So this is the second-to-last-week-report and I can honestly say there is so much to do and so little time and there is no way to stuff it all in. Also, I am going to miss my friends here so much. Thank goodness for Facebook so that I can keep in contact with them all or I might just go insane. I have never thought about how hard it would be to have to say goodbye to someone and it literally be goodbye for the rest of my life. It is possibly the hardest thing I have ever done in my life and I definitely do not enjoy the experience.
I have to give a shout out to Phil now. His baseball idea was brilliant and has paid out in major dividends. I have written short, personal messages (it makes me write very succinctly) on the baseball and then give it to my teachers and friends. So far it has been a very original idea and everyone has appreciated it. I hope it really does mean as much as people have been saying, because it is something that you can’t find here as well as the fact that I do write personal messages and memories on the baseball. I have to thank Phil for that idea and would recommend to people who are doing the program in the future or are contemplating travel to other countries in the near future.
This past week started the official season of testing and I have never been as nervous or as confident (a weird paradox I know). We basically only know the name of the different tests we will be taking and everything on that test is a complete and total mystery from there. There is really no way to study, you either know it or you don’t. Cramming will do nothing and help no one. It is a true “test” of what you know and what you can do. I guess this is how I always wish education would be. It is a true marker of where you are and how much further you have to go, however, it is nerve-wracking because a perfect score is impossible and unachievable no matter how hard I try. It is the first class that has presented me with this type of learning and thought. There is no way to be the “top” student, there is only the daily struggle and the pay off of seeing slow progress. It has been a great learning and growing experience for me as well as very humbling. I have had to rely a lot more on actual studying and practice and prayer. Faith has definitely helped me a lot and made a tremendous difference.
Talking about faith, today I was able to witness the baptism of a family of four here in Jordan!!! How cool is that?!? The church is growing even here in Jordan, step-by-step. The Papkenian family is Armenian and lives in Amman. I have gotten to be good friends with the daughter Lucy and with the son Kevork. We have gone to Fruit Salad, Taj Mall, and Chinese food with them and some others who have become their friends. It has been awesome to become their friends and to hang out with them. We always talk about the differences between American, Jordanian, and Chinese culture and why we think those differences exist. We talk about all the normal deep friend topics like future dreams and goals, food, school, home life, and of course – who we think is the hottest/cutest Hollywood celebrities.
Seeing them get baptized today has been the spiritual highlight of my trip here to Jordan. There was a vast outpouring of the Spirit when they went under the water and came back up. And when they got confirmed and received the gift of the Holy Ghost, the same thing happened again. The Saints here were so overcome with joy that they burst out in applause and exclamations. It didn’t feel out of place or weird either when it happened, I think they just didn’t know how to react. Baptisms here are a very rare thing and that was evident in the reactions of the Arab members as well as the difficulty in performing the ordinance. First, they had to come up with a translation that matched the English words as perfectly as possible and they had trouble remembering these words. Then, the baptisms. They were done outdoors in a font that wasn’t very full (that water shortage problem thing again). The men in the family had to be baptized four times each because some part of them kept rising above the water. As Elder Hammond described later after the ceremonies as the closing remarks, “the ordinances must be done perfectly because they were given to us by the Lord and as we follow His counsel exactly, blessings follow. He loves us and gives us everything for our happiness and success including ordinances like baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and the temple. He advised the family to set their sights on the temple and I believe that they will get there. It was a very emotional and amazing day. I am definitely going to miss this family when I return home and will have to keep up with them on Facebook and Instagram.
For a complete change in topic! I found Mexican food in Amman, Jordan. There is a new place on Rainbow Street (which is like a European street picked straight out of Paris and dropped near downtown Amman complete with crepes, fancy cars, crazy traffic, and a variety of food from around the world. A new taco restaurant was just built next to a hot dog place and a shwarma place. The taco place is built like a hip London underground station. It was two big bars hanging from the ceiling with handholds attached and all the seats are done just like subway seats. It is kind of clever, how that connects to tacos? I honestly haven’t the slightest idea, but it is a fun place regardless. The food was quite expensive – I got a soft taco and a hard taco (both chicken) with fries (of all things) and a drink. The tacos were interesting – chicken cooked in an assortment of spices (not all normal Mexican), guacamole (tasted great), sour cream, canned corn, enough cheese for three tacos (a rare commodity here so I enjoyed every bit), and some sort of chip resembling nacho cheese Doritos. The overall effect wasn’t good or bad but nostalgic and got me excited for having real Mexican food the day I get back home. Oh yeah, they also had jalapeños in them so they had the right spiciness level. So good.
Before the food, we hit up a Christian Christmas bazaar that our friend Deen told us about. I am also going to miss him so much. A bunch of different Christian churches set up booths and were selling different Christmas decorations, Christmas goodies, and homemade wine. If I wasn’t a Mormon, I would have made out like a bandit at this bazaar. Every place boasted to have the best wine, made just the way it was made in Jesus’ day. Each place was also handing out free samples that were huge so that you could tell that theirs was the best. I have never been offered so much alcohol so freely in my life. They found it bizarre (like how I used both of the “bazaar’s” in one paragraph?) that we didn’t drink and yet claimed to be Christian. We got to explain the very basics of why we didn’t drink and they respected our beliefs. We also got to feel a touch of Christmas with the trees, the lights, the Santa Clauses, the reindeers, and the baked goodies. There was a bagpipe band that was playing Christmas carols as well and although they weren’t the best I heard, it was a great blessing to hear “Jingle Bells” and “Silent Night” in the middle of Jordan. Something I never dreamed I would have experienced before coming. I didn’t buy anything though, just enjoyed the general atmosphere and felt a touch of the Christmas spirit that added the perfect touch to my holiday weekend so far from home.
Well, that brings us to the next item: Thanksgiving in Jordan. Thanksgiving is definitely an American invention and holiday. There were no announcements like Halloween about it being evil or beneficial, no mention of it at all actually. Some of the Arabs that I talked with this week had a vague knowledge that something big was going down in America, but I had to explain everything about the holiday for them to have the slightest inkling of how big a place it really holds in American culture and tradition. I have never before realized how big an institution Thanksgiving is or how much I took for granted the fact that it has always been a holiday for me before. Here, there was no holiday. We went to class the same as normal and did homework the same as normal. One of the American members of the English branch did invite us all over to his house (along with all the other members) and we had a gigantic, potluck style Thanksgiving with all the traditional fixes and some Arab flair thrown in.
We had the turkey, mashed potatoes, yams with marshmallows (my favorite), stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, salads, rolls, and pie. And there was more than enough for everybody so that there was leftovers of everything. We could all eat our fill and then do the normal laying around/sleeping that has also become a celebrated part of the holiday. We ate dinner around 5 and finished everything around 7. It was a lot of fun. The Arab flair was that in addition to rolls, there was sherak bread. It is kind of like a really thin tortilla but much larger and with a lot more flavor. We need a lot more of it in America somehow in the future. Also, the drink was carcadae. It is this powerful base that you put in the bottom of a cup and then you add Sprite of Ginger ale to it until the liquid reaches the top. It has a vaguely fruity flavor reminiscent of a sparkling grape juice. Everything in the meal blended together real well and no one was left wanting. I had the most exquisite lemon cream pie for dessert that had been made from scratch as well as an apple crisp topped with ice cream. I am hoping that there might be pumpkin pie I get to devour when I return over Christmas break (hint, hint).
Well, that is everything I can remember right now to type. It is almost 1:00 AM and my brain stopped its normal function sometime ago. We were watching the Christmas classic “Elf” earlier while feasting on the most delicious of kebsa. Some of my roommates invited their friends over to teach them how to cook and the results were marvelous. It was the most tender, flavorful rice that I have ever had. I ate three platefuls of the rice alone and only had about two bites of the chicken that goes on top (although that was also good). As much as I rave about all the food on this trip, that rice tonight wins the award for best rice of my life and I hope to be able to cook it myself in the future after I return home. Some of you might get to be the guinea pigs to taste test it and help me get it to the level that I enjoyed today. Anyway, this week has been fun and sad and stressful and spiritual and amazing and depressing all at the same time, many times at the same exact moment. I hope to be able to get all my goodbyes in this week along with all my finals and packing and last minute eating around, sightseeing, partying, shopping, you know – last minute everything. Picture every last week of the semester and then multiply that feeling by about 50 and you might get all the feelings that I am going through right now. I really hope to return to this amazing country one day to see all my friends and to partake again of this marvelous culture that I have come to love and thrive in.
Ok, take that back about last things. Count this as my post scrip (or PS as they are written in letters). I had my official OPI this past week. It was a lot easier and more natural feeling than I had ever imagined it being. My last OPI that I took at the end of Arabic 202 felt like a test the whole time. I felt like I had to give the exact answer the proctor was looking for and the role play felt so contrived and scripted that it allowed for very little creativity or critical thinking. It was basically a test of my survival skills in Arabic. This time around, the whole thing felt more like a formal conversation or interview. I didn’t feel like I was being forced to give specific answered or backed up to a wall with my availability of responses. I was free to express myself and be me and not just a vague shadow of me. The first thing she asked me was to describe myself and that is a question I have always found awkward and too open-ended regardless of the language I am speaking. She let me talk for 6 or 7 minutes straight. I talked about my schooling, my family, my hobbies, my home, my friends, the cities I have lived in, the jobs I have worked, my future goals, etc. I just kept talking and talking and talking until I eventually trailed off because I was just giving off a big glob of information. Apparently she would have accepted more though because she waited for a give 15 seconds before giving me the next prop or question.
We spent the rest of the time discussing stereotypes. We discussed why they exist, what they are, how to change them, how I felt about them, how my personal views have changed, what I have done to change others views, and so much more. We talked about stereotypes that Jordanians have about Americans and vice versa and where these were based on fact and where these were based on conjecture. We talked about the role of the media in promulgating stereotypes and its responsibility in the matter as well as what the government could do to reign them in to show things in a more truer light. We talked about this blog and the pictures I have taken and my personal experiences with other people that have changes some of your stereotypes or beliefs about different people or cultures. In the end, my thesis came to be that only personal experiences really changes people. I have been changed so much from this program and I get word back from some of you that my words have helped to change your views or opinions as well. I suggested to Farah (my proctor) that all those who visit other cultures have the responsibility to paint an accurate picture for their friends and family that they left behind. This way people actually get to know the truth and not just the shock and awe version of it that we read in the headlines every day. And consequently caused my mother some anxiety regarding this trip before I ever left home.
We also talked about how the media objectifies women as sex objects and what that means for Western women and their treatment here by men in the Middle East. She made me reconcile the fact that the I called the people here nice and courteous and amazing with the fact that I also described that a woman is never entirely safe on her own on the streets here. I had to explain why I think that is and why there is such a divide. I blamed the Western media for creating a rape culture here that is very similar to the rape culture that many people see evident in America and Europe. I also said that this is exacerbated because there has never been a gender or sexual revolution here. Gender roles are very much still stuck back in what we would consider to be 1950’s America – women must work in the home, men must work in the office. Women outside the home must mean they have looser morals in every facet of their lives, which many men here sadly take advantage of. Don’t get me wrong, they are plenty of upright, Westernized men who treat women better than a lot of the men that I know in the USA. But there are a lot of men who come from poorer, more conservative circumstances that have no idea how to react to a woman in a supposed “man’s space” and therefore react in an inappropriate manner. Anyway, it was a very interesting conversation and I was amazed at the amount of Arabic I could get to come out of my mouth to discuss something so complex.
We ended with a role play that I did not do so well in. I was supposed to be addressing a giant forum of university students and administration about a new policy that required all students to live on campus. I was supposed to be giving a very formal speech with no filler words or pauses or problems. I had to give my opinion and evidence to back it up. It was a lot harder than what I was planning on and because of how long I had already been talking, I was slightly tongue-tied. I managed to get out that I agreed with the proposition because it would increase the security of the campus. The campus police would be much closer to the students and could react to threats in a timely manner. Also, it might help with student punctuality because they would be so close to where their classes are held. No need for cars or traffic, just walk to everything. We had already gone over time anyway so she wanted me to make it quick so I did the best with what I could. I felt that whole thing went a lot better than I had anticipated and I am grateful for your prayers that I know helped!
I also had the experience of having wings in Jordan this week. They weren’t quite up to par with Buffalo Wild Wings, but they were pretty good. Pretty pricey though. We also had a Jurassic Park marathon while doing studies, definitely hard to fall asleep while listening to those and reviewing newspaper articles. I love you all and hope you had an amazing Thanksgiving!!! I am thankful to have such amazing friends and family. I am thankful for my experiences in Jordan with these amazing people and beautiful language. I am thankful for the many wonderful blessings I have in my life that would go on for at the very least ten more pages if I only tried to list them all (and not even describe them). Happy Thanksgiving!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment