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.*

Racism and Handstands

I wrote this like a week ago, but finally have the internet to post it:

So last night we had an interesting cab driver. He was from Palestine and said that all Israelis and their children should be killed. He wasn’t even actually from Palestine it turned out. His parents were from there. We also had a guy without a cab try to charge us 5 dinar to drive us home. That’s almost 5 times as much as a taxi from that area would cost. We laughed at him and walked away. 

We also had some guy come up and talk to us who apparently lived in Arizona for 17 years and then got deported because he "did something bad." When I told him I was from Missouri he told me about when he drove through St. Louis and stopped to get gas, but then saw a bunch of black people and was too afraid to get out of the car. He got back on the freeway and ran out of gas. I thought it was pretty ironic since so many people in the States are racist towards Arabs and here this Arab is scared of people with darker skin than him. Ugh, people.

Young boys in the streets here will cat call us (literally because they make hissing noises that people use for cats to come closer) and yell things and stuff. But every once and a while they try to impress us instead of yell at us. My favorite example of this is when we were wandering around the Amman Citadel and a boy who was probably around 14 wordlessly did a handstand right in front of us and walked away. I would have given him my phone number.

I had a google hangout with my parents today, so that was exciting. They made me jealous of all the Panera bread they had at their house for our church. Dad went fishing and caught one, so his life is significantly more exciting than mine. I’m not even being sarcastic right now. We’ve been getting bored since we still haven’t started work.

Our facilitator, Chatt, is starting to form dreads in her hair, which I’m excited about. I’m really jealous, but I don’t think they would work in my hair. Chatt could pull them off so well. They’re already looking pretty good. She’s nervous about it, but I assured her that since she still has to go to grad school before she begins her career, she’ll be fine. Especially because she is planning on going to grad school in Italy. What a Bad A.

We had a meeting with Sarah at the ministry yesterday, so hopefully we’ll be starting our jobs soon. My job switched back to the original plan of the battered women’s shelter instead of the juvenile shelter. Apparently it’s really fantastic and they won some award for helping so many women. That means the security should also be really good, so that's good.

First post in Amman

The other day we went to the Amman citadel, which was really cool. I've also gone downtown. We tried to go to a lecture by this famous woman who writes about women's rights in the middle east (Shereen El Feki), but we didn't know until 5 minutes beforehand and then we couldn't find it because stuff here isn't marked very well.  There are a surprising number of things that remind me of Romania like some stores, the amount of harassment foreign girls get, similar buildings and sidewalks, etc. I've mostly been exploring the neighborhood the past few days. 

We can't flush the toilet paper, so we have to put it in a little trashcan by the toilet and we can't use much water because we have a limited amount each week. Once it's gone, it's gone. So we also can't shower a ton. The food here is delicious. I mostly eat pita bread and hummus, which are two of my favorite things, so that's fine with me. Church is interesting. It's on Fridays, which I LOVE. The Arabic branch is really small. We also went to sacrament in the English ward. This little girl in the ward already loves me and even though I was sharing a hymnbook with my friend, she had me share her tiny pocket one so I could barely see the words. And  she made me play a weird game of tic tac toe, there were way too many squares. It was like a 4 by 4 or something.

My roommates are awesome!  I have had very interesting discussions with girls in the group the past couple nights. Also, everyone has fantastic movie and tv taste. Emily and Alex have both watched The IT Crowd! My apartment consists of me, Emily, and Chat. The other girls apartment is Alex, Smash, Stephanie, and Shanel. The boys are Logan, Paul, and Marc. (And Matt, but he lives in a different apartment because he's married and therefore has a wife and baby with him.)

Boys cat call a lot at us, but none have touched us yet, though we had some follow us for a bit, so that's great. We have to have the boys walk us home at night now because there are so many shabaab. We don't want an skanky image, so we're not allowed to have boys in our apartment at all, so we usually meet at their apartment or make them wait outside.

We start work on Monday or something and we're meeting with the Minister sometime on Sunday or Monday. Or maybe one of her inferiors we shall see. I'm excited, but nervous because I speak the least Arabic in the group and the little Arabic I learned was Egyptian, which is a lot more different from Jordanian than I thought it would be.

Amman, I dont have my computer with me, so I might have stolen this from Shanelle's FB

It has been demanded...

...that I blog during my semester in Jordan, so I figure I may as well get back in the habit now since I've been slacking off so much lately. I leave two weeks from yesterday for Amman, Jordan, though I don't actually get there until the 10th. So that's going to be a fun time traveling by myself, but my fabulous facilitator will pick me up from the airport in Amman in the wee hours of the morning. Oh, and I'll actually meet up with another girl on the internship, Stephanie in Frankfurt, so that will be great!

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to a pediatric psychology conference in New Orleans. Our group consisted of me, another undergrad, three grad students, and our professor. I think we were the biggest group there. We got a grant to go, so all we had to pay for was a few meals and, of course, dessert in the form of beignets. However, to get the cheaper flights, we had to leave Provo at 4 in the morning! We met up at 3:45 for our 6 o'clock flight. It was survivable.

The food in NO was seriously amazing. I would go there again just for the food. I tried gumbo, jumbalaya, gator (it was in sausage form), beignets, humongous, shelled BBQ shrimp, and the famous NO pecan pie. I don't know why that's a thing, but it is. Beignets are French and we were in the French Quarter, so that was quite fitting.

I guess the conference was pretty cool, too. We went to a bunch of different poster sessions during the three days we were there. (And we each presented in one). There were some pretty cool presentations too. We heard about how pediatric psych applies to the medical field today, the different psychological issues that kids with chronic illnesses face along with their families, how health projects in different countries are going, etc. We also got to pick a professor at the conference to eat lunch with on Saturday with a handful of other students. This was especially beneficial for the grad students who might want to intern with that professor or work with them on research, but it was also great for us undergrads to figure out where we want to go to school. I ate with a woman who teaches in Novia Scotia. I had not even considered leaving the states for grad school, but that could be pretty cool.

The weekend we went just happened to be the Jazz festival (or maybe they planned the conference that way on purpose.) So Friday afternoon we went to that. We just wandered from stage to stage to listen to different musicians. We even got Dr. Jensen to dance! But the video is on Mark's phone and I have not yet seen it. :( 

All 5 of us students went for a short run Friday morning, which was amusing. There were a few other runners out in the area, but not a group of 5 that took up the whole sidewalk. We slowed poor Mark down, but I think he wanted to protect us in scary New Orleans. We went down by the river walk and saw them setting up for the Jazz fest. It was really pretty. I wanted to take a ferry ride, but the breaks we had between sessions at the conference were only an hour or two long and most of the ferry rides were 3 or 4 hours I think. They were probably expensive, too.

We did have a humorous occurrence when a man asked Kara and I if we wanted to try out. We saw that it was a strip club, so Kara said "nah, we're good." "I know you are. That's why I want you to try out." We just kept walking. I think it made Dr. J concerned for our safety. He didn't want us wandering around by ourselves. If it weren't for things like that (and hurricanes), I would think NO would be a pretty awesome place to live. Actually I'm sure other areas would be really cool to live in as long as you weren't in the French Quarter, which is where we were the whole time since our hotel was basically in it.

Sanita, me, & Kara in front of Sanita's poster I think

The whole group!

At the Jazz festival!

The waiter puts a bib on for you before you eat the BBQ shrimp. That's service!

Tina and I trying on Mardi Gras masks

We did get stuck in Dallas on the way home after our flight got delayed, but we eventually got home at 2 or 3 in the morning. But our 72 hour adventure was definitely worth it. Thanks to Dr. J. for letting us go and getting us the grant and making all the travel arrangements and putting up with us for the weekend!

More masks!

Little Things

I saw something traumatic in the park today, so it's a good thing everything else today has been great. Examples:

The kids were good this morning. I let D play with my hair because he has never pulled it before. He was making some weird noises and stroking something across my head. Then Ang explained that he was pretending to shave my head because they had their heads shaved last week. Haha! He also repeated “okay” when I just randomly said it, which was really exciting! We also got him to say 'Ajutor!'

I was fanning myself this morning and then I realized that G must be hot, too. So I started fanning him. He looked confused at first and then put on this face of utter bliss and giggled. It was the cutest thing of my life.

N said a word really well today, so I opened my arms for a big hug. He yelled Nu! And shook his head. I looked really sad like I was going to cry and then he felt bad and rand up and kissed my hand.

We only have two weeks left. I can’t believe that! In two weeks, I’ll be gone. I’ll never see my kids again. I won’t even really know how they’re doing or where they go. I'm excited to go home, but I feel guilty about that because I'm leaving these kids here alone. They have workers, but they are there  to provide for their physical needs, not emotional needs. The next interns aren't even going to be coming for another month and a half! I hope the kids don't regress too much. I get to go home to my parents and they don't even have any and most never will.

I fell in love with 2 older kids at the hospital today. One of them, Danny, was 15 and got drug by a horse. He didn’t talk to us much at first, and then Kelsey let him play with her iphone and he would throw us mischievous looks every time he died in Temple run and say “I’m dead!” He was so funny.

And Peter was in the room, too. He got hit by lightning and liked to talk a lot. His hands were burned, so he couldn’t play with the iphone, but he watched Danny and talked to us. At one point I started fanning him because it was burning hot in the room. He thought it was the funniest thing on the planet. Then all 3 of us (Kelsey, Megan, and I) were fanning him and he just laughed like a king.

Some of the girls gave E in the hospital today a Mohawk. Chelsea and I were the last ones in the room and I was holding her and then 5 kids walked in to stare at us. I had to make awkward conversation with them in my crappy Romanian. It was rough, but E kept smiling up at me, so I got through it.

I got Scotty to smile a lot today by tickling him. He’s growing some teeth now and looks like a little redneck missing his teeth instead of gaining them. It’s great. His feet were peeling awfully today, so I put some lotion on them. They looked like the tectonic plates at the end of the world.

Where is Todd?

Yesterday when we went to the hospital, Todd (my favorite kids) was gone! I’m terrified that he’s ended up at one of the other orphanages. A lot of the other orphanages are horrible, like the stereotypical ones they show in movies in the states. (Ours is pretty great, though.) We have never been allowed in any of the other orphanages. But when kids from them end up in the hospital, we are able to see their behavior, and therefore surmise how they are treated where they live. Some go crazy with attention and climb all over you and some of them won’t let you touch them at all and smack your hand away or retract from your touch. They have RAD, and you can tell that they sit in their cribs all day everyday. Todd cannot go to one of these places, but I don’t know where he went. And there's nothing I can do about it. Bah! Hopefully he shows up in our orphanage. Sometimes the kids will disappear from the hospital for a while and then appear again later. We never really know where they go or anything.

Continuation:

The second day of the midsemester trip, we went to church in Bucharest. We got there early because we didn’t know how long it would take for us to get there. We were taking pictures in front of the sign when we first got there. A pair of elders walked by and looked really confused, but didn’t say anything to us. We went inside. Kelsey had burnt her arm on her hair dryer that morning (she was leaning over comically because she had to plug it into an outlet in a different room in the hostel since ours didn’t work) so we went in the kitchen for her to run it under cold water. I decided to look for some ice in the freezer. An elder walked in the room and looked extremely confused about who we were. Then Kelsey said “hello” in English. Then he was extra confused and said “hi.” Then I explained that I was leaning into the freezer in a random church building because I was looking for ice for Kelsey’s burn. “We don’t have any.” “I realize that now.” It was a great conversation.

Before and after sacrament meeting everyone came to ask us who we were and to kiss us on the cheeks and to practice their English. I've never felt more popular in my life. A nice English speaking Romanian translated for us into translators instead of just whispering behind us like the missionaries do in Iasi.

Kelsey had an awesome experience meeting a woman in the ward who her sister taught about the church 8 years ago when she was on her mission here. You’ll have to read Kelsey’s blog for that.

A kindly old lady in the ward who considers herself the mother of the missionaries in Bucharest invited us over for lunch. The four of us squished into her tiny apartment with 12 missionaries and her. The food was great and very traditional. It might be one of my favorite experiences in Romania not including the kids. It was just such traditional Romanian, and she was so kind to us! I loved it.

Kelsey and me after our lunch at Sora Grozo's

We met up with Jen in the park to watch a kids movie. Unfortunately that movie turned out to be Alvin and the Chipmunks, so we went to a different part of the park until it was over. We talked for a while and watched some really weird mimes that appeared to be trying to be anamatrons. I don’t know if this is usual for mimes or not since I’ve never seen one before. It was pretty cool, though.

Mime

Mime (Hamlet)

Then How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days came on the screen, so we sat and watched it, got bit by bugs, and wandered home. 

Also, for your entertainment, I present a toy that one of the girls at the hospital had a few days ago:  

Nearly Headless Nick (get it?!?)