Vomit and Riots

I woke up this morning, put on my fake leather boots, and was on my way to catch a taxi to the University, when I suddenly turned, knelt on the ground, and vomited in the grass.

I stayed home from school.

I think it's pretty remarkable that I've been in a strange climate, eating food my stomach is not used to for almost three months, and this is the first time I've dealt with diarrhea/stomach virus. It was pretty nasty, but I feel better now.

It turns out that today there was a huge riot at Yarmouk. Ahmed said that 200 people against 200 other people, that there were more students killed at Yarmouk today than were killed at Virginia Tech two days ago (32? Arabs really like to exaggerate...seems unlikely to me), that there was blood and violence and the police came. Hibba said she thinks it was because of a girl.

I'm trying to find information about it online, but so far there isn't. I think it's still going on. I'm home, wrapped up in my soft blankets, listening to arabic music on my ipod. Later on, Malek is gonna come drop off the 3rd Season of 24, one of my favorite TV shows, with my Arabic mom.

Riots on University Campuses in the Middle East are not the ideal place for Americans to find themselves.

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.

Yarmouk University's Student Center

Crowded. Music blasting. Guys holding hands dancing. Everybody clapping. I think it was because of the student elections, but maybe...not.