Sunrise... Sunset

The day began rather early this morning even though it ended a bit late the night before. I spent the weekend camping under the stars at an organic herb farm in Ajloun which is in the Northern part of Jordan along with  the rest of the BYU interns. Festivities began yesterday evening with bread, hummous, vegetables, and grilled chicken and lamb. Dinner was served at a later time than most people had anticipated, but you'd think we would be used to the fact that nothing in the Arab world runs on a time schedule. A great example of this would be catching a bus out to Ajloun to go camping. We had planned on meeting up with a group of people at the bus station at three, but when we arrived, the bus was already full. So we had no choice but to wait for the next bus. At first the driver told us that the next bus would be here in 10 to 15 minutes, but the actual translation of that statement is that they had no idea of when the bus would actually arrive. The next bus didn't arrive. However, after sitting at the bus station for nearly an hour, another bus arrived that was willing to take a group up to Ajloun. It wasn't the normal route of that bus, so the fare was slightly higher. By that time there were also more people waiting for a ride to Ajloun or Jerash than there were seats available on the bus. So even though we were some of the first people waiting for the bus, we still had to push our way onto the bus. After arriving at the farm in Ajloun, we spent the next four hours chatting and sitting around a fire made of a few sticks and a few pieces of coal. After eating, we also sang around the campfire and danced the dubka to some lively Arabic music. Later in the evening, we shot off the fireworks we were able to buy or rather firework because we only had one firework that fortunately had 16 shots in it that lit up the sky for the 4^th of July – a few days late. Sleeping that night was an interesting experience. The ground was rocky and most of those rocks seemed to find their way to where I was trying to get some rest. I must have dozed off at some point because the next thing I knew, the sun was peeking over the eastern hills and the neighbor's rooster was crowing. What a great way to start the day! After watching the sunrise and looking at the beautiful countyside for a couple hours, the rest of the day began. Watermelon was breakfast, galayat bandura was lunch, and then the work began. Rocky soil took on a whole new meaning. The farm where we were working is an organic herb farm. Their current project is terracing the hillside so that they can use it to grow more herbs. For the next five or so hours, I hauled rocks and dirt up and down the hill. I have to say, the manual labor felt wonderful! It's a bit different than the projects I've worked on back home on the ranch, but the dusty sweat and exhaustion were still the same. Mansuf was the next item on the agenda. I cannot lie; that was some of the best mansuf I've had while in Jordan. And that's saying something because I've had a some pretty dang good mansuf. The sun was on its way down by the time we finished  cleaning up the campsite and was completely behind the hills before I reached my apartment.  Sunsets here aren't very spectacular because clouds basically don't exist this time of year in Jordan, but it was rather fulfilling to be able to say that I rose with the sun and was still up when it set.  I mean how neat is that?


=)