i think my hairline is receding. youknow, i think this is really great because all this time i was wishing i could see how the male volunteers have it here. and now i can! i mean, it isnt the increased sense of freedom or anything that comes with it, but i would say baldness is usually reserved for the guys right? and beggars cant be choosers. but in all seriousness i dont think it is drastic enough to be a problem yet. just chalk it up to hard water and acid shampoo. and someone whose hair has been various shades of platinum blond and pink cant really complain too much about damaged hair right?
so, like i said, ramadan has come and gone as has eid. i ended up going to aqaba for a couple days. i had some trouble getting there, even though i am one of the closest volunteers to it. the problem is that on the day of eid, public transportation because kind of nonexistant. others had an even harder time than i did. but my counterpart snagged me a ride on the only bus going that way, which ended up being a male only bus. so i just stared out the window. but sometimes being a girl has its privilages, like being able to pass through a military check point with nary a glance your way. anyway, aqaba is basically a beach resort. it is hard to believe you are in jordan. it is a sea surrounded by mountains. i dont know what i was thinking when i packed, but i think it went something like this: " hmm, i am going to the beach... i guess it might be cool if i showed up wearing a beanie, gloves, long sleeves and wool! and i wont even think of packing a swim suit. cool!" great process andi... so suffice it to say the beach was much hotter than my now freezing little mountain town. good thing the volunteers who have been here for a year already knew what was up and i could bum some clothes from them. speaking of other volunteers... initially i almost didnt even go because i didnt really know them and i was nervous. but now i couldnt be happier that i went. there are some really cool people here, and you can have really great conversations and just kind of hang out. (especially when you consider the convrsations i am having here: 5 minute conversations in arabic because that is about as long as anyone wants to listen to you butcer their language, or flurries of text messaging that would take all of 2 minutes to actually say in english). but in the states my friends and i had pretty good ideas about where we all were coming from and what we all thought of the world in general. not so much here. if i thought all the other volunteers would all be like me i was way off. but lets just say i havent been willing to put in the "let's talk till 5 am" routine in some time. so yes, i am into the other volunters as well, and they terrify me less now. and they showed the newbies an awesome time. i spent a good deal of beach time there, which i havent done in years. also, we went out on a glass bottom boat. it was great. we spent all day out there cruising the red sea. from the red sea you can see egypt, jordan, and our neigbors to the west, whose resort town looks absurdly developed in luxury western-style hotels. we went snorkeling and swimming and at some point our driver hopped on another boat and got us some freshly caught tuna. he gutted it, cut it and seasoned it all on the boat. then we docked about 15 k. north of the saudi border (or so i was told) and barbequed the fish and some chicken on the beach. it was really really good, as i am sure you can imagine. all day in a boat on the sea. it rocked. i might even say it was the highlight of the trip. the great thing about aqaba is that there are other foreigners there and you can, to some extend let your hair down, so to speak. you blend in with the other tourists and stick out far less. not that i would want to live there, as that wouldnt be much of a peace corpsesque experience, but it makes a great trip. so now here i am back in my village, somewhat reafreshed and getting into the swing of things. i was inundated by about 30 girls in my center while i was there alone yesterday, and there has been considerable interest shown in my exercise classes starting back up, so i guess that is in the works for next week as well. and exercise will rock when it is freezing ass cold outside. better than summer is all i am sayin...