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.

Whoah this week went fast

This week marks the exact halfway mark for my travels abroad.

Many, many, many things have happened in the past few days. I looked at the date of my last blog post and was shocked to see it was almost a WEEK ago!! Wow.

Here's the latest with Hibba's stalker - he's in the hospital in Malt, because he loves her so much she's made him totally sick. And "Inti illi wa BAS!" has become a family joke. (you belong to ONLY ME! - one of his weird text message). He called her over fifty times the day before yesterday, but yesterday he suddenly stopped. What a creep.

I'm making some really great friends in the International club. Jihad is an Arab-Israeli (the word for that in Arabic is arab-tamanya-we-arba'aeen), Wadat is the president of the international student club, she's Algerian, not Moroccan...we speak French together. And of course, there's Malik, probably my best friend here besides my Arab sisters.

Malik taught me how to play backgammon. Writing that sentence in English...it seems juvenile. Let me tell you though, backgammon is really fun. He has a really hard time pronouncing "Massachusetts". I have a really hard time pronouncing the Arabic word for "foam" - rghwa. He quizzes me on my leaders of Middle Eastern Countries. I think he'd kick my trash in the capitals game, although probably not if it included capitals of the United States.

Malik and I talk about interesting stuff. Like his opinions on the summit that is going on right now with the Arab league, which is extremely corrupt - why Syrian Economics are screwed up, why Americans have such a negative concept of Arabs, our various states of coming in and out of culture shock (remember, even though he lives about an hour away, he's from a completely different country, and Bashar Assad is a totally different kind of leader from King Abdullah II).

My Arabic! I sometimes get frustrated, but its kind of pointless to sit around lamenting the fact that I can't speak as well as I'd like to yet. So instead, I just speak - and end up doing okay. I would say I have more than doubled my vocabulary in the past month. I sometimes go for days without speaking any English, which is fun.

Last night, we went to the airport to welcome a group of French students coming from the University of Marseilles for a cultural-exchange program with Yarmouk. I had so much fun. The French students were SO cool. I love being able to speak French.

I'm looking forward to hanging out with them more.

MAKING FRIENDS, FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

General Conference here...is gonna be interesting.