Burn!

As I walked up the hill toward the orphanage today, I passed a group of boys gathered around a fire. Some parts of this scenario weren't very strange, but others were most definitely interesting. For starters, it's not uncommon to see people burning garbage, but that usually takes place in one of the metal garbage cans that line the streets or in a deserted field in the middle of a group of apartment buildings and not on the middle of a sidewalk. It's also extremely common to walk by a group of boys or several groups of boys in that part of town. However I think the thing that struck me the most was what they were burning. Textbooks and old homework. School is out for the summer! I can't count the number of times that I have threatened to burn my textbooks, but the hope that someday I will be able to sell them back to the BYU Bookstore before they reach their quota has stopped me multiple times. Maybe this next semester, I'll just cut my losses, burn the books, and count it towards money spent for entertainment.

Fate of the Textbooks

=)

Mandi

It turns out that eating with your hands is an art form. There are many dishes here that are traditionally eaten from a big communal dish with your hands. With some of them, pita bread becomes the vehicle to get the food from the giant platter, with others, your fingers are the vehicle. If you have seen toddlers eat with their hands, you know how easy, and messy, it appears to be. All they have to do is stick their hands in whatever is placed before them and smear it around their face. This method would be a great diet because only a portion of the food actually makes it into your mouth. However, since we should be acting like grown-ups and not toddlers, it is generally frowned upon to make a mess while you are eating. It is also frowned upon to touch the food vehicle to your mouth and then put it back in the communal dish. In some cultures this is known as double dipping. But I have to say that when eating with your hands, the temptation to lick your fingers is pretty strong. Today I received my first lesson on eating with your hands. The name of the dish was mandi, a rice-based meal with chicken on top. I don't know what spices were used in the rice, but labna, a hot sauce, and some minced vegetables were also set on the table to eat with the rice. The setting was a table, low to the ground, with long couch cushions against the wall which are very convenient for taking a nice nap following a big meal. It took me a while to figure out how to eat appropriately with my hands, but after laughing at me a bit, one of the other, more experienced eaters, showed me what I needed to do.

Step 1: Add labna, hot sauce, chicken and/or veggies to your area of rice.
Step 2: Go ahead and mix that around a bit. Just make sure you stay in your area. It's very rude to mixwhat is in someone else's area or what is on the entire platter.
Step 3: Gather a bit of the rice mixture into your hand. Try to keep as much as possible of it toward the top of your hand. Things just get a bit more difficult if the food is all the way down to your pinky.
Step 4: Squeeze the rice. You want it to form a ball and the labna will help with that. If you don't squeeze it enough, it won't stick together. If you squeeze it too much, the juices will run out and it won't stick together.
Step 5: Move your thumb so that it is under the ball of rice and push it into your mouth. Be careful so that you don't stick your thumb in your mouth as well.
Step 6: Repeat until satisfied.

The food was delicious and part of that might have been the fact that it took so long to get every bite into my mouth so I had plenty of time to anticipate each one. One member of the group was a Jordanian. I was rather impressed at how efficient that method of eating can be. It was also pretty impressive to see how clean his hands stayed. I had to use several napkins afterward to clean up the extra labna, rice, and hot sauce that couldn't find their way to my mouth. All in all, it was a great adventure, one I hope to repeat soon.

=)

Hugs and Laughter

Looking down at Amman from the Citadel

The warm greeting I received at the orphanage today was the perfect beginning for a very hot day. The outside temperature reached over 100 degrees F today. But that's another story. Choruses of “Selina!” greeted me when I opened the door to one of the activities rooms. Along with that came numerous hugs from some kids who settled for hugging my knee and others who were able to reach my waist. Every hug was wonderful though. Children are blessed with an amazing capacity to love and trust others. I can't imagine how hard it would be to walk in their shoes, but they do it with a smile. It's fun to see how the simple pleasures in life can bring such joy into their lives. Paper airplanes, paper frogs that actually jump, a hug, a story, doing a puzzle, and many other simple things are enough to bring a light into their eyes, a smile on their faces, or even laughter. In the baby room, causing laughter is a game. So many of the babies are always smiling and seem to be on the brink of hysterical laughter without actually falling over the edge. I'm not always successful with getting them to laugh, but after being successful a time or two, I have decided that the laughter of a child is one of the best sounds in the world.

Newspapers

Samurai hats made from newspaper are pretty legit, but getting the newspaper for the hats was an adventure. Every day on my way to work, I pass several places that sell newspapers. The craft that I had planned a couple days ago was to make newspaper hats, not just any newspaper hat, but samurai newspaper hats. So that day, I actually stopped at one of the many places to pick up a newspaper. I knew that I would have at least twenty kids making crafts that day with me, so I simply picked up the biggest newspaper there. I asked the store owner how much it was and he spouted off something really fast. Somewhere in all of that I was able to pick out what I thought he said the price was. I was right on what I thought he said the price was and he was right on what the confused look on my face was. “English?” When I said that I did indeed speak English, he was kind enough to show me The Jordan Times, a two page spread in English. He was also a bit put out that I didn't want it, but I was running a bit late to work and didn't want to explain what I was doing with the paper. Besides I could practice reading news articles from what was left over. I didn't think we would use all of it, but we somehow managed to use it all and wish it was a little bit bigger.

=)

Salty Water

Yesterday I hit a new low: 1388 feet below sea level. Visiting the Dead Sea was an interesting experience. For example, once in the Dead Sea, I could actually float without needing to move my arms to stay above water. I couldn't even do that in the Red Sea. It was slightly unnerving at first to see several other people out in the water at a distance that they couldn't possibly be standing, and yet, their shoulders were out of the water. All you had to do was walk until you could no longer touch the bottom and suddenly you were floating. The water was extremely salty and I found out that I had a few more small cuts on my hands and feet than I had thought. A fellow intern attempted swimming normally, but splashed water up into his face. His eyes were red from the salt and he looked a bit sick from the water that had reached his mouth. Imagine water that is several times saltier than ocean water and then give it an oily taste and you have the Dead Sea water. After spending some time floating in the Dead Sea, some of us headed down the beach a ways to find some good Dead Sea mud. Apparently the high salt content makes it a great exfoliator. So we rubbed down with some dark brown mud, let it bake for a minute in the hot sun until it was dry and then washed it off. Between that and the oily water, my skin felt pretty good. It was also really neat to see how high the salt content was in the water. After swimming in the Red Sea, I had some streaks of salt deposits on me where the water dried, but after swimming in the Dead Sea, I had a good 1/8 inch of salt covering my skin.

Earlier that day we had visited Mount Nebo and the place where Jesus Christ was baptized by the Jordan River. Mount Nebo was different than I had expected. Mount Nebo is not very much higher in elevation than Amman, but from the lookout spot on Mount Nebo, you could see Jericho, the Dead Sea, and much of the surrounding area. From there we went down to the Jordan River. Most of the landscape near the river was the same as the rest of Jordan: basically a desert. However, when we got closer to the river, we were suddenly thrust into the middle of a tangle of bushes and sea cedar trees. These cedar trees look just like any other cedar tree, but they can utilize sea water. Evidence of this is found easily enough. Licking one of the cedar leaves, leaves a salty taste in your mouth. I was a bit surprised at the location of the baptism site. I had always assumed that it was in the middle of the Jordan River, but it wasn't. Archeologists have found what they believe is the baptism site which is a spot located just east of the river in a rather secluded area. Support for this theory comes because of the many ruins of church building that were built around the area as well as records kept by many of the ancient churches. There was very little water in the baptism site because of how dry the weather is, but the ravines around the area lead me to believe that in the winter, there is actually quite a bit of water there. Soon, we reached the Jordan River.  The water was green, murky, and not very cold.  But that only makes sense because the temperature outside was hot enough to make me start melting - almost literally.

=)

Dedication

It has been interesting to see how dedicated the people are to their religion. Most taxis that I have ridden in have been playing Qur'an recitations which I have decided are some of the most beautiful, soul-filled sounds ever. I might even track down a CD to take back with me. Many people walk around carrying prayer beads to remember the 99 wonderful names of God and consequently remember the many wonderful things that he has done for them and blessed them with. Another wonderful thing is that nearly half of the books in book stores are the Qur'an. I also feel that the hijab can be a reminder for many women of the promises they have made to God and their duty toward Him. At the orphanage, it has been rather interesting to see how Islam is a part of everything they do. Before and after eating, the children are sent to wash their face and hands so that they will be clean because that's what Islam says to do. At other times, the children are taught what to say before eating or when they are given something in order to show their gratitude towards God. One particular time, I was present while they children were being taught a prayer. It was done in a call-response manner, but the thing that really stood out to me is that the woman who was teaching them told them to speak in a loud voice to show their sincerity. I'm sure there other reasons for wanting the children to use a loud voice such as to make sure they are actually participating, but it's just one example of how devout these wonderful people are to their religion.

It's also touching to see the concern that they have for your welfare. I have only been approached once when they were actually trying to convert me, but the experience was rather neat. At first, it was just a young boy, probably 10 years old or so, who was talking to a small group of us. What were we doing at the time? Sitting on a dock at Aqaba staring at the city lights coming from both Jordan and Israel. A little way above us was a beautiful mosque that was lit up like a temple and stood out like one as well. After getting to know us a little bit, he asked us if we had seen the mosque. When we responded in the affirmative, he then told us that was the place where he went to pray and asked us if we prayed. I don't think he was expecting us to tell him that we prayed every day, but shortly after that, his uncle came over and recited a piece of the Qur'an for us. It was very beautiful and about missionary work. He was just doing his Muslim duty to try and make sure that the ignorant foreigners had a chance to be saved. What would the world be like if everyone had the same type of concern for everyone else? Dang good. That's what it would be like.

=)

Quote for the day:
LIFE is not easy for any of us, but it is a continued challenge, and it is up to us to be cheerful and to be strong, so that those who depend on us may draw strength from our example.
~Unknown

Social Norms

Cute family at Petra.

At times, the checklist of do's and don'ts seemed to be miles of small things that I was sure I would never remember. Things such as eye contact, smiling in public, and riding shotgun were forbidden. But these things are simply the result of street-smarts and a different style of respect. I feel like people, and especially women, need to be cautious wherever they are traveling whether it's Chicago or Amman. In Amman, this includes going out of your way to avoid contact with the other gender. Things such as handling money in such a way that hands don't touch and sitting in taxis without touching those around you start to become habit. It has been interesting to see how men and women react in many different situations. For example, sitting in the front seat of a taxi is a manly thing to do, so women generally don't do that. However, if there are three male passengers and one female passenger in the taxi, the men will shift in order to give the woman the front seat and therefore give her a nicer journey. There have been several times where I have been the first the passenger to climb into the service taxi only to have three other men ride in the same taxi. Almost every time, as the last man arrives at the taxi, the other two men have climbed out of the taxi to allow me to also climb out of the taxi and ride shotgun. What gentlemen! Not smiling at people is one thing that is rather difficult for many people to get used to. In America, smiling is a way of acknowledging people. Here, smiling is flirting and therefore something that you probably shouldn't do in public places. During the first few days I was here, I tried to watch native women and my facilitator to see how they acted in public. It was rather interesting to see how quickly their business face came on. Annie, my facilitator, wouldn't even greet us interns in public with a smile. For now the smile will just have to stay in the apartment and around the kids I work with...

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