I say tomato, you say "banadurra"

Last week I did a language trade ("I'll help with your English if you'll help with my Arabic" kind of deal) with Farouq, a Professor of Computer Science at Yarmouk University on his "Dumon", a 1000 square meter plot that serves as a large garden. He showed me how to water his tomato plants (which he does once -- total -- before they give their fruit), how to harvest "kusa" (a zucchini-like vegetable), and he said a lot of things that I couldn't understand.

Farouq speaks with an accent, and was charged by one of my teachers to help me with "Amia", the local Jordanian dialect of Arabic (there are actually several within Jordan, and the manager of the movie store we frequent told us that he finds people from the south of the country -- physically closer than Durango is to Denver -- generally unintelligible). It was the second time that I had met with him, and was doing considerably better than the first, but was still having trouble following much of what he said.

Now, when most people (ourselves included) say that they are studying "Arabic", they are actually studying what is called "Modern Standard Arabic", or "Foos-ha". Foos-ha is a strange language, because, really, no one speaks it on a regular basis except for newscasters. Nearly everything, however, is written in Foos-ha, and, for all intents and purposes, it tends to be similar to most countries' "Amia". And, for the majority of the trip, I really believed that.

In addition to chatting with Farouq, I have also made friends with the manager of the falafel shop across the street from our dorms. He is Egyptian, and easy to communicate with, a fact I gave little thought until this week when I was sitting, watching the news with him when two of his Egyptian friends came over. I could barely understand the gist, the general area even, of what they were trying to communicate to me. Likewise, they were having intense difficulty understanding what I wanted to say, which I, of course, interpreted as mispronunciation (which may have been a part of it). Suddenly, though, as my friend began relaying to me what they were saying, and relaying to them what I was saying, I realized that he has been easy to understand because he speaks to me in Foos-ha. His friends, however, did not understand Foos-ha to the point where he had to translate my Foos-ha into Amia so that they could understand it. I was speaking Arabic, and they were speaking Arabic, but we needed a translator nonetheless.

It suddenly dawned on me that it is as if I am walking around Irbid speaking like Shakespeare without meter (and with a few "cools" and "hips" thrown in). Daphna is my little Juliette, and, despite the success that we have experienced in four short months, there is a long way to go before we will ever walk into a store in this part of the world, and have someone ask us where in the country we're from. Daphna suggests that two more years of living here and taking classes might suffice.

But Farouq is still trying. On Saturday he invited me to a "guy's night" where we and a couple of his friends played cards, ate melon with knives, drank apple juice, and talked about bad words in multiple languages. I could understand a great deal of what they said, and they all liked asking questions about proper usages and pronunciations of English words. Nonetheless, had they wanted to, they could have made many jokes at my expense without my knowledge. But at least my partner and I swept the night's games.

I guess, for now, that will have to do.


Your Arabic words of the day:

To play cards -- La-ebah el-waraq -- لعب الورق

Love is from God (an expression suggesting that you can't choose who to love) -- "El-hob meen Allah" -- الحبّ من الله

Palatial Camel-Humps

Expectations are everything.

Like, when you expect to get an adventurous camel-back tour of one of the most beautiful places on earth atop your trusty white camel (which, of course, brings to mind the possibility of rescuing your beautiful and ever-thankful princess-wife from the tallest tower of some Sultan’s desert castle) and you end up spending the majority of your Wadi Rum tour stuck staring at a camel’s ass. Yes, that was me and my albino steed, Shorban, tied to the back of Daphna’s much taller camel for a lack of guides. Desert mountains towered out of the sand on every side but forward, where Haran’s camely-tail swung back and forth in the smallest arc, like a small unsteady paintbrush wavering in the wind.

It had been days of ecstasy, and of shattered expectations. Traveling with our friends Mark and Ken in Israel had brought us to many of the holiest places on Earth (be you Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or even Bahai) and to some of the best falafel stands in the world. Crossing the border though, wanting to show off the best of our experiences from our time in Jordan, we had been led astray. Daphna was beaned with an apricot in the Irbid Suk (which simply doesn’t hold a candle to its Jerusalem counterpart). We were mislead in a restaurant in Ajloun. Finally there I was, my view of heaven obscured.

Our tour led to “Lawrence of Arabia’s spring,” a beautiful location sadly lacking a spring (though there was a camel troph – I almost asked Daphna to water my camel a la Rebecca, but Shorban did it himself). And on the way back, we camel-trotted, which was marvelous save for the bouncing up and down in an uncomfortable position on a wooden saddle. Everyone else did have fun, though.

I was still sore when we pulled off the road on the way home to take pictures of the sunset over Wadi Araba, the desert just north of Wadi Rum. We missed the turn for the lookout spot and pulled into what appeared to be an extended driveway. As Ken scampered to the ledge of the mountain, his new SLR camera in hand, I waddled to the edge of the road and joked to Daphna and Mark that the gate at the end of the driveway had three crowns on it because the King was about to walk out.

It was then that we noticed the two men walking down the mountain towards us in coats despite the evening’s intense heat. At that point I would have been happy to head out quickly – as much attention as Daph and I attract walking around Jordan it is nothing compared to the four of us together, and while much of it is well-meaning, endless shouts of “Welcome to Jordan” can begin to feel invasive. But the two men walked up to us, and introduced themselves as Ali and Hamdan, local Bedouins that summer in Wadi Araba. They asked about where we had come from, and then announced that we were outside Prince Hassan’s (the King’s uncle) desert palace where their friend is a guard.

“We are going to have tea,” they said, and with that, they escorted us into the gate, and to the guard shack immediately behind it. We sat as more Bedouins joined and brought out their famously sweet tea (“Bedouin Whiskey,” as they call it). Ali regaled us with tales of hunting gazelle and hyena, and of his travels in Israel and Egypt. About an hour later he announced, “We are making dinner.”

It wasn’t a question, nor an invitation – it was simply a series of unstated but assumed facts: we are cooking a local delicacy, you will stay here and join us for a meal, and that is that.

“Thank you, and we are very happy to join you,” I said. “But I should warn you that I don’t eat meat or fish or dairy or eggs or honey.”

Ali stared at me.

“Why?” he said, as if I had just told him that on Mondays I do everything while doing a moonwalk on stilts, which in his mind might have been a similar statement. All of the other Bedouins in the room laughed.

I tend to try and avoid being in group food situations where I am not in control of my menu, or when I have not at least had the opportunity to bring my own food. Here, I had accidently walked backwards (alas, it was not a Monday) into a sticky situation – the Bedouin culture is an intensely hospitable culture, but it is also one where a guest’s actions can easily be insulting. When the food arrived it was kibsa, rice cooked with vegetables on a large tray, about three feet in diameter, topped with chicken. Spoons angled out of the side of the dish towards the four of us, and the Bedouins dug in with their right hands (truly never touching the food with their left), and covering it with a goat-milk yogurt.

I did my best not to insult our hosts, picking at the rice I could get to that had not contacted the meat or the yogurt and eating dry bread and the cucumber that they handed the four of us (I think I did enough to please Ali, but the chef seemed frustrated that there were several pieces of chicken left at the end of the night, mostly in the area towards Daph and my corner of the dish). It was a difficult thing to do, an odd personal balance beam of uncomfortably stretching my own boundaries while alert to the way I was stretching the borders of our hosts' hospitality. The majority of the Bedouins finished very quickly and commenced egging the four of us on to eat more, to the point where Mark and Ken began, in turn, insisting that Hamdan continue to partake. Finally, one of the men took away the tray, and replaced it with more tea, and apples and oranges, and then we turned in time to see a man carrying a gigantic watermelon through the gate to the palace. They sliced open the watermelon and left it on a tray under the mostly-full moon, telling us that it needed time to cool because it had been in the sun all day (still attached to its plant, of course).

It is amazing the power that a single person’s actions can hold in defining a broader group. Until we met Ali and Hamdan, I had felt that Mark and Ken had no good reason to have a positive impression of the Jordanian people. Between Ali and Hamdan and Fadi, a Bedouin living in Petra who invited us to join him in his cave for more Bedouin Whiskey and some fresh fire-baked Bedouin bread, they had plenty to write home about.

We left shortly after partaking of the watermelon, Ali offering to escort us around the Wadi Araba desert if we finished with Petra early enough the following day. We didn’t have time to meet with him again, but that night’s visit (a desert palace, perhaps, but lacking its prince, a rescue attempt, and, thankfully, my noble white steed) will remain a highlight of our time here.

Too much of a good thing?

Now, the first surprise of the week shouldn't have been a surprise, really. Jordan is not the height of organization, and so when you ask if a bus runs on Mondays you should never expect the answer you get to be 100% correct. Because, just for future reference, the bus from Irbid in Jordan to Nazareth in Israel does *not* run on Mondays. When we arrived at the hotel in Irbid where the bus departs from, I watched Daphna's face turn from normal to red to some shade of purplish-green that I didn't know existed outside of cartoons as the same person that had told her the day before that there would be a bus recanted. I was glad that I was outside, behind glass doors. We were lucky, though: Halil and Emre (our infallible "Turkeys") were with us, and they somehow decided that our trip into Israel was their top priority for the day. They each made several phone calls, inquiring with their friends about ways across the border, and finally Emre convinced a Palestinian friend of his to travel with us to the Israeli border by cab. We felt a little baby-sat: we've taken cabs before, walked across borders before, the whole shebang. They would not hear of any resistance. So Emre's friend sat up front and Emre (all 6'3" or so of him) crammed into the backseat with us (Halil had already stayed so long that he was late to meet a friend). They even called us an hour after they dropped us off to make sure that we'd had no problems at the border.

Oh, Turkeys. Why would anyone ever eat them?

Sorry. This is a vegan blog, after all.

The rest of the crossing proceeded little better than the beginning, only without the help of passionate friends. We were fined at the Jordanian border for over-staying our Jordanian visa (our permitted length of stay had been explained improperly), and then, at the Israeli border, the patrol looked at my passport (water damaged since our 2003 stint backpacking throughout Central America), went to her supervisor, and returned to tell me that it was the last time I'd be entering Israel on that passport. No biggie - I'll just be a security threat this one last time, right? And hey, it only took us one more taxi ride and one more bus ride to get to basically where we would have been if we'd been on the Nazareth bus in the first place.

It is amazing, though, what a couple of kilometers can do for you. There is no doubt that Israel is a different country from Jordan. Somehow, in a way that I don't truly understand, it literally is greener on this side (I blame the pine trees). And women don't all wear head coverings (or, when they do, they don't cover nearly enough hair by the Jordanian standard). What's more, walking around Irbid, even when I try to fit in, I've been taken for Arab few enough times that I can count them on my fingers. Walking around Israel, even in shorts with a camping backpack on, people have walked up and asked me for directions in Hebrew ("No, no, of course I live here - I just get depressed if I don't walk a forty pound bag around the block several times a day").

The culture shock reached its apex at Jackie's wedding, which was beautiful. The bride and groom glowed, and were so excited to be together that he turned bright red (and I'm still not sure if his feet touched the ground, though Daph just claims that's because he was jumping up and down) and, well, Jackie's make-up had to be. . . um. . . touched up after the first time she saw him. They were wonderful together.

But we had walked out of Jordan and right into a group of rather conservative American-Israeli Jews, many of whom live in the West Bank. We got a wide range of reactions to our activities, ranging from, in essence: "Wow, I'd love to do that," to "Well, you know, Bibically-speaking you were actually in Israel, so it's OK" to "My son in the army kills terrorists every day" (I'm still working on how I should have responded to that. My favorite idea came from my mom: "Oh, no! Really? I've got to call Ahmed!"). Towards the end of the night we were told that American Jews only have months to leave with all of their possessions before Obama, it seems, creates a Nazi-like state (I still don't quite know how I should have responded to that one, either. Any ideas?).

The height of culture shock, though, might have happened on Thursday. We are staying at Yael's (Daphna's sister) apartment in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv. Her roommates found a vegan restaurant in Tel Aviv, which we walked to, but it was closed. So we went to another vegan restaurant in Tel Aviv. The restaurant, Buddha Burgers (http://www.buddhaburgers.co.il/english.asp), had amazing sandwiches and burritos and a raspberry-chocolate mousse-coconut pudding-chocolate cake-dessert that, well, promoted Israel out of the "Land of Shawarma" category, to the point where I can no longer talk about it on this blog. Look for updates on the far less controversial: Vegans in the Land of Vegan Desserts, due out next week. The worst part (and note the sarcasm here, please) is that, as we were leaving, one of the workers said, "You know, if you like the food, there's a buffet tomorrow from 12-5."

Let's just say that three-and-a-half months of no tofu, of sub-par vegan items and subsisting off of appetizers in restaurants were obliterated in a two hour smorgasbord of vegan whole wheat crepes, tofu lasagne, wraps, pancakes, salad bar, so many different types of latkes that I couldn't count accurately, chocolate cinnamon cookies and (try to stay seated, folks) homemade mango-apricot soy yogurt with fresh fruit and homemade chocolate granola. It's twenty four hours later, and I'm almost able to move again.

And Israel doesn't only have vegan food. It's got beaches and sun, and we found out the hard way. Yael and her roommate Rikki took us sunbathing after our first lunch at the restaurant, and it was as if we'd gotten the chance to play basketball with the Nuggets and thought it was really fun until we both tore an ACL. Ya and Rikki are daily beach-goers, and Daph and I are on the Disabled List until our sunburns go away (It's OK - we've got enough of our bodies not burned that there's a position we can both sit in without pain). The beach was amazing, though -- perfect water, clean sand, no vicious sea urchins. . . . like Aqaba without all the unpleasant parts. But you try going straight from "cover everything you're in Jordan" to "don't cover anything you're in Tel Aviv" and see if you don't look like a slightly oblong heirloom tomato.

We hate to say it, but we kind of like Tel Aviv. That was a shock, really - we've never loved it in the past and we've started to wonder if it's because it really is a cool city (you have to admit between the wonderful beach and the cute cafes and the ridiculous amount of stuff going on, it has something going for it) or because we basically came here from Irbid, which has none of the above and could make a cow barn seem like an epicenter of activity. It's also been a jarring look at the political situation, a further reminder of how everywhere in this insane conflict there are people. People (those wonderful, beautiful individuals with incredible dreams that blossom everywhere from Irbid to Tel Aviv), and people (those same passionate, stubborn, complex individuals that know how the world works and exactly what is necessary to make it better).

I love so much more about the Middle East than I did before we left on this trip. More about the land, about the people, their warmth and generosity and vision. I have less optimism, though, than I have had before. This is not merely a conflict of governments, as much as the people here want to be done with the fighting. There is stubbornness and fear and pride in this conflict, down to the individual, and it is not only about bending the will of political leaders to work together -- it is about reconfiguring the way that citizens of these many countries think about the land, about each other, about the possibilities of the future. One could say that there is excess of everything here, and not just in the land of milk and honey. And, once again, I don't know what the proper response is.

Your Arabic/Hebrew phrases of the week:

Different cultures -- Tarbooyote sho-note (Hebrew) -- Thiqaaffat muchtalifah (Arabic)

I'm vegan (English) -- Ani Tivoni (Hebrew) -- La akl lah-me, halbon, beyed, ah-sul, o semek (Arabic, literally "I don't eat meat, dairy, eggs, honey or fish" as there's no word for vegan in Arabic)

Dancing with Distinction

Thursday was the last day of class for most of the students at the Language Center, and so at the end of the day there was a small party at the Center and then a volleyball game engineered by the Italian girls. A couple of the Korean students came, as did a Turkish student, and few of the Italians’ Arab friends (another “mini-UN” as one of the students remarked). We had a couple of extra players, and so took turns sitting out and watching the disorganized game as it took on aspects of soccer (one of the Palestinians had a better record heading the ball over the net than many of us had hitting it at all) and chaos (you mean there are positions in this game?!?).

The first time that I sat out, I ended up chatting with one of their friends named “Ash.” We talked about the game for a bit, and then I asked where he was from. He said Egypt, to the North, in the desert. I asked if it was a heavily populated area, as I’d heard that outside of the Nile Basin, Egypt has a fairly sparse population. He said, “Truthfully, I couldn’t tell you.” In fact, Ash has only visited Egypt once – he was born in Jordan to a Jordanian mother and Egyptian father, spent the first twenty years of his life in the UAE, and considers himself Egyptian.

It is not uncommon here that people report their nationality as something other than their place of birth and the location of their livelihood (sometimes it makes me feel as if I shouldn’t say that I’m American, but rather from Kiev, or that Daphna is German or Czech or Polish). Ash carries Egyptian citizenship (and only Egyptian citizenship), and yet the point underlines one of the many issues in the Middle East: it is incredibly difficult to find a home here. Many families have generations that live in Saudi Arabia, and, perhaps now, the UAE, without being considered a part of the countries. Even the smaller, less oil-rich countries are strict about new-comers, and people attach themselves heavily to places that they’ve never been, something which is highlighted by the Palestinians, a lesson we learned when Daphna first met with a friend of ours, Lana.

When Daph asked where Lana was from, Lana said that she was Palestinian, and Daph asked, “Oh, where from?” Lana answered, “Haifa.” Daphna said, “Oh, it’s such a beautiful city!” And Lana said, “I’ve never been there.” It is a startling contrast to America, where citizenship is granted by birth, and where “Where are you from” tends to be defined by the now (or, at the very least, by your generation – just as I can’t imagine saying that I’m Russian or Romanian, I can’t even imagine claiming that I’m a New Yorker, no matter where my dad was born). And, in a time when money and jobs move people all over the Middle East (for instance, only 5% of the residents in the UAE are citizens), it is understandable why countries would not want to accept so many newcomers, and yet it is also hard to feel that the complete lack of identification fluidity is a problem here. If you can live in my country, where your father also lived, and always be recognizably and identifiably an “other” (an other which, most likely, because you’ve grown up in my country you can not identify with), how can we ever be equal?

One of the many things that I love about America is the inability to walk its streets and point out non-Americans. They’re wearing different clothes? Doesn’t matter. They’re not speaking English? Still doesn’t mean anything. They can still be American, and the moment that they are American, they’re as American as anyone else is American. Here, it is not the case. Even the Palestinians that carry Jordanian passports are not “Jordanian-Jordanian” as we’ve heard some people call themselves (and this despite the fact that the West Bank was part of Jordan until 1967). This is the “Arab World” and at Yarmouk University there are over 2000 foreign students, but they will never confuse themselves for Jordanian (and it is unlikely that any Jordanian would, either).

It is an ironic psychological boundary for a part of the world so renowned for its hospitality (and it was just today, as we sat on the sidewalk in the shade, that a shop owner, without expecting anything in recompense, brought chairs out from his shop and offered us water while we rested), and it has been one of the saddest things for me on this trip. I could not ask these countries to change their ways, because that would be asking them to lose their identities, but when does humanity begin to trump culture?

Last night we joined the Italians for dessert behind their building with some of their same friends from the volleyball game. After partaking, their friends taught us the dubka, the traditional Arab dance that has slight variations in every country (it’s like the “Amia”, the variations that every country has of the Arabic language). We learned the Iraqi and the “Shemali” (northern Jordan and Palestine) versions. It is a simple dance, intended to be mastered by everyone, and built on as ability allows. But even though every country celebrates with the dubka, every country does it differently, and can recognize the nationality of everyone else by the way that they dance. Even in joy there is distinction.

And now, with some trepidation, and, dare I say, a great amount of joy, we are headed for Israel on Monday to celebrate Jackie Siegel’s wedding, to see Daphna’s family, and to pick up our friends. At Jackie’s wedding we will dance, I am sure, in single-sex circles, to traditional music, while moving predominantly clockwise, all just like the dubka, but, to anyone who knows, it will look very differently. We will be in a country where some people with roots in every corner of the world will call themselves Israeli (or even Israeli-Israeli) without trepidation, but also with others who live within its borders with no citizenship to any nation-state, whatsoever. And I am afraid that, despite all of the love that is sure to be there, I will be no less confused.

Your Arabic Phrases of the day:

Kurat at-tairah -- Volleyball (Literally airplane ball)
Meen Ayna Antee / Anta? -- Where are you from? (to a female / male)

There's no "I" in "The Other"

Last night our Nigerian-Saudi friend Ahmed-Fellata met us at the West Gate of the University with a friend of his. His friend, who for pronunciation purposes we will call “MJ”, is an Irbid native also studying Engineering at Yarmouk. He introduced himself and said that he had “insisted” that Fellata allow him to accompany us to the café – a remark that caught me as funny because several of Fellata’s friends who’ve met us have told me exactly the same thing (I picture Fellata cowering while they approach, sternly slapping a ruler against the inside of their hands, growling, “Let me come. . . .”).

Our conversation roamed from movies, to immigration issues, to school. MJ mentioned a history course that both he and Fellata had taken, called “Jerusalem.” Daph and I couldn’t stand the curiosity, and we asked what they studied in the course. They described it as starting at the founding of the city, with great weight on the Crusades, and ending in the present day.
What, we asked, did it say about the present situation?

Now, you should know that we are outed to Fellata. He knows that we are Jewish, and is aware that Daphna speaks fluent Hebrew. So, when MJ began to talk about how Arabs could not rest until Jerusalem was under their control, Fellata tried to steer the conversation in as “PC” a way as he could manage, while trying to contain the laughter that was slipping into one of his big, loopy smiles. MJ talked about the injustices that have occurred in the past sixty years, some of which we had heard of, and some of which, like Israeli soldiers not allowing Muslims under the age of 45 into the Dome of the Rock, we had not / had reason to doubt. MJ suggested that under Arab rule, everyone would have uninhibited access to their holy sights. Fellata suggested that it be an international city. MJ mentioned that Jewish control of Jerusalem was merely a sign of Muslim deviance, and that once Muslims were again on the proper path in front of God, it would again be their city.

As our Arabic has improved, and as we have begun to read the newspaper (oh so slowly) and other texts, we have learned much more about the Jordanian view of Israel. We did several classes on reading newspaper articles about “suicide bombers,” a term which was in most of the texts we read, though our teacher contended that Muslims call them “Martyr bombers.” We did a listening exercise that suggested that Jews had stolen a cornerstone of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. On Friday we took a test, the text of which claimed that Ajloun Castle is a reminder to Muslims to re-take Palestine and restore the glory days of Saladin.

It is difficult to know where to stand when these issues arise. There is already a terrific amount of pressure in knowing, simply, that the people we meet may never meet another Jew in their lives, and that the impression we make may be incredibly important. When, though, do we speak up? How can we without alienating, or even endangering ourselves? And what does it mean if we simply say that we hope for peace?

After carrying on in our discussion, MJ paused for a moment and said, “We don’t have a problem with the Jews, though. Just the Zionists.” He mentioned that there are Arab Jews, though many of the communities he mentioned no longer exist or have thoroughly diminished: in Iraq, in Syria, in Yemen, in Iran, in Morocco (which is still fairly sizeable). When we chatted later in the night, alone, Daph asked if I thought he had realized that we were Jewish. But really, I think he was just trying to remind, or show, the Americans that the Jordanians are not a hateful people.

Finally, Fellata said, “And what’s so funny is that we’re all cousins,
Muslims, Christians, and Jews!”
And Daphna said, “Yes, brothers.”
And, for a moment, the table was silent.

Your Arabic Phrases of the day:
Mumkin – Possibly, Possible, Maybe
Yan-ni – it means. . . (Used as “I mean” or as a mid-sentence pause for thought reorganization like “Like”)

Jordan: It's for Lovers

I am, always, thankful that I have Daphna in my life. On this trip, however, there is every reason to highlight that gift. Jordan is not well suited to single people, and we have seen that repeatedly on our trip thus far.

Irbid is a relatively conservative town, and men and women rarely chat, let alone truly date, or even touch. The dress, too, reflects that: while men will occasionally walk around in t-shirts, shorts are so uncommon that one of my Turkish friends, seeing how many people were staring at me on the way to the basketball court, jokingly suggested that, no doubt, the mere sight of my legs would impregnate all of the Jordanian women around (oh, rue the power of the pale, hairy, chicken-legs!). Women here also dress very conservatively by US standards, although you will see women in the veil with very tight fitting clothing, or even, as we saw yesterday, in loose, flowing black robes with a full black veil, and red "hooker" high heels. I guess you do what you can. . . .

But the absence of inter-gender communication in Jordan can make things very interesting for any foreigners, who Jordanians tend to feel are outside of the normal rules for all things sex-related. The only problem is, well, many of the people here have no idea how to interact with single people of the opposite sex. So, they turn to the one source that's readily available and seems to make sense: Hollywood.

Oh, yes, Hollywood. Thank you James Bond. Thank you Brad Pitt. Even our friends here, sweet, wonderful, caring people, can display. . . well, an embarrassing adherance to Hollywood style when trying to warm up to foreigners. One of our friends who's attending the university, after meeting one of the Italian girls in the Language Center (who has a boyfriend back home, nonetheless), began incessantly texting her that he was in love with her. Likewise, Evan, before he left last week, was hounded by a young woman over 10 years his junior, in a manner that left no option but that she be left with a broken heart (to his credit, he "broke her heart" in the far more gentlemanly fashion). It's as if a bunch of American thirteen year-olds were let loose, complete with questions like, "If you were to marry anyone in this room, who would it be?"

The difference in the portrayal and relations of the sexes goes much further than that -- people of the same gender interact much differently here than in the US. Men kiss other men "hello" (there are various traditions, the most common being one kiss on the first cheek, and two on the second), hold hands, and link arms. Combined with the fact that women don't typically go out at night and that men here dress far better than most Americans, the night scene in Irbid makes it look like the largest gay scene imaginable. San Francisco's got nothing on the Middle East. . . .

And while most of the people here are aware of the no-kissing-Americans-thing (thank you, once again, Hollywood), it is a little shocking to have another man grab your hand, or link arms while walking down the street, and to realize that, a)this is normal here, and b) to jump away would be incredibly insulting. So, growth for all, I suppose.

Ironically, though, there is also a great fear of being seen as homosexual here (how do you distinguish, I wonder, when it is perfectly acceptable to kiss another man's neck while he is singing, for instance), and many times people have assured us that they are not gay (one even offered to change when we mentioned that gay men tend to be the best dressers in America). One of our teachers had a hard time grasping that, when I talked about the gay rights movement, I didn't consider it a bad thing. On the other hand, teenage pregnancy is basically a non-issue here. Everybody's got their's, I suppose.

And now our time as students in Jordan is starting to draw to a close -- we only have 8 days of class left before we head back to Israel on May 18 for Jackie Siegel's wedding and to meet Mark Piper and Ken Long, our awesome friends who are coming to meet us in Israel and to travel with us in Jordan. We will try to post a couple more times before we leave, but, just as a warning, mid-travel posts may be rarer. . . .

We're sending lots of love.

Your Arabic phrases of the day:

La Ahref. - I don't know.
Nahnu, hata Aalan, Taliban. - We are, still, students.

The Other Pilgrimage to Mecca

Last night we ventured into Amman for the second time, and met our friend Ahmed “Tupac” (here, if you’re named Ahmed, you need a nickname: in our phone alone are Ahmed “Fellata,” Ahmed “Tupac,” and Ahmed “Lebanese”). He brought us to a place we’ve heard praised by several people around Irbid: Mecca Mall. And, immediately, it was obvious why we’d heard so much: Mecca Mall is everything that Irbid is not. It is glitzy, it is foreign, it is humongous – within its walls alone are a bowling alley, a movie theater, a skating rink, multiple arcades, extremely expensive stores (Timberland, Polo Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, United Colors of Benetton) and a humongous food court that featured all of your American favorites: McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Caribou Coffee. . . .

We wandered the mall for hours (largely because there is little else to do in Amman at night without involving alcohol), gawking at the expensive brands, the ridiculous amount of English, and the swarms of people that at times made the mall hard to navigate. We took a small splurge, and Ahmed and I each got a drink at Starbucks (ahh, that sugary American taste. . . .) and Daph grabbed an ice cream cone as we learned about Ahmed's background. His family lives in Saudi Arabia, but he was born in Eritrea and spent nearly a year in Turkey, so he has been around, and his English is so good that, coupled with his t-shirt and slightly baggy pants, it would be easy to take him for American, with a slight accent that could be from, vaguely, most ethnic inner cities.

For me, though, the main focus of the trip was the food. I pulled us all out to the grocery store across the street (somehow it seemed more interesting than the grocery store in the mall) and, though we failed in the tofu search, we found black beans. I could hear some vaguely classical music start shooting through the back of my brain, could see Raphael’s painting of Mary’s ascent to heaven. . . and we bought two bags. Then we headed back to the mall.

We had found a Chinese restaurant in the food court that had a vegetarian section on its menu and the last menu item was “Tofu and Vegetable Hotplate.” Come dinner time I headed straight there, and Daphna next door to Chili House, a local fast food joint that had a veggie burger. I approached the Chinese Restaurant meekly and asked the man at the counter in Arabic if there was anything other than tofu and veggies in the dish. “No tofu,” he said in English. And that was that.

The veggie burger, it turned out, was vegan, and I decided to try Daph’s before jumping in for my own. She brought it to the table and set it down – it was deep fried, on a bun with a slice of onion, a slice of tomato and a light serving of ketchup. The salad it came with was iceberg lettuce (the first time I’ve seen it here) with tomatoes, cucumbers, and beautiful slices of bell pepper. Daph bit into the burger, and mumbled, “What is this, potato?” And it was. The “burger” was like eating a latke on a bun. Other options at the food court were limited, so I had falafel.

Eating out in Jordan (and especially outside of Amman) as a vegetarian is a very difficult thing to do. As a vegan, it is limited to certain appetizers exclusively: hummus, falafel, ful, mutabal (basically babba’ghanoush), and a variety of appetizer salads. At non-traditional restaurants, it can be even harder – we accompanied Evan to an Italian restaurant before he left this week, and there was not a single available menu item that I could eat. For obvious reasons, we do a lot of cooking at home.

Beyond that, food can be difficult as soon as it involves more than just the two of us. We have been shy to invite friends over for meals (and even to join friends at the “family-style” restaurants around), as meals here are not considered complete without meat ("white beans or garbanzos?" doesn't seem to cut it), and suggesting that you are a vegetarian results in expressions of pity and the immediate question, “Why?” This is not a society given to meditating on the issues behind vegetarianism, and that is clear even in the practices of Hallal, which, we've been told, extends an animal’s suffering in order to best drain it of blood. But unlike in certain parts of Guatemala, where I almost felt bad rejecting meat (where some people, for economic reasons, clearly had no option other than what was immediately available), here I do not – this is a land of plenty, a cradle of civilization for the richness of the earth (and the produce here is incredible, especially as we move into summer). Indeed, veganism owes great debt to Middle Eastern cuisine: homos, falafel, lentils, tahini. People here very much have the option of vegetarianism, it is simply not (yet) considered.

So Amman verged on a complete gustatory success, but alas. The mall, however, did impress us, and as we pulled away we saw that another of the malls we’ve heard so much about was a mere 100 meters from Mecca Mall. From the outside it also appeared lavish, and huge. We were astounded by that, especially in the light of what we know to be the Jordanian economic position. It is certainly not horrible, but minimum wage here is just over $140 a month (wages are not paid hourly, and a friend is working 72 hour weeks for under $160 a month). As we frequently have trouble staying within our $70 weekly budget (which doesn’t include rent), it is difficult to understand how people make ends meet, and even more difficult to understand how Jordan can sustain dozens of luxury boutiques all next door to each other, especially when the 16% sales tax is added onto the already jaw-dropping prices (Ahmed had been quoted a price of 600 dinar – almost $900 – for a pair of shoes at one of the stores in Mecca Mall). We don’t see it here in Irbid, where there are nice buildings but nothing spectacular, but the presence of the malls speaks to the existence of a strong, powerful, upper class.

And, writing about the excursion today, it feels like being that much closer to home – that much closer to all those things "American" – makes us feel so much further away.

Your Arabic phrases of the day:
Limatha? – Why?
Matha? – What?
Shu? – What? (in the local Jordanian dialect)
Ayna? – Where?
When? – Where? (in the local Jordanian dialect)

Coming out of the closet (and, gee boys, ain't we had fun)

There are some weeks that just seem like standard, dime-a-dozen weeks, and then some weekends that. . . well, weekends that come out of nowhere and bowl you over like a. . . like a stubby camel in a sandstorm.

Daph's sister, Yael, arrived from Israel on Thursday to great fanfare (if Jordanians were not yet lining the street to take pictures of her as she exited the bus, they soon would be). And, in our search for entertainment for the weekend, we ended up on a trip to Umm Qais, the ruins of one of the Roman Decapolis cities that overlooks the current borders between Jordan, Israel, and Syria (though there's some dispute here over the border of Israel and Syria, as to what is currently what and what is simply Israeli occupied, and what is the Golan Heights and what is the. . . . You get the point), with Lebanon clearly visible in the distance. We traveled with a group of foreign students from around the area and beyond, including Syrians, Lebanese, Saudis, Nigerians, Malaysians, Palestinians, Iraqis, Kuwaitis and more. Students pointed out to us that the area we were in was so close to the borders that people had gone there to watch rockets flying back and forth during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

From Umm Qais we headed into the Jordan Valley -- a stone's throw from the Golan Heights -- but were turned away from our original destination because one of the Palestinian students on the bus had forgotten his student ID and was carrying his passport, which alarmed the Jordanian military to the point that they redirected us to another location and sent a soldier along as an escort. He was wearing a leather jacket, after all, and it seemed to me that he might try to pull some James Dean-like smoothness at the border, in full view of the Israeli military. Gulp.

The day was incredible -- the people were generous to the point of being over the top (people brought home-made delicacies -- one of which resembled the dessert at Govindas -- and home-brewed espresso, and there was a picnic at which they refused to accept "I already have food" as sufficient reason to turn down another overloaded plate). We were also something of rock stars, somehow. It was probably the best documented day of my life (and with a photographer mom and sister, that's saying something), and Yael was probably in twice the number of pictures that I was. People -- even people who's names we did not yet know -- would call us over to pose with them, simply to smile, arms over each other's shoulders.

Even the Iraqis, with the most obvious reasons to be ambivalent towards Americans, didn't flinch in their embrace. One of them, even, while entertaining the bus on the ride home from the day on a microphone, called me to the front of the bus, and asked that I tell a joke. He tried to translate but then stopped me mid-joke and said, "You are married two and a half years, yes?"
"Yes," I squeaked.
"Am I right?" he said.
"Yes," I said.
"You are married two and a half years, why do you not have children yet?"
It was OK, no sweat, only every eye on the bus staring at me. . . .

The next evening, after a full day in the ruins at Jerash, we went to the "villa" of some of the Kuwaiti boys from the trip to Umm Qais. They live in a beautiful multiple-story house in Irbid, surrounded by fruit trees and flowers, herbs and spices growing like wild. They taught us about traditional hospitality in Kuwait, including a coffee-drinking process wherein you drink shots of espresso, waving your cup from the wrist when you are done and don't want a refill (one of the Kuwaitis was punished for waving it from the elbow by an extra serving). If you, however, take less than two shots, it is considered an insult to the host. So, we each took two, followed by black tea with mint and a (miraculously) vegan apple cake. If you can imagine Daphna and I, who drink cola and coffee a combined 10 times a year, on three substantial servings each. . . let's just say that we had fun. They also gave us each three apples, a banana, pomelo, and juice.

As incredible as the visit was, it did open a small can of sardines -- for Yael to come visit us for a weekend from America would mean that, roughly she spend as much time in transit as here (something many people are aware of). In other words, the cover was. . . shady. And when one of the Kuwaiti boys brought down his computer so that Ya could accept him as a friend on Facebook right there, well, it was quite something watching his face as he saw pictures of her tattoo in Hebrew. . . pictures of her in front of a Hebrew billboard. . . pictures of her as a volunteer for the Israeli army. . . and as he started putting it all together. . . .

So, we're coming out of the closet. Not entirely, you see. We felt the need to tell our teachers, because we are getting closer to them, and it's awkward (not to mention that Daph said that Ya was studying in "Palestine" to Rayjahn, which, if Rayjahn had said it would mean that she was studying in Israel, but when an American says it means she'd be studying in the West Bank or Gaza, which confused the hell out of Rayjahn because Yael couldn't understand a word of Arabic). Rayjahn was fairly laid back about it, and said it wasn't an issue to her, and we proceeded to have an extended discussion about prejuidice and how many Palestinians still won't marry Jordanians, and vice-versa. Adella was, well, excited. She said, "You shouldn't tell people, but I knew!" It seemed to give a spring to her step, and neither of them reacted at all negatively to the idea that we hadn't told them in the beginning, saying that it was the right thing to do. As far as the Kuwaiti boy, when Yael called him after we left and asked him to be tight-lipped about the information, he said, "Your Jewish, I'm Muslim, who cares?"

Not that it mattered anyways -- we walked into the expatriate student office the next day and the Palestinian who's the head of the foreign students' club started to talk to Daphna in Hebrew. Something about the names "Daphna" and "Yael" don't scream "goy". . . .

Other than that, life is good, and we are starting a peanut butter and banana craze in the Middle East. It's the next big thing, I'm telling you.

Lots of love.

Your Arabic phrases of the day:

Elrajel elmunasib fee almakan almunasib. The right place at the right time. (Literally the right man at the right place). الرجل المناسب في المكان المناسب

chubz, wah maoz, wah ful sudani, fa-cut. Bread, and banana, and peanut butter, only. خبز و موز و فول سوداني فقط

Dayenu

We climbed up the mountain together, stepping on and over the chipped sandstone, and then turned around, and gazed at what our distant ancestors must have looked at thousands of years ago.

Wadi Rum is a desert within a desert. In fact, per its name (Wadi means valley), it is a flat expanse between harsh rocky mountains that contains occasional sprouts of greenish-brown plants that approximate tumbleweed but is otherwise devoid of life. Visually it is stunning, and as we climbed, further layers of rock mountain came into hazy-blue-view in the distance.

It was the second day of Passover, and, for the first time, I understood why the Israelites cried out, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt to die in the desert?” I could see one person – or maybe two – managing to survive in Wadi Rum without modern technology and the ability to import water, food and shelter, but for ten to survive would necessitate a series of miracles. For hundreds of thousands of people to survive, you would literally need food to magically appear every single morning. No number of miracles in Egypt, no quantity of plagues (be they 10 or 250 or more) hold a candle to the 40 years that the Israelites wandered in this desert. In a modern-day Middle East when we are constantly reminded of how much easier destruction is than creation, I kept thinking that God created this desert simply to show how incredible God could be. The people who left Egypt only having seen the destruction of which God is capable may not have been ready to enter Israel, but those having seen the creation of life that God engineered over 40 years in this desert . . . they must have been willing to follow God anywhere.

And we traveled backwards. After leaving Wadi Rum, we arrived at Aqaba, Jordan’s only port, a touristy free-market city on the Red Sea. The water is beautiful, and it sits at the heart of so much that holds the world captive right now – at one point (at the Royal Diving Club, where you have to pay $25 to use the beach, but where you can at least enter the water – two friends had been hurt, one by urchins and one by a broken fishing hook, at the public beach) we were within five kilometers of the Jordan/Saudi border, looking across at Eilat and Israel’s border with Egypt. Here, perhaps, Jews walked on dry land so many years ago.
Under the cloudy sky, the water was bitingly cold, but we snorkeled with Evan and Ayhem (the trip’s organizer, who was excited to come, but didn’t mention that he couldn’t swim and spent the time doing small circles around the dock) and saw great coral reef and ocean life, including sea snakes and lion fish and many others. I did wonder, though, how, with all this coral, walking through along the sea bed was possible. . . .

The trip itself was exhilarating and frustrating. Traveling with members of seven nationalities and in all age groups can be an incredible experience, and a very frustrating one. Unfortunately, much of the trip was segregated by culture and language – though, we did get the chance to chat quite a bit with Evan about his diplomatic adventures. Everything was further complicated by the intense range of cultural expectations, especially concerning punctuality (for instance, we left Aqaba a half hour after we were supposed to arrive at Petra, which is two hours away) and noise levels (as a note, we tended to side with the Koreans on both). We were happy to see all the sights, but truly driven to return to only one: Petra.
Petra is incredible, if mind-boggling. Here a successful trading village was literally built into rock. People carved out homes (you can see neighborhoods, and we wondered if there was a rivalry between those near the theater and those near the Palace Tomb, for instance, or any other type of my-home-cave-is-better-than-your-home-cave type of dynamics). The whole concept is rather startling, and, where they decided to do it with class, it is truly amazing. Apparently, as well, we didn’t even see the largest and most fascinating, but we are looking forward to making the trek when Mark and Ken are here. Pictures abound.

We miss you all, and are sending love from the desert.

Your Arabic phrases of the week:

Bahar al-ihmar – The Red Sea

Hal wasalna hata alaan? Are we there yet? (Literally, Did we arrive until now?)

The Notes that Never Made It

In the past week we've had several mini-events that didn't make it into the last blog, and we wanted to update you all on them.

My favorite moment from the week was when Daphna turned in an assignment with the title: أنا سنيّة. She meant to write: أباسنيّة, which is the name of our favorite Ethiopian restuarant back home (Abasynnia). Instead, أنا سنيّة means "I am Sunni." Our teacher picked it up and went fairly white. We hadn't truly discussed religion, and here it appeared that Daph was well on her way to converting. . . . And what did lentils have to do with her conversion, anyhow?

At least, in this heavily Sunni country, she didn't write "I am Shiite." We might have had to find an early flight home. . . .

Oh, the little dots that are so important to Arabic. . . .

The same teacher invited us to lunch last Thursday at a restaurant. She introduced us to several new dishes -- semi-pickled turnips, fatoush (Middle East taco salad: basically "Israeli" salad with fried bread in it), an odd canned-mushroom salad, and more. At the end of the meal, Daph and I did what was only natural. We grabbed the bill. When our teacher realized we were serious, she went really white and got rather upset. Apparently, while trying to be American-polite, we had insulted her honor (though she still won -- she was able to pursuade the cashier in Arabic to take her money and not ours. . . our skills are still not beyond hers). . . .

Speaking of (and in) Arabic, each week at the Souk, we start at the same dried beans and spices store that we are loyal to because on our first visit, due to a misunderstanding, we overpaid and the owner called us back and returned the extra money we had given him (even though it was clear, due to the denominations, that we didn't have a clue). Now, each week he gives us a chocolate and his cousin speaks "Arabeezi" (read, Spanglish without the Spanish but with Arabic) with us and helps us select what we want for the week. This week, his cousin, who is 18, told us that he wants us to teach him English. We agreed to do a trade at 6:00p the next night. True to form here in Jordan, he called around 8:00pm and asked where we were. He and another cousin then joined Fellatta and us at a cafe. Between Fellatta seeking advice on how to pursue a Tunisian student, and the boys talking about their various girlfriends (and the holy grail -- an American woman), we spent more time talking about dating then. . . well. . . it felt a lot like middle school. Is it love that is the international language?

We have also been peer-pressured by our other teacher, Rayjahn, to go on the Language Center whirlwind trip through Wadi Rum (the desert valley), Aqaba (the Red Sea Resort), and Petra this weekend. Wish us luck. Clif Bars, here we come!

We want to thank, again, everyone who has posted on the blog. Your e-mails and comments make us very happy, though we have some difficulty commenting back, for some reason. Know that it makes our day to read your notes.

We will be sleeping in the desert, now, for the second night of Pesach, perhaps even a stone's throw from where the Jews wandered oh-so-many years ago. We hope that you all enjoy your Seders, and find in the holiday a holy, happy, and (if desired) transformational experience. We are sending our love and thinking of you all.

Your Arabic phrases of the day:

Mustahil! مستحيل Impossible! (like in Kung Fu Panda.

Hal anda Elijah aseer anib? هل عند اليجح عصير عنب؟ Does Elijah have grape juice?

“Off-book at two months?!? Who do you think we are, Bogart and Hepburn?”

We’re not in Colorado anymore, Juwad. And this week Rayjahn let us know it by mandating nightly written assignments in which we do not consult our books (the dictionary is OK, though). They have ranged from essays about our daily schedules in Colorado to instructions on preparing a meal to discussing a trip that we have taken within Jordan. For our test on Friday (I would discuss it more here, but we are both still bruised and limping) she gave us the weekend to write about any topic we like. Daph is elaborating on her experience in Guatemala, and especially the beauty of Lago Atitlan, the lake at its center. I wrote a myth about baklawa, and how it was created by a prince in his search for a princess (it sounds deeper than it is).

But things are moving along steadily. We’ve had multiple people over to our house, now, and last night we got to compare American and Turkish-style popcorn (remarkably similar, really, except for the quantity of salt). Our Arabic, too, keeps getting better. Thursday, as we were wrapping up at the language center’s computer lab, we were trying to jot down the Kiddush in Hebrew (let’s just say there’s been some jumping around on the occasional Friday night) when the security guard wandered up and peered over our shoulders, intently examining what we appeared to find so interesting. Well, we thought, we were out-ed. If he knew what it was, though, he didn’t let on, and proceeded to start a 45 minute conversation, in Arabic. Not the deepest of things, but a conversation none-the-less, and quite something given that our first week in Irbid he repeatedly tried to start conversations that typically lasted ten minutes yet successfully communicated less than a full sentence. He did express an interest in coming to America (and marrying Yael in the process), and in showing us around Jordan. He also casually asked if we knew any languages other than English and Arabic, and when we mentioned Spanish and then (Kaleel, kaleel) Chinese, he seemed very content.

The security guard also made the same assumption it seems that everyone does here. You see, Daph and I are together constantly. We go shopping together, we go to class and study together, we go out together, we travel together. On the rare occasion that people see us apart, or even work up the nerve to ask to both of us, we hear: “Sadeekan?” or “Ayna Saddeek-kee/Saddeekatka?” That is, “Are you friends?” or “Where is your friend?” They always appear to be overjoyed when we drop the “married” word. Sometimes they proceed to, more-enthusiastically, re-welcome us to the country.

That, in fact, happened today when we were buying our tickets to enter Ajloun Castle (one-eighth the cost with your student ID!). We chatted with a couple of the workers, and then one asked if we were friends, and when we answered, we finally got the hearty welcome. The baby question, of course, followed, but we still ended up with a ride up the hill to the castle (the worker, en route, was very happy to share that he was an orthodox Christian, but a little disappointed we weren’t Catholic – we’re going the Presbyterian route. . . . best ministers in America, I dare say, “semi-retired” as they are. . . .).

Ajloun Castle, our adventure this week, was beautiful. A castle originally built by Saladin’s nephew in 1184 to protect Northern Jordan from the Franks (the castle had a 16 meter wide moat) and later used by the Mongols, the Mamluks and the Ottomans, it is also known as Qal’at al Rabadh. Stunning in its power, sitting on top of a mountain with views in every direction, the castle gives a sense of power in how far you can see, and at the same time, a sense of how small you are in such a magnificent place. Everywhere the dark green of olive trees hovered over yellow wildflowers, mountains rose up with gardens and beautiful gold and brown rocks, and in the very distance, sits the water that draws the boundary between Jordan and Israel. I felt myself thinking of how many people had died for and in this place – just this single castle on a hill that was built under Saladin – and yet how incredible its existence is. In the castle’s museum, there were glass bottles from 1700 years ago. Glass. Glass that has survived millennia. It felt like a startling statement, seeing the unscathed glass in this crumbling stone war-torn building, about humanity.

Your Arabic phrases of the week:
Welcome! “Ahallan wa- Sa-hallan.” أهلا و سأهلا
The rocket scientist rode the rocket to the stars. “Ra-kabah mohundussu as-Saruchee as-Saruchah ila al-najmat.” ركب مهندس الصروخ الصروخ إلى النخمات

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!

Under 48 hours to go

Thanks for checking out our blog. This is where we will be posting updates about our trip as we travel to Israel and Jordan for the next five months. If you want to contact us, you can comment here or e-mail us at our g-mail accounts.

Preparing for this trip has been an amazing experience, uprooting ourselves from the incredible Denver community and diving into the unknown of a country that we've never visited and and a language we don't know. Saying goodbye, and feeling the incredible depth of love that surrounds us here has been humbling, invigorating, and awakening. Thank you all.

We'll do our best to keep this blog updated, and hopefully we'll have sufficient internet access to do so. I'm not too worried.

Well, here we go. Wish us luck.