A Jordanian Experience

On my flight from Frankfurt to Amman, the guy sitting next to me and I talked for most of the flight. He was telling me about himself and what to expect in Jordan. He’s getting his PhD in Chicago, but was going to visit his family for two weeks and invited me and my friends to eat with them. So yesterday Mahmoud and his dad picked up me and two of the other girls from the internship, Shanelle and Ashley, around 6. (I was surprised how easily they found it since it took some other guys 45 minutes last time, although they were Americans, so…)

His house was in a part of town we had never been to, so that was cool. We didn’t really know what to expect, but we thought that his family would all speak English, or at least his siblings if his parents didn’t. We were wrong. It was a whole family affair and only Mahmoud and one of his brothers spoke English and a few of the others spoke English as well as we spoke Arabic, so not very well.  (Shanelle, Ashley, and I are the people in the group who speak the least Arabic, which is why we were free and not at the lecture the others were at. My roommates, Chatt and Emily were originally supposed to go with me.) But Ashley stepped up her game and was speaking Arabic pretty well. They loved her! 

Things we knew beforehand: it takes a long time to leave and Arab’s home because they keep talking to you, they are very gracious hosts, they will feed you more than you can handle.

I expected that we would sit around for a long time after we ate, but really we sat around for a few hours before they even started cooking (and some of the men were going out and buying ingredients and stuff throughout  this time) and then it was another hour or so before we ate the main meal. It was sooooo good. Mahmoud and his dad grilled steak and lamb in some kind of sauce and spices. And with it we had grilled vegetables and some kind of really flat bread (not flat bread, just bread that was flat, like paper thin.) And the most delicious pita I have ever encountered. As soon as my plate started emptying, one of the sisters would pile more food on my plate. I was actually pretty okay with that because I wanted to eat a lot because it was so delicious and I would have looked like a fatty in the States. She seemed to be done piling stuff on my plate when I felt about done, but then she recalled these pastry things with spinach in them that her mom had made and started piling them on my plate. Then I started eating really slowly so she couldn’t put more on. When she seemed to finally give up on me, I was pretty stuffed. We were wondering when we should leave because it was 11 something, an hour past our curfew, though Chatt knew where we were, so it was fine. Because it was so late, Emily texted me and said “Haha. You guys got Arabed!”

Then we were informed that the men had gone to get dessert. Smash told me I had to be the one to say that we had to leave at some point because one of the girls had texted her that Jordanians keep being hosts until you leave. But I’m pretty sure they were planning on having dessert the whole time and we couldn’t leave when they had gone to buy it for us. So they brought dessert, two dessert items that we had told them we really like in Jordan (kunafah and this other stuff that is like cheesy baklava, which sounds gross, but is delicious) and this other things that looked like a birds nest, but had a somewhat similar taste to the other two. It was a lot to handle after we had stuffed ourselves on the main meal, but I made it! Then the sister put two more things on my plate even though I said no. I could only take one more bite. Then they started talking about watermelon and asked if we like it. We are true Americans, so we said of course!

Kunafa, a Jordanian dessert

Then someone who had been in the kitchen brought out a watermelon and started cutting it. Then Smash freaked out at me and was like “we need to leave at some point!” Since there was panic in her voice, I told Mahmoud that we should probably leave soon. He said after the watermelon. Someone brought a plate of watermelon to our table then we realized that the large plate was just for Ashley, so we pretended to be confused and all started eating off it, hoping we wouldn’t each get one since we were so full. It was to no avail. Thankfully I ended up with the plate that they had both eaten off of because I was in the middle. Muahaha. Though it was amazing watermelon, I couldn’t handle it. No one has ever done a marathon this hard. Ashley said maybe people who have actually run marathons, but I don’t believe her.

I thought I could always put more food in my belly, but I couldn’t finish the watermelon. I have never felt more stuffed. It was like two Thanksgivings combined. I can’t believe I’m still alive. Actually, it was only twelve hours ago, and I can’t believe that I’m hungry right now; I thought I would never eat again.

I can’t wait to do it again.

*On a side note, Emily just told Chatt that she is a broken person because she has never seen Lion King.*