Children & the Neighborhood

Three days after the race I attempted running on the treadmill again. After about 5 minutes, my shins were shouting some angry bits and pieces at me, and the end of my run (a whopping total of 5K) finished with an awkward and wobbly ending. Needless to say, I was still sore. However, I tried out running again yesterday and it was a bit less everywhere, yet still only 5K. Today my goal is to hit 6 or 7K.

                Skidding into another topic: TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY!

This event has just begun, as its only 8:02 am here. I tried to sleep in, but the gargantoid windows in my room do a really good job at preventing this from happening. In any case, my plans are as follows:

1.       Go to Abu Jbara (a restaurant) for my Amiyah Jordan dialect class. We are studying food, so obviously we have to go out to get food to study it!

2.       1. Go to a meeting, then class (boring, necessary duties)

3.       2. Go run 6-7K at the gym, take a loooong shower  and a loooong sauna, and MAYBE even partake in some quality hot tub time.

4.      3.  Go home, grab some Maglouba (tasty chicken and rice) and celebrate with the family*

                (*This is something where I really don’t know what to expect. I know there is a cake      involved, but the extent of celebration is really unknown to me. I guess I’ll find out)

5.       Off to Paris Café for Tango and Tequila Night! (well, its just tango night…but for me its tango and tequila).

6.       Boogy home/sleep.

So anyway, those are my plans…we’ll see how they go. I shall update this blog about the realities of these plans on another date.

Anyway, this post is really about my perspective of kids here and my neighborhood. It is a positive and a negative topic.

In terms of children, the vast majority of children I’ve met here are horribly spoiled. Its not their fault, as the mothers and older siblings if any, dote upon the kids all day long—especially if it’s a boy. For example, Mousa, my dear brother, is three. Generally that’s not a bad age—however. Boys here are horribly destructive. He is obsessed with the song “Boom Boom Pow” (along with my two other sisters), and my computer has become a “boom boom pow” machine. Any time I am working, he says “Boom Boom?” and after I tell him no in about six different ways  and tones, he turns to the closest thing he can get his hands on and breaks it.

This is very frustrating.

My sisters are relatively similar, but they do less destruction and more “luk-luk-luk-luk-luking” (blah-blah-blahing). This is the best example of a day with them (translation from Arabic).

Gabby enters through main door and greets her Baba. After awkward mumbling renditions of “I’m good, yes, how are you?” she exits the kitchen and goes to her room to put her bags down.

Enter Sara and Lara to Gabby’s room.

Sara: Are you studying?

Gabby: Yes. How are you, how was school?

Sara: Okay. Do you want anything?

Gabby: No, thank you.

Silence incurs. Sara stares at Gabby as she studies. Three minutes pass.

Sara: Are you studying?

Gabby: Yes.

Sara: Do you want tea?

Gabby: No, thank you. I told you I don’t want anything.

Sara: Do you want to eat?

Gabby: No, I’m not hungry, thanks.

Sara: Are you studying?

Gabby stares at Sara, then looks back to her work shaking her head. Enter Lara.

Lara: Can I use your iPod?

Gabby: No. I’m using it.

Lara: Oh.

Lara and Sara sit in room, staring at Gabby. Enter Mousa and everything goes to hell.

Anyway, you get the point. The result of this interaction is that I cannot study in my house. Thankfully, there are now two places nearby I adore that I can go to hide when I am sick of these guys.

1.       Paris Café

2.       Zach’s apartment

Paris café is wonderful. It has anything you can ask for, and I’m finding out how truly wonderful my little town of Weibdeh really is. There are awesome artsy cafes and restaurants all around, an art museum, and lots of very friendly people. Café Paris is really my favorite though, as it is a French Café with a library, free internet, alcoholic, hot, and cold drinks, pasta, hookah, and a really great atmosphere. It also helps that the owner took a liking to me and insists I eat frozen cheesecake with him. Anyway, tonight is Tango night—and he is excited for me to come for my birthday.

                The second place I have uncovered is literally about 100 steps from my family’s apartment. Zach, a Fulbright scholar here, lives down the street in about the same size apartment my family lives in for 400$ a month. This place is huge. You could never find this quality of an apartment in New York for 400$. If you asked in NY for one for 400$, the landlord with laugh, hand you a box, and send you to the alley.  So, in any case, this new friend of mine (as I’ve told him a bunch of times) is really a savior, because not only can I swipe some of his internet, but I can get lots of work done, make dinner that won’t make me feel like I’m never going to be able to get out of my chair (we made salmon cakes and broccoli last night!) and I can sprawl across his couch or do yoga on his floor without feeling awkward. Needless to say, I feel at ease. This is a huge deal…as I am somewhat tense in my homestay.

               

                In other news, this weekend I go to Jerash to see chariot races, and I think there is a celebration at an apartment for my bday (though I don’t know what that entails..), and the following weekend in Wadi Rum (VERY excited for this). After that it is TURKEY TIME!! Lauren, Lura and I finally finalized our tickets to Istanbul, Turkey, and I am very, very excited.

So, until next time. I will try to update this little blogger post thing with more updates maybe this Thursday. 

Time Decided to Move

I’m not sure exactly when I wrote last, but it feels like it’s been a while…so to inform readers (if there still are any present) I’ll give you the lay down of the past two weeks of March/February.

Firstly, I’ve been here for over a month already! I know they said time would go fast, but it has really done its job on me! In fact, I have plans for every weekend until April (AKA Spring Break for us Americans)—which is just nuts. After Spring break, its already beginning-mid April, and in one month after that we will have finals! So, time is doing real work here.

The last two weeks have been quite enlightening. After a bunch of ups and downs in the beginning of the program, I’ve finally unearthed bits about myself that I didn’t really know existed. Mostly they are simple things, those qualities that you thought you no longer cared about, or those facets of yourself you think left on hiatus and would never return. Well kids, I did some accidental soul seeking and turned out to find some real hard details about myself. But I won’t get into that now…

The last two weekends I spent a lot of time outside, which has been WONDERFUL beyond anything that could have ever picked up my mood.

The last weekend of February a couple friends from CIEE and I went to Ma’In Hot Springs and Madaba. Madaba (for those who don’t know), is an ancient Christian city where lots of Biblical history occurred, and Moabites reigned. Personally, I’m not one for history, but I have to say the Church of the Map (a greek orthodox church) and the archeological museum (with ancient Roman and other era mosaics) were among my favorites.

After our historical tour of Madaba and a meal where I finally did not feel stuffed to the rim, our group collided into another CIEE group, and all hung out, doing fun American things in the Hotel rooms, which one room (not ours, I’m proud to say!) got kicked out of the hotel. Well, actually they got “evicted” because of some angry German man who demanded the manager perform RA-knocks on all our doors. In any case, we slept 7 people to a 3-person hotel room, and in the morning got free breakfast before heading to Ma’In Hot Springs which were just astounding, relaxing and wonderful. When I was there I could not think of having any other motivations in life other than to gain enough money in order to leave peacefully on a tropical island in the hot sun.

So, lest I say, Madaba and Ma’In were beautiful. And I got a 

slight marriage proposal from a very persistent Lebanese woman in the hot spring. She wanted me to marry her son from Chicago. I  said, “La” (no).

Church of the Map

Ma'In Hot Springs--the Public Hamam

THIS past weekend (Mar 3-5) was also quite the event! I and nine other official team runners ran 242 Km from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea. I don’t really want to talk about it, other than it was beautiful, difficult, and an experience I would advise any runner to partake in.  All I can say now is that I am sore (though not swaggering, like some of the guys). We finished in 19 hours and some amount of minutes.

The Beginning of the Race, After everyone did 10 min runs

Dawn, probably about 3/4 of the way through

Me! Running in the morning, about 30K left, Israeli border to the right.

FREE MUD! At the Dead Sea Spa Hotel, muddin' up.

The Dead Sea. Across the water (again) is Israel. The people in the distance are standing on salt.

Finally I went to the Dead Sea on Saturday, after coming back from the race on Thurs/Friday at 3am, which was very relaxing and very very salty. Though probably the best use of Mud I have ever seen. Here are some fellow students partakin’ in the fun!

I also have to say trying to touch the bottom of the sea is extraordinarily difficult! You bounce. Its just silly. And yes, you could totally read a book if you wanted to, although I would not advise trying to swim, as any water in your eyes will sting horribly. Apparently it is 33% salt. Yes. 33%.

This next weekend is Aqaba! (back to where I ran)…and its just for relaxing.

Things have been going smoothly, though I’m really needing to start stepping up my studying considering I really haven’t been doing any. And my writing is very poor. But this blog post I will use the excuse that I am exhausted from running 242 Km. Yalla Bye!