Laura’s abroad in Amman, Jordan until Dec. 19.

My family has been talking for weeks about the annual trip to the small, “forested” village of Ajloun to get their year’s supply of fresh-pressed olive oil. After all, ‘tis the season for olive harvesting. At my school building, we picked all our olives weeks ago to donate to a poor family in Mufraq. My family, however, has been delaying the trip until the price of olive oil drops. Thanks to help from the King, the price was practically halved and we finally made the trip. We all piled in the car and drove out of the city and through the large Palestinian refugee camp just north of Amman. The beige, crumbling buildings gave way to tree-dotted hillsides. We saw people picking olives from their trees and others selling their harvest on the side of the road. We wound our way down the valley into Ajloun as the afternoon sunlight hit the castle just right.

Eventually we pulled up to what I originally thought was a car garage. But as soon as we climbed out of the car, we could smell the olives. The cement floors felt slick under my feet, and everything seemed to be covered with a film of oil. Huge bags of olives were stacked against the wall and men buzzed around the machines, flipping switches and sifting through the olives. My host mother explained the process to me, and I did my best to hear her above the whirring of the machines. The olives are first dumped into a big pit and then sucked up onto a conveyor belt. They are washed and sent down a sifter to get rid of the leaves and branches. Then the olives are smashed and then churned inside a giant vat. The oil is separated from the rest of the pulp and funneled into containers. The olive pulp, however, is dried and used as fuel for stoves.

As the oil came out of the machine, my host mother stuck her finger in the stream of yellow oil to taste it. After her nod of approval, I did the same. My host brother said his father used to drink a glass of olive oil every morning because it is considered good for the body. As delicious as it was, I don’t think I’d be able to do the same. Another man waiting for his oil collected a cupful from the press and drank it, but shook his head and scowled. Apparently the oil wasn’t up to his standards. After paying several hundred Jordanian dinars for our tubs of oil, we loaded up the trunk and wound our way down the mountain again just in time for sunset.

Read Laura’s previous post or next post l Meet the rest of our abroad bloggers