i am back in irbid after my initial visit to my homestay family. irbid has the highest concentration of internet cafes per capita than any other place, so i should be able to have some good internet time over the next few weeks. i am living in a town called deir abi said right now. it is about an hour and a half north of the dead sea and less than 10 k from the border with israel. i can see israel and the west bank from my balcony on a clear day. this is where i will be spending the next two months while i wrap up my language training. my host family is wonderful so far. samir is the father, leyla the mother, raef the eldest son (23), raouf the youngest son (15), rasha the eldest daughter (20) and rana the youngest daughter (10). they all speak a little bit of english and are most enthusiastic about helping me to learn arabic. every hour that i am not asleep, i am trying frantically to learn arabic so that i can say more than "my name is andi, nice to meet you, i am happy". raef is attending med school in moldova and is just home temporarily, but i hear rumours of a big party and mansef (a traditional jordanian dish involving the sacrifice of a goat) when he graduates. they asked me to come back for it, and from what i have seen of jordanian parties so far it should be worth the trek from whatever village i end up in. rasha is studying to be a teacher. my host father is a librarian at a university, as far as i can gather. the family has been very respectful of me so far, and i have not had to face the difficult questions that other trainees have: are you christian or muslim, why arent you married, have you ever had a boyfriend, and have you ever had alcohol, to name just a few. i have already met a good deal of the extended family (i would estimate at least 25 people). i think that my host mother's brother wanted them to talk to me about bush and israel, but the family wont let them. i was almost hoping that they would ask so that i could get it out of the way. when they showed me israel and asked if i knew it, i was very careful to find out whether they meant heard of or liked. it is too early to mess up and make them think that i am a zionist or something like that. the house is big and fairly well insulated from the heat. outside there is a marble deck and a fountain, and the front yard is full of olive trees and grapes. it is more gorgeous than i could have hoped for. it is up a rather large hill from my language lesson which isnt all that fun in the heat. with only one shower a week i am hoping that i adapt to the heat rather before the hot months come. my host family seems very progressive from what i can tell, and they have already told me to consider them to be the jordanian branch of my family. there has been almost nonstop coffee and tea since my arrival, which is good because so far as i can tell the family doesnt go to bed before two am. apparently in the hot months everybody stays up late, and in the cold months they sleep early. last night we sat and drank tea and ate fruit and visited on the balcony, while listening to the music from a nearby wedding. everybody here visits family and friends for hours every day. they say it is their favorite past time. somebody pulled out a scale and all of the children gleefuly weighed themselves. then they told me to jump on. i refused, saying that in the us we did not like to discuss our weight, but they would not take no for an answer. everybody discussed my weight for a bit. i dont know really what they said, but apparently it wasnt enough because my host mother wont let me stop eating. the food is wonderful, but they just keep loading up my plate, and it is really a good deal more food than i need, or want really. it is nice to be in irbid and be able to self regulate for a couple of days. so far, this has been much better than expected. i think that i may have lucked out in my assignment. on of the trainees is 75 and this is her fourth round through the peace corps. one of her previous assignments was turkmenistan and she said that two volunteers had to be sent home because there was not enough food and they were literally starving. it sounds much bleaker than the admittedly privileged experience that i am having. that is not to say that it is all rosey. there is still the fact that i am living in a place where i dont know the customs or language and is highly gender segregated. people stare and shout and honk,and i seem to cause a general fuss wherever i go. but, in general i am having a wonderful time and have not had the down moments that other people have or that i was expecting.
a note of interest (maybe): today was my first ride on the public bus. it was generally uneventful except that rock your body, by justin timberlake came on. it was all that i could do not to laugh. we are not supposed to really make noise in public or draw attention to ourselves, for obvious reasons, and it is true. i dont want to be the screaming american. the ride cost 27 grush. a gersh is to the jordanian dinar what the penny is to the dollar, and the exchange rate is roughly 1.4 dinar to the american dollar.
also, so far as i can tell, our hotel in irbid is on manamana street. i could be misreading it, but regardless, the thought amuses me.
i will be in my village tuesdays through saturdays and back here in irbid sundays and mondays, so i should be able to check email and update this fairly regularly for the next nine weeks. hope all is well in the states. also, i am fairly disconnected from world events right now, so you should send me any interesting news.
ma 'salaam,
andi