Jordan 2008!

Arabic tutoring

2012-01-13T17:45:00.002+02:00

This is kind of a test, and I'm mostly posting this so I can get my flyer online so that I can post it to craigslist, but if you happen to be in the DC area and you are interested in arabic lessons, hit me up!

Egypt: Let's try this again.

2008-05-17T17:58:00.008+03:00

So as I embarked on my third voyage into the Middle East, our group got to make a trip through Egypt. This was my second time in the land of the pharos and I have to say, it was a much different experience this time. As such, I am making a list of the three most important things to keep in mind for anyone who decides to visit Egypt:

1. Don't go in July.

2. Don't go in July.

3. Don't go in July.

In my two visits to Egypt, the differences were like night and day. The first time I went in (you guessed it) July. This time, our group went through at the beginning of May. Although it is outside of my personal experience, in addition to the aforementioned advice, I would suggest avoiding the trip in June or August, either. It will be HOT HOT HOT. Especially in Luxor. Last time I was in Egypt, it was so hot, that people stopped taking pictures of the historical sites, and started photographing the steady stream of sweat pouring off of my nose because they were literally more amazed by my perspiration than by the ancient monumental architecture.
I was amazed at how nice the weather was there in May. But if you think I'm just a wuss and you can handle the heat, think again. I'm not just talking about heat here. The heat effects a lot of other things too. My students on this trip all thought I was a dirty liar after I had told them all of my horror stories about death marches through gauntlets of starving trinket salesmen who attach themselves to tourists like barnacles on sinking ships, and all they got were more like very tenacious post-it notes. Apparently, the tourist industry in Egypt becomes exceedingly desperate in the hotter months and if you want to be rid of the aforementioned "barnacles" you have to up the ante from "no, really, I'm not interested" to "Florgen zen fliggen zogen?" That's a language I made up last time I was in Egypt called "schwiedergugen."
Anyway, go sometime in the spring or the fall. It's lovely that time of year.

Kamaran Island, The Red Sea, and Western Yemen

2007-07-31T17:23:00.000+03:00

The first term of classes at the Yemeni Language Center is officially over which means that we get a whole 9 days of break until we start the second half of classes. We are now 5 days into the break, which means that we have just returned from the longest trip we will take during our time in Yemen. Our journey ranged between 7200 and 0 feet above sea level and hit a number of landmarks along the way, but perhaps more interesting than any one location was the incredible diversity of landscapes that we came across during our travels. I never imagined that so many different kinds of terrain could exist in a country as small as Yemen. It would be like going from a city 3000 feet higher than Salt Lake City to San Francisco in about 78 miles. We started off in what looked like the Scottish highlands as we went back through Manakha, and as we descended the mountains changed to a valley with torrential rains that reminded me of the green mountains of Oahu. There were waterfalls coming down from every side creating a river that was surrounded by bananas, palms, and even a Pandanus tree, which I haven’t seen anywhere since I left the pacific. Once we got out of the mountains, it became glaringly apparent that we WERE in the Arabian Peninsula as everything totally flattened out with the exception of some scattered sand dunes that were covered with entire herds of wandering camels. By the time we reached our main destination we were looking at a coral reef system with a variety of tropical fish. On our way back out we stopped by a nature reserve that looked like a slice of tropical Africa, complete with baboons. Seriously.
It was really shocking coming out of the Yemeni highlands to find that we actually WERE in the Middle East and that the Middle East gets really, really hot. It’s shocking to think that this is the society that came up with the idea of covering a human being from head to toe in black cloth. I’m not one to go shirtless, but it seemed the very most basic instinct I had while I was on the Yemeni coast. I was never really able to fulfill this instinct, however, until our group got on some really shady looking watercraft and motored ourselves to a secluded island off the coast (far away from pious Muslim eyes.) I spent two whole days sans-shirt and began to wonder why the wretched rag had ever been invented in the first place. Our two island days were spent, swimming, snorkeling, relaxing on the beach, and playing cards, mafia, and ping-pong (of which I remain the undisputed and undefeated champion.) Night swims on the island were particularly magical due to the billions of plankton in the water that light up at night when disturbed. It looks like all of your limbs glow when you swim. During these night swims, a game was played among the group members entitled “the west wind blows” in which everyone makes a circle around one individual who says: “the west wind blows for anyone who…” and then anyone who fits the description provided must trade places in the circle with others who also fit the description, eventually resulting in a new person in the middle. It’s essentially musical chairs of who’s done x, y, or z. I soon found out why Mormons are so overrepresented in the CIA. Almost instantly, the game began to revolve around psychedelic substances and sexual experimentation. My position on the fringe of the circle was quite secure.
Our time off of the island was a mix of various death marches through historical Yemeni cities. Imagine if there were a stadium-sized sauna filled with street vendors and garbage, and that’s about what we experienced in various western Yemeni villages. Not that we didn’t see anything interesting there. We noticed some form of medical bloodletting that involved suction cups and a number of plastic crates containing chicks that were spray-painted green and blue and pink and orange. Apparently they sell them to kids.

We stopped by some historical… thing… building… place… I’m not really sure since there was not very much explanation during these death marches… anyhow, there was some tower-like structure that our military escort wanted us to go into, so they led the way into the front entrance. The soldiers went in, and the bats came out. I’ve seriously never seen so many bats in my life. It was like rabbits coming out of a hat. We didn’t go in, but one soldier stood at the door with a stick, trying to make solid contact with the exiting rodents. One of our final items of business in the hotter part of the country was to visit a nature reserve to see the baboons that apparently live in Yemen. Another complete change of scenery. It really looks like you should be in some kind of African highlands. Anyhow, I’ll include pictures of all of the things described above, and hopefully it will do it some justice.

Manakha

2007-07-19T11:33:00.000+03:00

Last week our group took a journey into the Yemeni highlands, which are AMAZING. First of all, the mountains are unbelievably steep, so the contrast between mountain and valley is stunning. Secondly, the land is pretty fertile and good for agriculture so virtually every inch of the mountains are terraced and covered with a variety of crops. There are little villages that you KNOW haven’t changed for centuries, all sitting on top of little peaks looking over their terraced crops.
We ran a little late for everything on the first leg of the trip due to a major delay upon trying to leave the city. Apparently, the Yemeni Government wants to make absolutely sure that all foreigners leaving Sana’a are totally safe, so we had to wait for a military escort. A crack squad of savvy individuals who can take down attempted terrorist attacks and let you take pictures holding their guns. Yemeni soldiers have a softer side too though. Just like all other Arab men, sometimes they just want to hold hands.
Our hotel had a night full of music and Yemeni dancing. The best thing about Yemeni dancing is that about 90% of the time it includes at least one weapon. The best dance included two big Yemeni knives and two big British rifles. I had to be a part of it. But what could possibly be better than a knife and a gun? The answer is simple: a knife and TWO guns. I soon had a following. I and two other Americans were soon destroying a perfectly fine Yemeni dance. Pictures and video follow.

Wadi Dahr, Dar al-Hajar, and the Prarie of Prax

2007-07-04T16:50:00.000+03:00

Our group took our first journey out of Sana’a this past week and oh, what an adventure we had. We went to Wadi Dahr which is about 45 min from where we are. It’s a highly vegetated valley (compared to the rest of the barren desert that surrounds Yemen) that is full of 18th century Arab architecture built into the red rocks and you occasional quaint gift shop. I don’t think the guy who ran the gift shop we went to was very used to American tourists and certainly didn’t have a particularly acute sense of the female psyche given that he made sure to tell every girl in our program that all t-shirts were available in XXL. “Muhammad, let me share something with you: in American culture, bigger is not always better.”
The drive both there and back was AMAZING… or perhaps I should say shocking. It is not uncommon in Yemen to see two Yemeni vehicles meet in the middle of a narrow road like a north-going Zax meeting a south-going Zax on the prairie of Prax. This will ultimately result in two long trains of vehicles extending infinitely in opposite directions. Of course the only way to solve this problem is for every member of the great pileup to honk their respective horns in evenly spaced intervals until the solution is found. On the way to Wadi Dahr, we found our reasonably large tourist bus facing down a giant gas tanker that literally took up ¾ of the road. We of course stopped, and the tanker stopped, and the cars behind us naturally decided to pass. So we sat there and waited for all of the cars behind us to pass us and destroy the paint job on the left side of their cars in passing the tanker. We eventually followed suit. There was a little friction between the two vehicles. As if the trip there were not shocking enough, our bus driver decided that we should all spend the entire ride back listening to everyone’s favorite hits by 2pac Shakur, starting off with California love. This, I believe is the most bizarre clashing of worlds that I have experienced yet; Almost like watching “the Matrix” with the soundtrack to “the Sound of Music.”
The valley itself was very cool. There is a big building built on top of a giant red rock called Dar al-Hajar, or the house of the rock. It has a number of rooms and connected buildings that climb up the back of the rock until you reach the biggest one on top. It goes up staircase after staircase. While we were there, there was a wedding celebration in which a couple kids banged on drums while the older men danced in a circle while waving their large knives over their heads. It was very cool. I could probably describe this in further detail, but I’ll just attach some pictures instead.

Back and backwards

2007-06-27T13:01:00.000+03:00

I'm back in the middle east and a little further away from western civilization. I've seen a few of my favorite things from Jordan, fewer American comforts, and plenty of new things. A few notes about Yemen:

Haggling: Yes, as per tradition in the rest of the Middle East, people DO haggle prices, but being that Yemen is the poorest Arab country, I will generally leave the haggling to the Arabs because I find it laughable to argue over a quarter. $1 = 200 Yemeni riyals
Food: Actually really good! I've been through the mandatory day-and-a-half of crapping every hour and a half, but now that my stomach has accepted the new Yemeni bacteria, I can eat like a king! There are restaurants here that would be considered really good restaurants in the states and you can still pay less than 5 bucks to eat there. AWESOME. They even have a pretty good variety: Chinese, Lebanese, Yemeni, Thai, Korean, American, and Ethiopian restaurants are all available.

Weapons: Every Yemeni man who can call himself a man carries a HUGE knife called a Jambiyya. Most of them are really dull and just represent a tribal symbol. outside of the capitol, Yemen has the highest AK-47 per capita ratio in the world if there is such a statistic. I was just two seconds too late to get a picture of two 7-10 year old children each holding a fully automatic weapon. This is mostly for show. In America, men drive giant, loud, gas guzzling vehicles to show there manliness. Since cars are kind of expensive, people here just adorn their person with a variety of tools of destruction. I actually saw a man the other day sitting on a sheep hide draped over a motorcycle, with an AK-47 strapped to his back, his GIANT knife under his belt, and on his right arm sat a HAWK. I can think of nothing manlier than that. I'm growing a beard just so I can measure up even a little.

Qat: This is an ordinary looking leaf with extraordinary powers. It's a semi-narcotic leaf that everyone here chews from 2:00 till about 8:00. It serves to relax the nerves, suppress the appetite, (which is fortunate since the average citizen spends about a third of their income on Qat and can therefore not afford as much food), increase focus (so the Yemenis say), and cease general productivity to a total halt. It is quite common to see someone with a softball-sized wad of Qat in his mouth not working at all or to see the really innovative ones letting a camel do the work. This camel powers an oil grinder by walking around in circles. Pretty awesome.
Anyway, I expect the craziness to continue and I'll do my best do document every bit of it.

Egypt!

2006-07-19T08:02:00.000+03:00

It has been a few weeks since the last post, but not without reason! For the first time we have left our Jordanian home to walk in the lands of the pharaohs, Egypt! Egypt is a fascinating place; without the Nile, Egypt would be little more than a desert wasteland. It's almost surreal how the desert instantly turns into a tropical rainforest as you get into the area within the rivers affected range. I'd imagine that the fertility of the Nile alone could probably support 30 million people... the problem is that Egypt has 75 million.

This place is FULL of people. In any given street in Cairo you probably have a million people in your view, and approximately 750,000 of them are trying to sell you something. They sell everything from informative books about Egypt to alabaster figures with freakishly large penises. (Don’t ask). These salesmen are so aggressive, though, that it can really ruin a visit to Egypt if you don’t know how to handle them. The problem stems from the fact that they don’t understand the basic economic concept of supply and demand. The supply of Egyptian crap in Egypt: Endless. My demand for alabaster penises: Zero. Still, these overly assertive salesmen figure that if they just name the right price, you will buy. This doesn’t mean that they try to hit the right price on the first try, however. No, no, they will hit the entire spectrum of prices imaginable. They always start out by saying how special you are and how much they love you and want to give you the best price of the day: 800 Egyptian pounds. Then as you walk away, the price will drop with every step you take until you are being offered a handful of trinkets for one Egyptian pound. So how do you deal with such an annoyance? I’m glad you asked! There are a variety of ways:

1. Pretend you’re an ancient Egyptian trader, and offer to pay them in gold, silver, or slaves.

2. Do the opposite of them, namely: start off the bidding by demanding that the only fair price would be for them to offer all of their goods to you for 1 pound.

And my personal favorite:
3. Make up some false nationality and speak gibberish to everyone who approaches you. This works best with partners.

My roommates and I invented a country and language called “shviedergugen.” It sounds like some kind of Scandinavian/Germanic language and we even invented a history for our country. We tried our best to ensure we threw in the Swedish inflection as well. People would try to sell us things and we would just say things like, “shmorgen floger nargen giffer!” and eventually they would give up, and we would have a good laugh. You may think this is cruel or immature, but we’ll see how YOU react when faced with being harassed to purchase very anatomically INcorrect statuettes.

In addition to the salesmen, something MUST be said here about Egyptian security. There is none. Every hotel has a metal detector and 3 guards who don’t give a crap if you have metal. It’s hilarious. I think the crowning moment was when our colleague, Wade, walked through the metal detector on the way onto an airplane, and it beeped. The Guard took his little wand and waved it up and down Wades body to discover that whatever it was, it was in his pocket, and then proceeded to wave him on, as if to say, “Oh! It was in your POCKET! That’s a relief.” I actually made a video of the absurdity of Egyptian security, and if I figure out how to post it, I may put it on, but until then, just enjoy the sights of Egypt.

Mosaic Land!

2006-06-19T18:41:00.000+03:00

Whats flat and old and more fun than a barrel full of monkeys? You guessed it! Ancient Byzantine mosaics! My roomies and I took a trip this weedend to historic Madaba. A land full of lots of things to do; You could see the mosaics in the historic byzantine ruins, you could peruse the local stores and their fine collections of... mosaics, or even see the oldest map of israel ever recorded! (it's a mosaic.) Anyway, after having visited this fascinating place, I began to imagine what this ancient byzantine culture must have been like. I'm not actually capable of imagineing any kind of document in their society besides mosaics. "Alright, the assignment is on the rise of the copper age and is expected to be a mosaic at a minimum of 10 slabs. Understood?" Typos would kill.

A more modern jordanian culture has since taken over, however. Not everything is in mosaics, and I think my favorite thing I saw while in madaba was this:

Thats right folks! The Iron Rod Internet Cafe! Looking for pornography? Look elsewhere! Experience the word of god, online! The heathen surfs on the beach, but the saints surf at the Iron Rod!

Petra

2006-06-15T23:21:00.000+03:00

Here it is. The mother of all places to visit in Jordan. The Nebetean capitol of Petra. It was the capitol of the greatest trading civilization in the history of the middle east, but the world knows it only as that cool temple thing that Harrison Ford went into at the end of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." We are such a well cultured people. This place is amazing. It's like southern Utah meets the roman empire. There are buildings cut into the rock all over this valley, and I'm not talking about no pueblos. This is bonafied Helenistic architecture. It's just amazing more of it hasn't eroded away. I would go into more detail, but I'll just post pictures instead. The picture posted to the left is "the treasury" the most famous of the buildings due to the aforementioned Harrison Ford film. What you DONT see in the film is the throngs of bedouin arabs who sell stuff in front of it. Many of them were born in caves, but none of them were born yesterday. They are among the most shrewd arab traders the middle east has to offer. Many of them speak upwards of 5 languages and could convince a Mexican that a burrito is actually a rare ancient middle eastern artifact. The favorite item to sell is a variety of necklaces made of "turquois" and "red sea coral" and "camel teeth" and "Bedouin Silver" which I'm pretty sure is actually melted pepsi cans. I can just imagine that they go out every day and look out on a ripe field of ignorant tourists and come home with a fine harvest. They are the nicest people in the world though. Right after one girl in our group bought 11 knives from a nice bedouin lady, she invited our entire group of 10 to eat with her family at her house for dinner.

This was a very interesting experience. We ate HUGE plates of maglubah, which is arabic for chicken and rice. They were very understanding of our american culture, so after we all sat down on the ground around large communal plates... they brought us spoons.

Getting back to the bedouins in petra, like I said in previous posts, ANYTHING can be bargained for. It's all about price. One of them tried to buy my fish hook necklace from New Zealand, which I'm sure he would have turned around and convinced some unsuspecting tourist that it was actually a precious Nebetean stone. We decided that we wanted to try our hands at bargaining by seeing if we could get a good healthy camel in exchange for our good healthy colleague, Allison. American women are a hot commodity here, and are rumored to make good wives and green cards. Our bedouin friends seemed to respond positively to this proposal. We even decided to throw in her backpack and sunglasses for a small donkey. We were pretty close to closing the deal when Allison blew the whistle on the whole transaction and made us go look at some more ruins. Rediculous. I mean, shop around, you cant beat that price. Transportation around Petra is definately haggleworthy. I cannot overemphasize the fun of camel riding. The bedouins will start camel rides at about $10, but if you name your price and convince them that you're willing to walk, you can pretty consistantly get them down to $3. You climb onto the camel while it's laying down, and then it stands up. This, in and of itself is very fun, because it stands up back legs first. They are very tall animals too, so this puts you at about a 90 degree angle looking straight at the ground. Then come the front legs. When they run you bounce about a foot off their back. This is painful, but a lot of fun. I think this is like the adult version of bouncing on your parents knee. I couldn't help but giggle all the way home. Petra is a MUST SEE.

Crazy Foreigners

2006-06-06T19:49:00.001+03:00

Well, I've been here over a month now and I'm learning a lot about arabic. Probably some things that I shouldn't actually. My colloquial arabic class is crazy. Have you ever met a crazy foreigner in the states that leave you thinking "man all (insert ethnicity) are WIERD." I now understand why they are like that. allow me to explain:

Our colloquial teacher is a really funny 65 year old bug eyed arab named Samir. We really love him. He spends a good deal of time teaching us idioms and expressions, like archaic ways of saying "I want to go to the bathroom." "my desire is to cause water to fly." Today we discussed (I kid you not) the pros and cons of fire and water, in arabic. Now, I understand that cultures are different, but I can think of no circumstance in which an arab might say "Brian, I have ALWAYS wanted to know the american view on water; good or bad?" for my extensive opinion on the subject, see my post: "living waters." In class, Samir asked me to present one benefit of water. After much deliberation, I decided that water fights are pretty cool, and chose this as my answer. I should have known from previous experience (see aforementioned "living waters") that there has NEVER been enough water in the middle east to perticipate in such an activity. Naturally, Samir was confused by what I called "water fights" and immediately deduced the closest equivilent in the middle east: "OH, you mean using firehoses to break up demonstrations right?" I love the middle east. :)

So, to tie all these ideas together, next time you see a (insert ethnicity) in america, who just keeps saying things like "a stitch in time saves nine!" and "a penny saved is a penny earned!" and just wants to talk about the benefits of fire and water, don't blame the poor (insert ethnicity). They were probably taught to be crazy in their colloquial English class.

Mujib Gorge

2006-06-06T10:20:00.000+03:00

This past weekend, our whole apartment and a few others from our program decided to take a litle jaunt down to Wadi Mujib. Its a slot canyon with a river running down it, much like the narrows in Utah. It was so awesome, and I'll get into the details of the gorge soon, but first I need to explain a little about getting around Jordan.
First of all, there is no planning. Even if you wanted to, there are no means for making arrangements ahead of time. So what you have to do is just go to a bus station, and hope that you can convince someone to take you where you want to go. Everything has a price, and that price can ALWAYS be negotiated. So when a group of 11 americans with matching backpacks and shorts arrive at the bus station early in the morning, every bus driver with nothing to do sees a dozen walking gold nuggets. They converged on us and the haggling began. The most aggressive one was also the shortest. About halfway through our haggling with him, another much larger arab came up behind him and affectionately threw his arms around his neck, in a very rested position, occationally kissing the shorter arab on the back of his head. What a way to undermine your friends bargaining power. It's really hard to take someone as a serious negotiator when they're in a spooning position with another man. It didn't take long for another bus driver to offer us a reasonable price which we took.

The Gorge is AMAZING. If anyone has ever hiked orderville canyon in Zion's National Park, you might have an idea of what this trail is like. It has beautiful high canyon walls and a clear river that is the perfect temperature. You could really just hike and play in this canyon all day and be perfectly happy. There are waterfalls that you can slide down, waterfalls to bath in/get pummeled by, cliffs to jump from. It's really awesome. I wish I had a great way of explaining the beauty of this place, but I don't, so I'll just try to hilight a few things with pictures!

The Greater Salt Lake

2006-05-27T19:15:00.000+03:00

We spend the day today hanging out at the dead sea, and let me tell you, good times at the dead sea. This is the greatest tourist concept of all time. "Why lie on the beach when you can lie on the ocean?" Seriously, it's boyant enough that you could probably take a nap on your back in the water and not have any problems. If that weren't enough of an attraction, anyone who has had the unfortunate experience of passing the very annoying dead sea kiosk in any provo mall knows that it has very desirable exfoliating properties. This made me wonder as we were approaching the water: so people have been bathing in the dead sea for thousands of years right? I can't imagine how much human "exfoliation" is in that water. Theres probably plenty of "dead sea skin" that I bathed in there. Of course, the reason for all of this exfoliation is the fact that the water is approximately 30% salt. My roommate John found this out personally when he tried to exfoliate his eyes. It's advisable to keep your face FAR from the water. The most popular method of exfoliation is to smear the mud nearest to the shore, which is roughly the appearance, consistancy, and smell of sewage, all over your body. Then you wash it off in the water. You are left so silky smooth that you leave the water thinking that the dead sea is actually the world's largest body of oil.

We noted the ease at which one could move about in the water. No effort at all is required to stay afloat so all you have to do is paddle a little and your moving right along. This is probably why there are no lifeguards. You would have to be a complete idiot to drown in the dead sea. We even jested that if an army wanted to attack Israel on the opposide side of the sea, all they would have to do is get their weapons and drift luxuriously to the other side. We quickly learned, however that this is NOT a plausible, nor comical idea. I and my roommate matt were drying off on the shore while our other 3 roomates decided to go out for a swim. They got further and further out, and we started wondering if they were really going to try to swim to palestine. Now, in any other place in the world, when you get a little far out, a lifeguard gets out his megaphone and tells you to come back, but in the absence of lifeguards the most sensible alternative of course is Apache helicopters. I know. This thing swooped down at about 20 feet above their heads, and I totally thought that it was going to blow them right out of the water. They obviously thought so too, because the turned right over and paddled for shore like it was going out of style, no longer worried about getting salty water in their eyes. Funny how priorities switch around so quickly. So if your interested in a nice day on a relaxing beach, exfoliating, or advanced military tactics, I suggest the Dead Sea.

Old School

2006-05-25T17:41:00.000+03:00

Today, my entire apartment decided to take a hike to the city center to see the roman ruins there. It was a fascinating journey. Amman is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the entire world, behind only Damascus and Jericho, I think. So it's this crazy mix of ancient ruins and knock off name brand merchandise. I never really thought I would be able to say "HEY, LOOK! Roman pillars! ...and port-o-potties?" I could just imagine my tour guide saying, "On your left you will find 'As-Sabiil', an ancient roman baths, dating back to 2nd century A.D., and directly adjacent to that, you will find 'Baba Ishta's Stop 'n Shop' thought to be established in 1972." It's not just the buildings either, the people are the exact same way here. You'll see one girl wearing a burka, passing another who looks like a "Glamour" magazine. You'll see one guy who's wearing the latest in brands made to look exactly like real american brand at a fraction of the price, and another who looks like Saladin himself, ready to chase out some cusaders.

After getting a good look at all the Roman ruins in the area, we left the amphitheater to find a large number of camels just outside the entrance. Not something you see every day. You see, today is Jordanian independance day and they were getting these camels ready for a parade. They were all decked out. To me however, this seems a lot like adding parsley to a plate of spam. Camels are DISGUSTING animals. They bear their teeth, and make these dry heaving motions to intimidate children while making gargling/dying noises. I hope I'm not a bad person for this, but I really wanted to see one of these camels haul off and spit at one of the kids. That would have been hilarious. Aparently, camels are not without social niceties, however. There was a man there who seemed to know a lot about them, and he took it upon himself to educate us. It was very interesting, but the climax was when he said this: "Camels are very shy animals. They will not marry if people are around." I thought, "marry? what in the world does that mea- OH!" Apparently, camels prefer their privacy when procreating, and refuse to do so in the presence of humans, so if you want to turn 2 camels into 3, you have to build a huge tent, check the newlyweds in, and close the flap. This about the scariest thing I can think of. If there is ANYTHING more disgusting than a camel, it's camels making babies in a tent.

Living Waters

2006-05-22T19:14:00.000+03:00

There is every amenity here that one could think of. If you really want something, you can get it, and usually cheaper than you can in the US. If you're really craving American cuisine, you can find anything from Applebees to Hardeez. I personally prefer the local foods like filafil and hummus (AWESOME), but it's there if you want it. We even have the internet here in our apartment (shocking). Something a little less obvious but a little more important: Water. Thats right, You can get a quarter pounder with cheese, but if you can't flush the toilet, that kind of just makes things worse, doesn't it? We ran out of water the same night our Iraqi landlady left for baghdad for a month. We began wondering if she ever really owned our apartment and thats why she asked for the whole three months rent up front. All such fears aside, the big water containers on the roof were empty, and we had no idea when they would again be full.

Not having water makes you think about the future. What will I smell like in 3 days? Are there alternatives to water? I know that there are certain species of desert hamster that use sand to bathe in and exfoliate; Is this possible for larger creatures? And what is that smell coming from the bathroom? The thing is, that when a creature is backed into a corner, it's mind will begin to play games with it, such as: "Maybe there the toilet will flush this time..." not so. With 7 guys in an apartment, and an intense need to use the bathroom, it doesn't take long for some of them to begin believing these lies in hope that somehow there will be enough water to flush everything down. Pie in the sky. Once we realised that this was just going to create a very nasty smelling apartment, we had to begin the work of containment immediatley. We permanantly shut the bathroom door, and declared everything outside of that area to be "the Green Zone".

Fortunately, we were able to purchase an entire tanker full of water for 20 dinars, which is pretty close to 30 dollars. After this we victoriously flushed the insurgency, retook the red zone, and pushed the foul stench of terror beyond our borders. Peace and democracy again prevails in our apartment. I was so excited to have water again that I took a picture of the Jordanian flag waving majestically above a water tanker which saved our lives and our hygene. I love water.

Jordan in General

2006-05-21T21:41:00.000+03:00

You know, I think almost every American has similar images go through their heads when given the opportunity to travel through the middle east: great mosques, veiled women, bearded men, roman ruins, over 140 degree weather, being kidnapped and beheaded by al-zarqawi etc... However, this is not entirely true. Not all women are veiled. Just kidding. People here are really nice. Most of them actually really like Americans and the weather is actually a little colder here than it was in Provo before I left. People think Bush and his government is totally nuts, but judging by the polls, most americans think that too. People here actually have no problem distinguishing between a country's goverment and it's people. Which is fortunate for me. I probably wouldn't get a very good reaction if every taxi driver in Amman thought that he was about to chauffeur George W. himself around for the next 15 minutes. On the contrary, these people will welcome you to the country EVERY TIME YOU SPEAK. In addition to that, Jordan is the easiest place in the world to make friends... too easy. It's great for finding people to practice my Arabic with and just general friends to go visit all of the ruins with, but seriously, there is a little too much male to male hand holding going on around here for my taste. It is so funny. It's not acceptable for a boy and a girl to exchange open affection in public, but I have seen some VERY intense interdigitation between guyfriends. It's also not unusual to see lots of cheek kissing upon greetings. The sad thing is that I'm not allowed to date during this study abroad so if I'm going to have any kind of relationship involving kissing and handholding over the next three months, it's about 10 times more likely to be with a man than with a woman. *sigh. I love it here though, and it's all because of the people.

From America to Vienna

2006-05-21T20:57:00.000+03:00

Well, the title here doesn't really accurately describe the point at which I find myself here in Jordan, but I've been here for almost three weeks and have only recently decided to start a blog, so I'm gonna have to do this a little retroactively.
After 12 hours and about 70 chapters into "The Da Vinci Code" I found myself in Vienna, ready for a 14 hour layover. You know, at first I thought, "GREAT! 14 hours is going to be just enough to scratch the surface of a city with as much history as Vienna!" The thing is, history repeats itself right? Well Vienna would be a great case study for this theory, because after about four hours, you can begin to tell the future: "I'll bet we're going to turn this corner and find this monumentally large building covered in naked gold children and capped off with a two headed eagle. OH MY LORD! IT'S JUST LIKE THE LAST ONE I SAW!" 14 hours is too much to spend in any city. Don't get me wrong though, Vienna is cool. It might be that for the entire 14 hours I was plagued with montezuma's revenge. Unfortunately, Vienna is probably one of the only cities in the world that actually have more cathedrals that it has water closets, and I'm not bragging about the number of bathrooms they have. What I've really come to appreciate about America from this experience is free bathroom use. It seems like an inalienable human right to use a bathroom, but there's a charge every time you want to go, and since I visited about every WC in Vienna, I left much poorer than I arrived. I've never been taken advantage of like that before. "Oh, you're going to EXPLODE, huh? 1 euro." Did I really have a choice? I always thought the European tradition of urinating on public buildings was discusting, but I now understand that this is a financial decision.
Seriously though, Vienna is cool.