Fee hummus woh salata?

". . . Maybe it's the third world, maybe it's his first time around. Doesn't know the language, holds no currency. . . ." - Paul Simon

That about sums it up.

OK, so we now have a little bit of currency, and we can ask if someone has hummus and salad and greet someone without (if we're lucky) completely making fools of ourselves. As soon as someone else speaks, though, I resort to my minimal Chinese and crawl into the fetal position. Daph just starts rattling off the alphabet in Spanish.

Welcome to Jordan.

OK, so, really, it's not that bad. Everyone here is sweet, and tries to communicate, and most are happy to try and find someway to help.

But really, I'm getting ahead of myself. We should start back on Tuesday afternoon, where we left off. You see, after all that poetry (which, I should brag, has gotten me compared to Gwen Stefani -- if you don't know who that is, just ask, *ahem*, Mark), we headed to Philli and Sevonne's wedding. Philli was a close friend of Daphna when she spent a year in Israel during high school. He is sweet, and was so excited to see her that I thought Sevonne might get jealous, but really they both just floated through the evening. The ceremony was beautiful, complete with pauses for the camera, and was followed by a multi-course meal and a disco party. Very wonderful, and, in an odd way, very Israeli. Who else would dance the hora to a throbbing techno beat? Nothing like the holy land. . . .

The wedding was a wonderful way to leave our Jewish segment of the trip for the time being. On Wednesday morning we headed to Turan, an Arab village in northern Israel, to visit Vera, a friend of Daphna's through Building Bridges for Peace. We were still in the same small country, but it felt like a rather large transition. We left the crowded, small apartment-style living of urban Rishon for the houses and olive trees and Arabic of a new place. And Vera's family (see pictures) was wonderful -- sweet and loud, funny and friendly and hospitable. Who knew that okra could taste so damn good? But it was OK -- we only ate about 7 meals a day. We also met Vera's fiance, Iyad. They will both be in the states in the Fall (Vera, unfortunately not very bright, was forced to accept a Fulbright Scholarship to get a Masters in the States so that she could escape the constant belittling in her town for her poor intellect). Everyone should have them over for dinner.

While we were at Vera's, Israeli election results came in. The village was a hard place to be when the right wing (including a man whose largest premise was to force Arab Israeli citizens to go through loyalty tests or be deported) did so well. It felt to us like Vera, in particular, was in a lot of pain -- her family has endured a lot, and to have this type of agenda in the ruling coalition is scary. It interested us as well, that there are four different Arab political parties, three of which each have around four seats in the parliament (the fourth protested the war by staying out of the elections, which seemed to me like when Israeli students "struck" by not going to class when the government raised the price of education -- who, exactly, are you hurting here?). Vera suggested that, if the four parties united, and all of the Arab's voted, they'd get over 20 seats, enough to be in the coalition. It didn't seem that simple, though -- the parties are not that similar, and one is even a communist party. Ever hear that one about two Jews and three opinions? Well. . . .

Finally, we are back to this morning. Iyad dropped us at the Nazarene Express in Nazareth (for an hour, we were Ben and Daphna of Nazareth!) and we took the bus into Jordan. It was a beautiful drive -- the green hills of Israel's Jezreal Valley gave way to the arid hills of Jordan, which had far less agriculture but far more olive trees (Iyad told us, "If there are Arabs, there are olive trees"). We pulled into Irbid, a sprawling, fair sized city in the hills. Daph said that the approach was like the approach to Jerusalem, minus the green. We clambered out of the bus, and somehow, found the university. We arrived at the security gate, and asked about the language center, and they pointed us to another security center, and they made a phone call to find out where it was and then waited, and then made a phone call to ask someone else, and then walked us the 100 yards to the Center.

At the Center, we met Ahmed and Omar, one of whom will most likely be our professor, and both of whom were flabbergasted by our complete lack of Arabic. They kept saying things like, "But you know. . ." and we'd just look at them blankly and they'd shake their heads and look at each other, as if perhaps the other one was (hopefully) using us to play a practical joke on him. We met the director, who reminded me a lot of Bruce Heitler, came in and said hi, and had the foreign student liasion, Ayhem, show us to our apartment. Ayhem brought us to a well-used but large one bedroom apartment in the corner of campus. It has white walls and beige carpets and ugly but useable furniture and a TV that gets the local Jordanian stations. Nonetheless, it's cute, and Daphna has promised to spruce it up.

Ayhem then called a driver and took us on a tour of campus and the city, showing us where many things that I can't remember are. It was very sweet and detailed and, after showing us the incredible student center where you can do mosaics and ceramics and painting (we think they're free, but aren't sure), he brought us to his office and gave us some materials. One of his co-workers practically begged us to come practice Arabic with her and to teach her some English, and then we went home.

Even after a good afternoon's rest, though, it's best not to try to order vegan food in a foreign place without a dictionary. Now, we did it ("sandwich felafel" and tea and water and hummus and salad for two for under five dollars), but it was kind of ugly in the process. A lot of very blank looks, shall we say.

Now, 'tis time to go shopping and fall into bed for an early night (so, the afternoon's rest wasn't so good). We have tomorrow and Saturday as our weekend, and classes are supposed to start at 8:30am on Sunday. Wish us luck.

Arabic word(s) of the day:
Been Hehbak = I love you

Been hehbak, everyone! Thanks for all of your comments and e-mails (we love them!) and we hope to talk to you soon!