Richness

I am in Los Altos, California, for my best friend's wedding. This is one of the wealthiest parts of the country. You know, Silicon Valley..."Do You Know The Way To San Jose doo doo doo DOO doo doo dodododooo dodo dooo..."

It's difficult for me to explain what exactly is going on inside of my head.

I bought the happy soon-to-be-wed couple a microwave. I felt really good about that present.

It's like my life in Jordan was a dream. Maybe it will become more real when I get back to Massachusetts. Maybe it's just this transitory state here. Maybe it really was a dream. Maybe Irbid and Sharia Cinema and Ayhem Abu A-Sha'ar never really existed. It just seems so impossible that I could be all the way over here buying my best friend a microwave, when two weeks ago I was taking down the laundry from where it was drying on the line outside, while my 13 year old Arabic brother stood by with Hammadeh, his friend, to be sure nothing bad happened while I was outside by myself. That I walked through five different airports in the last week (Queen Aliya, Charles de Gaulle, John F. Kennedy, Bradley, Chicago Midway, San Jose...okay so six!), by myself - yet two weeks ago there was a boy who came to my house and asked for my hand in marriage...what?

Fuse blowage.

Dead Sea

I went to the Dead Sea. It was incredible. The water has special healing properties - not just the water, but the mud. I don't really understand why, but for centuries it's helped people with all kinds of skin disorder.

It may be partly because the dead sea is at the lowest point on earth, or maybe because it's saltier than the Salt Lake, or a combination of factors, but you float.

I mean, you REALLY float.

You just lay back and voila, you're on your back, floating. No effort. In fact, when you try to go down, you can't. You can't swim. It's the weirdest thing ever.

A single drop of the water got into my eye and screamed, "F@CK F*CK F%CK F&CK F#CK!!!" Marie-Amelie pulled me out of the water, and got me my towel, thankfully. I felt like my eye was gushing blood. One tiny single drop.

I went to the Dead Sea with the group of French students from the University of Marseilles. Besides Malek, they are my best friends at the University. They leave next week, which is sad.

We stayed up talking, singing, and swimming (brrrr) until 4:30 in the morning last night.

I took a real shower.

My brain is tired from changing languages on command. It's hard to think in Arabic, French, and English at the same time. Nobody speaks English as their mother language. Mooshkila.

One of the neatest experiences for me since being here was in Ayhem's hotel room. He organized and carried out the trip. He invited us all for a drink (yes alcohol, and no I didn't drink, and no they didn't get drunk, and no, they didn't pressure me to drink, and yes I went because I felt like being sociable), so we were all hanging out there in the hotel room, and somebody said something that triggered my thoughts to the song, "You Aint Nothin' but a Hound-dog!" so I started singing...

One of Ayhem's many cousins who was with us said, "Oh, I know who that is. It's John Travolta."

"What? ARE YOU FREAKING CRAZY? That's Elvis Freaking Presley!"

"No no, I seed movie once, was with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John! I sure this song is him!"

"Okay, I know that you know a lot about my culture, and I'm not saying you're stupid, but that song is DEFINITELY by Elvis Presley."

The French kids were laughing hysterically, all (of course) taking my side.

"Okay okay okay maybe you right, but you ever see Grease?"

"Of course!" - and I erupted into, "Summer lovin', happened so faaast..."

Alex, one of the French students, started singing the guy's part, and some of the other girls did background vocals. It was like something exploded. We started singing song after song.

Eventually, the Arabs were like, "Sing something in Arabic!" I burst into a chorus of (what is probably the most annoying Arabic pop song ever) "Ya Tab Tab, wa dela'aaa..." followed by, "ba7bk, ana kateer, ya habebe dela'aa tela'alaaaaaay." The Arabs with us (Ayhem and two of his cousins) sang along, all of us in hysterics.

The French students don't speak Arabic. After we finished that, I started singing, "Quand il me prend dans ses bras, il me parle tout bas, je vois la vie en roooose..." and EVERY single one of them sang along.

It was a big deal for me, sitting there. I was the only one in the room that understood everything going on, who could share in every single part of what was happening. I have a really special gift. I should not underestimate the power or importance of my language skills.

I made a vow to myself that I will use them in my life.

احترام

The International Club at Al-Yarmouk University sometimes organizes trips for the students. Ayhem Abu Sha'ar is the main guy in charge of these trips. In fact, he is the only official faculty in any way responsible for International Students, which make up over a 1/4 of the student population. But I have already made my feelings on that subject somewhat clear...

The next trip for International Students was supposed to be this weekend (it has since been canceled due to bus scheduling issues), to Um Qais, the Jordan River Valley, and Ajloon. I have been to all of these places, but that was almost half a year ago. They are all worth a second look.

Unfortunately, the trip was scheduled to leave Friday morning at 8:00, meaning I would have to skip church. I told Ayhem, "Yeah, sorry...it looks like I won't be able to go with you."

"But we already put you on the list!"
"Yes but...my religion is important to me."
"You're Christian though! Why is your prayer on Friday? That's the Muslim Sabbath!"
"Yeah, well my church decided to put its prayer on Friday because there isn't work or school on that day. It's always open. You know?"
"Well, you can go pray at the Catholic church on Sunday, instead!"
"No, not really..."
"But we really want you to come with us!"

This kind of talking went on for about half an hour. Finally, I had enough. I said, "Look, if I can't go, I can't go. The end."

It was mostly a case of the-straw-that-broke-the-camel's-back. Ayhem was just joking around, not trying to purposefully disrespect my religion.

I'm totally used to living as the minority. I come from the state with the least percentage of Mormons per population; not only that, but from the non-urban area. I know all about the shock-factor my religion evokes: "You don't drink or smoke?" "Wow, you don't drink coffee or tea?" "You mean to say, you've never slept with anybody?"

It's funny. All the non-Mormon Arabs I've met think I'm an alien with two heads for not drinking coffee or tea, yet once they find out I'm a virgin it's like I've joined some secret club. EVERYBODY respects me more, and is suddenly interested in learning more about Mormonism. Usually, I try to focus on the things our religion shares in common. Today, I was told that there is only a tiny line that differentiates Mormons from Muslims. In my mind, I made a sarcastic comment about, "Yeah, there's that whole Savior-Messiah thing..."

"You mean, Mormon girls should be virgins when they get married?"
"Yeah."
"Wow! That's AWESOME!"

Later, I went back to the same person and said, "You know, my response to your question was only half-adequate. I should have said, yeah, and so should Mormon guys."
"Of course, of course!"

Off topic. Back to respect. There are several reasons why Ayhem's pressuring me to skip church to go with the school trip really pissed me off.
1. It was insistent, as if he wasn't going to change his mind until I changed mine. Ana hurra, I'm free. I can make my own decisions, thank you very much.
2. He wouldn't go ask a Muslim girl to not wear her hijab; going to church is a wajib or duty in my faith just like wearing the hijab is a wajib in Islam. He shouldn't ask me to do something that goes blatantly against my faith.
3. ESPECIALLY because he is the only person in charge of International Students! He should be understanding, welcoming, and tolerant. Right?

I went to his office and forgave him. He was really, really, really sorry for having pissed me off yesterday.

This experienced helped me bond with my Arabic family. I came home, and burst into tears. Lots of factors - homesickness, discouragement with the language, culture shock, etc. etc...those things had been in the back of my mind, but just realizing how much I am alone, and the minority, and how Ayhem disrespected me brought many of those worries to the front.

Sanaa took me in her arms and told me about how impressed she has always been with me. Multezima! She said she didn't believe that there were devout Christians before she met Nedal, and the other Mormons. She said it's very, very, very good that my religion is so important to me. I told her that my faith is the most important thing, that I could lose everything - even my family (big deal here), or my honor (even bigger), but not my faith.

My Arabic mom said that is one of the main reasons they decided to let me come live with their family, almost literally adopting me as their 5th daughter; because I am a God-fearing religious person. I felt very comforted. She also said, "Kate, don't care about people that are outside of your family. If they're outside the family - whatever, it doesn't matter. Don't care about them. Only care about things that happen to your relatives. That's what's really important." I like her philosophy.

"Sh@* on all of the people who don't respect your religion. You're better than them." said Hibba.
"You shouldn't care about people who don't have brains, right?" said my Arabic dad. "The cows and horses and sheep at the farm (the Hammouri's have a farm about 10 km away from the house) have more respect than most human beings, don't you see?"

I love the Hammouri's.

Being an International Student

So far, probably my favorite part about being an International Student at Yarmouk is Ayhem's office. It's the meeting point for us International Students. When I first got here, I didn't really think about how other Arab students also experience sodoma thokofia (culture shock), homesickness, and problems with Visas, transportation etc.

All of my non-church/non-Hammouri friends I met through the International Student Office. Adam - American friend from Tallahassee
Falata - Nigerian friend who lived in Saudi for many years before coming to Jordan
Malik - Syrian friend, probably my closest guy friend here besides Tamr. He's extremely smart, loves politics, and is comfortable to be around
The Moroccan grad student in charge of the Internional Student Club. We speak French together. She's majoring in International Relations.
And apart from them, there is always a host of people coming in and out of this office - the Egyptian girl who smokes (the only young Arab female that I have seen here who smokes; it's normal amongst older Arab women but not normal for a young Arab girl), the guy from the Bahrain who is always sleepy, the Jordanian-Jordanian-goh (pure) faculty members that come in this office just to say hi and drink some coffee or tea...

Right now I am typing this from Ayhem's computer. He is the only person in the entire University who has any kind of responsibility towards International Students. I think of BYU and it's just incomparable. How to describe this place...think, crappy administration, FIVE STAR WORLD CLASS hospitality.

Actually, this is a fairly accurate model of the differences between West and Middle East, in almost all sectors.