Salt, Mud, and Crusaders

My house has been quite chaotic for the last several days.  My host brother, Najib, who works as a lawyer in Saudi Arabia, came home for the weekend.  In honor of his visit, we had the whole extended family over for brunch.  There was a plethora of food involved:  zaatar bread, hummus, falafel, something resembling an omelet, a cheese-walnut-olive oil mixture whose name I do not recall, all the Jordanian standard dishes.  I wish I had taken a photo of the spread before it was demolished, but suffice to say that is was absolutely delicious and I ate far too much.

It surprised me how the atmosphere of the big family gathering transcended cultural idiosyncrasies.  I felt like I could have been at any Morrison or Frey family event (with the small exception that I didn't actually know anyone or understand what they were talking about).  At one point, I could tell that there was a heated political discussion occurring about Mubarak and Qaddafi and I wish so much that I could have understood better what people's views were.  Short of my professors, I know so little about what ordinary Jordanians think about what is going on in the region.  The one thing everyone does seem to agree on is that Qaddafi is majnoon (crazy).  Additionally, I met an Arab with a Wisconsin accent!  One of the cousins that was there actually lives in the Chicago area and was just in Amman visiting family for a few days.  As it turns out, he got his masters from the University of Wisconsin, is a die-hard Packers fan, and I have probably driven by his house dozens of times. I'm learning quickly that it really truly is a small world.


On Saturday, I went on a CIEE-sponsored day trip to Karak and the Dead Sea.  Karak is a huge Crusader castle a couple hours south of Amman.  According to my trusty guidebook, it's one of the most well-preserved and easily explorable fortresses of its kind. The castle itself was enormous and it was tons of fun to wander around--I probably could have spent a whole extra hour poking about and trying to locate the "suitably dank" dungeons--but it was the view from the top that was truly spectacular.  As in Jerash, there was no one of authority around except for a couple police officers at the front gate. Consequently, we were able to clamber all over everything in what was most certainly an unsafe manner including climbing to the top of one of the walls.  Amazing.  Now I just need to find somewhere to buy an illegal copy of Kingdom of Heaven so I can see what happened there (or at least Hollywood's interpretation thereof).

Karak Castle

Lovely Lura at Karak

After exploring Karak in the morning, we drove through more of the breathtakingly beautiful scenery that I saw last weekend between Madaba and Ma'in to the Dead Sea.  I've seen a partially obstructed view of the sea from afar on several occasions since I arrived in Jordan, but this was the first time that I really got to see it, touch it, and (unfortunately) taste it.  I did all the typical touristy things--slathered mysef in mud, almost got cut up on the salt formations, floated around, tried not to get salt in my eyes--and had a marvelous time doing so. 

Dead Sea mud!  Erika, Jessica, me, and Gabby

Mike and I demonstrating our floating abilities.

I had really been expecting that the whole floating thing wouldn't really live up to the hype... but oh was I wrong.  It was amazing to feel completely weightless, to "stand" upright in the water without sinking, to be in kilometers-deep water without exerting any effort whatsoever.  I can't wait to go back!

One for the Road

I absolutely love road trips.  The open window with wind whipping your hair, notes of music emitting from the radio, letting your thoughts pass as quickly as the scenery outside--perfect. There is something about the state of limbo, the interesting predicament of going but not doing, that makes me feel remarkably at peace no matter where I am.

I have dozens of fond memories associated with road trips--spending quality time with my dad on the biannual trek to and from DC, the Wust El-Balad sing-a-long on the weekend trip to Cairo last summer, the immense anticipation of the 45-minute trip to camp during my Meyer and Burt years--and I love that so far Jordan has just been one road trip after another.  Exploring Jerash, biking at the Dead Sea, and, this weekend, visiting Madaba and Ma'in have been amazing experiences in and of themselves, but driving to and from these places has been just as memorable.  Jordan's mountainous landscape means that indescribably beautiful vistas greet you around every bend in the road.  I've tried countless times to capture the vastness of the Jordanian landscape with my camera and have summarily failed each time.  Here's the best I could do on the most recent trip:

Madaba to Ma'in taxi drive

On Friday morning, five fellow CIEE students and I boarded a bus in downtown Amman bound for the small town of Madaba.  Madaba is known for its Byzantine era mosaics--especially a huge (and surprisingly mostly cartographically correct) map of the Holy Land laid in the floor of St. George's Church.  We spent most of our day in Madaba wandering around looking at various really cool old things and finished the night with an epic head-to-head rap battle. 

Mosiac map in St. George's Church

This morning, we all piled into a couple of cabs and drove to the hot springs in Ma'in.  The scenery between Madaba and Ma'in was alone worth the 15JD we payed each way for the taxis.  Outside of Madaba, we saw only rolling green hills covered with olive tree groves and fields but this soon transformed into towering desert cliffs dotted with sheep and goats as we drew closer to Ma'in.  For a short while, we were close enough to see the Dead Sea in the distance.  I wasn't able to get a good picture, but it looked something like this.  It was quite possibly the most remarkable 30 minutes of my life, scenery-wise.

The hot springs were gorgeous and I had to continuously remind myself that it is still February and that I still have to go to class tomorrow morning.  As we slowly descended a mountain on a switchback road, the lush palm trees and greenery of the springs appeared as if out of nowhere.  The water was gloriously warm and there were waterfalls everywhere.  We spent a good four hours lounging in the water and soaking up the sunlight.

Ma'in hot springs!

Me, loving the waterfall!

Now, I'm back home in Amman, uploading photos to Facebook and writing blog posts instead of doing something productive and school-related.  It's amazing to go somewhere new every weekend, but it makes it darn hard to be excited about going to class on Sunday mornings!

Professors, Bikes, Paint, and the Po-lice

Last weekend I took quite the tour of different strata of Jordanian society.  On Thursday evening, my "America and the Arabs" professor invited the whole class out to a restaurant to hang out with him.  At first, I was a little uncomfortable with the suggestion, but then I took a step out of my American mindset and realized that the student-professor relationship here tends to be more personal than in the States.  It ended up being a great experience--my professor is Jordanian but was educated in the UK, so he has really interesting insights into the relationship between Arab and Western society.  The whole time I felt very upper-class, having serious discussion about politics in a posh cafe surrounded by trendy young Jordanians smoking hookah.

On Friday, I went on a biking trip near the Dead Sea with a group called "Cycling Jordan."  We biked 25km through the farms near the sea and for the first time I got a glimpse of what life is like for the rural poor in Jordan.  It was a beautiful day and a gorgeous, panoramic view of mountains and desert surrounded us in every direction, but starkly contrasted with the run-down tents and shabby clothes of the farm workers we passed by.

Bikes about to depart for the Dead Sea

Bikes, eggplant fields, and mountains!

On Saturday, I went on a CIEE-sponsored community service trip to paint a mural at a girls' school in East Amman (West Amman--where I live--is much more affluent).  It was a lot of fun and the girls were really excited to see a gaggle of strange foreigners, but the disparity between the conditions we saw there and the comparatively fancy life my host family leads bothered me a lot.  I also couldn't shake the feeling that there must have been something more useful that we could have been doing for them besides just painting a mural.  Nevertheless, I hope that our artwork brings some color and inspiration to the lives of the little girls we met there.

Erin, Emmy, and pretty pictures

Finally, on Sunday, I got my first real taste of stereotypical Arab hospitality.  After class, my friend Samantha and I ventured to one of Amman's innumerable cafes to do some studying.  When we decided to head home later that evening, it was pouring outside.  We stood in the freezing rain for half an hour trying to catch a cab to no avail.  There was a small, one room police kiosk in the median nearby and after a bit the police officer stuck his head out and insisted that we come inside to warm up while he went out into the rain himself to find us a cab.  I can't remember ever being treated so kindly by a complete stranger before.  Such is Jordan, I suppose!