"Oh, the Places You'll Go!": Everyday I'm Bedouin

Hello,

Today was a good day. I got to class okay and found a taxi quickly. When I got in the cab, the man turned on the meter. As I got settled in I heard a Fariouz song on the radio. It was a calming way to start the morning. A Nancy Ajram song followed and I finally relaxed. The way back home was uneventful. I got a quick cab ride and told the driver to take me to the neighborhood mosque. I figured that he should be able to find it because there is a huge minaret out front. From there, I found my house with minimal confusion. When I came home, there was a chicken and potato meal waiting for my from my Jordanian mother. I am eating it now and it is delicious! My house mom and family is way to nice and generous to me. I really appreciate it.

Also, fun fact about one of my classmates. Today she went to a stationary store down the street because she needed to buy a notebook for class. She went to purchase the notebook and paid with a 10JD bill when the notebook was only 3 JD or something like that. The man did not have change so he told her to take the notebook and come back tomorrow with exact change to pay. In the US, I have seen a cashier get mad at someone for not having 25 cents. The cashier was very trusting and this was unexpected and appriciated by our group. Most of us are fresh off the plane and only have 20JD bills. We need to go break them soon. Also, Jesse's mom packs him a sandwich everyday for lunch. We find this adorable as most of us have not had mom cook us breakfast or pack our lunch for school in such a long time. People really care here.

Well, today was another day of adventures. After class, we went to the open field in the area in order to hear the call to prayer from all the mosques in the area. After being there for a while, a bedouin man named Mohammad road up to the field with his two horses. Our friend Allan approached him and said hi and started up a conversation. This resulted in Allan riding the English horse while Mohammad ran inside the mosque outside to pray. When Muhammad came out of the mosque, he had four of his children with him, all boys. Muhammad than invited Allan to his house for tea. Allan came over to the ladies of the group to decide if he should go or not. Everyone said yes, but I suggested he go and take a friend. Thinking that only men would be invited, I told him to take Max. Max said yes and came down from SIT to meet Allan and Muhammad. During this time, two other girls rode the horses. I asked Mohammad if the horses had names. He said yes, and that they were married. So cute! After all this, Muhammad invited all 8 of us to tea at his house. We all decided to go because we know this is a Jordanian custom and we had a large group of people. My mind said no because going to a strange mans home goes against everything I have been taught, but I went and I'm happy I did. I know my parents are going to read this and be a bit upset that I went to this man's house. But honestly, I was safe in a group and he was just being nice. People invite you over for tea all the time here. People are much more welcoming in Jordan in this respect.

Turns out Muhammad keeps his animals at the bottom of the hill we like to visit. I had seen his family before and there were a lot of women there earlier. In order to have as many children are Muhammad you would need multiple wives. I think they left before we came. There are tents there made out of bricks and cardboard. Muhammad has three large dogs that guard his property and honestly, they were scary but I did not want to be rude. There were chickens and goats everywhere. A goat kept trying to eat my hot pink back pack. Muhammad was a gracious host. He started a fire and made tea for us. We sat on the ground around the fire and talked. I was kind of lucky to be honest because I goat knocked over my tea. I was afraid to drink the water, but I did not want to refuse. I was able to blame the goat. We had pleasant conversations using the Arabic and English that we know. Muhammad does not know English, so conversations were limited. The boys were happy to sea us and pleasant to be around as well. Two of them had the most beautiful green eyes. One of the boys found a dead chicken behind their fence while we were there and just picked it up. I think they were going to feed it to the dogs, which looked hungry. Muhammad told us he is a bedouin man and he keeps his animals here. It gets cold at night so I can only imagine how they all must struggle on a daily basis without heat or much food. In fact, Muhammad asked us how to say cold in English. Muhammad does have a cell phone though. He also told us about how he burned the tribal tattoo off his hand because he heard how Muhammad forbade tattoos. This guy is hardcore. When the second cup of tea was offered, another girl and I left. I was told by my Arabic teacher that two means its time to go. We tried to thank him as best as we could because he had been so nice to us. I have some children's toys I brought for any possible children I meet. If I see Muhammad again, I will give them to him and his children. I have play dough, glow sticks and a coloring book that creates metallic pictures. I think with all the children he has that someone would want to play with it.

below are so many pictures. Enjoy. The quality isn't great. For some reason the beginning ones did not upload clearly, but are clear on my facebook account. The order is in reverse. I'm just too tired to reorder them.