week in Dubai

Dubai is a very interesting place--not at all like Jordan.
No one speaks Arabic bc the Emirates only comprise 12% the population. The rest are ex-pats: England, America, and SOOOOOOOOOOOOO make Indians and Asians. When the airplane landed, I thought we landed in Indonesia or something. The Emirates don't do anything for themselves and they don't like mingling with people who are "not their kind."

The city of excess and opulence: it was actually kind of disappointing to see what the Sheiks are spending their resources on (not education or global poverty... more like man-made islands which they sell to Tom Cruise that will probably sink in 20 years. Malls are decorated like theme parks, but no one really shops in them...

Even though, I had a very good time, swam in the Indian Ocean (3/4 oceans down!), saw 4/7 Emirates, went on a Dune bashing safari, met lots of interesting ex-pat people (even got a TEEEEEEEEny bit of dancing in there... or watching people dance).

EVERYTHING is construction tho--2/3 the world's cranes are in Dubai. They're constantly working on the biggest and best (fill in the blank).

Running out of time tho.. back in Jordan and spending the coming week in a small village with another peace corps volunteer. should be fun, but internet time is hard to find.

Dancing!

Everyone here loves dancing. On Thursday they had a celebration in honor of Jordanian Independence Day (which is actually next week but hey) and everyone donned themselves with Jordanian pride, red and white kaffiyyehs, posters of the king, and of course danced. The dancing, though, was one of my favorite things I have seen so far. No practice, just dancing because you feel happy. Only the men do it, though, but it's still so much fun to watch. If these guys went to Turlington at UF, they would beat the Step Team off in an instant. Step Team rehearses... these guys don't need rehearsal, they have it born in them. And supposedly the smaller village you are from, the better you can dipka. And people from Amman (the capital) apparently can't dipka at all. I wish I could watch that everyday; it makes me very happy. That's something I would like to bring back to UF.

Speaking of dancing, we went downtown to Amman on Thursday night, and went to a bar type place with a man performing songs. The guy at had his shirt unbuttoned and showed off his "appealing" hairy chest... how long will it take for him to realize.... not even Jordanian girls like that! But his music was good and the venue was relaxing. Then we started to go to some of the most popular Jordanian clubs, but they were very expensive, so we decided not to. Every place we went, all I had to do was flash my American passport and the would usher me in. Even if they had age restrictions, they didn't care. But Katie recommended this place with no cover... which was a little bit shady. In fact, it was pretty gross. The Jordanians we were with were pretty disgusted by it, and I definitely did not enjoy it. Packed with ruddy tourists--I would have appreciated something that Jordanians frequent, but eh, malish...

On Saturday Katie and I went to the ancient Roman ruins at Jerash... Very interesting but they're so huge, I tired quickly. We saw a Scottish bagpiper... well no, he was a Jordanian bagpiper, but dressed in Scottish clothing? I'm not sure WHY he was there, but kids started dancing and I broke out the video camera. I love the dancing!
We also got up close and personal with some Jordanian wildlife: giant millipedes (watch where you sit!), more of those giant lizards who looked like they were from Jurassic Park, and then we made friends with a snake. The snake quickly went back into the bushes, then slowly poked its head back out... and STARED AT US! Stop staring! We've had enough Jordanians stare, now there's a Jordanian snake staring at us! "Are they British, are they German tourists?" it wondered. "Can they get me an American visa?" Why did it stare? A bit disturbing.

Tomorrow we leave for Dubai! Yay, one of the most expensive cities in the world! At least with their modgepodge population, I won't get stared at... I hope.

Some differences...

Everyone here is so nice. Someone just came into the office and asked if I wanted anything to eat. Yesterday, we visited the former secretary of the Civil Development Center and she locked the door and turned off the lights while me, katie and 4 others sat around and gossiped while she made us cheese sandwiches (on flatbread of course). Every now and then the door handle would turn, but it was locked so we all turned silent. One of the guys talking with us is a deaf man who is basically the "office boy" of the center. He is soooo social tho and really nice. He's friends with everyone and arguably the most popular man on campus.
The former secretary of the Center(who now works in the school of dentistry)took Katie and me into an empty office to take off her hijab and show us her new highlights and straightened hair. She said she wishes she didn't have to wear it because she wants to show off her new look.
We also shopped around downtown Irbid and that was quite interesting... it was sort of like Chinatown in NY for me (esp the part where no one speaks English). Many people stared! One guy tripped across the pavement because he was staring, lol. C'mon guys, whitey can't be that unusual... whenever we see people staring my sister and i sing "take a pictureeeee".
The wedding was lots of fun, despite the fact that many people didn't understand me. We danced (they drag you onto the dancefloor) and do the dipka. Women celebrate in a different room than the men. The bride was very beautiful, and descended in a clear elevator (which some girls informed me was not traditional). The bride and groom wanted to take pictures with us tho and that was a little awkward. And the groom said after this they are moving to California where he will teach and work on his PhD. Overall, it was very enjoyable.

I made a list of a few things in Jordan that I find difficult to get used to:
-50,000 greetings. When you meet someone you have to ask them "how are you" in about 50 different ways, so greetings take a very long time.
-you can't flush toilet paper. you have to put it in the trash can... ugh.
-horn honking=worse than ny... but apparently people honk in many ways: celebratory honk, taxiavailability honk, and of course the getouttamyway honk.
-King Abdullah and Hussein photographs EVERYWHERE even tho King Hussein has been deceased since 1998, everyone loves the royalty here and there is great amounts of pride, so there's a lot of photos (billboards, in busses, on computers, etc)
-Spoons are a different shape... Katie doesn't believe me but they are tapered in the opposite direction (kind of hard to explain)
-Almost everyone smokes (in fact there is a guy smoking right next to me right now) and they know that it's bad for you but they do it anyway. This trip is taking 50 years off my life... and it just smells bad.
-Clothes of course... i learned how to put on the hijab the other day!
-call to prayer: if you live near a mosque you hear the call to prayer 5 times (at least) every day and it is quite loud, but it kind of fades into the background because it is melodic.
-food: funny cheese, flatbread, and tissues instead of napkins or paper towels.

i think some people were talking in arabic in the hallway last night bc i couldn't sleep and i had a dream about the taxi driver without his nephew.

Everyone was supposed to go to see Lord of War (nicholas cage) and i'm being told right now that they had to cancel it because it was not censored.
first there was a kiss and many conservative girls left (they tried to turn the sound off... as if that would do any good)
then some guy came and put a book in front the projector during any scenes he did not approve of (which varied from a woman in a bikini to a short dress to a man and woman touching... things which probably wouldn't normally be edited out).
Tomorrow's movie is Ice Age 2... which shouldn't be too bad.
I ALMOST taught Katie's english class the word tool during class today bc we were talking about slangs like poser and stuff but my sister said it used to mean something else (dictionary.com it if you want) so i couldn't teach it... but really, that definition is not in usage anymore, right?

troy

i thought specifically lindsey and julie would like this one:
so i went to my sister's tutor (mais) house for dinner, and mais told me this story about her cousin lina (who is a little ditzy). they all went into the capital city amman to see the movie troy. at the very end of the movie, her sister was crying and her brother was very depressed (bc the whole city is burning and everyone is being killed). As the credits rolled, lina sat up straight and said in a frustrated tone "i just really want to know: who is that pretty girl who died in the end?"


yes, lina.



that's brad pitt.

dead sea fun!

woke up on thursday morning with barely any sleep and my sister dragged me to the center with her. there are many nice people that work there, but I realized how useless my 10 credits of Arabic are. They only speak colloquial here and foosha (standard) is what the news writes in. so MANY of the words I say are not commonly used here. I'm extremely grateful that many people speak English very well.
the dress of the women varies. I think I'm going to wear jeans, modest shirts and running shoes every day.
after work, which included many awkward introductions, we took the bus to amman (which wasn't bad at all). then we took a bus from amman to madaba which included shoving our way to the front (my sister said watch out for getting grabbed) and jumping on (and off) the bus while it was still moving. many people stared at us on the bus bc i guess 2 whitey girls isn't really common. excuse me sir, do you have a staring problem? unfortunately i couldn't say that because it is not appropriate to talk to men. at the university it's ok, but it is still hard to get used to not saying bless you in arabic when a man sneezes in madaba. we stayed with a really nice peace corps couple in their apt.
the next day we woke up early and went to mt. nebo (where moses looked over the mountain and showed everyone the promised land (Israel) and then died. it was really pleasant and had beautiful views. there were these giant lizards that were running around (like bearded dragons?) and they kind of freaked me out.
we then went to jesus' baptism site, which is VERY close to the Israeli border (armed guard to make sure you don't swim across). we touched the water of the Jordan river, yay now we're blessed! (just as well since I'm not going to church this week)
Then we headed over as guests of some other peace corps to the dead sea Marriott, which was quite luxurious. 5 pools plus private beach to the dead sea (where we floated for a bit and then got mud masks!!!) that is the life I would like to have everyday, and the pc volunteers tried to convince me they did that every week. I don't think I've been far enough from the US to fully appreciate that tho, but it was still a lot of fun. but the salt burns your eyes!!!

Saturday we went to the church of st. george's where there's this crazy miracle hand painting of the virgin mary. look at this third blue hand at the bottom of the picture which apparently mysteriously appeared there one day. there's also a really big map of the holy land. then we went home and chilled.

today (Sunday) katie has work so I am here again. and people keep talking to me. but they are all very nice, so it's ok. we were invited to a wedding in one guy's village tomorrow and we are going to dinner at katie's tutor's house tonight.

come fly with me...

I hope I can remember everything since I haven't had a computer since I arrived in Jordan. and i'm writing this as people in the office are talking to me, so i'm pretty distracted and it might not be too coherent. Flew to New York at 10am, had an 10 hr layover, so I checked in my baggage and hung out at my Grandma's house for awhile. Very nice, since I didn't have to wait around in JFK. Went Back at 6pm for my 8:01 flight. British Airways was sooo nice. Maybe I thought it was since I haven't been on an international flight before, but maybe I liked it because I had three seats to myself for the overnight flight. Heathrow was ok, but I know terminal 3 inside and out tho bc I had so much waiting time. I even fell asleep a couple times, tho I'm not sure for how long. One woman approached me and asked me if I was American. She was in awe and was just asking "is it different there? I would like to go there so badly" in her cockney British accent…FINALLY, I got on my Royal Jordanian flight, which was not too bad, (2 seats to myself… I think the airline people think I smell but I won't complain). Then I arrived in jordan. the passport people gave me no problems, but baggage took forever to arrive. finally I met my sister who handed me an itinerary and "welcome packet" :a little overwhelming after all of those flights and no sleep. Then introduced me to the taxi driver and his nephew. We took the taxi back to her apt (a 2 hr trip). the driver was very talkative, but nice. We had a checkpoint stop, where the police took the ids of the driver and his nephew, but not our ids. About 1/2 way thru the trip I really had to pee. I mean not one of those, I should go to the bathroom; one of those shifting around in your seat to find the best spot times. my sister told me to wait, there were no stops along the way. we were sooooooooo close to the university (I could see the entrance in the distance) and there was another checkpoint. this time they took the ids again and took awhile longer. I had to get out of the car and walk around, my sister yelled at the police to go faster, and they replied "one minute" which really does not mean one minute. with the university within sight, I decided to walk, but I saw the police asking the nephew (mohammed) some questions. then the officer opened the door, took his arm and began handcuffing him, upon which we were all confused. this was NOT what i needed. the driver then told me to get into the car and he would drive me, and as we sped off the police said to wait, but we finally got to a bathroom and i finally moved all of my stuff into my sister's room. what an interesting start to the trip... my sister assured me that those things never happened here but i'm not so sure.
right before we went to bed my sister and i asked each other in disbelief... "did mohammed just get arrested ?"
driving in Jordan, people make up their own rules.
there basically are no rules… passing is extremely common, and it is also common for people to pull over and yell across the street for something like coffee. dogs also roam the highways and chase cars. our taxi driver honked at some dogs but didn't appear to be slowing down. prophet Mohammed was a cat person, so the quran says no to dogs.

jack bauer carries a man purse

so i'm getting ready for my sleep patterns to be screwed up and i'm going to be awake for quite awhile tonight.
7:30 am flight to jfk should be delightful... you'd have to be crazy to wake up that early, which kinda makes me wonder about who i'll be sitting next to me on the plane...
already starting to miss gainesville, and i'll probably miss longwood too, but i am really looking forward to my pilgrimages to both holylands (israel & ireland) as well as jordan, uk, and uae.
dwyane wade is the only person who really cares about basketball on the miami heat; he deserves to be on a championship team. there's 5:55 left but the heat don't deserve to win this game.
trying to fit 1/3 year into one piece of luggage is quite challenging

ANYWAY, if you feel like catching up on my goings-on, take a gander at this site.
emails would be greatly appreciated! phone calls, though, not so much... text messages in case of emergency (like if julie and joakim need an extra bridesmaid). :-)