Gretchen sacrifices a few fingers for a kitten

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.