Well kids, I think this is my last blog from Jordan. I may be lying about that. But then again I may not. I am at T minus 4 days till I leave my village. I’ll hang around amman for a few days or a week and then it is off to Africa. Our general plan for right now is that we will take a boat from aqaba to Egypt. Then we plan to laze around on the beach and sleep in hammocks for an undetermined amount of time. You know, to get the Jordan off. We will travel freely throughout Egypt, dodging the overly pushy salesmen as we go. Will any of you be there to randomly meet up with? Anyway, it is after Egypt that we face our big problem. Where do we go without flying? Libya is out. Especially considering that the route would be libya, chad, central African republic and the DRC. Somehow, as adventurous as that would be, it lacks appeal. So our current options, as I see them, are to petition the Sudanese embassy to give us a transit visa so we can cross it, or to take a boat to yemen and then a boat to Djibouti. If all else fails, I guess we will take a plane, but we really don’t want to. So there you have it. Our initial plans, scant as they may be. If any of you have any suggestions, we are happy to hear them. Also, I will be keeping up this blog to update you all on my status in Africa, let you know that I am indeed still with you and give you pictures so you can see our transition into what will mostly likely be crazy. You can think of it as eccentric if you find crazy too strong a word.
So, on to wrapping up my life in Jordan. This last month has been a whirlwind of trips to amman for doctors and dentists and paperwork. I have been poked and prodded every which way. However, the most horrifying experience as of late was my visit to the dentist. I don’t know if I told you all about last years dentist visit. She drilled a cavity with not enough novocaine, and walked away to make a 20 minute phone call before filling it. fun stuff. This year I tried a different dentist. He started by asking me a couple of questions that I have gotten from doctors plenty of times, but never a dentist. Awkward. He found three cavities and threatened to pull a wisdom tooth. Again, there was not enough novocaine. But he told me I was tough, he wasn’t going to give me anymore and I just had to bear it. for three teeth. And he proceeded to hold me down by the forehead and drill away, happy as you please. He overfilled them and then had to drill down the filling so I could close my mouth. And somewhere in the process I got a minor burn on my lip. And as for the cleaning that followed the drilling (??) it consisted of grinding away at my precious pearly whites with that damned polishing tool. As my fellow volunteer put it, this dentist basically sandblasted our mouths clean. As I sat there, shaking from the ordeal I had just been through, he told me he just wanted one more thing. He wanted to check under my gums. Under?!? I considered, for a brief second, bolting. Dental bib and all. But my hesitation was my downfall. He proceeded to take his sharpest pokey tool and lift up each and every one of my gums. All the while he commented on how great and clean I keep my teeth and how he couldn’t find a single thing under there. But I could not tell him that maybe since I was so clean he could stop prying up my poor gums, because his fist seemed firmly lodged in my mouth. So that is the joy of dental work in Jordan. I doubt that I will ever again be able to visit the dentist (a previously benign task) without healthy doses of laughing gas.
So, like I said, I am at my last 4 days in the village. This week has been a whirlwind of packing and lunches and dinners and visits and last minute work at the center. My problem is, I don’t have enough meals to go around. I feel weary from all the chicken, rice and tea. Also, I tend to shriek a little bit at the back of my mouth when the tea comes out. All I can think of is sugar. Sugar and my poor poor teeth. My other big problem is this: how do you pack for a year of travel, when you don’t know where you are going. Could be 3 countries, could be 30. could be overland, could be boats or submarines involved. I just don’t know.
I guess I should say something about Jordan. Isn’t that what you do when you leave a place? It has been both awesome and slightly devastating, all at once. I will miss all my friends and feeling slightly competent in a second language. what I will not miss is being the obvious foreigner that also has to act like a local. But here I go, launching myself out of what has become comfortable and familiar and into a land where I am again a little baby. I basically will not know anything about what I am doing once I leave Egypt. Scary.
So, now I am going to wrap this up so I can go home, stare unproductively at piles of stuff I may or may not need, take a nap and go to lunch.