made cookies and two cobblers. There was also pecan pie and a pumpkin cheesecake. I was quite stuffed by the end of it.

At 4:30 p.m., rather full, I hopped in a taxi and headed to my second dinner at Lena’s house. I got to walk up Rainbow Street to work off some of those calories and was almost ready not to explode when I started eating there as well.

We passed an extremely pleasant seven hours continuously eating, drinking, telling jokes and singing. It was a great Thanksgiving.

I did go to bed with a very sore stomach. I think I’ll walk to Israel tomorrow to work off a fraction of what I’ve eaten this week.

A Jordanian Thanksgiving

2009-11-27T16:56:00.001+02:00

In honor of the glorious American tradition of eating until you make yourself sick, Heather and I decided to host a Thanksgiving Dinner in our apartment six days after moving in.

In the days before the big event, we spent cleaning up the apartment and buying various necessities, such as serving dishes, lamps, a turkey, etc. I was to make the turkey, the stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn casserole, an apple pie and a pumpkin pie. Heather was going to make green bean casserole and sweet potato casserole.

The night before the big event, I set about making the two pies with ingredients that my terrific mother sent me from the states. Tom the turkey hung out with me in the sink. We bonded.

The next morning, I got up at 10:30 a.m. to make the stuffing and stuff Tom. I expertly crammed bread, onion and celery into Tom and put the raw turkey in a serving dish. I then walked down the streets of Jordan in my pajamas and carrying a raw turkey all the way to Lena’s house, where he would be cooked because he wouldn’t fit in our confectionary oven and Lena has an actual oven, even if it is a scary gas one. Tom was heavy.

While at Lena’s house, she told me Heather had called her this morning. Heather was sick with the flu and would not be participating in the festivities. Which meant I got to cook the entire meal myself. Lena volunteered to take over the sweet potato casserole.

I left Lena’s house and took a shower. Then Lena called me. Apparently in my absence, Tom had become anxious and was almost done cooking after only an hour. No good, especially when the dinner wasn’t until six. Lena graciously volunteered to babysit Tom all day. We turned the heat as low as we could and resolved to baste the crap out of him until dinner. Nothing in Jordan is ever simple.

I ran back to my house and started cooking. I cooked and cooked and, and just for fun, cooked some more, straight up until 5:30 p.m. Then I went to pick up Tom. If I thought Tom was heavy on the way down, his juicy, stuffed body was unbearable on the way up. I had to stop twice to rest and got many lovely stares along the way. I also nearly slopped boiling hot turkey juices down myself. Fun times. Fun times.

When, arms shaking from exhaustion and back caked with sweat, I arrived at my apartment, I finished all the rest of the cooking before the guests arrived, with the exception of the biscuits, which I asked my male Arabic friend to help me with. He promptly misread the mixing instructions, used the entire box of Bisquick, and then got the biscuits stuck to the aluminum foil he was cooking them on. We did not eat biscuits for dinner that night.

But we had enough wine and other good food to make up for it. And carrying Tom Turkey up and now was totally worth it. He was delicious. A good time was had by all. It would have been better had Heather been able to join.

Coming out of the Wardrobe? Only for C.S. Lewis.

2009-11-27T16:54:00.000+02:00

In moving to our new place, I’ve noticed two things I found interesting about Jordanian houses.

The first thing is that though all bathrooms have toilet paper rungs, they are never used except in restaurants and businesses. Both of our houses contained perfectly good toilet paper rung spots, but you can’t find a metal bar to go through the roll to save your life. Instead, at least at our house, toilet paper is set on the bidet found in every bathroom. Or on the top of the toilet. But NOT in the toilet paper rung.

The second thing I’ve noticed is that Jordan does not believe in closets. Personal closets, storage closets, any kind of closet. In our old place, we kept our vacuum cleaner and cleaning supplies in the third bathroom that didn’t work. We kept the washing machine in Nadia’s room. Here, our cleaning supplies and washing machine take up the majority of the half bathroom. We have an ironing board randomly hanging out in the living room. And the vacuum and other stuff we didn’t want is entrenched in one of Heather’s wardrobes.

In each place, we’ve had wardrobes supplied by the house in which we can put all our clothes, stuff and shoes. This custom works well.

However, I have to think that a culture unfamiliar with closets would be missing out on an intrinsic and humorous part of our American culture. How many jokes do we have about closets? A closet intellectual. Coming out of the closet. Well, actually that’s all I can think of, but still. A wardrobe intellectual? Coming out of the wardrobe? Just doesn’t really have the same ring to it, does it?

Our New Abode

2009-11-27T16:43:00.011+02:00

The day we signed the contract, we let the ink dry and then raced to the new place to check it out. Ah. Just as fabulous as we’d remembered from our two previous visits. Newish, comfortable furniture. Nice open rooms. A great view off one side of the house. And best of all, a seven-minute walk to school.

While one guy fixed various things around the apartment, I performed the most important of all our moving-in tasks: I made up my new bed.

It is a glorious thing. A double-bed, it is NOT two twins pushed together with a lumpy blanket shoved in between, so it can only be an improvement over my last sleeping spot. It has a rather impressive-looking dark wood frame, and, the best part, it comes with box springs so high that even I, massively tall, jolly green giant of the Arab world, must hop a little bit to get into it. Glorious. Please excuse the horribly grainy photos taken with my laptop computer. My good ones are not functioning properly at the moment, which leads me to think they might not be my good ones.

The rest of my room is not quite as nice, though I would have been able to put up with a sinkhole to have that bed. The furniture matches the frame, but it is showing a bit of wear in places. My desk drawer won’t open or close without quite an impressive fight, and my wardrobe, while straighter than my last one, doesn’t hold quite as much. I also do not yet have a mirror. I am working on remedying that situation. But I have two windows, one that has a pretty decent view of the city. My room also came with a cork board, to which I have already affixed pictures of many of my favorite people, and I’m working on getting the rest of you favorite people up there.

We have one and a half bathrooms, but I’m iffy about the half. That toilet tends to run, so we keep it turned off. But it’s nice to have in emergencies, such as when one of us is occupying our favorite bathroom. The bathroom with a shower is nice and spacious. It also has a whole tiny shelf more storage space than our old one. The shower has almost as much water pressure than the old place, and the toilet seat is firmly attached to the toilet, unlike in our old place.

The other bathroom is functional, but it is stuffed with cleaning supplies and a washing machine, so sitting down and taking your time in there is a mite uncomfortable.

We have two living-roomish places: a TV room with one couch and a sitting room, with one couch and some lounge chairs. The TV and cable work. I’m still trying to get our DVD player to function. I’m hoping a good cleaning will allow it to read discs again, apparently an important part of DVD functionality. The sitting room + dining room + bookshelves room allows me to display my random selection of books to our guests and gives them somewhere to sit. Plus, it looks classy.

The kitchen is also big and houses probably the least impressive of the furniture. Instead of a real stove + oven combo, we have a confectionery oven and a two-burner stove top. This makes cooking just a smidge more challenging, but I live off of falafel now anyway.

The second most annoying thing in our apartment was the lighting. All fluores- cent. Ouch. So we chipped in and bought some nice lamps to place strategically around the house to create a warm glow instead of the seizure-inducing strobe effect of the fluorescents. Nice.

The trip down the staircase of this new place is much cleaner and less smoky (remember the fire?) than our last one. We live right above the caretaker of the complex, an elderly Muslim woman, so we’ll have to keep the parties to a minimum. And at the foot of the staircase is a brief wander through a hallway adorned with plant life. Ah, greenery! And then we find our super secure front door, which comes equipped with two locks than you can’t get open even if you live here, so I know it’s keeping the bad guys out.

Did I mention it’s a seven-minute walk to work? Hello, Heaven. I have found you on Earth.

How did I accumulate this much crap in three months?

2009-11-27T16:40:00.002+02:00

Apologizes for being off the air for a while. We still don’t have Internet in our new apartment, so these backlogged blogs were uploaded via conveniently located Internet café. We hope to supply our new place with much-needed Internet access sometime after Eid because Jordan apparently comes to a standstill during holidays.

Moving on.

We are finally holed up nicely in our new apartment. Last Monday, November 16th, we marched (or taxied because I was carrying a ton of grading) down to the rental office and signed our contract. Right now it is unfortunately a month-to-month contract, but we are hoping to have a chat with the owner when she is back in the country so we can aim for an eight-month contract. That should get me right to the middle of July, perfect timing to escape back to the U.S.

After spending a bit of time at the apartment checking things out and cleaning, we grabbed a taxi and said, for one of the last times, Daheit al Rasheed. Once back at that place we called home, we began packing. We wanted to bring over a few bags that first day and practice sleeping and getting up later.

Three and a half months ago, I came to Jordan with two huge duffel bags full of stuff, one carry-on-sized suitcase and a bulging backpack. By the time I finished packing, every bag I brought with me was stuffed to the gills, all of my clothes were still on the hangers, ready to be transferred to my new wardrobe, and I had about twenty little plastic bags fully of stuff as well. Where did all this stuff come from? And how in the WORLD am I going to get it back home to America next summer?

I ran down to our old familiar stores to buy toilet paper and tissues. We didn’t know where to get such items in our new location yet. And that purchase just couldn’t wait any longer.

Our friend came to the apartment and we packed up a good half of our stuff that night. We lasted for two days on that, then on Wednesday we decided to go back for the rest of it. We still had a significant amount of junk to haul over. And our friend with his oh-so-convenient car was not there to help us. What to do?

We went out to the main road near our old apartment. We pulled over two taxi drivers, one of whom spoke English, and told them we would give them extra money if they helped us move our stuff. They cheerfully (or in the case of the one non-English speaking driver, confusedly) agreed. They dragged our considerable amount of stuff down and threw it in the taxis. They drove us to first circle and threw the stuff in our new apartment.

Two hours later, I was officially and completely moved in.

Get ready, Jabal Amman, because here we come!

2009-11-15T13:43:00.003+02:00

For the last three months, Heather and I have been happily entrenched in our spacious apartment in Daheit al Rasheed, which is in the far north of the city.

The rent is cheap, the stores near our house are cheap, and the company is good. However, the beds are uncomfortable (two twins pushed together anyone?), the taxi rides to and from school are ridiculous, and the neighborhood is a bit more conservative than we'd like.

About two weeks ago, our roommate Nadia told us that she was moving out at the beginning of December. We thought about it for a bit and decided that we should also try to move down to the middle of the city where our school is and where it is so much closer to everything else we usually go to.

The very next day, a rainstorm hit the city. We stood in the rain for 20 minutes waiting for a taxi, then spent 45 minutes in the taxi on our way to school. 5alas. That was it. It was time to move.

A few days ago, Heather and I checked out an apartment that is about a five-minute walk to our school. It is right in Jabal Amman, the place to be in Amman. AND, the selling point for me at least, it comes furnished with AMERICAN-style double beds! A mattress! AND boxsprings! Ah. Luxury.

The problem was the asking price. Too much. Way too much. We counteroffered and waited two days to see if it was accepted. Yesterday, we heard the answer. YES!

We move later this week. Jabal Amman, here we come! And more importantly, comfortable beds, here we come!

Ana mabsoota lamma ana be7ki arabi... sort of...

2009-11-10T20:55:00.010+02:00

The moment you've all been waiting for is here. No, not the season finale of Mad Men. I'm finally going to devote the time to writing a post that has been in the works since my second week here: the joys of learning Arabic.

My continuing observation is that Arabic is a doozy of a language to learn. It's not just the backwards curlicue letters I had to memorize, though I'm not going to lie, those took a while. Because 1) you have to completely flip your brain around to start on the right side, which is a bit like an American trying to drive on the left side of the road, 2) all those silly little squiggles look alike and 3) those quirky worms change COMPLETELY depending on where they are in the word. All the fancy calligraphies they use here do not help in distinguishing that circle/line/wiggle with this circle/line/squiggle.

What makes reading Arabic even harder is that they LEAVE ALL THE FREAKING VOWELS OUT OF WORDS! Instead of true vowels, in Arabic they have "voices," called harakots. These voices tell you whether you should use an "a" sound, an "oo" sound or an "e" sound in between the consonants. And no one ever bothers to actually put them in words because they already know how the word is pronounced. I do not. It would be a bit like trying to pronounce English properly f w snck ll th vwls t f th lngge drng th nght (if we snuck all the vowels out of the language during the night).

Plus, if you want to type Arabic easily on cell phones or Facebook messages, you have to transliterate it into Latin letters. So it's basically like learning two different languages: one in a readable alphabet and one made of curled up bits of ribbon.

Actually, it's even more like learning two different languages because of all the different Arabics out there. There's fus-ha, which is the classical Arabic taught in schools and nearly completely useless if you want to be understood in the taxi. It's a bit like if someone jumped off the plane in rural West Texas and said, "Charming morning, good sir. Wouldst thou assist me in obtaining my belongings?" What I'm learning is amia, the spoken Arabic language of Jordan, which will be useless in any other Arabic-speaking country.

And don't get me started on the wacky conjugations this language employs. First of all, the infinitive is in the past tense. PAST TENSE! So no cheating like my mom did in France by using all infinitives. "I to have to go to eat now." And though I am getting better at figuring them out, to me the conjugations only bear the slightest resemblance to the original word. For example, long before we started conjugating verbs, our teacher taught us the word "btodros" means "you (masculine) study. While looking at another sentence, we came across the word "darast" and didn't know what it meant. "Well what word does it look like?" she asked. Apparently the answer was "btodros," though I'm definitely not seeing it. But yes indeedy, "darast" does in fact mean "you (masculine) studied." Weird.

Another fun fact about Arabic is that they don't just stick a fun "s" on the end of a word to make it plural. No, no, that would be much too simple. They actually have TWO different plurals for every noun. One plural means two of something, which you make by adding "een" or "teen" to the end of the word, and one plural that means three or more, which is usually a different word entirely. For example, "osboa3" is week, "osboa3een" is two weeks and "asabee3" is three or more weeks.

In the end, though, it will all be worth it. When Arabs speak Arabic, it is a beautiful language. All the sounds are subtle and flow gently like water over a stream. For some reason, when they speak, all the harsh sounds are swept into the other sounds so that it is still soft and musical.

When I speak, it sounds like I am coughing up a hairball. They have one "H" sound, similar to the French "R," that literally sounds like you are gagging. When Heather and I have to spell words, we call that sound "phlegm." As in spelling Ahmad: A... phlegm...

Ahmad the Dead Terrorist aside, we also have to pronounce a "Qa" sound from the back of the throat, possibly from somewhere near the rib cage. To do this, unhinge your jaw and drop it somewhere around your belly button while jutting out your chin, bugging your eyes out and doing a credible impression of saying "aaah" at the dentist's, only with a "Q." There's a breathless "H" sound that is more like a wheeze from an emphysema patient or perhaps Darth Vadar, and of course the guttural stop that sounds like someone just clapped a sweaty palm over your mouth mid-word with an audible pop.

But my two favorites are an "R" sound that sounds like the "GRA" sound a baby makes when it has just dumped dinner down its shirt and an "A" sound that is basically a nasalized, controlled yell. This war cry is tragically in what seems like half the words in the Arabic language.

So while Arabs get to sound smooth and cultured, we foreigners get to sound like we are slowly going criminally insane. EstAna DaEEaA. Ya tEEk AAAl AAAfia! I say hysterically to the taxi driver, imagining the men in white coats sneaking up behind me with a restraining jacket. "Quick grab her now! While she's in mid-wail!"

Should have stuck with being fluent in Texan.

Peculiar Prefixes

2009-11-10T20:49:00.002+02:00

I was grading some prefix/suffix homework today in which the girls had to find ten words with a prefix or suffix in their books and then write the root word of the original word. In the course of grading, I had two answers that totally made my day.

First of all, one girl found the word "button." The root word? "Butt."

But my favorite was the word "discuss." The root word, according to my other student, is "cuss." I laughed really hard on that one.

In a way, it makes sense I guess. "Dis" means to remove or separate, so if you removed the "cussing" from a conversation, maybe you could have a pretty decent discussion...

Winter Wonderland?

2009-11-04T23:13:00.003+02:00

Well, for all of you who have been sending me nasty emails about the hot weather in Jordan, feel free to snicker behind your hands and/or guffaw openly. Our crazy summer, which stretched to the end of October, is finally over. And now we can enjoy fall.

Or not. On Halloween day, it abruptly skipped fall and dove right into winter. Unfortunately most of my cold weather gear is waiting for me to pick in up in Texas, so it might be a chilly month and a half for me. But I did buy some comfy new pajama pants I will be wearing about 16 hours a day, so I'm prepared.

The worst part is not the cold. Cold I can handle. The rain, however, is getting old. Now normally I love rain. But not in this country. Do you know what happens when you mix rain with a city built on dirt? My shoes ankle-deep in mud. That's what happens.

THREE Month Anniversary

2009-11-04T23:09:00.004+02:00

Today is the three month anniversary of my arrival in Jordan.

It occurs to me that I should probably start picking a longer length of time to get excited about at this point. I'll hold out on the next announcement until I hit the big six.

Time's fun when you're having flies.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for...

2009-11-02T22:39:00.003+02:00

The best line I've heard in my English class in a while came when I was teaching the girls how to write a paragraph. We were researching pumpkins (it WAS Halloween), but the example was about ice cream. The clincher, or conclusion, of the sample paragraph was, after talking about how good ice cream is, "No wonder we say, "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream."

One of the brightest girls in my class had figured out that we were going to use the same format to write about pumpkins. She raised her hand.

"So we are going to write a clincher for the pumpkin paragraph as well, right?" she asked.

"Yes, of course."

"And could we say, "I scream, you scream, we all scream for pumpkins?"

It took me a while to get the class to settle down after the general hilarity of seeing their teacher crack up for a whole minute.

Halloween - The Jordanian Way

2009-10-29T14:31:00.002+02:00

If I were in America at this time of year, my days would be filled with enjoying the newly crisp weather, watching the leaves turn colors, and experiencing every haunted house, ghost story and supernatural hunting show on television.

Tragically, my October has been a bit devoid of all of my favorite parts of fall. You would not believe how hard it is to find fake blood here. Or for that matter, blood-red lipstick at the last minute.

Despite the rather lacking Halloween spirit, my friends and I managed to get into the swing of things with two different Halloween parties. It turns out that taxi cab drivers are not used to transporting people with green makeup or blood all over their faces, although I got no weird comments, only weird looks.

I also had a fun time at the Halloween party at my school, where all my little monsters dressed up in super colorful costumes. We had everything from clowns to Princess Jasmine to several Hannah Montanas. Ah. Sure. The shops here will sell Halloween costumes for little kids, but you still can't find a thing for us bigger kids. Apparently adults here are not as keen on smearing paint all over their faces come Halloween. We'll give it a couple of years.

It's nice to see my favorite holiday spreading around the globe.

Semi-Coherent Tirade

2009-10-26T18:43:00.002+02:00

I’ve lost a bit of the righteous anger I had going for me last week, which has since dissolved into hopeless frustration, but I’ll try to recapture it for the sake of posterity.

The school is attempting to get us residency cards to make traveling and obtaining visas in Jordan more accessible. To that end, they hired a new H.R. representative to help us along that perilous journey through the bureaucracy. To demonstrate what a progressive measure the H.R. rep is, my friend Maya has been in Jordan working at the school since February. The school is just now getting around to applying for her residency. She says it’s a good thing a herd of us foreign teachers showed up or she would have never gotten in to this ultra-exclusive club.

Residency cards allow you to travel and enter Jordanian-run attractions for a tenth of the price you pay if you are a resident. We would REALLY like the cards by the end of November so we can jet off to Wadi Rum and Petra for the next Eid holiday, and the cards will let us pay roughly a twentieth of the foreigner’s price. Worth the wait. Also it will make crossing borders, our other Eid option, a heck of a lot easier. The second reason is that I don’t want a repeat of my experience attempting to come to Jordan.

Highly emotional and on the verge of hysterical about leaving my family, I was told by the guy at the Delta counter that I could not board the plane without a Jordanian visa or a return ticket to America, neither of which I possessed. The result of this confrontation was me bursting into tears at the counter (I said I was emotional) and my mother buying me a $2,000 refundable ticket back to the U.S., which we promptly refunded. As I am going home for Christmas, I would love not to have a fight at the ticket counter again, even though every person I’ve talked to about this has said the Delta representative was full of go-se (not to get too Firefly nerdy on you).

This promise of residency is what sent me into the questionable clinic in a previous blog (my tests came back clean, though I’d be interested to see if I’m still clean AFTER the blood test). It also sent three of us to the police station last Wednesday to get fingerprinted. After spending a week trying to get all three of us together to make the trip, I ended up skipping my morning class. We grabbed our passports and arrived at the police station, where they promptly made us wait for about an hour. They took my two friends’ passports to renew the visas but said mine had to be renewed through the Ministry of the Interior. We got back to school with zero ink having touched our fingers and some massive confusion about what was going on. The bottom line was that I had wasted an entire morning and that I would have to miss another in the foreseeable future for the actual fingerprinting.

Heather, who has needed her visa renewed by the Ministry for about a month now, went to our HR rep to ask when she and I would be shipped off to the ministry. The next day, apparently, but they didn’t need our passports, just the paperwork. They will, I predicted.

Sure enough, the next day, we got an email asking us to bring in our passports on Saturday. Boy, can I call it. I really like that I know more about the residency system than those being paid to look into it. I took both of our passports in to school on Saturday. The guy asked me some random questions, handed back the passports and said to bring them back today (Monday). What was wrong with Saturday again?

Ah, Jordan bureaucracy. How you make my blood pressure rise.

A Quick, Little Note

2009-10-23T22:31:00.003+02:00

Dear Taxi Cab Drivers of Amman,

This note does not apply to the majority of you, who are nice, honest, albeit sometimes creepy citizens. However, I've had a run of bad eggs lately that make me think a reprimand is in order. And because I do not have the linguistic skills to say this to you in person, a pointless complaint session on my blog will have to do.

We are American. This does not mean we are stupid. We have lived here for months. We know how much it costs to get to different parts of the city. Do not go a different direction that will cost more money. We will know. Do not speed up your meter. Again, we will know. Do not try to tell us that it is double after midnight. We know it is not.

Doing these things will result in us giving you less money than you seem to think you are entitled to. Do not yell insults at us through the car window; you were the one who tried to rip us off first.

That is all.

Sincerely,

Gretchen

Wow, do I miss lazy days

2009-10-18T19:43:00.004+02:00

We got a bonus three-day weekend because, guess why, a marathon was running through Jabal Amman (where I work), and they didn't think we'd be able to get to school. How cool is that?

But now I am at the end of my glorious three-day weekend of doing nothing. And it occured to me how much I miss doing nothing. Nothing is fabulous.

When you have a normal weekend, you can spend one night going out, one day resting and recuperating from going out and one day finishing the work you should have done on the first day before school.

With a split weekend, I have to go out, rest and recuperate AND finish all my work in a day and a half. It's just not practical.

Therefore, I took the occasion of having this bonus three-day weekend to do nothing. Absolutely nothing. Glorious. I can't wait to do nothing again, possibly at around Christmas when I go home to America, the home of nothing. Lovely.

In other news, one of my classes has been canceled until next Saturday because one student contracted swine flu. Great vacation for the rest of the class (and for me because I have 29 less papers to grade!). Not so great of a vacation for the poor swine, I mean student. Let's hope teachers are like moms, in that they can't catch diseases from their kids.

Gretchen makes a great impression on the maintenance people yet again.

2009-10-16T09:42:00.003+02:00

If you'll remember, last time we had maintenance people in our house, I managed to misunderstand them AND ignore them according to the Arabic laws of hospitality. This time, I'm fairly sure I surpassed my last bout of ignorance and rudeness.

A worker was supposed to come over at 10 a.m. to fix a drip in our bathroom and a toilet leak in my roommate's bathroom. A guy is coming tomorrow to fix our stove. Heather, who cleverly went to bed at 10 p.m. last night, was supposed to be up to let the water guy in and converse with him, while I, who went to bed at 2 a.m. after cavorting around the city, slept.

At 9:40 this morning, the doorbell rang. I heard it and rolled over. Heather will get it, I thought. Nope. It sounded again. I blearily sat up and put my Japanese yukata on over my tiny pajama shorts so as not to scare and/or incite the natives. As I rubbed sleep out of my eyes, it occurred to me that I wasn't sure if this was water guy or stove guy. So I opened the door. "Marrhaba," I said politely. I wanted to say, "Are you the kind gentlemen who will be fixing the leak in our water closet this fine morning?" Instead, all I could come up with in Arabic was, "Fi my mushkala?" (There is water problem?) I also grinned hysterically.

The guy took one look at me and headed into the kitchen to figure out for himself what he was supposed to do. "Um," I said, showing off my impressive vocabulary in the morning. "The leak is in the bathroom?" He smiled, nodded and ignored me. Ok. I frantically texted Heather, who told me she was at the shops by our house and would be home shortly, inshallah. I continued wandering aimless around our dining room. Just as the guy started questioning me in extremely mumbled Arabic, our doorbell rang again. It was our guard, who speaks less English than I do Arabic, which is pretty amazing in itself. He went to the kitchen and began doing whatever it was that the guy had just asked me to help him with.

I thought the kitchen would take awhile, so I decided to brush my teeth. I was right in the middle of vigorously brushing, with toothpaste foam dripping out of my mouth, when the two guys showed up at the bathroom door to fix the leak in the sink. I stared at them wide-eyed for half a second, toothpaste steadily dripping from my mouth to the sink, and then gave a muffled, "Hello." There was nothing for it. With my audience watching, I spit the toothpaste into the sink and left the bathroom. "These Americans are so nutty," I'm sure the guys were saying as I exited, "and they sure don't know how to dress themselves."

Fortunately Heather arrived soon after and was able to take of the roll of hostess, which she did much better than I did. She spoke to them in much better Arabic and even offered tea, while I sulked on the couch and tried to stay out of the way.

I really must work on my people skills before the stove guy comes over tomorrow.

Yes, My Job Involves Making Kids Cry

2009-10-14T22:16:00.003+02:00

The last two weeks have been absolutely crazy for most of my school friends and me. We've been grading out the wazoo, and I spent all yesterday morning creating report cards for all fifty of my support girls. I haven't had time to do the usual lesson plans that my weeks involve, and I'm just now starting to get into the swing of being a support teacher.

But none of those things made me feel as bad as handing back the report cards from the first assessment today. In the span of three one-hour lessons, I got to see at least fifteen girls burst into tears over the results of their first tests.

I absolutely hate making people feel bad. I would much rather encourage them continuously than make them cry. But there's no doubt that a good, swift kick in the butt also encourages girls to try harder.

Now I have the results to back up my advice to study harder and pay attention during class. I can speak more frankly to these girls because I have their tests as backup to make them listen to me. I am also motivated to try to help these girls even more, so I don't have to watch them crying over the next test.

And on the other hand, it felt great to watch the two girls that burst into tears during class because they did so WELL on the tests. I especially couldn't help grinning when my "little moon," who I don't think has ever come in top, starting crying because she got the second highest score on the writing test. That right there, having the girls get it and be excited about it, makes teaching English worthwhile for me. I gave out LOTS of hugs today, both congratulations and condolences.

Note to self: start adapting to the roller coaster of emotions that is teaching. Also, get some sleep.

Best of Eid - Aqaba

2009-10-12T16:33:00.013+02:00

The last stop on my fun-filled vacation was Aqaba, a beach town in south Jordan right on the Red Sea. Aqaba is a famous sight for snorkeling and diving. We stayed at a fun hostel directly across the street from a public beach just south of Aqaba. Our room was small, but at least it didn't have a bathroom door or shower curtain. Wait, what? No, I kid you not, our room had no door on the bathroom. Super fun.

The other uber pleasant part of our hostel experience was the amount of attention I got from the owner of the establishment. On our first day, he took drove us into town. I'm fairly sure his eyes were on me more than on the road. After telling me several times how beautiful my eyes and I were, he commenced calling me his "queen" for the duration of my stay. This I could deal with, but he started opening doors for me constantly and making me sit in the front seats of cars, a big no-no for girls in Jordan. He also asked my friend some detailed questions about my love life, which my friend was kind enough to lie about.

Our first day there, we journeyed across the street to the public beach, where we encountered families frolicking happily in the waves - in full headscarves and burqas. Wet, that. I immediately became the most undressed woman there, in a tankini, and thus became the center of attention for most of the gentlemen present. That night we moseyed into the city of Aqaba, where we ate dinner and watched two boys taking their camel for an after-dinner stroll. A'adi. It's normal.

The next day we went to the Royal Diving club, where we snorkeled like crazy and slept in the sun. The last day, we slept until 11 a.m., took a fabulous snorkeling trip around a sunken ship, then chilled in the Bedouin tent by the swimming pool at the hostel. Excellent relaxation.

My other famous creepy guy story from this trip happened on the first night. We had gone to a club, and the owner/manager/some guy with influence in the club asked my friend (not me) if he could dance with me. I was holding a beer and danced with the guy only using one hand. It was not a sexy dance. I declined another dance and ran away immediately following. But I guess in Jordanian guy talk, that means, "Come and get me, big fellow."

Shortly after, I wandered to the bathroom. The guy followed me. I came out of the stall to find him trying to press his number on me. I told him I wasn't interested. "You don't want me?" he said, astonished. Shockingly, no, I didn't want him. He then asked me what I was worth. Fantastically nice guy, this one. He continued to barrage me with propositions until I broke down and told him I was married to the male friend I was with. He apologized profusely, then took my hand and began kissing it in remorse, I guess. Fortunately my new husband called me at just that moment and I was able to escape out of the bathroom without further incident.

Traveling with me is always an adventure.

Best of Eid - Dead Sea

2009-10-12T16:08:00.006+02:00

Two days after the trip north, a couple of us drove the extremely short 40 minutes to the Dead Sea. Unless you've been living under a rock your entire life (or possibly America), you'll know that the Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth. It divides Jordan from the West Bank and Israel.

The Islamic legend is that the Dead Sea was what used to be the city in which the Prophet Lot lived, called Sodom in the Christian bible. God wished to rain fire and brimstone upon the people in Sodom for their acts of wickedness and sexual deviance. Lot and his family were spared (except Lot's wife who was turned into a pillar of salt while escaping from the city). The angel Gabriel raised the city and threw it back to earth upside down, thus creating the lowest place on earth. Also, I heard a rumor that the salt in the sea is from all the people turned to salt before the raining brimstone. Cheery.

But it is true that the Dead Sea has one of the highest salt contents in the world, at more than 30 percent salinity. For this reason, it is possible to become a champion floater in a matter of seconds and is, in fact, actually difficult to swim or do anything but float around like a turtle on it's back.

But floating and salinity aren't what drive the millions upon millions of tourists to the Dead Sea each year. It's the fabulous resorts and high-class spas that do that.

We only made our Dead Sea getaway a day trip, so we did not get to experience the luxury of staying at a room there. But we did get to dip in fantastic pools, lie in the sun drinking beers and fresh juice (I've heard it's much harder to burn at the Dead Sea because of the distance from the sun and from the high salt content in the air), and enjoy the awkward yet pleasant sensation of being stuck in a horizontal position in the Dead Sea. We also did the ever-so-popular mud smearing at the beach. Apparently the mud at the Dead Sea is all kinds of beneficial.

Then at the end of the day, we got to see a beautiful sunset from the porch of the Movenpick and watch the twinkling lights of the West Bank. So peaceful.

Best of Eid - Um Qais

2009-10-12T15:57:00.004+02:00

After Jerash, we went to Ajloun Castle, then headed even more north to Um Qais, another ruins sight and overlook of the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus reportedly walked on water.

I personally preferred Um Qais because the weather was cooling off by then and the colors of the stones were just magnificent. It was also fun to engage in spontaneous religious discussions with my friends and contemplate trying out the walking-on-water thing in the Sea of Gaililee.

Best of Eid - Jerash

2009-10-12T15:25:00.006+02:00

This is a long time coming, but here's a brief summary of my excursions during my oh-so-welcome nine day holiday for Eid, the end of Ramadan. You'll remember my previous blog post about driving in the utter madness that is Jordan traffic? Well the REASON I rented a car and aggressively swerved through traffic was so we could take a trip up north to visit the city of Jerash.

Jerash is most famous for the ruins still standing in the city center. They are the most well-preserved and numerous remnants of Jordan under Roman rule still left in the country.

We drove through the back-to-back traffic jam that comprised the marketplace right next to the ruins in Jerash, then parked on a street filled with chicken shops. Lucky me. We headed over to the ruins of the baths (above), then headed toward the main entrance.

We found it, then had to hike for about ten minutes toward Hadrian's Arch to where you by the tickets. We couldn't find it, walked back to the visitor's center, then walked the ten minutes BACK to Hadrian's Arch to find the unobtrusive little ticket booth nestled in a souvenir shop.

We moseyed through the park, stopping occasionally to pose as various relevant gods and goddesses (I wanted to be Dionysus, but tragically he's a god, not a goddess. Apparently I have gender issues as well.). We ended our extremely hot tour at the amphitheater (left).

Fi Mushkala Kabeer m3 Baab!

2009-10-08T01:24:00.006+02:00

Well since I'm up...

I drifted off into a comfortable sleep at about midnight this morning. At about 1:15 a.m., I heard a weird banging noise coming from outside my room. "What is that stupid cat doing," I sleepily thought to myself. I pulled myself out of bed and stuck my head into the hallway to find Sine.

"Gretchen?" I heard Heather say from inside her room. "Could you try to open my door for me?" She was rather frantically pulling on the door and rustling with her key. So THAT's where the noises were coming from. I joined her futile attempts.

Apparently, when she had locked it from the inside, the lock had jammed in the door and would not unlock. To make matters worse, Heather REALLY had to go pee. We continued shaking the handle and pushing the door with little success. Heather then tried to pass the key under the door to me so I could try to unlock it from the outside. It got stuck under the door.

I got a spoon from the kitchen and pushed it back through to her. She stuck it through a different part of the door, and I was able to grab it. I stuck it in the lock and turned. Nope. The lock wouldn't budge. That's when we got desperate.

I tried to call the guard that lives in our apartment and speaks no English. Heather yelled Arabic words through the door that I was supposed to say to him. "Fi mushkala kabeer m3 baab! Mumkin ta'al hawn hella2?" There is big problem with door! Possible you come here now? Unfortunately he didn't answer, so I was not able to practice my emergency Arabic skills.

Our next bright idea was to try to break down the door. I thought we could bust out the wooden frame the lock settles in. Heather was all for knocking a hole in the door itself that she could climb out of. We tried the frame idea first.

This idea also gave me the opportunity to try my cop-show door-kicking-in routine. Even at 2 in the morning, I am clever enough to realize that kicking down a door in bare feet and pajama shorts is possibly not a great idea. So I tried slamming the door with my shoulder. The only result was a rather sharp pain in my shoulder. I backed up even with the kitchen door, about twenty feet away. I took a running leap toward the door and slammed into it with quite a bit of force.

Once the pain subsided, I picked myself off the floor and faced the still unmoving door. "Go try to find something blunt in the kitchen we can use as a hammer!" Heather called. Sadly, our kitchen seems to be rather devoid of blunt objects that could be used to hammer through a heavy door.

All options exhausted, we called our friend who now lives down the street from us. Happily, he was awake. I got to run down our stairs in my tiny pajama shorts and no bra to answer the door for him. He came into the apartment, grabbed the key and started turning. Between the two of them, he and Heather wiggled the door, and he exerted enough raw, manly strength to get the key turned, thus unlocking the door and setting Heather free.

Yay! We all hugged in relief. After laughing and talking, during which Heather said she had once again considered jumping out of our third-story window (I really must buy this girl a trampoline before she acts on her window-jumping urges), we told Heather she could now go to the bathroom.

Heather giggled. "I already did," she said with a laugh. Apparently, desperate and with no rescue in sight, Heather had used her trash can as a toilet. This caused me to dissolve in sleep-deprived and pain-induced giggles for the next twenty minutes of our conversation. Next time I want a roommate who's house trained! Or possibly I could just get her a litter box?

Three cheers for emergency Arabic lessons at 2 in the morning. Hella2 fi mashakil kiteer!

Now I am going to bed to see if I can get a good three hours of sleep before school tomorrow, which Heather will have to go to, seeing as she can't use the excuse "I was locked in my bedroom" any longer.

TWO Month Anniversary

2009-10-04T14:25:00.003+02:00

It has now been exactly two months since I landed in Amman. How time flies when you are frantically adjusting to a new culture, avoiding fasting and teaching at all hours of the morning. I mean, how time flies when you are having fun.

End of Ramadan Blues... Or One of Those Colors

2009-10-04T13:54:00.005+02:00

It has now been two weeks since the end of Ramadan. And I would just like to note how extraordinarily happy I am about this.

I can drink water in taxis, while walking down the street, in buses, everywhere.

I can munch on an apple in public.

I can sit outside and eat during sunlight hours.

I can eat lunch at any restaurant in town; I am not resigned to the one Christian restaurant we went to roughly a million times during Ramadan.

I can buy alcohol at a liquor store, all of which are now open again.

I can go to bars and clubs.

I can make it home from school through the traffic in less than an hour and a half.

Life is bliss again.

On the other hand, I AM suffering from Ramadan-sweets withdraw. Oh well. Nothing is perfect.

Dirty Looks are Still Better Than Dirty Needles

2009-10-04T13:09:00.010+02:00

This morning, on my day off (and the one day I get to sleep in, I might add), I had to be at school at 9 a.m. to go with a group to get a blood test for my hopefully future residency card (which may or may not take another year to get; the bureaucracy here is not what anyone would call prompt).

I staggered out of bed at 8:10 a.m. and wandered out the door by 8:40 a.m. I caught a taxi in no time. Little did I know it was the only shy taxi driver in Amman who actually goes the speed limit. I rushed up to the school at 9:07 a.m., worried that they had left without me. There, I found my school friend and another guy waiting around and unsure about what was going on. The usual. I shouldn't have worried.

After another ten or fifteen minutes of phone calls and waiting around, we finally found the bus driver who had been coerced into driving us all to the Health Center.

We hopped off the bus and followed our enthusiastic and fortunately Arabic-speaking (but not English-speaking... that caused some problems) bus driver to the clinic, a massive building with roughly fifty guys milling around in various semblances of lines. My friend and I, both in tank tops, quickly became the star attraction in the area. We crossed our arms and looked apprehensively at the huge line of men stretching beyond the building.

Happily, it was not the line for the blood test. Our bus driver finished negotiating with our passports and herded us up some stairs to a tiny room.

Let me pause for a moment. In America when I have to get blood drawn, they take you into a specially prepared metal room with a nice chair you can lie back in. The nurse comes in, calms you down a little bit (well, at least for me they calm me down. I heartily dislike needles and my blood being anywhere but in my body), shows you all of the cleaned and packaged equipment she will use and eventually blood will be gently removed from your arm, usually with a comforting story or some other distraction.

This room looked more like a classroom than a doctor's office. There were two desks set up across from a row of dingy waiting-room chairs. The woman taking the blood had an array of supplies set up on the desk in front of her and was in civilian clothes. Filled blood tubes sat stickily to the side of the desk. It was not exactly the comforting environment I had in mind. I had also been warned that these government clinics don't even change their gloves between customers.

The three of us huddled in the corner in trepidation, cracking nervous jokes and trying not to think about the general lack of sterility in the place we were soon going to stabbed. Much too soon, I heard them call, "Christine!" Whew, I thought. A few minute reprieve. But no, they were all staring at us. And my friends' names are Maya and Paul. So that could only mean... "Christine Marie!" Crap.

"It's Gretchen," I snapped nervously. Eminent pain makes me testy. I approached the desk. She had the needle ready. "Can you change your gloves?" I asked, in what I thought was a polite, albeit tension-filled voice. She glared at me as if this was completely unreasonable but pulled on some new gloves. "And that's a new needle, right?" Gritting her teeth, she threw away the needle in front of her (which in all likelihood she had taken out of a new package while I was hiding in the corner) and pulled out a new needle still in its package so I could see it. It's extremely possible I was acting like a total snot at this point, but I can live with perceived snottiness. I can not, however, live with contracting hepatitis. And in my defense, I'm a huge baby when it comes to shots.

She dabbed a minuscule (what, like there's a shortage?) dab of rubbing alcohol on my arm (thank goodness. That eensy trickle will make all the difference to decontamination), and I stared across the room at Maya, who was dancing for my enjoyment. Then it was done, and I was handed a shred of cotton, which took roughly ten seconds to soak with blood. I shakily staggered back to the corner and mopped the blood off my arm.

Afterward, we were back outside waiting for the last member of our group, who showed up later, to finish her test. My fellow blood testers thanked me for demanding a change of gloves because the nurse used the same gloves with them. At least they can only catch what I've got (a cold?). But when my last friend came downstairs, she said she had NOT been snotty enough to ask for new gloves. And the nurse had been talking on a cell phone seconds before sticking a needle in my friend's arm. Does anyone else realize how many germs are on a cell phone?

In the nurse's defense, it hadn't hurt that much really. Residency, here I come! Hopefully remaining hepatitis free.

Who Needs Turn Signals Anyway?

2009-10-02T10:30:00.002+02:00

On the Saturday before Eid started, a group of us decided to go on a trip to North Jordan to see Jerash, a city with the most roman ruins, Ajloun, which has an ancient desert castle, and Um Qais, another ruins sight with a great view of the Sea of Galilee. However, none of these places are within walking distance. This meant we needed a car. It also meant one of us ex-pats was going to have to drive in the madness that is Jordan traffic. Mostly because I'm missing a few brain cells, I volunteered.

The day before our trip, we stopped by a rental car office and strenuously negotiated a car for one day. They let us drive it off the lot. We had no car insurance whatsoever, and (don't tell them this) but I was driving with an expired Texas license because I haven't received my new one in the mail yet. Fortunately they couldn't read English very well in the shop, and dates go DAY/MONTH/YEAR instead of MONTH/DAY/YEAR like in America, so we had all kinds of confusion going for us. Regardless and contrary to popular judgment calls, they let me rent a car.

Let me explain something. Although several of my American friends will disagree, I am actually a very good driver. I accelerate fast, and I break late, but unlike my brother (who always gets to drive my Dad's when Dad won't let me), I have never had an accident. I have also driven in foreign countries before: France and Ireland. Ireland was tricky because of that whole wrong-side-of-the-road thing. France was tricky because the two-way roads are all roughly the width of half your car. Jordan is tricky because, once again, everyone drives like a maniac. So it was with some degree of trepidation that I slid behind the wheel. Driving out of town on highways is one thing. Driving in the heart of Amman, with disorganized traffic circles and crazed, fasting drivers is another.

My first hurdle was driving on to the street and around the corner to the gas station. However, a large van was parked (illegally in the US, completely normally for Jordan) in the middle of the road to my left, so I couldn't see anything. I gritted my teeth, gripped the wheel and made a Hail-Mary turn out on to the road.

We made it. I zipped out into Jordanian traffic, swung around the under the road and missed the turn to the gas station. Fortunately there was another road we could take back to it just beyond. I pulled in, the guys ripped us off while pumping gas, we went back and gave them a talking to, and our first car-owning challenge was met.

And I drove home. It wasn't really that bad. Sure, it required about a thousand times the concentration that driving in America requires, and I had to remember to curb my natural impulses to use turn signals, stay in lanes and be nice to people. But it turns out I'm pretty good at turning up my road aggression and swerving around other cars.

The trip north was extremely uneventful, car wise, besides the stares and ill-disguised astonishment that a woman was driving (the north is more conservative than Amman). In fact, I was driving and my female friend was in the passenger seat while the two guys sat in the back. That must have blown their minds.

I was following another friend of mine in his car, so all I had to do was keep on his tail. That was easy on the highway. In the evening, however, we had to head back into Amman to return the car. It had rained for about five seconds that afternoon, which did not wash the car; it merely turned all the dust into mud. Funnily enough, my windowshield wipers worked about as well as our stove does at home (not very), and soon I was staring out of a smeared concoction of glass, dirt and mud trying to stay just behind my friend’s taillights. Then we entered the city.

The traffic went from three or four other cars on the road, to every car in Amman trying to merge in front of me. Cars were passing a centimeter from my car, going 80 mph. I was swerving, cutting people off, passing people by centimeters myself as I tried in vain to stay directly behind my friend. We entered a traffic circle, one of the most annoying and disorganized parts of Jordanian traffic, and that’s when the rental place decided to call and ask where their car was.

So I’m frantically trying to keep my friend’s car in sight while negotiating around eight cars trying to merge into me from different directions, while driving around a traffic circle, while listening to a man yell at me in broken English. I was not a happy camper.

We made it to the rental place. I parked, calmly got out of the car and suffered a complete mental meltdown. As in, my brain was mush. I literally was so tired from concentrating that hard that I could not form complete sentences.

So all-in-all, my first driving experience was a success.

Apologies

2009-10-02T10:27:00.003+02:00

First of all, I want to apologize for my break from blogging over the past two weeks. I was too busy frolicking and having fun over Eid, and immediately after Eid I got sick. So it was all kinds of tiring just to do my job while coughing up a lung. Now, however, I am much better and actually have, well not FREE time, but time I can devote to blogging again.

So off we go!

Kids (and Foreigners) Say the Darnedest Things

2009-09-17T21:54:00.002+03:00

Besides the hugs, the best part of teaching is hearing the cute things kids say. Since telling the girls I'm from America, I've been regaled by stories of every time they've ever been in or even heard of America, asked if I know every relative they have living in America (I don't) and treated to all of their plans about eventually visiting every sight in America. Also, since they discovered I love cats, I've also heard about every cat each one of them has ever owned.

In addition to the stories, the girls also just say the darnedest things. I was discussing the common writing mistakes the girls made on their latest assignment when one of the girls raised her hand. "Ok, two things," she said. "One, (something about the lesson that I forgot in lieu of her second comment). Two, your tag is out." Thanks.

Heather told me that, after wearing the same skirt three days in a row, she was asked, "Teacher, why do you always wear the same skirt?" I told her an appropriate response would have been, "Why are you always wearing the same uniform?" I guess we'll really have to work on our wardrobes if we want to impress these little nine year olds.

While grading essays, I find all kinds of fun mistakes. My favorite was: instead of writing, "I was frightened when I saw the TV announcement about the hurricane approaching," one girl wrote, "I was frightened when I saw the TV approaching." I couldn't agree more. Personally, I get super freaked out when I see that TV creeping toward me.

And it's not just the students. Today I spent the majority of the morning rewriting the rather embarrassing English that plagued the Ahliyyah School's Web site (My revisions should be up for viewing soon. I'll let you know). One paragraph said, "The homeroom teachers monitor the students’ growth and teach them..." The next paragraph said, "Homeroom teachers for grades 4,5 and 6 overlook students’ growth but..." Overlook. Oversee. Same word, right? (P.S. "Oversee" means "to monitor." "Overlook" means "to ignore.") Teachers, we've decided to overlook student growth today. It's not that important, is it? Don't really need it.

One problem though. If I thought I had an annoying habit of correcting everyone's English BEFORE I became a teacher, just wait until I've done it for a solid year.

A Day in the Life 2

2009-09-17T19:47:00.006+03:00

I have now successfully completed my third official week as a teacher. I'm surprised to find, despite my natural inclination to dislike children, that I am enjoying myself immensely. Well, not so much the getting up at 6 in the morning part, but everything else.

My morning starts at 5:40 a.m., when I sluggishly crawl out of bed to flip the switch for the hot water, so it can heat up for twenty minutes before my shower. I then collapse back into bed and hit snooze. I hit snooze twice more and always manage to drag myself out of bed the second Heather jumps in the shower. Brilliant. So I normally pass the time eating breakfast and reading. Then Heather and I sleepily mumble good mornings to each other (El 7amdoLella [thanks to God] neither of us are morning people), and I jump in the shower. At about 7:15 a.m., if we are really lucky, we jump in a cab and head to school. Actually, I lie. That time is getting pushed back every day as we get lazier and lazier. But we try hard.

We get to school between 7:30 a.m. and 7:45 a.m. Then we sign in. Sometimes. On most days, we have back to back block lessons and one hour free at different times of the day. During my breaks, I can usually be found camped out in the way-overcrowded staff room either frantically grading writing assignments or reading a book. An extremely sweet elderly lady provides coffee, tea, hot water and za'atar sandwiches for us. She is my new best friend.

As for the lessons themselves, I usually wander around the back of the room and wait for Leen to finish the main lesson, so I can begin helping the girls that might need a little more explanation. Sometimes they don't need me at all. Most of the time, however, once they start working in groups or individually, I am overwhelmed with cries of "Ms. Gretchen, Ms. Gretchen," accompanied more often than not by tugs on my hands, arms, elbows and various other body parts. The hardest things to do are keeping track of who I help and finding time to get everyone the help they need. And I thought these girls would be shy!

I really love my students. They are bright, motivated, inquisitive and above all, absolutely adorable, which is why I have not killed every one of them on the days when they just refuse to shut up. I think it's nature's defense mechanism to make sure the species is repopulated: make the kids really cute.

Most of the time, Leen is in charge of class discipline. But on the occasions when I teach the class, that task falls to me. My background is overwhelmingly writing and grammar oriented, so we decided that I would teach all of the writing lessons in the curriculum. I also teach when Leen is tired, or when she isn't there, or whenever she or I feel like it. My discipline strategy so far is to yell "GIRLS" really loudly when they won't listen, though I am considering yelling variations on "OY," "YOU THERE," and "SHUT UP." Actually, my latest brainwave is to turn off the lights and glare until the room quiets down. I'll let you know how that goes for me.

Where's the Fire?

2009-09-17T19:15:00.004+03:00

On the bottom floor of our apartment, actually.

Two nights ago, I got up from my daily nap and headed off toward my 6 p.m. Arabic lesson. At about 7:15 p.m., I started receiving frantic calls from my flatmate. I smiled apologetically at my teacher and turned my phone to silent.

At 7:30 p.m. I called Heather back. Here was her story:

She had gotten up from her nap just after me and had started working on her computer. After about half an hour, the power in the apartment went off. The electrical current in Jordan isn't quite as reliable as that in the U.S. (and my previous roommate and I experienced quite a few outlets even in Missouri), so she wasn't really that alarmed. Then she smelled the smoke.

She opened the door leading down the stairs to the front door. It was pitch black, and smoke was rolling up the stairs in waves. Starting to panic, she closed the door again and raced to our balcony. Once there, she cleverly decided that jumping three stories to the ground was possibly not her best option, even while in a burning building, and she turned back to the stairs. She wrenched open the door and, using her cell phone as a light, ran cautiously down the sooty steps.

Once outside, she was met by one of the guys from next door and a herd of our other neighbors. The fire department had been notified and arrived within three minutes of being called. However, the building has no fire alarm, and I guess in Jordan no one thinks to inform residents that their building is burning. Ah well. I guess it's one of those thing you have to figure out for yourself, like breathing or one of those trivial things.

It turns out that an apartment on the first floor of the building had caught fire from an electrical problem in one of the bedrooms. Fortunately, the family living there had vacated the apartment earlier that day, so no one nor their possessions were hurt. The fire was contained within the apartment, and no structural damage occurred on the building. Heather said it was fairly impressive to see the flames shooting out the apartment window, however, and the ceiling above that apartment door is stained black now. On the other hand, I guess if you are going to have an apartment fire, this is the way to do it.

Heather and our friend came to my Arabic class to pick me up. We went out to dinner to give the smoke that raced up the stairs and through our open front door a chance to clear out. When we got back to the apartment, it smelled a bit like really burnt chicken, but all in all was not as bad as we expected. Tragically, the smoke had stirred up some of our massive resident cockroaches, which I was obliged to get our friend to kill before he left. I Febreezed the place down within an inch of its life and decided to call it a day. That's when I noticed that my feet, while usually in a fairly advanced stage of dirty, had become what could only be called filthy. As in dipped in black ink filthy. Ah. Yes. Smoke turns into soot. Joy.

I consequently spent the next hour or so cleaning every flat surface in the house. Then I did it again, because one rub does not get out soot. Two days later, however, I still cannot walk barefoot in the house without getting black feet. I guess it's time for another cleaning, which I will gladly do. Because it's so true that this story could have been much MUCH worse.

I knew those Arabic lessons were a good idea.

My first ride with a DWF: Driving While Fasting

2009-09-13T01:41:00.006+03:00

Tonight I was going down to meet some friends in Jabal Amman, a part of town about 20 minutes away from our house in Deheit al Rasheed. I had told them to meet at about 7:15 p.m. because iftar would have started and the roads would be clear. I didn't take into account the fact that taxi drivers would also be off the roads and eating at this time.

I stood on the road for about five minutes desperately trying to flag down a taxi. I saw lots of full ones and was ignored by several empty ones. Just as I was about to theatrically give up, one pulled over to the side, and two guys got out. But the guy in the front seat remained in the taxi, so I turned my attention back to other taxis. To my surprise, the occupied taxi pulled up next to me, and the driver asked where I wanted to go.

I was caught so unaware that I forgot to speak in Arabic. No matter. He understood Jabal Amman and motioned me into the cab while babbling rapidly and gesturing to the other fellow. From his miming, I understood that he wanted to drop off the man and then take me to Jabal Amman. Hm. Strange. I looked at the other guy (who stared at me blankly), shrugged and got in. We drove for about five minutes, then the other guy got out. I heard the call to prayer that marks the beginning of iftar. The last notes died away, and my driver was already two puffs into his breaking-the-fast cigarette.

After a couple blocks and a couple questions asked in Arabic (which I am proud to say I understood, even if I didn't know how to answer), such as "Is this your first time in Jordan?" "What do you do here?" and the ever popular "Are you married?," he asked if I minded if he stopped and got a coffee. I had heard of cab drivers doing this, and I wasn't really in a hurry, so I said I didn't mind. He offered me a coffee, which I declined, then hurried off. I waited a couple minutes in the cab, and he was back, this time dividing his attention between his third cigarette, his coffee and occasionally the road.

As we drove toward Jabal Amman, I saw one of the few car accidents I have ever seen in Jordan despite the crazy driving. "Tsk," my driver said. They have accidents because they are all rushing home to eat, he said distainfully in Arabic, which I understood because of the fabulous miming he performed. He took a drag of his cigarette and sucked down a gulp of coffee as he sped through one of the many optional red lights in Amman, barely missing a silver car as he rushed past.

My Arabic Confusion 2

2009-09-11T17:20:00.005+03:00

Four days ago, a fellow teacher at the school mentioned that she had forgotten to sign in and walked into the administration office. "Sign in?" I thought. "We have to sign in? Nah. I've worked here for a week and a half; they would have told us if we had to... Oh." Yes, it turns out we are supposed to sign in when we arrive at school every morning. Once again, you have to love the communication in this country.

Regardless, I followed my fellow teacher into the administration office and found my name, one of the few names that uses the English alphabet (the entire form was in Arabic). I glanced at the names above and below mine and saw that they had written what looked like their name then initials in the box next to it. I did the same.

I forgot to sign in the day after. Yesterday, when I remembered and went to sign in, I took a closer look at the "initials" people were writing after their names. There appeared to be quite a few people whose names started with V. In fact, everyone's name started with V. That can't be right...

Suddenly I realized. It wasn't a V. It was a saba, the Arabic number for seven (It looks like a V). Everyone was getting in at 7 something in the morning and writing the time down. It was a forehead smacking moment.

So for the first time in two weeks of working there, I actually filled out the sign in sheet with the correct information. Wow. And these people are relying on me to educate their students. We are all in an awful lot of trouble.

A Personal Essay about Assumptions and Being the Stupid Kid

2009-09-09T22:58:00.011+03:00

I would like to post a personal essay I wrote for my Advanced Writing class at the University of Missouri. It was never published anywhere else, so I thought I would take the self-publishing route.

The essay is about what it is like to be a foreigner who doesn't speak the language, who everyone thinks is not as intelligent because he or she can't express his or herself. It's also about how easy it is to judge people as less intelligent because of their communication skills and the struggle I face in basing intellect on speech. Warning: It's a bit long.

**********
You’re sitting there in a classroom. It might be warm outside, or maybe you just didn’t get enough sleep last night. Whatever the reason, you find yourself drifting off during the lecture. Suddenly the room is silent. You snap awake from whatever rainbow daydream you were having. The professor is glaring at you and waiting for the answer. Crap. You never heard the question.

You stare back like a deer in the headlights and know that no matter what you do, you are going to look like an inattentive idiot.

I’ve been there too. But I heard the question. I just couldn’t understand it.

Six years ago, my family moved to France for a semester. I had taken two years of French and learned a host of language-class words that were next to useless against the rapid-fire French I encountered during my first day of school in Poitiers, a city in Western France. My professor started with the typical first-day-of-class lecture on who knows what. Then, roll call. I prepared to listen for any mutilated variation of my name, but he wasn’t just calling names. He was asking questions too. Oh merde.

The daydream scenario started all over again, only this wasn’t any dream I wanted to have. Chills started up my back. My chest tightened. My forehead broke out in a cold sweat as I waited for the noose to tighten around my neck. After a million years but also much too soon, he called my name. I shakily raised my hand, hoping for a reprieve, an earthquake, the ground to swallow me up. No luck.

His unnecessarily rapid questions shot over my comprehension level like machine gun fire as I scrunched down in my desk and formed as small a target as possible. I stared up at him in terror. He stared back and started speaking a nanosecond slower. Still couldn’t catch it. “Professeur, je suis Americaine,” I choked out. “Je ne parle pas françias.” I don’t speak French. That should do it.

“Americaine?” Looking interested, he fired off more unintelligible French. This guy was not getting the message. I looked around helplessly, silently begging for help. The students started tittering. Small giggles broke the silence of my non-response. “Oui?” I ventured. Louder chuckles now. I winced.

The professor finally took pity on me and moved on to torment another victim. The students continued staring at me. I sighed in resignation. For the first time in my life, I was the stupid kid in class.

To my continuous embarrassment, I learned quality of speech is directly related to perceived intelligence. Being unable to communicate equals dumb or uneducated, even if such snap judgments are completely unconscious. Take my mother, for example. She volunteered as an administrative assistant while we were in France. Unfortunately, she spoke virtually no French (I was Victor Hugo by comparison) and struggled with the students. Once, my mom mentioned that in the U.S. she did the job of the head administrator. The student stared at her in surprise. “You know, I’m smart back in America,” my mom said.

That student isn’t the only one. Even after all my experience being the “other,” I still assume foreigners need extra help if they can’t speak my language well. I knew a Chinese woman in Texas. I over-explained details any adult should know and unknowingly patronized her because to me she spoke English like a child. I talked for her and shielded her from potential embarrassment, never mind that she was a 35 year old who knew much more than me.

But sometimes the child idea works. While speaking French, if I couldn’t understand something, I asked people to talk to me like a child, so they would use slow, simple words. But people not only adjust their words, they adjust their entire mindset to a lower standard of thinking. They tend to speak to those around the child instead of trying to communicate directly. Believe me, 17 year olds appreciate being addressed as a child even less than 35 year olds do.

Even people with accents can give an uneducated impression. I’m from Texas. I’ve listened to and winced at my share of “howdys,” “y’alls” and “fixin’ tas,” yet those words tend to slip out of my mouth after I’ve had one too many margaritas.

And how about those cheerleaders and that “valley-girl” talk? Girls, like, are labeled dumb blondes because of a speech habit they, like, picked up or whatever. Also consider the dialect of some African Americans. In the movie Bringing Down the House, Steve Martin is lamenting the way Queen Latifah speaks by saying she could sound smarter if she spoke “normally.” This is who I am, she replies.

These accents and dialects help people identify with social communities. People absorb speech habits easily; it becomes part of a group identity. So sometimes it’s not the accents but an unconscious opinion about a group of people that creates the uneducated impression.

I had my fun mocking Larry the Cable Guy for the redneck accent he uses in his comedy routine. Then I heard him speak without his accent, and he sounded exactly like me. Whoops. I realized Larry was not dumb; he was clever enough to capitalize on an accent that helped him connect with people but was over-the-top enough to be funny.

The ironic thing is that foreigners have to be pretty darn clever to survive in a foreign language as well. I had to keep my wits about me when performing the simplest task in France. Need a haircut? How do you say “layers” in French? And don’t even think about ordering a pizza. A person can only hear you say “pardon?” a few dozen times before the urge to sigh heavily and hang up kicks in.

At the end of my memorable class in France, the students completed information forms. Piece of cake, if you know French. After five minutes with my dictionary, I was only a quarter done. I panicked, because those show-off French students were done, and the professor was looking vaguely impatient about leaving the classroom.

Then suddenly I heard it. English. The most beautiful language in the world to me at that second. “You’re American, right? Do you need help?” “Yes,” I said frantically to my fellow student. I wanted to speak in English more than ever before, not only to quickly finish the forms, but to show just one person in my class I was not as stupid as I seemed.

**********

A Mensef Story

2009-09-08T20:50:00.005+03:00

This past Saturday, Heather and I were invited to Zerka for a traditional mensef iftar with a friend's family. After our longer-than-average first parents' meeting at the school, the guys picked us up in Jabal Amman, we hopped in the backseat like good little Jordanian girls, and we headed for Zerka, about a twenty minute drive outside of Amman if the traffic is good.

The traffic was not good. It took us maybe an hour. But it gave us plently of time to enjoy the scenery and sounds of Amman, such as the bumper to bumper cars, the honking of drivers crazed on road rage doubled by fasting all day, and masses of people snarling at each other as they rush around getting ready for iftar. Ah! The best time of day!

Zerka used to sit around a river, which made it the more popular city to live in. But once the river dried up, its citizens began fleeing to the slightly cooler Amman, and now the city is mostly industrial. When talking to people from Amman, they all betray the slightest bit of incredulity that there is anything to see in Zerka. They also mumble that it's slightly more dangerous than Amman, possibly because its the hometown of the notorious Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The people from Zerka retort that the Ammanians are just jealous. They didn't say what they were jealous of...

Regardless, we finally made it to the slightly grittier Zerka and pulled up at our friend's house. We met his mom, our fabulous chef for the evening, his two brothers, his brother's wife, his sister and her children. Once in the house, we settled into the living room, where our two friends laid a plastic sheet on the floor (got to put something to keep the rice out of the carpet), then set various plates of vegetables and drinks on it. Then we sat down to wait for sunset, my friend with a cigarette ready in hand.

Ding! At 7:01 p.m., we heard the call to prayer. We were four in the living room: our two friends, Heather and me. The guys said a quick "start of the iftar" prayer? chant? blessing? I'm not sure, but they said it; it was pretty; we started the feast.

Our friend poured a heavy yogurt sauce over the rice. Now, when eating mensef, the men usually use their hands. Women usually eat with spoons, but it is acceptable to eat with their hands as well. Heather and I immediately squished our fingers to the knuckle into the rice. We're classy like that. Heather, who has eaten traditional mensef before, began showing her prowess at rolling the rice into balls, then transferring the sticky bites into her mouth. Before too long, she was having a rice rolling contest with our friend. I was not so talented. Fortunately, my many years of eating Indian food with my hands came in handy, so I did not completely embarrass myself.

After washing up after the mensef, we retreated to the balcony, where we sat around and made our friend translate everything everyone said (our friend's family does not speak English. We do not speak Arabic. That makes for interesting conversations). Then we got the dessert.

Remember those pancakes Heather and I saw in early Ramadan? Getayaf. Well, tonight we got to find out what they are SUPPOSED to taste like. They were filled with a cream that tasted like chantille, topped with nuts and dipped in a sugar sauce. Delightful, and the perfect way to head straight into a sugar rush.

We ended the evening by smoking argile (shisha, hookah to you Americans) on the porch and then heading home. Ah. My first mensef. My fond memories of this night will last as long as the bits of rice stuck under my fingernails.

Bombs and Bodies. Just another routine day at school

2009-09-08T00:42:00.004+03:00

I have now survived one week and one day of classes at the Ahliyyah School for Girls. It’s been a lot of fun so far. My girls are mostly all very eager to learn and highly inquisitive. They have minor talking problems, as in they can’t shut up, but what fifth grade girl doesn’t? My main teacher, Leen, in addition to being a super awesome person is a fantastic instructor, and I am learning lots from her.

On the first day of class, I introduced myself, and we played some getting-to-know-you games, just like in the U.S. And as Americans, we usually like to start off the school year on a happy, fun-filled notes. I expected my first lesson in Jordan to be the same. That was before I saw the first lesson in the girls’ fiction books.

Nuclear Disaster! the title reads. The caption? “Ann Burden is sixteen. Following a nuclear explosion, she believes she is the last person alive on earth.” The story came equipped with a delightful picture of an explosion leveling a city. Cheery.

NOT ONLY did we read the excerpt from Ann’s fictional account on the first day of school (which included lines such as “Bodies. Just dead bodies,” “I went into a couple of houses, the Johnsons’, the Peters’ – they were all in there, all dead.”), but we also showed them pictures of an atomic bomb explosion and some dead bodies, which I thought was perhaps a little graphic for 10 year olds. They seemed to take it well.

Before discussing death and destruction on the first day of class, we also talked about nuclear weapons in terms of politics and power struggles. Huh. It turns out fifth graders in Jordan actually know something about current events AND politics, unlike many American college students I know.

Fortunately Unit 2 looks a little more cheerful. We get to read some Tolkien! Score. (P.S. They spelled Tolkien's name wrong in the textbook.) Of course it is the scene where the hobbits are lost and scared in the eerie forest...

Welcome back to school, kids!

One Month Assessment and Observations

2009-09-06T15:36:00.008+03:00

As I have now been in Jordan for exactly one month and two days, I think it's time to update people on the strange / different things I've noticed here in Jordan.

First of all, let's discuss clothing / appearances.

1) Obviously, as this is a Muslim country, women wear a lot of headscarves here. I would say, depending on what part of town you are in, that in the more conservative areas about 95 percent of the women wear the headscarves and in the less conservative areas about 50 percent of the women wear headscarves. This took a couple days to get used to, mostly because you have to get used to sometimes being the only woman in the vicinity NOT wearing a headscarf.

2) While walking around the city, it is not uncommon to see men dressed in the typical Saudi Arabian garb - a white robe-looking garment and a red and white checkered headscarf secured around their heads with a black band. I am seeing this less and less now that many people from the gulf have headed back home after their summer vacations, but as I said, it's still not uncommon.

3) Every once and a while, especially in conservative neighborhoods, you will see women dressed in the full burqa, which covers them from head to toe. Again, burqa sightings have decreased as visitors from the gulf have gone home, but you still see them fairly often.

4) Choice of dress here seems completely up to the wearer and/or the wearer's family. I've seen a girl in a halter top walking right next to a girl in a headscarf and long dress with long sleeves. As they say in Jordan, a'adi, it's normal!

Consumer complaints - stuff I can't find in Jordan

1) It is almost impossible to find a decent selection of hair products at the majority of the shops here in Jordan, though they do have a rather extensive display in Cosmo. You can get all the shampoo you want, but if you want a decently priced AND generous quantity of conditioner, you might want to switch countries. The same goes for hair spray and mousse.

2) Despite the fact that most women here wear make-up, headscarf or no, the make-up selection here is extremely limited as well. Supposedly one mall in the shopping district has an extensive collection of make-up, but I haven't made it out there to see yet.

3) While packing for my trip here, I was sure I could find some more conservative shirts, etc when I got here. And I have found several nice, long, non-revealing tops. However, the majority of the clothing at the shopping centers here is exactly what you would find in the U.S. Some of the dresses and halter tops I found displayed in the City Mall looked too scandalous for me to wear in the U.S. even. When I asked Melissa about this, she said that the girls here either layered these seductive seams over their long-sleeved shirts or they bought them to wear when they go abroad.

Other random things:

1) Children do not seem to have a bedtime here. We see them with their parents out at all hours of the night. When parents have an outing to go to at night, they do not put the kids to bed first, then go out. Nope, they just take the kids right along with them.

2) When riding in cars or in taxis, unless you know the person very well and you are just two or three people, women always ride in the backseat. Always. This involves, at least for me, some interesting leg positions, as people with long legs do not always fit comfortably behind someone whose seat is all the way back.

3) I've mentioned this before, but just about everyone smokes here. And they are allowed to smoke almost everywhere. No one thinks anything of this, nor is it common to ask permission before lighting up. I've been asked if I minded the smoke a total of once in the entire month I've been here. You get used to smelling like an ashtray.

4) The American movies they show on television here (by the way, satellite tv is free. Score.) are extremely strange. All of them have actors and actresses I know very well, but I have never heard of the majority of the actual films. Also, they all portray Americans doing very strange things. If these movies are the closest some Jordanians have ever gotten to Americans, no wonder they stare at us!

5) Our landlady travels with an entourage. I have never seen her without her mother, for one, and usually with three or four kids, too. They all come into our apartment together to talk to us and pretty much take over the dining room table. It's good to be loved!

In another month, I'll probably have a whole new list of strange and unusual sightings of cultural happenings here in Jordan. Can't wait for my two month anniversary!

Welcome to Jordan! How can I make your stay more complicated?

2009-09-06T14:59:00.005+03:00

Last Sunday, I went to the maktab a'shurta, or police station (actually police office, but they got the idea) to get my visa renewed. With my usual impeccable timing, I arrived at 1:10 p.m., ten minutes after they closed for Ramadan. The harassed civilian I commandeered to help me talk to the unpleasant guard at the gate translated the guard's curt responses as "Welcome to Jordan. The station is open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday through Thursday. You are too late, you ignorant foreigner, you." Actually I made that last bit up.

Regardless, I was now faced with a problem. My visa was expiring on Friday. I was working from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. every day that week. So the soonest I could get back to the police station was today, a week later and three days past my expiration date. The harassed citizen told me it would be one dinar for every day I went over my visa. Three dinars. No big deal, right? HAHA!

This morning, I cheerfully rolled out of bed and was on the road toward the police station by 11 a.m. (well, 11:30 at the latest. Promise) I arrived, sweaty and exhausted after my hike uphill to the police station, held out my passport like a shield in front of me and was ushered by some stern-looking officers into a back room. I waved my passport at the official behind the desk and said "new visa." He waved me into a chair and took my passport. After looking at my visa for a minute, he said I had to go to an address he wrote on a piece of paper, then come back to the police station. "But what do I do at the address," I asked. He looked confused. He gestured to the women in the desk next to him to take me to another part of the building. "You are welcome in Jordan," he called as I left the room.

The woman took me into another official-looking office, where the officer there said I was over my expiration date and had therefore begun to rot. I needed to go to the Department of Something or Rather to pay my three dinars because the station could not possibly do it. Then I had to come back to the station to get my renewed visa. "We close at one," he reminded me with a smile. He had one of his guards take me down to get me a taxi. "Welcome to Jordan!" he said cheerfully as I exited his office trying to quell my urge to bean him and his officers with my purse for making me run around so much.

I got in my taxi and we drove to the Department of Whatever. It was now noon. I asked some more unpleasant guards where exactly the department was, and they pointed me to a building with roughly a million people standing around waiting. Joy. The guard stationed there reluctantly helped me find the correct form to fill out, then pointed me toward booth 2. "Welcome in Jordan," he mumbled grumpily. I stood in line at booth two, handed my paper to the attendant there, was discussed hurriedly behind the counter, then was pointed to the cashier's booth. I handed my paper to the women there and was asked to sit down. After a couple minutes, I heard her call, "American!" Although this isn't my usual name, I responded and paid my three dinars. "Welcome to Jordan," she said in lieu of a goodbye.

Rushing out of the building at about 12:30 p.m., I summoned the first taxi I saw and headed back to the original police station. I headed straight into the back room and got them to stamp my passport in no time. I walked out of the police station at ten minutes to one with my head held high.

“You are welcome in Jordan,” the guard called out as I wandered back by his kiosk.

One Month Anniversary

2009-09-04T11:52:00.002+03:00

Today, September 4, marks the one month anniversary of the day I came to Jordan. How time flies!

I'm sorry, I was looking for the staff meeting?

2009-09-02T22:19:00.002+03:00

First of all, I would like to say that I love my school. The Ahliyyah School for Girls is a great place to work. The girls are fabulous and eager, and my fellow teachers are all supportive and cooperative.

That being said, the meetings we have are sometimes… not exactly what we Americans expect, to say the least.

A couple days before school started, we were all called over to the Bishop’s School, the boy’s school that partners us, for a meeting with the general director. The buses picked us up at 10 a.m. and carted us over.

I had been up for a while. I was tired. I was hungry. I was not in the mood for a staff meeting in Arabic hastily translated into English by the person next to me. So I was this side of cranky already.

The director started out in a typical meeting style – welcoming us, thanking people, introductions all around, extra. Then she powered up the Powerpoint, and we got to work. Note: I was only receiving about half of the information presented because of the translation, but she seemed to be talking about the usual teacher values, commitments and strategies. Then she started showing the movies.

We went through three or four 5-10 minute long movie clips that seemingly barely illustrated the point she was trying to make. At this point, I was ready to eat my own arm off. And we had gotten to 11 a.m.

We got through the movie clips and finished the talking portion of the meeting. Great! Time for lunch, right? Um, no. Thus began a forty-five minute long session of inspiring poetry readings in Arabic, songs in both Arabic and English and piano playing for our entertainment. And entertaining it would have been except for the fact that I was now chewing on a plastic bottle in hungry desperation and dreaming of bashing the piano with a baseball bat, then heading home to take a nap.

They even sang some Elvis. After this, American staff meetings are going to seem all kinds of tame.

Shameless Plug

2009-09-01T22:01:00.003+03:00

Check out my roommate Nadia's blog post called Rice and Chicken. She relates a conversation she and I had about varieties of food within cultures. I guess it all depends on what your background is!

My First Iftar, With or Without the Macaroni

2009-09-01T21:18:00.003+03:00

This past Sunday, Nadia, Heather and I hosted a traditional (well, sort of) iftar, or breaking of the Ramadan daily fast. Traditional foods for iftar are soups and sweet drinks, then dishes such as stuffed zucchinis, fatoosh (a salad with fried khutz [bread] on top), lots of rice, mensaf, and kafta, a meatloaf-like dish with Arabic spices and vegetables on top. Oh, and of course tons of Arabic sweets, including kunafa and baklava, for dessert.

Nadia made most of the dishes mentioned above. Heather and I took a more American route.

Heather decided to make Waldorf salad; only to add a little Middle Eastern flare, she put dates in it instead of raisins. I went as American as possible and decided to make macaroni and cheese.

That is, I decided to make my mom's ever-so-famous egg noodles and hot dogs macaroni. So on Saturday night, Nadia, Heather and I headed off to Carrefour for ingredients.

First of all, Carrefour did not carry egg noodles. I settled for jumbo elbow macaroni. Carrefour did not have ground yellow mustard. I settled for a milder variation of mustard powder. Carrefour did not have hot dogs. This one was tough. After combing the packaged meat area (NOT my favorite thing to do; ask anyone) for several minutes, I finally found something called Smoked Turkey Mortadella (plain). It looked a bit like an enormous hot dog, so I thought I would give it a try.

The next day: Heather and I decided to do a variation on the fasting because we wanted to get the real iftar experience. I woke up at about 10 a.m., drank a little water to take my medicine (which you are not supposed to take during Ramadan either, but I am NOT giving up my allergy pills.) and started my fast.

We broke down at about 2 p.m. We had just gotten back from walking around and buying more groceries outside, and we were deathly thirsty. Plus, my hands were beginning to shake. So we grabbed some quick khubz and lebnah and called it good.

We started cooking at about 5 p.m. Iftar began at about 7:10 p.m. Traditionally, you are also not supposed to taste the food while you are cooking it; that breaks the fast. Heather and I decided, in the interests of not embarrassing ourselves horribly, to taste our food BEFORE serving it to 20 guests.

So I wandered over (with two armfuls of ingredients) to the guys' flat at about 6 p.m. to begin my macaroni. Now, this sauce is notoriously tricky to make. It burns very easily and can refuse to thicken even on electric stoves. I was cleverly making this for the first time in Jordan, on a gas stove that only half works, using ingredients I've never used before and serving it to a houseful of people. Yes.

One of the guys had to light the stove for me, but then things went smoothly, even if I had to feverishly yell at the flames a bit for overexerting themselves. Made the sauces, yelled at the cheese to melt faster, then threw it all together in the pan. Then, throwing caution and my attempt at fasting to the winds, I tasted it.

Actually, it wasn't bad. The sauce was a little milder than normal, but I can live with that. The "hot dogs," however... Not such a great idea. They tasted like old bologna. But then again, as Heather said, no one else knew what it was really supposed to taste like. And as the pan was scrapped dry roughly 15 minutes after the start of iftar, I guess they found it edible. I didn't listen to a single complaint.

Hosted first successful iftar dinner? Check.

Out of those two? I choose...

2009-09-01T20:43:00.004+03:00

On the way home from picking up my fabulously repaired purse, I found myself in a taxi with a chatty driver who knew a bit of English. Over the course of the conversation, after he asked if he could come back with me to America (I declined that tempting offer), he asked me if I had children.

"Nope, no children," I said.
"You marry?"
"Nope, not married."
"Oh, you gay?"

Wait, what? Did I understand this guy correctly?

"You gay? You like women?"

Really? Those are my only two choices? Married or gay? Can't a girl just be single in this country? On the other hand, maybe if the gentlemen here thought I liked women, I would get less attention.

Or maybe not.

Cheap, Fast Services Make Gretchen Happy

2009-09-01T15:00:00.005+03:00

Just over a month ago, the zipper on my all-time favorite purse, which I bought just over a year ago in China, conveniently broke just as I was getting on the plane to Japan with no time to buy another one. I consequently bought the cheapest Japanese purse I could find that would hold my humongous camera. I kept my old purse with me, thinking I could maybe get the zipper repaired once I got to Jordan.

Turns out I can.

On Sunday, I wandered over to an alterations place on Garden Street, about a 30 minute walk from our flat. I walked in, asked if they spoke English ("Yes." What they meant, however, was "No." Fortunately after all my traveling, I am fluent in miming.)

I mimed the zipper breaking on my purse. They took the purse, gave me a slip of paper with a number on it and said come back tomorrow. One day? Score!

I didn't make it back until today. They handed me a fabulously fixed purse and gave me a price of 1 dinar for it. One dinar? Double score!

Who loves one dinar alterations? GRETCHEN loves one dinar alterations.

My Arabic Confusion

2009-08-29T18:33:00.005+03:00

The super fun thing about dealing with the Arabic language (even more fun than the sounds they put in there just to weed out the foreigners) is learning how to read things from right to left. When practicing Arabic, it is fairly easy to remember this one basic rule. However, even though that's a absolute tenet of Arabic society, it isn't always second nature to us ignoramuses.

My main teacher, Leen, and I received our schedules of classes earlier this week. Hers was in Arabic, as she speaks Arabic, and mine was in English for a similar reason. The papers were identical; both showed equal-sized tables with boxes labeled for each class. We were going over when we would have free time when I glanced over at her schedule. "Hold on," I said to Leen. "We don't have the same schedule. Look, you don't have free time first thing on Monday, you have it for the last two periods." Leen looks down at her schedule. "Yes, I have free time first thing on Monday," she says, pointing to the last two boxes on Monday. "Right here."

"No, that's last peri... Oh. Arabic goes from right to left."

Duh, Gretchen. But in all fairness to me, how do you reverse 24 years of reading tables left to right in three weeks, especially when I am staring at my own table that goes left to right?

To her credit, Leen did not snicker at my brain's stubborn refusal to cross cultures.

French Kissing

2009-08-29T18:19:00.007+03:00

My first few days in France, I was introduced to the art of French kissing. No, not that French kissing, the cheek kiss they do as a way of greeting/introduction/nice-to-see-ya. This involves placing your cheek against someone else's and making a kiss sound in the air.

In Poitiers, I got used to doing one kiss on the right cheek to say hi to all my classmates every day, and two kisses for special friends, special occasions, if you were all kinds of enthusiastic about kissing someone, etc. In the south of France, especially among family friends, that number went up to three or four. Luckily, the girl just gets to wait for the guy to decide the number, so it involves no thinking or decision making regarding the social impact of going for two kisses when you only need one. Faux pas avoided. On the other hand, this also means that the girl has to be ready for any number of kisses coming her way.

Here in Jordan, they also use the kiss on the cheek as a greeting. However, I'm having quite a bit of confusion as to how many kisses to aim for. "Two," said one of the guys who lives next door, after I mistakenly tried to do the Poitiers kiss and pulled away after just one kiss (how embarrassing). One on each cheek. Ok. Sounds good. I can do that. A couple days later, I'm saying hi to some friends who stopped by the apartment. This time, I kissed both cheeks and went to pull away. The guy was still there. "Three in Amman," he insisted. What? We're going for three? Don't the natives even know how many kisses is appropriate?

So now my plan is to hover awkwardly in the general vicinity of someone's face until he is most definitely done cheek kissing me, while staring at his face avidly waiting for any sudden movements toward either of my cheeks. Embarrassment avoided.

Waiter, there's an oil spill in my food

2009-08-29T18:10:00.003+03:00

We’re well into the month of Ramadan now, and what’s on everyone’s mind? Smoking, most likely. I have never seen so many people who smoke in one county. Europe has nothing on the Jordanians. And there are no laws about smoking in public, so people smoke EVERYWHERE, including restaurants, taxis, hospitals, etc.

But actually, I was talking about food. Food is also on everyone’s mind. And in the spirit of helping others be hungry, here are some of the foody things I’ve noticed about Jordan.

First of all, I’ve already mentioned my diet here consists of about 80 percent labneh, za’atar and pita bread, which I just found out is called khubz. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only thing to eat (it’s the only thing to eat at my house, but that’s another story.).

A couple of days after coming in the country, I had possibly the most popular (or at least the most talked about) dish here: mensef. Mensef is basically spiced rice with almonds and or pine nuts, lamb or chicken and a yogurt sauce. For traditional mensef, which I have not experienced yet, a humongous tray of mensef is served to the guests. The women eat it with a spoon, and the men roll it into balls to eat with their hands. I, however, experienced mensef as our waiter brought it over on a plastic plate. So close. Apparently Heather got to try some mensef cooked by my dear, sweet cousin Melissa when she stayed with her for a couple of days. Lucky girl. Maybe, if I’m good, Melissa will cook for me sometime, too.

Other than mensef, I’ve had all kinds of other traditional Arabic dishes. You already heard about the oh-so-fabulous shwarmas, conveniently located on every street but the one we live on. You can also get all kinds of fresh, delicious hummus (or hommos) with olive oil pretty much everywhere. I’ve had kebabs; a fun dish called fuul, which is mashed beans with garlic in olive oil (it’s fun because who wants to try a dish that can be spelled ful, full, fool or foul respectively?); yogurt given to me in restaurants with olive oil; and olive oil. Did I mention the food is kind of oily here? You can also get any variety of meat or chicken and rice dishes with all kinds of yogurt sauces, spices and olive oil.

Within my first few days, I also got to try the dessert favorite here, kunafa. Kunafa is an exceedingly fattening dish that has a sweet cheese sandwiched in between fried sugar with about a literal ton of ghee (fatty butter) mixed in and melted on top. Very delicious, but fortunately for my daily calorie intake, it appears that I can’t eat more than about two bites of kunafa without spending the entire night in the bathroom, which mostly deters me from indulging too much.

If I’m not inclined to saturate myself with oil that night, I have any number of popular American restaurants I can go to for an oil break and a hint of home. We’ve got all the comforts, such as Papa John’s, Fuddruckers, Applebees, TGIFridays, Bennigans, and, most exciting of all, a new Ruby Tuesday in the City Mall.

We also have experimented with cooking American food in the house. A couple of weeks ago, Heather and I cooked up a rather fabulous dinner of tomato soup (made from scratch, thank you very much. Well, from tomato paste, milk and cream anyway) and grilled cheese sandwiches. Yesterday I also managed to make the ever-so-popular cheesy macaroni (with tomato soup) that my mom always made for me when I was little.

But one thing I am really missing is my Mexican food. I’m planning to make chicken enchiladas (if I can find sour cream that is) for an iftar we’re hosting on Sunday, and Lena and I spotted an advertisement with a giant hombre in a sombrero that we think indicates a Mexican restaurant here in Amman. Must try it soon! Hope they don’t douse my chimichanga in olive oil.