Hello All,
Sorry I have been away for a while. Essentially I spent Monday through Friday in the desert, so as you can imagine internet was pretty much non essistant. However, I will try to post about my trip tomorrow. It will take hours and frankly there is no time now. I did have an excellent time. Actually, this trip kicked Istanbul, Turkey's butt.
For now I want to talk about Easter in Amman. It is a simpler story to tell.
Today I woke up at my normal time, 7:30. Every other day, I wake up at 7:30. This gives me time to take a shower before school. I shower every other day. It is a cultural norm here to shower every 3-4 days as water is scarce (people totally look very clean and their hair is not dirty looking in the slightest way). But since I'm of European decent, my thin blonde hair can't take it so I shower every other day. My host mom said I can use the shower anytime, but I hate the idea of hogging the water.
Anyways...I woke up at 7:30 then quickly went back to bed. My friend yesterday told me that we didn't have class in the morning. I figured I would sleep in and head to school for some work around 10am instead of the normal 9am. Bad mistake. Around 8:45, I had the gut feeling that my ass should be at school. I got myself together, essentially brushed my teeth, washed my face and threw on clothes and hailed a cab. I arrived at school at 9:05 with a panicked look. Class had started at 9. Damn. We had a short meeting and then were told to work on our projects.
For my group's project, we are preforming an Arabic puppet show about Romeo and Juliet, or Ibrahim and Leila. It is a lot of work, and personally, I had never been a fan of group work. I would rather skip that dynamic and carry on alone. However, this was not an option. Every single thing went wrong during our preparation. After 6 hours of work, I got to leave school at 6:00pm. Surprisingly I had not lost my temper and lashed out at people (Yay, my interpersonal skills are improving!). After the project, I decided to get my hair cut because I felt like I looked pretty nasty without my makeup and my two day old dirty hair in a pony tail. I was also kind of down and wanted to do something special for Easter.
I made an appointment earlier in the day and I walked to a very nice, upscale salon in Abdoun where I had gone before. Every woman in the salon was dressed to the nines and had beautiful hair and makeup. I felt especially gross considering my background.The guy asked if I wanted my hair washed, I said yes and began to unravel my hair from the ponytail. My hair was essentially glued in the pony form. As the guy was washing my rank hair (yes, rank), he asked me how often I washed it. I was totally embarrassed. I answered honestly, every other day expect for today. Luckily he seemed more surprised that I have to wash it so often. Feww...I still felt gross and I think he felt bad for asking. It's okay. He totally was okay with asking. He was just curious. I got a great haircut and he insisted that I keep drinking more and more coffee. He gave me weird looks when I asked for water. What's new there...
So essentially it had been a rough day. I trotted home around 7:00pm without the chocolate bunny that I had tried so hard to find. I really wanted that bunny and was kinda frustrated that I could not find it. Why couldn't I simply have the darn rabbit to eat?! I sighed. In addition to a lot of things going wrong, no one had wished me a Happy Easter all day and I had not seen any type of festive decoration. I understood that Jordan is a Muslim country and that only 5% of the population is Christian, but surely people remembered that it was Easter! I walked up the stairs to my host family's apartment really down. I wanted some Easter. Facebook pictures of Easter would not do.
I walked into the apartment, and immediately charged my cell so I could call my parents. My mom had called earlier but I couldn't talk because I was working on the puppet show from hell. Next I walked over to the kitchen table where my host mom and sister were peeling beans. I jumped in to help. After some chatter, my host sister told me that she wished her Christian teacher Happy Easter today. Yes, I thought, they know it is Easter! She went on to explain that her teacher replied that today was not Easter and that it is in 15 days. Suddenly things clicked. The Christian community in Amman runs on a different calendar than the Roman Catholic Church. I explained that today was Easter to me because I am Roman Catholic. They were surprised. Apparently even Jesuits in Jordan choose to celebrate Easter on the same day at the Orthodox Christians to simplify things. My host mom immediately asked if I wanted to boil eggs. I said sure. She made me beautiful eggs that she placed in a basket for me to keep in my room. I was excited to have the eggs, but even more excited that I did not have to eat them. My host mom said they were for decoration.
The rest of the evening I spent watching movies with my host mom and sister, one of my favorite activities to do.
It was a wonderful Easter after all. My host family made it awesome! I learned an important lesson: often there are really good rational reasons for things. My host family did not forget or ignore Easter, but were planning on celebrating it with me 15 days from now. Also, it is amazing how a kind gesture can turn your day around.
I just thought I would tell a story.
Talk to you later,
Natalie
Sorry I have been away for a while. Essentially I spent Monday through Friday in the desert, so as you can imagine internet was pretty much non essistant. However, I will try to post about my trip tomorrow. It will take hours and frankly there is no time now. I did have an excellent time. Actually, this trip kicked Istanbul, Turkey's butt.
For now I want to talk about Easter in Amman. It is a simpler story to tell.
Today I woke up at my normal time, 7:30. Every other day, I wake up at 7:30. This gives me time to take a shower before school. I shower every other day. It is a cultural norm here to shower every 3-4 days as water is scarce (people totally look very clean and their hair is not dirty looking in the slightest way). But since I'm of European decent, my thin blonde hair can't take it so I shower every other day. My host mom said I can use the shower anytime, but I hate the idea of hogging the water.
Anyways...I woke up at 7:30 then quickly went back to bed. My friend yesterday told me that we didn't have class in the morning. I figured I would sleep in and head to school for some work around 10am instead of the normal 9am. Bad mistake. Around 8:45, I had the gut feeling that my ass should be at school. I got myself together, essentially brushed my teeth, washed my face and threw on clothes and hailed a cab. I arrived at school at 9:05 with a panicked look. Class had started at 9. Damn. We had a short meeting and then were told to work on our projects.
For my group's project, we are preforming an Arabic puppet show about Romeo and Juliet, or Ibrahim and Leila. It is a lot of work, and personally, I had never been a fan of group work. I would rather skip that dynamic and carry on alone. However, this was not an option. Every single thing went wrong during our preparation. After 6 hours of work, I got to leave school at 6:00pm. Surprisingly I had not lost my temper and lashed out at people (Yay, my interpersonal skills are improving!). After the project, I decided to get my hair cut because I felt like I looked pretty nasty without my makeup and my two day old dirty hair in a pony tail. I was also kind of down and wanted to do something special for Easter.
I made an appointment earlier in the day and I walked to a very nice, upscale salon in Abdoun where I had gone before. Every woman in the salon was dressed to the nines and had beautiful hair and makeup. I felt especially gross considering my background.The guy asked if I wanted my hair washed, I said yes and began to unravel my hair from the ponytail. My hair was essentially glued in the pony form. As the guy was washing my rank hair (yes, rank), he asked me how often I washed it. I was totally embarrassed. I answered honestly, every other day expect for today. Luckily he seemed more surprised that I have to wash it so often. Feww...I still felt gross and I think he felt bad for asking. It's okay. He totally was okay with asking. He was just curious. I got a great haircut and he insisted that I keep drinking more and more coffee. He gave me weird looks when I asked for water. What's new there...
So essentially it had been a rough day. I trotted home around 7:00pm without the chocolate bunny that I had tried so hard to find. I really wanted that bunny and was kinda frustrated that I could not find it. Why couldn't I simply have the darn rabbit to eat?! I sighed. In addition to a lot of things going wrong, no one had wished me a Happy Easter all day and I had not seen any type of festive decoration. I understood that Jordan is a Muslim country and that only 5% of the population is Christian, but surely people remembered that it was Easter! I walked up the stairs to my host family's apartment really down. I wanted some Easter. Facebook pictures of Easter would not do.
I walked into the apartment, and immediately charged my cell so I could call my parents. My mom had called earlier but I couldn't talk because I was working on the puppet show from hell. Next I walked over to the kitchen table where my host mom and sister were peeling beans. I jumped in to help. After some chatter, my host sister told me that she wished her Christian teacher Happy Easter today. Yes, I thought, they know it is Easter! She went on to explain that her teacher replied that today was not Easter and that it is in 15 days. Suddenly things clicked. The Christian community in Amman runs on a different calendar than the Roman Catholic Church. I explained that today was Easter to me because I am Roman Catholic. They were surprised. Apparently even Jesuits in Jordan choose to celebrate Easter on the same day at the Orthodox Christians to simplify things. My host mom immediately asked if I wanted to boil eggs. I said sure. She made me beautiful eggs that she placed in a basket for me to keep in my room. I was excited to have the eggs, but even more excited that I did not have to eat them. My host mom said they were for decoration.
The rest of the evening I spent watching movies with my host mom and sister, one of my favorite activities to do.
It was a wonderful Easter after all. My host family made it awesome! I learned an important lesson: often there are really good rational reasons for things. My host family did not forget or ignore Easter, but were planning on celebrating it with me 15 days from now. Also, it is amazing how a kind gesture can turn your day around.
I just thought I would tell a story.
Talk to you later,
Natalie
No comments:
Post a Comment