Getting Better

Every time that I start to feel guilt about not writing for more a significant period of time I remember that everybody else does the same. I remember when blogs were "in" and people would post every other day...I guess familiarity breeds contempt and laziness.
Anyway, things have been going really well the last few weeks. The language classes have not gotten much better, that is OK. I have been able to spend time studying on my own, or finding friends who are knowledgeable enough to help me out. I have been able to really notice improvement in my ability to speak the local dialect, which kinda sets me apart from the other foreigners around the university. Most of them spend their free time with people from their own country, but I for the most part avoid americans. Consequently I am able to hang out with the arab students and they can feel relaxed not having to speak Formal Arabic with me. The other day I was in the physics department talking to a couple of doctors there, and they thought I was an Arab grad student (albeit only for a minute or so), but nevertheless it made me really happy. I am still a long ways from fluency, but I am confident I will get there eventually, even if not as quickly as I had hoped.
It seems like each week I feel a little more accustomed to living here. Each new person I am able to meet, each new place I get to see, each conversation I am have, each new experience (the good and the bad) makes me love the people here more and feel as though I could live here all my days. It is a very strange feeling, because at the same time I feel my love for this place grow my love for where I came from also grows. I don't know how a person can love two places and long to be in both of them...and yet at the same time not feel like either of them are really Home. I suppose it has something to do with being a "strangers and pilgrims and the earth". I guess I would describe it as feeling that no matter what happens in this life I feel I could be content and happy; if I wandered this world, never having any certain dwelling place, or place I could call home, I would be content and satisfied as long as I am in His service.

Spring is here in Jordan, the weather has been around 60 or 70 last week, and things are starting to turn green. It is nice...not to rub it in for all your alaskans who are still mucking through sub-zero temperatures. Take solace in the fact you have more daylight than we do. Hope you are all doing well,

Back to Work

Well I got back to Amman a couple weeks ago. The little vacation to Jerusalem was nice. It was great to see th Shakkours again. They all said my Arabic was immensely better than it was last year...well I would hope so, but it still made me feel good. Once I came back to Amman I started work back up at the Physics department. We are in the middle of trying to create some nano-structured materials using electro-deposition (thats for my science nerd friends) and I am the only one in the department who knows how to use the new microscope well enough to analyze the samples (which makes me feel kinda good). Language classes started on the 10th. The first day of class was great. We had a great teacher who was very organized, and we had a syllabus and schedule for the entire semester, and we had an organized book of texts to read...then the second day came, and we found out that the great teacher was not going to be our teacher and that the department did not know who was going to teach us. They have changed our schedule of classes four times now, and they say it has been solidified, but nobody really know what is going on. Until now, we still aren't sure of when, where, or what we are going to be studying exactly...welcome to Jordan.
On a brighter note me and two friends went for a day trip on Friday down to Wadi (valley) Hasa and hiked through a good portion of it. It was really awesome. There are natural hot springs throughout the valley, so the little river that flows in the bottom is like 80 or 90 degrees. Historically this valley was the border between the land of Edom and the land of Moab. It also intersects the Kings Highway (which has retained its name even til today, and is believed to be the same road as 3000 years ago) which the children of Israel desired to use to come to the promised land (Numbers 20,21). There were a couple of ruins along the way, but I couldn't identify from what civilization (most likely just Ottoman).

here is one panoramic of the valley

More snow!!

Well I arrived in Jerusalem and after two days its started snowing. It snowed for two days on and off. The roads were more or less closed, and are still kind of iffy. My roommate back in Amman sent me an email said they are up to 40 centimeters (that is about 16 inches). I hope it is still there when I come back.



All the snow has prompted me to write a few of the noticeable differences between life in Alaska and life in the Middle East. Enjoy...

You might be an Alaskan in the Middle East if:

- You wear a T-shirt at 45 degrees and are told by anyone you talk to that you are crazy.

- You are accused of being a criminal for carrying a leatherman

- You receive complete disbelief that a knife could ever be a necessary tool

- You are told you are from another planet because hunting and fishing is an essential part of life

- It finally snows and after two minutes everyone quickly realizes that they don't want to have a snow ball fight against you

- You look at sand dunes and wonder why the bedouins haven't tried dog teams to get around.

- When you see girls covered up you instinctively think it has more to do with weather than culture or religion.

- Power outages in the West Bank make you feel more at home than they do worry you.

- You tell people you own 320 durnums (40 acres) and they think you must be a king.

- You tell people your mom hunts, hikes, and builds log houses (after you explain a log house) and…well they just can’t imagine that any woman would ever do that, let alone enjoy it.

- You get looks of amazement and disbelief when you say that you only have 4 hours of light in winter and 20 hours of light in the summer

- You try to relate the absurd idea that in your village the closest store may be 20 miles away.

- What people here call "old fruit" you would still pay five dollars for

- Your village has a smaller population than a single Arab family.

- People refer to places like the Mount of Olives or Mount Amman and you laugh inside

- After a couple months you realize that you can tell people anything about Alaska and they will believe it

- You are told that your have snow all year round despite your insistence to the contrary.

- You explain what the polar bear club is and people start shivering.

- When it snows (on the rare occasion) people ask you to go to the store since "you are used to it". (This one just happened to me)

- People just refer to you as the Alaskan guy or Eskimo…and it makes you happy

- You hear Bedouin Arabic and think it sounds like Inupiaq (which it kinda does)

- You have great difficulty/impossibility of explaining the following:
Northern lights
Forty below
Ice Hockey
Mosquito swarms
Ice Fog
Carhartts
Akutaq
Glaciers
A 400 halibut
Moose, Caribou, Bears, or any wild animals bigger than a dog
Chainsaws
Snowmachines
Road Kill

ITS SNOWING!!

Thats right, it finally happened! It is real snow too. It started early this morning, about 6 or 7, but started to really snow by 8, just as I was leaving for work. I worked for about three hours, then they closed the physics department. So on our way out (the other research assistant and I) I decided to make a snow man, since there was about 3 or 4 inches by that time. She just stood there more or less amazed (building snow men is apparently not a Jordanian past time, especially for girls). The snow was perfect for snow men (and snow balls), so it made it easy, and after about 10 minutes I had the universities first snow man. The arms are palm branches...how cool is that? During the process I attracted a small crowd who, after I was finished, took pictures with the snow man. I don't know how long it will stay, hopefully for a couple days, but people say it will probably be gone after a day.

I think I was the happiest person Jordan. Amman looks totally different with snow, so much more beautiful. Strange how something so seemingly simple can make one so happy. Hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I do.

how many people get to see palm tree with snow on them?

Here are some of my interested onlookers

the University Library

Finally

OK so I finally dedicated myself to sit down and write something on my blog. I think that I would write more if I had internet, but unfortunately I don’t…I looked into getting a special type of long range wireless, but they don’t have coverage in my area of town. So I will have to make due with the intermittent usage of the University and internet cafes.

The last few weeks have gone by really fast. I finished up language classes last week. Finals were more or less a joke. There was only one that was a challenge (that doesn’t mean I am great in Arabic, it just means the teachers don’t want to take the time to innovate something that challenges the students). There was about half of our class that moved to a private Arabic school, because they weren’t happy with the program. I had thought about it, but my position at the physics department requires me to be a student at the University of Jordan. Plus the program director (who just took over the program this year) came and spoke to us and said next semester would be much better and more organized…we’ll see. The good thing is I am at a level where I can learn Arabic more or less on my own, with occasional help from teachers. Mostly by reading books and talking to people. Like right now I am reading 1001 Arabian Nights, in Arabic of course (which is where the story of Aladdin, Ali Baba, Sindbad, and others come from).

Regarding my job at the Physics department, I started work full time two weeks ago. I won’t continue full time, I have just been working full time cause my language classes kinda died off and the normal students are finishing their classes, so it opened up some of the labs for me to do some experimentation. I’ve mostly been working in the laboratory doing experiments trying to create nano-structured particles through electro-chemical processes (don’t let the names fool you, it is really not super advanced). The University here is just in the beginnings of its Nano-tech program, so I am doing a range of experiments and various tasks. One of the major tasks is to analyze samples under the departments new florescent microscope. The funny thing about it is that because the microscope is new I have been basically the only person using it, and consequently know more about than any one else in the department, which I think is kinda of ironic. The doctor I work for wants me to stay and work through the whole semester break, but I think I am going to take off and go to Jerusalem at the end of the month, as this will be the only time I can see the Shakkours and my other friends in Jerusalem (plus I have to renew my Visa).

Outside of school/work, it has been good to have my roommate back. He had a great experience in the states…and now he has seen twice as much of America as I have. The trip has opened up all kinds of new discussions between us, which I think we actually both enjoy quite a bit…even when we disagree. About two weeks ago his older sister came to visit from Dubai with her husband (returning from their honeymoon). We all went to their uncle’s house (in Amman) to visit, but my roommate had to go the airport because his dad told him an associate of his was coming to Amman (all of my roommates family live in Dubai). But when he got to the airport he was surprised by the arrival of his younger sister. So I got to spend the day with his aunt, uncle, brother-in-law, and two sisters. It was really great…and I got my first real introduction to Iraqi/Bedouin Arabic (the are all Iraqi in origin). Then the next day my roommate, his younger sister, and I went hiking in southern Jordan. It was a really fun time, and we had lots of good discussions. It is nice to feel like I am making close friends, especially with a family, because the family is such an integral part of society here. Apparently, their mom really likes me, eventhough I have never met her. She even sends me home made food from Dubai. I think they have invited me to Dubai like 15 times now.

They say it is supposed to snow on Tuesday this week…man I hope so. I snowed in Baghdad last week. It has been below freezing at night here for almost three weeks now. Each morning there is ice covering all the cars, and at night any standing water freezes. I think I am the only person in Jordan who is happy about it. Every time I see ice I go and touch it or try to slide on it….everybody just looks at me weird and says I’m majnoon (crazy). I bought a pair of used roller blades a couple weeks ago and I am teaching a couple friends how to skate…its funny the things you can use to open relationships and make friends.

OK, probably by now you are tired of reading, so I will try to post some pictures of various events and places. Love you all, take care.

Thank you so much for everyone who leaves comments. It is a real encouragement.

This is my roommate and his younger sister on the hiking "trail"

This is me trying to feed a baby goat we found while hiking (there was about twenty, but I singled this one out).We were walking through this valley and found small pools of frozen water...it made me really happy.

This is a group of Bedouins who invited us in for tea (the picture is from a different trip). It was really neat. It is pretty common, but on this occasion the whole family sat with us, even the girls and women (not in the picture). They invited us to stay the night there, but we had to decline.

I was hesitant to post this picture, but I figured I would anyway. This is another one of my friends. He is Sarcasian by decent, but has lived in the Middle East most his life. The hats I think are actually from Nepal.