Day 1 in Jordan!

Hi everyone! I would say hi in Arabic but so far I only know hurry up (which Danielle taught me in Korea) and hookah, but what else do you really need? Today was my first full day in Jordan and despite the jetlag it made me really excited for the coming semester. Though we had to sit through a few hours of presentations and have a few more hours tomorrow it was a great opportunity to explore the group of people I am with. I still am not sure if I feel like I am in Jordan, I mean I feel like it but I haven’t had any interactions besides asking for the bathroom and having a lovely man rub garlic on my arm, but I’ll get to that later. I guess it is nice to ease into transition so I don’t decide to just wander into the dessert from frustration on day two.

I arrived off the plane cranky and praying to the luggage gods that mine had made it. It is very common for luggage to just disappear, it happened to many people on my flight but I was a lucky one. As soon as our activities coordinator Ahmad led us outside the airport I felt my mood instantly change. There was a beautiful breeze and even though I was wearing jeans and a zip up the 80-degree heat didn’t bother me at all; it felt nice.

Our driver skillfully packed the van with all of our luggage and we hit the road to Amman, a 40 minute drive. I was sitting in between the driver and Jenna, a girl who grew up in Korea! We spent the whole drive talking about Seoul and the Korean language that I almost forgot where I was going. The first thing we both instantly noticed from the front seat of the van was the lack of lane dividers, and lanes for that matter. It seems that you just drive where you want, weaving in and out, and emitting a honk or two if a car may be encroaching your personal bubble, which is probably an inch or two smaller than the car itself. However we made it to the hotel in one piece, ate dinner, and went to bed.

In our orientation materials I got a look at my home stay family! I am really really excited, I think I hit the jackpot. I am going to live at Shireen’s house, a 60-year-old woman who loves to cook, feed people, and knows all the neighbors. She has six children. Her son Maher and his wife Amal live in the house as well with their two children Laith (8) and Tala (5). Maher and Amal are both engineers (electric and computer respectively) so I am ever so hopeful there might be internet in the house (I’m not holding my breath though…). Shireen has many grandchildren and the family loves to spend time together so there are almost always people over the house. The family is Muslim and a 15-20 minute taxi ride to the University of Jordan. There is another girl from CIEE that I am sharing a room with too, Jackie. So it sounds like it will be a full and fun house! Lastly my information sheet said that shisha (hookahing) is very popular in the house. This will be an awesome experience. We move in after orientation in two days.

Until then, we have activities planned that keep us busy and give us tons of information. Today we went to the Dead Sea for a full day of presentations, swimming, mud, and food. We rode in the bus (well actually 3 buses, there are 135 kids in the program) for a little over an hour to go to the Dead Sea Panorama. It is on top of a mountain next to the Dead Sea that has just an amazing view. The guy next to me caught me off guard when he said, “wow, I really didn’t think I was going to see Israel today” and I could not stop laughing despite agreeing with the sentiment.

We all took some pictures, sat through orientation presentations and than had an amazing lunch with lamb AND chicken shawarma. I was in heaven, until I stepped outside and was stung by the largest wasp I have ever seen. My first encounter with Jordanian wild life…what a shame. At first I wasn’t worried about it but the swelling got to a point where my friend Chris made me go get some ice. I asked the men who were working in the restaurant for some ice in a napkin (they spoke English to some extent). One guy said “Can I put some garlic on it?” I kind of just looked at him, not sure if I understood him correctly (I am terrible with accents) or should be mentally preparing to bust out the charades. I looked at him like he had ten heads and then said “Garlic, like the food? Yea absolutely!” He laughed a little then came back from the kitchen and rubbed garlic in my wound and after some ice time the swelling went down. It still really hurts but it is a nice little constant reminder I am not in America anymore (I’ve only been stung by a bee once in Charlotte!).

We headed down to the Dead Sea and got to swim and cover ourselves in the mud. It was the craziest feeling ever. I was walking into the water and kept walking until I realized suddenly there was no ground under my feet! I could easily have more of my body out of the water than in the water, such a strange feeling. In one of my finer moments I tried to swim to the bottom and not only failed terribly but instinctively opened my eyes underwater and spent the next ten minutes with my eyes squeezed shut cursing my stupidity. We had more presentations and an outstanding dinner with duck, beef, lamb, hummus, and the most ornate table of desserts I have ever seen.

We finished off the night on the deck overlooking the Dead Sea, seeing the lights of the West Bank across the way. It was truly amazing. I conjured up whatever energy I had left to stay awake on the bus and write this post for you guys but I can’t wait to go to sleep! We have another day of orientating tomorrow at the University of Jordan so I will give my salty eyes and stung arm and sleepy head a break. I unfortunately left my camera cord at home but my roommate’s computer will take my camera’s memory card so I will probably be a lot slower with pictures until my cord is hand delivered or I find a replacement. But I will get into the swing of things soon enough. This is only the end of Day 1 after all!