BUSY BUSY
Ok so I haven't been keeping up with my journal very well, so this may take a while. Jerash was awesome and I especially loved the food! I could definitely get used to eating like that regularly. I was very excited to see, however, that the food has not affected my weight and I have even lost 8 pounds from all the walking we have been doing.
When we returned from Jerash, I went to the local Arab church's youth group (college age and up). It was so fun! The girls were so welcoming. There was even this one girl who barely spoke any English, but she was determined to communicate with me so we mimed for about an hour. She is so cool. They girls here are very stylish and girly, but they don't seem to mind that I'm a little more casual. Saturday I taught children's church at the English church. It went well except one little girl got mad at me because I wouldn't allow her to climb on the window. She kept saying that she was going to tell her Daddy that she didn't like me. I said that was ok with me, but she would just have to wait until the service was over. I figure 7 out of 8 happy children is pretty good odds.
Sunday was the fourth of July, so we decided that there should be some sort of party. My roommate arranged for us all to go to a local restaurant called the Blue Fig. It was really good, but my taxi driver made fun of me when I told him the restaurant's name in Arabic. Apparantly mostly foreigners go there so people know the name in English. Oh well.
Monday, Elizabeth and I spent time with an Iraqi family that is working on their English. They are so sweet. I discovered that Iraqi Arabic is a lot closer to Fushah (what I learned in college) than Jordanian Arabic, so I was able to speak really well with them. They told me that my handwriting is very good, which I took as an extremely high compliment.
Tuesday was our team time. We had dinner at a couple's house. The wife is Jordanian and cooks like a good Arab wife. We ate a ton of food and then she sent some home with us! Her husband is Lebanese, but was born and raised in the States. He talked about how whenever he wanted to see her when they were "dating" he had to go to her house and sit with her WHOLE family. Needless to say, they got married rather quickly. They now have four boys and all night the boys were running in and out. It was definitely fouda (chaos)!
Yesterday I lived through my first earthquake. I had dozed off while reading a particularly exciting book :) when the room started to shake. In my dazed state, I thought our washing machine must be getting more forceful with her shaking (Candy normally walks loudly across the bathroom when the spin cycle is on). I was about to go back to sleep when Sarah came in and informed me that no, that was not Candy, that was an earthquake! Apparantly the earthquake started in the Dead Sea and we were feeling the last waves of it. It wasn't strong at all because most of the other students in my class didn't even feel it. I was really excited, though!
Sarah left for London last night! Elizabeth and I were so sad to see her go. She is so awesome! She was really good at introducing us to all the local shopkeepers as well as our landlords and a bunch of her friends so we aren't completely alone. It is sad anyway. In order to keep things simple yesterday, we ordered pizza from Pizza Hut. (It's much better here) The delivery guy called at one point and Elizabeth didn't understand him so she gave me the phone. It took a while but I finally figured out that what we had ordered was a special that came with a free soccer ball. However, they were out of soccer balls so they would deliver one the next morning. I tried very hard to thank him seriously, but it amused me so much that a delivery guy would go out of his way just to deliver a free prize that we didn't even know we were getting. Apparantly he felt so strongly about it that he came back an hour later with our soccer ball. Elizabeth and I were relieved that we didn't have to get up early in the morning to answer the door just to get our soccer ball! After dinner we said good-bye to Sarah and went to bed.
Keep me in your prayers, I have been having rather disturbing dreams and last night I only got three hours sleep because I was so upset. On the amusing side, I was awake for the three am call to prayer! :) Also, the heat today is so much more moderate than it has been, so everyone is feeling better. A tip to know when it is really hot: when all the taxi drivers roll up their windows and turn on the air and when shops are shut down for three to four hour lunch breaks. The last two days it has been well over 100 degrees and so the lovely break from the heat today means that everyone and their brother, Muhammad are outside enjoying the weather!
I suppose that is enough for now! The Arabic word for today is zilzaal which means earthquake.
When we returned from Jerash, I went to the local Arab church's youth group (college age and up). It was so fun! The girls were so welcoming. There was even this one girl who barely spoke any English, but she was determined to communicate with me so we mimed for about an hour. She is so cool. They girls here are very stylish and girly, but they don't seem to mind that I'm a little more casual. Saturday I taught children's church at the English church. It went well except one little girl got mad at me because I wouldn't allow her to climb on the window. She kept saying that she was going to tell her Daddy that she didn't like me. I said that was ok with me, but she would just have to wait until the service was over. I figure 7 out of 8 happy children is pretty good odds.
Sunday was the fourth of July, so we decided that there should be some sort of party. My roommate arranged for us all to go to a local restaurant called the Blue Fig. It was really good, but my taxi driver made fun of me when I told him the restaurant's name in Arabic. Apparantly mostly foreigners go there so people know the name in English. Oh well.
Monday, Elizabeth and I spent time with an Iraqi family that is working on their English. They are so sweet. I discovered that Iraqi Arabic is a lot closer to Fushah (what I learned in college) than Jordanian Arabic, so I was able to speak really well with them. They told me that my handwriting is very good, which I took as an extremely high compliment.
Tuesday was our team time. We had dinner at a couple's house. The wife is Jordanian and cooks like a good Arab wife. We ate a ton of food and then she sent some home with us! Her husband is Lebanese, but was born and raised in the States. He talked about how whenever he wanted to see her when they were "dating" he had to go to her house and sit with her WHOLE family. Needless to say, they got married rather quickly. They now have four boys and all night the boys were running in and out. It was definitely fouda (chaos)!
Yesterday I lived through my first earthquake. I had dozed off while reading a particularly exciting book :) when the room started to shake. In my dazed state, I thought our washing machine must be getting more forceful with her shaking (Candy normally walks loudly across the bathroom when the spin cycle is on). I was about to go back to sleep when Sarah came in and informed me that no, that was not Candy, that was an earthquake! Apparantly the earthquake started in the Dead Sea and we were feeling the last waves of it. It wasn't strong at all because most of the other students in my class didn't even feel it. I was really excited, though!
Sarah left for London last night! Elizabeth and I were so sad to see her go. She is so awesome! She was really good at introducing us to all the local shopkeepers as well as our landlords and a bunch of her friends so we aren't completely alone. It is sad anyway. In order to keep things simple yesterday, we ordered pizza from Pizza Hut. (It's much better here) The delivery guy called at one point and Elizabeth didn't understand him so she gave me the phone. It took a while but I finally figured out that what we had ordered was a special that came with a free soccer ball. However, they were out of soccer balls so they would deliver one the next morning. I tried very hard to thank him seriously, but it amused me so much that a delivery guy would go out of his way just to deliver a free prize that we didn't even know we were getting. Apparantly he felt so strongly about it that he came back an hour later with our soccer ball. Elizabeth and I were relieved that we didn't have to get up early in the morning to answer the door just to get our soccer ball! After dinner we said good-bye to Sarah and went to bed.
Keep me in your prayers, I have been having rather disturbing dreams and last night I only got three hours sleep because I was so upset. On the amusing side, I was awake for the three am call to prayer! :) Also, the heat today is so much more moderate than it has been, so everyone is feeling better. A tip to know when it is really hot: when all the taxi drivers roll up their windows and turn on the air and when shops are shut down for three to four hour lunch breaks. The last two days it has been well over 100 degrees and so the lovely break from the heat today means that everyone and their brother, Muhammad are outside enjoying the weather!
I suppose that is enough for now! The Arabic word for today is zilzaal which means earthquake.