O Susannah!

It took a minute for my brain to register that the music I heard as I was walking down the street was actually familiar. At first I thought it was because the music being played sounded like a music box on a sound system similar to the music played by the gas truck. Then I realized that the familiarity ran even deeper. The tune wasn't the Happy Birthday song or one of the other two songs that the gas truck plays. The tune came from a much earlier stage of my life. Notes to O Susannah, The Farmer in the Dell, and Yankee Doodle rang out through the neighborhood. I couldn't quite see the source of the music until I went around the corner. Then I saw a cotton candy machine. The strangest thing about this machine was not the music it was playing, but the fact that the only person in the vicinity of the cotton candy machine was the person who was making the cotton candy. It seems like every time there is cotton candy, there is also a line of eager children who are simply dieing to eat the sugary goodness. I didn't stop for any cotton candy, but I would say that the music made my day. Who knew that you could be walking in the middle of Jordan and listen to Yankee Doodle? Now you do.

=)

Rappin'

My schedule at the orphanage changes very little, but today was one of those days that was different. A few weeks ago, I was informed that other volunteers would be in charge of the activities on Mondays and Saturdays. There have been other days when I have shown up to the orphanage only to learn that the kids would only be there for a few hours. On those days, I have simply spent the remainder of the time in the baby department. I can't complain about that because those babies are also very cute. However feeding babies can get old after four and a half hours of it. Today was one of those days. When I learned that the kids would be leaving the orphanage only an hour and a half later, I asked the woman who informed me of this if they had a regular schedule when they left the orphanage. The answer was no. They didn't have a set schedule. That does make planning my days a bit more difficult, but that's also to be expected. Today the difference came when I was invited to go with them to the center. I was thrilled to accept. Eleven o'clock came up rather quickly and the bus loaded even quicker. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was excited for a change of scenery. We also didn't even have to wait to arrive at the other center for the fun to begin. As we pulled away from the orphanage, the bus driver turned up the music and the kids busted out some dance moved in the aisles. I was rather impressed at how good some of them were. All of them seemed to have a natural sense of rhythm, even the kids who really struggle understanding how to play the piano. After a bit of an adventure in trying to find the center, we finally reached the center which was really couple of dance studios in a mall. The kids from the orphanage made up just over half of the group of kids there. The rest of the kids had families who paid for them to come. It was interesting to see the difference in the development levels between the two groups as the day went on. Maxim was the dance instructor in the first room. They went through a series of warm-ups and then worked on a set dance they have been learning. I have no idea what style of dance it was, but the dance moves were things you see at dance parties in America. At this point, there wasn't a very big gap between the kids from the orphanage and the other kids. However, the other kids were a lot more focused and, generally speaking, they picked up the dance a lot quicker. A McDonald's lunch break was the next item of business. All of the children were very excited. After that, we went into another room where the kids were learning about rap. They had already made up a rap about learning how to read and write a few days before. It wasn't a very long or difficult rap, so it only took one kid about three minutes to teach me the rap they had created as a group. Then all of the kids split up into smaller groups to make up another rap. Music was pumping in the room to give the kids a nice beat to work with. It wasn't long before lyrics started flowing around the room. The only thing was that they were all coming from the kids from normal families and not the kids in the orphanage. I was pleasantly surprised at how well those kids could read and write. Then I looked at the kids from the orphanage. They had given up trying to create a rap. Some were drawing. Others were bouncing off the walls. I also noticed that one boy had even misspelled his name on the corner of his drawing. Shortly after that, one of the other women also pointed out the developmental gap. In her opinion, the cause of the gap is the fact that the kids in the orphanage don't have a normal family. As much as the employees try to create a stable and positive environment at the orphanage, it's just too hard. It's also hard for a child to develop at a normal rate when their 'normal' family situation is also crazy. Throughout the summer, I've found it interesting that the kids prefer to have me draw pictures for them. They prefer to have me roll out their play dough. They prefer to have me color pictures for them. They also don't think they can figure out how to play the piano. They just don't believe that they can do it themselves. At times I think their favorite phrase is “Ma Ba'arif.” Or “I don't know.” Sometimes, I don't know how to respond to that. At other times, I simply affirm that they really do know how to do it. After moments like that, it's really neat to see them focus and do what I had asked them to do. Bravo 'Aliek! Shatar!

=)

Fanoos

Ramadan has been creeping up on me for quite a while now, and suddenly it's almost here! Ramadan lights, commonly called Christmas lights in America, are popping up on almost every street corner and in windows throughout the city. Fanoos, or Ramadan lanterns, are also seen swinging from posts by the street vendors. These lanterns are a pretty big deal for the people here. Most of them are extremely ornate with Qur'anic script written on the glass. I found out just how big of a deal they are when I attempted to draw one. It was a bit of a tricky thing because I hadn't heard the word fanoos before. However, after I saw a picture of one, I got the general idea. But getting the general idea just won't cut it. I looked at picture after picture, and attempted drawing even more styles than I looked at, but none of them were good enough for the craft the women at the orphanage had planned. My attempts must have been getting worse and worse because, one of the women finally drew a lantern for me to then take and trace onto a slab of styrofoam. Forty eight outlines later, I could finally, hopefully, draw a decent Ramadan lantern. There are many reasons that Ramadan lanterns are important to the people. The first is that they have become a big tradition and a part of their heritage. Another is the symbolism of light. In many traditions, including Islam, light is related to God. The lanterns are also pretty. It's fun to see how people here are preparing for this holiday. I have heard of people who practice fasting so that the month of fasting won't be as big of a shock to their bodies. I see people who decorate their houses, prepare for guests, and prepare a lot of food. There are also those people who are always on the lookout for their fellow man who might need a hand. The other day, I was riding back from work in a taxi with a few other Arab men. When we pulled around a corner, we saw a vehicle that was stopped on the left side of the road. As we got closer, we could see the owner of the car trying to fix his car, while the rest of traffic was trying to maneuver around him. I wouldn't have been surprised if we would have gone around him as well, but instead, we pulled up behind him and our driver asked if he needed any help. Then the rest of the Arab men piled out from the taxi and helped the man push his car out of the road to a place where he could get help. The first thing the driver said when he climbed back in the taxi and we started moving again was a mild reprimand at the other men for grumbling about the lost time. Then he said, “This is Islam. When you see your brother you must help him.” Words to the effect that Ramadan is also close and they should be extra kind to their fellow man were also included for effect. I would have to agree with that taxi driver. That is Islam. Awareness for those around you and an effort to help them. Granted nobody's perfect, but generally speaking, those people I have been around while here in Jordan were genuinely interested in being of service.

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Epic Fail

At times it has been difficult to think of new craft ideas that the kids at the orphanage would enjoy. This morning, I was hit with the inspiration to make paper plate tambourines with the kids. Since I would be walking through the balad on the way to work, I knew it would also be rather easy to pick up the necessary materials. I was right. The first store had paper plates, markers, and tape. The second had the macaroni noodles that we would use to put between two paper plates as the noise-maker. The first group of kids was already in the art room when I arrived, and they were very excited to see what was in the bag I was carrying. Coloring their plates didn't take nearly as long as I had hoped it would and soon six kids were clamoring around me yelling for me to put noodles in their plates next. That was only the beginning of the chaos. Immediately after handing the musical instruments back to the kids, they proceeded to be very 'musical' with them and the volume in the room was suddenly 120 decibels. The last time I can remember being around noise that loud is when I was running the swather last summer. Okay, so that was a bit of an exaggeration, but those homemade tambourines were extremely loud. They were so loud, that every kid on the floor could hear the racket we were making and came running to see what was going on. Some of those groups of kids were allowed to come in and make a tambourine for themselves, but fortunately other groups were kept out of the room. It didn't take very long for the other women who work in the activities department to decide to find something else for me to do. Apparently, they didn't really want kids running around with hearing-destroyers in their hands. It took them a bit longer to think of something and even longer for me to understand what they wanted me to do. Ramadan is just around the corner, so I spent the next hour and a half or so outlining Ramadan lamps on Styrofoam. Turning the kids loose on decorating those will be one of the activities in the next couple of weeks. The entire activities department seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as the last tambourine was finished and the kids were settled down doing something different. I was also relieved. I hadn't remembered those tambourines being so loud. However, as I thought about it, I decided that there were a couple factors that increased the noise level.  The first was that I was only able to find plastic plates.  Anything hitting one of those plastic plate will be much louder than if it hit a paper plate. The second possible difference is that the kids were much more liberal with how hard and often they shook the tambourine because it was something they hadn't seen before. However, this would be hard to prove and would require some extensive research on random groups of kids throughout the world. Therefore, I will now be changing my major to Tambourine Development and will focus my life studies on how children play with homemade tambourines.  Psych! That was a joke and I will not be changing my major. What I will be changing is the type of crafts I think of for the kids at the orphanage. Noisemakers were a fail, an epic fail. But I guess, if they had to fail, at least it was epic.

=)

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?


=)

The 4th of July

Believe it or not, today was not a national holiday here in Jordan. However, a group of us did gather for a bit of a celebration this evening. It's been interesting to see that when Jordanians think of American food, they always think of hamburgers and pizza. Those might not be the most common foods eaten in America, but that is the association that they have. No one even thinks about roast and mashed potatoes or enchiladas or anything else like that. So we decided to be as American as possible and have pizza and root beer floats in honor of our nation's birthday. Finding fresh ingredients for the pizza wasn't very difficult except for finding the yeast. There are so many bakeries where you can buy fresh, good bread for hardly anything that buying the bread is one of the daily chores in a family here. Therefore yeast was hard to find. Eventually we found some in the cupboard in the boy's apartment. Now that's what I call a fully furnished apartment. Everything is included from the furniture down to the utensils and in this case, the yeast. The real struggle for this American meal came in finding root beer. In this case, even the third time wasn't a charm. After visiting C-Town, Miles, and Safeway supermarkets, we were finally able to track down some good old A&W root beer at Cozmo. It wasn't an easy process because when we asked where the pop (or soda to some of you folks) was, they showed us the Pepsi and the Coke. When we asked for the root beer, they told us that they didn't sell beer or alcohol because it was haram (forbidden). Eventually we were able to get the idea across that all we wanted was a certain type of pop by the name of root beer. Dinner was a success. I mean, it's hard to beat fresh, homemade pizza with fresh seasonings, sauce made from fresh ingredients, and fresh toppings. Then we topped that off with some root beer floats. The only thing missing were the fireworks. No one had a wedding party going on, so we didn't even have that in the background. Guess you can't have everything...

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Ka-Boi

Sketch by Brigham Teichert

Arabs love their families and they love talking about their families. They have also loved hearing about my family and how we are ranchers. At first I wasn't sure how to explain growing up on a ranch not to mention that I didn't have the vocabulary I wanted to explain what we did. So I talked around the subject until they got the idea of what I was telling them and filled in the blank. I started out by telling them that back home, we had a lot of animals. One of my little sisters raised chickens. The other one loved taking care of her cats. My brothers and my Dad worked with cattle and owned horses. At that point they got really excited and asked if my Dad was a real “ka-boi.” Did he wear a hat when he rode his horse like in the movies? The only thing that got them more excited than answering yes to that question was adding that I also rode horses and that my brothers were also very good at roping. I wasn't surprised that they were excited to meet a real cowgirl, but what surprised me is how fixed their attention was on the hat. Maybe part of that is due to the significance that is placed on what someone wears on their head in this part of the world. The pattern on the koufeyah that many men wear tells everyone else if you are Jordanian, Palestinian, or Iraqi. At least, I can recognize the patterns for those three nationalities. Even more emphasis is placed on what women wear on their heads. Some women leave their hair uncovered, but women will wear a hijab more often than not. Some of the hijabs only cover the hair and leave the face and neck exposed. Other hijabs leave only the face exposed. Some women will also wear a veil when they are out in public so that the only thing that is visible is their eyes. Other women will go one step further than that and cover even their eyes when they are out in public. I don't know all the reasons for why they choose what style. I have heard from many different sources that the prettier the woman is, the more of her face she will cover in public... I have yet to learn all of the reasons.

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