I hosted my first visitor! My friend Cristella from the Berkeley Free Clinic came to visit me. She came in on a boat from Egypt. And who knew that I have connections at the port here? I had been waiting for longer than I thought I would have to, and apparently my face was starting to look a little panicked. The army guy at the door asked me if I had just come in and I told him that I actually lived here and was waiting to pick someone up. He asked where I lived and when I told him he said that it just happened to be his hometown. So he whisked me inside past security, told me to find my friend and bring her to the front of the line. So that was picking her up. She had been traveling for the last three months – morocco, India, Egypt and Jordan. All by herself. It is amazing. Makes me hold out hope for my post peace corps travel plans.
We had a great time together, although our late night talking made all my neighbors ask me if I had recently gotten engaged. Apparently girls only stay up till 2 giggling if they are going to get married…
We spent most of our time in my village. I got to take her to 2 days of a wedding as well. it was the best wedding I have been to. The men and the women had their parties in 2 separate houses, so the women really got to cut loose. Off came the headscarfs, on came the music and everyone went nuts! We all danced for hours. And they made me dance. They wouldn’t let me just sit and watch. It was pretty fun. The second night of the wedding we all piled into various cars and drove to wadi musa to pick up the bride. Everyone was singing and honking and sort of playing leapfrog with their cars. Then at the brides house all the women got out and went to fetch her. They all circled around her clapping and singing (some crying) as if to sort of psych her up for it. Then we got in our cars again and drove clapping and singing to ma’an (another town). There we ate and danced with the bride. And again I couldn’t sit on the sidelines. I didn’t even know the bride or groom, but their families wanted me to dance and so I did. it was much better than the weddings where the women all sit quietly and talk about what a great party it is.
So that is the short version of her stay.
Yesterday my center had a lecture about AIDS. From what I could tell it was less than useful. He was talking about enzymes and treatment options. Not that that is necessarily useless information, but I don’t think that it really helps the 17 and up crowd. He offered to do the lecture half in English so that I could understand what he was saying. I declined. It sounds bad, but the whole time I was just thinking of how great a workshop you could really put on. That is, if it weren’t for the rigid definitions of what is and is not appropriate here. And I still haven’t figured out why he talked about the internet and mobile phones for a half an hour at the beginning of the lecture.
I was telling a friend in an email that I feel like I am losing the will to blog. Part of that comes from the fact that I am falling into a fairly steady routine. I wake up and work on the grants I am trying to write. Maybe go hang out at work and do it. Later I go to work and give English classes and exercise classes. That’s about it. I do have other stuff going on, but that is the bulk of my life right now. So, that’s not much to talk about. The other part of is that I never really hear from the majority of folks at home. I don’t know what is going on in your lives. I don’t know what you want to hear about mine. Its like I am writing this for myself. And I know what is going on in my life. And that is what I have a journal for. Please write. It makes me feel like people still remember me. And even if I suck at returning those emails I eventually will get around to it.
I put up just a couple new pictures. One of them is at an amusement park. I wasn’t expecting to go to one, and on a field trip we just showed up at it. It was kind of like a state fair. It was strange. When I got on the rollercoaster there was a picture of king abdulla waving, as if to say goodbye. And next to it a sticker that just said “irony”. Strange. On that same trip a girl from my center bought some face soap that had a wonderful example of translation gone wrong. Or maybe someone just had a sense of humor. The bottle said “30 seconds dispels horniness”. She told me that the Arabic version just said it made your face smooth. I almost fell out of the bus laughing. And of course I didn’t tell her what the English actually meant.
So. Like I said. I am having a hard time writing this. Summer is rolling around quickly. Maybe the myriad of activities my center will be involved in will inspire me to write y’all. Till then…

Well, the bad news is that I lost my favorite hoodie. I lost it in the shuffle between busses. But I take some small comfort in knowing that somewhere in Jordan, someone is wearing a needle exchange sweatshirt and maybe not even knowing it. There is so much to tell since I last wrote.
Last week I was helping my counterpart make mansef for 25 guests who were showing up for lunch. When I showed up at her house there were a few kids outside playing with a kid. And by kids playing with a kid I mean children tormenting a baby goat. For a brief moment I thought (with horror) that this was our mansef goat. But apparently the little guy just got lost. So for a couple days we had a pet goat. We fed it milk with a bottle. I actually don’t know where he went, but I hope he found his mom again.
I just recently came back from operation smile (I talked about it in the last blog). We had about 100 kids and their families from iraq to get operations. Unfortunately the weather was kinda bad so we couldn’t take the kids outside and entertain them. We tapped all my resources for indoor childrens games. A lot of the kids were very shy. I wondered what the reaction they normally receive is. It certainly couldn’t be a group of Americans who want to pick them up and kiss them and roughhouse with them. I found myself mostly gravitating towards baby duty. I would wander around and find babies and take them so that mom or dad could eat or have a moment’s peace. I was surprised just how many dads there were there. I would say that a majority of the parents were the dads. Probably due to the dangerous bus ride in from iraq.
I had a blast with the kids, but I found the whole experience to be bittersweet. Several times as I was playing hide and seek or holding a sleeping baby I couldn’t help but think of what they were going back to. Most of them were shia and going back to the south of iraq. And on the bus ride in apparently their bus was stopped by insurgents. They were threatened and eventually let go with the caveat that the insurgents would be looking for them when they came back through. I had what was most likely the hardest conversation I have ever had in my life with one of the fathers. He told me that life under sadaam had been hell. But that hell was traded for another now. He literally used the word bloodbath. He was mostly talking about the people that are coming in to fight from other countries. Extremists. And he told me that he thought that there was a good chance that he and his baby girl would be killed on the return trip. What do you say to that? I felt that anything I could have said would have been trite and meaningless. I mean, I almost always have something to say, but I just couldn’t. and I was sitting there holding his baby. All I could think was, don’t cry here, andi. I asked him what he thought could be done to make it better, and he said nothing. It would never end. The complete lack of hope in his voice, and the tears in his eyes… I won’t lie, it really made me feel sad and angry and helpless all at once. I had to give myself a break and compose myself in the hotel room. So far as I know, alternate arrangements were made and the families were flown home to avoid whatever their fate may have been if they had taken busses.
In rereading that I am struck by how heavy it really is. And to be honest I don’t know where to go from there. Anything I would say or any story I would tell would seem out of place and inappropriate. So for now I will go and try to reabsorb what really happened last week. But I am ok. You either process your experiences or you pack up and go home. And real life is what I was after, right?