Sometimes when I reflect on my study abroad experience here in Jordan, I just laugh at all the bizarre situations I get myself into. For example, somehow I ended up practically alone on the dance floor trying to do my best imitation of Arabic dancing at a Palestinian wedding here in Amman.

My neighbor took me to the wedding and she warned me that it would be very conservative. I wasn’t quite sure what she meant but, upon arrival at the wedding hall, I realized that all the women were being ushered to a room upstairs while the men were sent to a separate banquet hall. In the women’s room, the bride, bedecked in a billowing white dress, sat upon her throne in the front of the room beside the groom, who sported a beard about a foot long. She looked a bit bored, to be honest, as she surveyed the dozen or so dancing women below her.

More than 100 women were seated at large tables around the dance floor, chatting, sipping juice and pointing to the younger women on the dance floor. Most wore hijabs and dishdashes (the long cloaks), but the women in the bridal party were all in satiny dresses that would have looked right at home at a 90s prom. Some of the women wore dresses revealing more skin than I’ve seen on an Arab woman since I arrived in Jordan. About a dozen women danced with their arms outstretched, gracefully twisting their wrists and swiveling their hips. Soon the bride came down and joined her sisters and friends while the groom looked on. The three camerawomen followed the bride everywhere, and their live video feed was shown on a floor-to-ceiling screen next to the bridal platform.

The sister of the bride is a friend of my neighbor, so when she saw us seated at a table, she came over to chat and then pulled me up to the dance floor, despite my protests. I must admit that I was quite terrified because I knew I couldn’t bust the same moves I do at the Keg. I have some knowledge of ballroom dancing, salsa and swing, but there wasn’t a guy (besides the groom) in sight. So, I tried my best to imitate the women’s graceful dancing. But as soon as I got to the dance floor, it cleared out, and I ended up doing an almost solo performance while the hundreds of women looked on, many of them pointing and probably wondering why there was an awkward American on the dance floor. The bride’s sister did her best to assure me that I wasn’t completely embarrassing myself, but I was flushed red for the rest of the night.

Thankfully, my dancing was interrupted by the cutting of the cake. A giant, three-tiered cake was carried up to the bride and groom and together they cut it — with a sword. Next was time for the presentation of the gold, which is when the groom bestows gold jewelry upon his bride. The groom, with the help of his mother and sisters, placed each item of gold on the bride and then the bride’s sisters each presented her with a small gift of jewelry. Then the whole family posed for pictures with the groom and glittering bride. My neighbor explained to me that this tradition started because the gold was the bride’s financial security in case she ever got divorced or her husband died. When I was in the northern Badia with the Bedouin tribes, the new brides I met were eager to bring out the boxes with the gold necklaces, bracelets, rings, and earrings that their husbands gave them.

At the end of the night, after the women had danced for hours, the knock came on the door that the men were coming back in. The women put back on their hijabs and covered up their revealing dresses. Then the doors were opened and then men filed in, shaking hands with the groom. My neighbor and I excused ourselves and left. I had a lot of fun, but I really hope that the camerawomen edit out my little performance from the final wedding video.

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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.

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After listening to the call to prayer five times a day for the past three months, I decided to get back in touch with my own religion. Two weeks ago I went with an American friend and my host family’s Sri Lankan maid to St. George’s Cathedral, which is a relatively new church here in Amman. Since the Mass was only in Arabic, I didn’t recognize any of the songs and I couldn’t follow along with any of the prayers. It felt more like Arabic class than a church service to me, so last Sunday I leapt at the chance to go to an English-speaking Mass in Abdali.

I went with my host family’s 19-year-old maid and three of my American friends. The priest’s thick Boston accent and all the familiar songs and prayers made me feel like I was back in America. The churchgoers, however, were nearly all Southeast Asian girls and women. With varying degrees of fluency, the women played guitar, sang and led prayers in English. My host family’s maid smiled with delight as she looked around the church and pointed out other girls whom she recognized as Sri Lankan. As we lined up for communion, she exchanged a shy wave and hello with a Sri Lankan nun.
After the Mass, the nun approached us and explained that she worked in a non-profit agency that helped maids who have been abused or need any sort of help. Coincidentally, one of my friends who came to Mass was planning on visiting that agency the next day. For her research project, my friend has been studying the maids in Amman. It’s been heartbreaking to hear some of her stories. Last week she visited an embassy that had nearly two hundred girls and young women living in the basement and parking garage. Some of the maids had come to the embassy because of abuse or because their employers had refused to pay their salaries or renew their visas. They are living in the embassy in limbo, unable to work in Jordan or return back to their country. They wait for the intercom to call their name, the signal that they can finally go home. Some have been living in the bowels of the embassy for almost two years.

Many of my American friends here also have maids in their homestays and we’ve talked about the experience at length. My friends and I often feel uncomfortable because none of us grew up with maids in the U.S. and we don’t really know how to deal with the family dynamics here in Amman. The maids are usually around our own age or younger, but have such a different role than us in the house. We get beds and eat at the table with our families, and the maids often sleep on the floor and eat separately. The maids do our laundry and clean the house while we travel and relax at cafes. My friends and I often talk about the guilt we feel that we can go out and explore while our maids stay in the house all day, every day. Yet, many of my friends and I have friendly, often conspiratorial, relationships with the maids. My host family’s maid is a sort of ally and friend. During Ramadan while the rest of the family was fasting, we ate our daytime meals together and talked together in a mix of English and Arabic. I showed her pictures of my family and we browsed through pictures of Sri Lanka on the Internet. Since we’re both outsiders in the family, we often roll our eyes or share a giggle when the family is being especially loud or obnoxious.

I’m going home in just a few weeks, but my host family’s maid is staying until August 2010. I can’t imagine being so disconnected from my home like she is. I have the luxuries of Skype, Facebook and a cell phone to keep in touch, but my host family’s maid just waits for her weekly phone call from home. Employers generally discourage the maids from making friends and prefer to keep them isolated, but I certainly hope that my host family’s maid is able to make friends at church. After all, if I didn’t have my American friends to talk to, I don’t know how I could have survived the past few months here in Jordan with my sanity intact.

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Still smelling the salt of the Dead Sea on my skin, I’ve returned from a trip through the south of Jordan. This is the Jordan of legends: the awe-inspiring Petra, sunrises over Wadi Rum, sunsets over Aqaba’s sparkling aqua water, quiet valleys in Dana, and the salty depths of the Dead Sea. I fell in love with Jordan during this trip and I don’t know how I’ll ever leave in just two more months.
Here are the top 5 best adventures from this week:

1. Exploring Petra:

I can’t believe I’ve lived in Jordan for two months and only just now visited its most famous attraction, the rose-red city of Petra, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. My friends and I hit the Siq just an hour after sunrise and blearily made our way through the long, narrow passage that serves as the entrance to the city. The rock’s marbled colors shone in the early morning sun and I don’t think my photos do it proper justice. After a while we came to the most-photographed place in Jordan, the Treasury, which is an ancient temple carved straight into a rock face that was featured in an old Indiana Jones movie. Inside we saw the carved bowl where they collect the blood from sacrifices. As we made our way through the valley, we were flanked by hundreds of massive tombs carved into the rock face. We passed the massive amphitheatre and walked along the colonnaded Roman street. Finally we crossed a creek and started the steep climb up to Petra’s second most-famous monument, the Monastery (which is another misnomer because it was also a pagan temple). Along the way, we passed Bedouins who had set up camp in caves and were hawking their wares to exhausted tourists fighting off the morning heat. Out of breath and out of water, we finally reached the Monastery, only to be tempted to continue on to the edge of the mountaintop just beyond it. There we clambered over the rocks to see the sweeping, desolate valley below, with some of the most jagged and dramatic rock faces I’ve ever seen. There I sensed the captivating mystery of Petra and I left the mountaintop very humbled.

2. Sunset and sunrise in Wadi Rum:

Just before sunset in the vast desert of Wadi Rum, all my classmates and I climbed in the back of Jeeps and held on for dear life as our Bedouin drivers tried to out-run each other across the sand dunes. The drivers took great delight in pitching the Jeeps over steep sand dunes and listening to us scream as if we were on roller coasters. We stopped to watch the sun drop between the rock formations and cast the entire desert in a golden, reddish glow. The next morning, my friends and I got up at 5 a.m. to summit the mountain behind our Bedouin camp. I’m glad it was pitch black because I don’t think I would have had the courage to rock climb if I had been able to see what I was doing. I blindly followed my goat-footed friends as they shimmied up the rock face. From the top, we shivered in our fleece jackets and watched as the distant horizon began to glow yellow. The black and blue desert turned rosy orange, and we saw a herd of camels silhouetted against the rising sun as they were being driven across the valley floor. When the sun finally crested and our stomachs began to growl, we decided to head back down the rock face. Going down, however, was much more terrifying than the scramble up. If it hadn’t been for the bravery and patience of my friends, I think I’d still be at the top of that rock praying for the tour bus to magically appear and take me down.

3. Snorkeling in Aqaba:

After worrying about modesty for months, you can imagine how excited the other students and I were about slipping into our swimsuits to enjoy the aqua waters of Aqaba. As Jordan’s only sea port, it’s a bustling commercial zone, but also a major tourist destination. After leaving the deserts of Wadi Rum we piled into glass-bottom boats and scooted around the beautiful waters of the Red Sea. We saw amazing coral reefs and even a sunken Lebanese ship. My attempt at snorkeling, however, was a bit of a failure. I gashed my foot on the boat as I jumped off, and then proceeded to swallow copious amounts of salty water. Nevertheless, it felt amazing to wash the desert sand off in such wonderfully warm water. I felt like I was in Hawaii! I did feel awkward, however, when we returned to the beach because all the local women were floating around fully clothed and wearing hijabs. I tried to wrap my towel around me as best I could, but I could still feel the stares.
4. A night at the eco-lodge in Dana:

After leaving Aqaba, we bused over to the Dana Nature Preserve south of the Dead Sea. Upon reaching a tiny village, we left the tour bus behind and piled ourselves and our luggage into truck beds. We bounced for 10 kilometers until we reached the Feynan Eco Lodge, which looked out of place among the simple Bedouin tents that dotted the hillsides. With it’s creamy adobe walls and graceful archways, the lodge would have been right at home in the glossy pages of Sunset Magazine. The lodge is a relatively new experiment in sustainable tourism. I enjoyed the delicious buffet of gourmet vegetarian food. There is no electricity in the lodge (except in the bathrooms), so at night we lit our rooms and the back deck with candles. We sat and played cards, enjoying the darkness. Around 9 p.m. our program director led a group of us on a night hike up the Wadi. After hearing howling in the canyon, he advised us to carry a large rock with us in case we are attacked by coyotes. I thought he was kidding at first, but when he started searching on the ground for a sharp one, I quickly did the same. Despite the scare, we made it back alive to the lodge several hours later. I felt bad though because on our way back we lost the trail and ended up trudging through a Bedouin camp. We saw men curled up in sleeping bags guarding their flock of sheep. That night I fell asleep to the lovely smell of candle smoke.

5. Floating in the Dead Sea:

As a California girl, I’ve been to dozens and dozens of beaches. But the Dead Sea is nothing like I’ve experienced ever before. When I took my first step into the water, I instantly became aware of its high salinity because the gash on my foot (courtesy of the boat in Aqaba) started stinging immensely. My friend splashed water into her eyes was blinded (and cursing) for the next five minutes. But, the amazing thing was that as I walked further out, my feet just floated upwards. It was impossible to stand in the Dead Sea. We just floated on our backs like we were swinging in hammocks. It took absolutely no effort at all to just bob around, but it was extremely difficult to make any headway swimming mainly because I couldn’t keep my body submerged deep enough to fully swim. After enjoying the novelty of such a salty sea, we all headed to the beach to slather ourselves with mud. The Dead Sea mud is famous for its therapeutic properties, but mainly I just felt dirty and itchy as the black mud dried on me. I will admit that we all looked rather ridiculous as we stood around awkwardly on the beach for 20 minutes waiting for the mud to harden. I’m not sure if the mud worked any miracles on me, but I think my skin may have been a tad softer when I returned home that night to Amman. The only change my host family noticed was that I was a bit tanner and smelled like salt.

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Since I arrived in Jordan, almost everyone I met, taxi drivers and lecturers alike, asked me who I would vote for in the U.S. presidential elections. I always said “Obama, of course!” and they would reward me with a big smile. But many of the people I met didn’t even know John McCain’s name. And very few had ever heard of Sarah Palin. Most don’t know much about Obama or his platform. Many people I spoke with referred to him as “al-uswad,” or “the black one.” One newspaper headline the day before the election read in Arabic, “Obama ‘The Black,’ will he be Mr. ‘White House’?” People I’ve spoken with seem fascinated, like the rest of America I suppose, with his skin color and whether he would fail because of it. When I asked about why they like Obama, some said simply that he’s not George W. Bush. Others said he was more like them, or that he would be the president for the world, not just for America. It seems that for them, Obama’s victory simply signals that America may be on their side. His victory affirms that George W. Bush was wrong and that the American people do care about the rest of the world.

I asked my host brothers and program directors about election parties in Amman, but apparently the city would be relatively quiet as usual. So, on the night of the election, I joined a group of 10 students in a hotel room to watch CNN and Al-Jazeera. Due to the time change, we didn’t start getting results until after 3 a.m., right when the exhaustion was starting to kick in. Surprisingly, Al-Jazeera was calling states for Obama or McCain about 5 to 10 minutes before CNN did, perhaps because the American stations were exercising more caution after last election’s debacle. One by one, we watched the states turn blue. Around 4 a.m., I passed out cold, and was awoken later by my friend shouting, “We have a new president! We have a new president!” We all piled on the couches to watch McCain’s concession speech, followed by Obama’s victory speech.

I don’t think I’ve ever been as homesick as when I watched the crowd cheering in Grant Park. I wanted so badly to be there with my sister and all of my friends, some of whom had press passes. I called my sister to vicariously experience the excitement of the crowd. She hung up after a minute or two, though, to get Obama’s rising sun symbol painted on her cheek. On television, Chicago seemed more alive than I’ve ever seen it, and I longed to join in the fun. Instead, I was half-asleep on a couch, half-a-world away. The streets of Amman were depressingly silent, and we were all too tired to break open the champagne. We feel asleep again around 8 a.m., and I slept until my parents called to tell me that my father had won the city council election in my hometown. A double victory for my family! Homesickness hit me hard that morning, and I drifted back to sleep feeling sad that I couldn’t celebrate with my family in California nor with the rest of Chicago.

On Wednesday, Obama’s name buzzed on the radio and on all the television stations. When I was walking down the street with a few American friends, a few people driving by rolled down their window to shout, “Mubruk!” (congratulations). My host family shared in my excitement and we all had a huge feast of fish in the afternoon. Together we watched Obama’s victory speech replayed and had an interesting talk about race-relations in the U.S. I spent the evening checking some of my favorite Jordanian blogs and browsing Global Voices for other Middle Eastern blogs to see what they had to say about the elections. Here is a sample, The Black Iris of Jordan, 7iber.com (see an article form Obama’s visit to Amman), 360 East, a round-up of Egyptian blogs, and a Syrian blog.

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I just spent a week in Cairo exploring ancient ruins, winding through alleys in a city of garbage, marveling at whirling dervishes, talking politics at the Arab League, chatting with Egyptian students, and listening to reggae under a bridge over the Nile. Overall, it’s been a whirlwind of activity and now that I’ve recovered from the Cairo curse (a.k.a. food poisoning), I’ll try to give you a taste of my experiences here. And don’t worry, I won’t bore you with the usual tourist tales of camels and pyramids.

Discussing politics in the Arab League

On Sunday my study abroad group met with a representative of the Arab League for a discussion. As a member of Northwestern’s Model Arab League, I was so excited to tour the building where the League meets and sit in their seats in the grand meeting hall. It was interesting to just ask the speaker for his thoughts about everything from the Israeli-Palestinian peace process (or lack thereof) to the Iraq War to pan-Arabism. Although I’m sure he wasn’t being completely frank with us, I felt he gave some very candid answers. He said it was no secret that the Arab League has major problems with the current American administration. The U.S.’s involvement is critical for any Israeli-Palestinian agreement to be reached, but he lamented the U.S.’s unwavering and unquestioning support for Israel. He argued that supporting Israel 100 percent of the time was not actually in the U.S.’s best interests. He explained that Israel only understands the language of violence because the international community has allowed it to do whatever it wants. If the U.S. wants to combat terrorism and extremism in the region, it needs to give people hope in their futures. He did not necessarily have a bright outlook on the future of U.S.-Arab relations. He talked about his doubts that the Middle East will be an immediate priority for the new American president, regardless of which candidate wins. As all our speakers do, he asked us who we were voting for. Considering that those of us choosing to study in the Middle East are by no means a representative sample of U.S. public opinion, I’m not quite sure why we are constantly asked this.

A visit to Garbage City

My host family has driven me through the Palestinian refugee camps in Amman and I thought that was true poverty in the Middle East. But nothing I have seen so far (and granted, I haven’t seen much), has been as shocking as Garbage City. I had read about Cairo’s City of the Dead, which is a slum built among the tombstones of an old graveyard, but Garbage City was another layer of poverty entirely. Behind Cairo’s grand old citadel and pressed up against the mountain is an entire city built on a garbage dump. I learned about Garbage City, or Moqqatam, from my sister’s friend, who had lived in Cairo and worked at an NGO there. She explained that this slum is where Cairo’s garbage workers live. They gather all the trash in the city and then bring it to their homes in Moqqatam and sift through it. A few friends and I cajoled a taxi driver into taking us to a rather unimpressive monastery on the top of the hill overlooking Garbage City. From the main highway, we could smell Garbage City before we saw it. Mountains of garbage towered over our car as we approached the city. Our taxi driver wrapped a scarf around his mouth and nose and drove through the narrow alleyways slowly. We saw piles of garbage almost six feet high inside crumbling brick buildings. Children sat on top of these piles, picking through the trash and eating whatever they found. Emaciated donkeys lingered outside decrepit, reeking buildings and men stacked tires into piles. Around noon we saw children in school uniforms running down the street, but I have no idea what school they went to or where. We weren’t in Garbage City for more than a few hours, but when I got back to the hotel that night, I realized the city’s smell had clung to my clothes. It’s amazing to me that the beautiful, manicured Al-Azhar Gardens were within sight of this slum. I realize that all big cities have their slums, but in all my travels I have never seen such extreme poverty and the wealth in such close proximity. With this sort of abject poverty hiding behind its fragile façade, it’s no wonder Egyptians’ glorify their ancient past so much. There is nothing to be proud of in the present if you have an entire community calling a garbage dump home.

Chatting about Egyptian media

One unbearably hot afternoon, our program directors sent us on “drop-offs,” which are sort of like scavenger hunts. Two other students and I were given a piece of paper with the name of a major newspaper and a few questions to ask. We were given a couple hours to find the newspaper, meet with someone there, and then report back to the group. After a hellish taxi ride (the driver had no idea where he was going and then the doors broke, requiring us to crawl out the window), we finally arrived, a bit frazzled and quite sweaty. We found an English-speaking editor who sat with us for a few hours to discuss his paper, politics, and his views on the media landscape there. He explained that unlike the U.S., the press is not seen as the watchdog of the government. When Nasser nationalized everything, including the papers, he undermined the pillars of civil society. Here in Cairo, readership is so low that it doesn’t even matter much if the papers publish articles exposing government corruption. He explained that Cairo has a “democracy of barking,” meaning that the government will allow people to bark because no one will listen. “It doesn’t even matter. Write whatever you want: Who will read you?” I wanted him to talk more about Egypt’s infamous blogging community, but he didn’t seem particularly aware of it or any of the controversy surrounding its censorship.

Talking with Egyptian college students

One morning my study abroad program took us to meet with some political science students at Cairo University. We gathered in a classroom and discussed their views on Egypt’s political system and economy. They seemed to be more in support of the government than I expected and had some interesting neoliberal opinions about the economy. The students and their professor also seemed very concerned with how we viewed Cairo and seemed shocked that we weren’t visiting more ancient Egyptian sites. Again, I got the sense that Egyptians want foreigners to only focus on their ancient history. I was most surprised, however, by the way we were bombarded with fliers as we filed out of the classroom. A few Egyptian students eagerly asked us to be in their student group promoting cross-cultural communication and world peace. Perhaps I’m just used to talking to jaded Northwestern students, but I was shocked by these Egyptian students’ optimism about world peace and their role in creating it. As they pitched their ideas to us, I kept thinking they were completely naive, but I must admit their enthusiasm was contagious. I put my e-mail address down on their list; I wonder if I’ll ever hear from them.

Music

On Saturday night my friends and I went to the Culture Wheel in Egypt, which has an amazing outdoor stage under a bridge crossing the Nile. We joined the mob surrounding the stage and danced to the Egyptian rappers. Everyone but us seemed to know the words to all their songs. I just enjoyed being in the midst of so many young Egyptians, some of the girls wearing hijabs, and some without. After a long day at the pyramids with all the throngs of tourists, it was refreshing to spend an evening experiencing modern Egyptian culture. Nothing about Pharaohs or the afterlife here. Just the rhythm and the dancing and the lights of the city glimmering on the Nile. We liked the venue so much we returned later in the week for a reggae concert and stayed after the show was over, just chatting with a few Egyptian guys and playing guitar on the banks of the Nile.

Another night we went to the old mausoleum near Al-Azhar in Old Cairo to see the whirling dervishes performance. I have never seen anything like it. These Sufi dancers spun in circles for over an hour to the beat of the drums and the squealing flute. A singer wailed from the balcony of the mausoleum overlooking the stage. The dancers’ giant skirts swirled about them, revealing their colorful undersides. The men unwound their turbans as they spun, with huge smiles plastered across their faces. They looked completely oblivious to the audience snapping photos and clapping as they spun increasingly faster. It seemed like such a beautiful way to express their love for God.

Glad to be back in Amman

Visiting Cairo made me appreciate Amman a lot more. Granted, Cairo seems more happening than Amman. In Amman everything seems new and beige, but Cairo just seemed to burst with history and life. I loved its mismatched architecture, crazy traffic, bright lights, and fun bars. The Nile was gorgeous, smelly, and calming all at once. But it was difficult to enjoy Cairo’s beauty because of the constant harassment. Amman’s tribal society has protected me from any trouble here, but in Cairo I was grabbed, chased and endlessly taunted. The police were the worst tormentors. Also, the mountains of trash everywhere made me concerned for this crowded city’s environmental sustainability. The food made nearly everyone on my program sick, even our Jordanian program directors. I thought my stomach had been toughened in Amman, but I still succumbed to an awful bout of food poisoning. I guess the Egyptians have just gotten used to it, but I am still concerned that their water and food seems to be such poor quality. Also, the air pollution was even worse than in L.A. When I got off the plane in Jordan, I gulped in the fresh air. I wish Amman had Cairo’s lively nightlife and rich history, but I am definitely glad to be back home with my host family.

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Never in my life have I felt as out of place as I did for the past three days in the Badia, which is the desert region in northeast Jordan. For three days I wore a hijab and a dishdash, lived in a one bedroom house with eight people and baked so many cookies I think I have carpal tunnel syndrome. It was definitely an experience.

It started on the bus ride from Mafraq to my village, Um Al-Qatain, which is just two kilometers or so from the Syrian border. I could just feel the four men in the seat behind me staring intently at me. I self-consciously put a scarf over my hair and tried to concentrate on the view, which was mostly just flat, rocky ground dotted by sheep, shacks and power lines. The desert looked like it could just go on forever in all directions. Dust blew in clouds over the red earth and burned my eyes. But soon enough I saw the sign for my village. The bus driver made a few phone calls and then dropped me off at the house. The white-washed little house stood behind a wall, surrounded by a little garden with flowers and vegetables. Munira, a mother of six, welcomed me inside. The first thing she said was (in Arabic), “You are my daughter now, call me Mama.” She swiftly drew a few pins out of her dress and pinned my scarf tighter around my face, making sure all my hair was tucked inside.

She introduced her children, although it took me a few days to get the names right. The eldest was Wijdan, a 15-year-old girl, followed by Hannan, Hanneen, Hassan, Riwan and Wizan, who was just a year and a half old. At first the little kids wouldn’t go near me, instead hiding behind the door frames and giggling every time I smiled at them. We all sat down on the floor and started rolling rice into cabbage leaves for dinner, while watching a soap opera from Saudi Arabia. Their living room did not have any furniture, save for the television stand. It did, however, have plenty of mats and pillows on the floor. None of them spoke a word of English to me, although I know from looking at the eldest daughter’s textbook that she knows more English than I know Arabic.

Munira explained the virtues of fasting during Ramadan and told me I should do it too. I hadn’t planned on fasting during my stay there, but it seemed uncomfortable not to, especially since even the nine-year-old girl was fasting. So, for three days I fasted with the family. It was incredibly difficult to spend all day in the kitchen cooking and smelling the food when we couldn’t eat anything. The thirst, though, was much more difficult than foregoing food. I’ve never looked forward to sunset so much before in my life.

Soon the father drove up in a truck, the back overflowing with tomato plants. After re-pinning my scarf, Munira sent me outside with the other kids to help pull the tomato plants from the truck. One kid opened the gate for all the goats and sheep to come out and nibble away at the tomatoes. I was a bit disappointed that my family didn’t have any camels. I brought out my camera to take photos of the animals and the kids soon swarmed around me. I gave them my camera to play with, but they mainly photographed their own shoes.

Then it was back to the kitchen for more cooking, which is what Munira and I did for the majority of my time in the Badia. It seemed Munira’s daily life was consumed by three tasks: breast-feeding the baby, cooking and braiding her five daughters’ hair. While I was there, she only left the house when her husband drove her somewhere. I tried to imagine what it would be like if my own life was contained by just four walls.

When my family took me to relatives’ houses for visits, several women showed me their wedding photo albums. I was shocked to see that these women in front of me, covered head-to-toe in blacks and beiges, had albums filled with glamor shots. Wearing billowing, bejeweled gowns, the women were photographed with thick make-up and elaborate hair-dos. Their bare shoulders were studded with rhinestones and glitter. They posed seductively, their faces surrounded by hearts and Edwardian script reading “A beautiful bride.” They seemed so proud of their photos, probably a once-in-a-lifetime chance to dress up so provocatively.

On my second day in the Badia, I was going crazy from staying in the tiny house for so long. I wanted to explore the town and just get away from the kitchen and the screaming kids. When I asked to take a walk around the neighborhood, Munira looked shocked and said, “No, not unless your father takes you.” I almost cried with frustration. Finally she agreed to let her son take me down about 50 feet to the corner of the dirt road and then back to the house. Needless to say, it wasn’t exactly the most liberating walk.

I was surrounded by people in this tiny four-room house, yet I still felt so isolated from the rest of the world. For those three days I didn’t go online, watch the news on TV or read a newspaper. Everything was just about food, family and feeding the goats. It was quiet and simple, but still a bit stifling for me, especially since most of the time I couldn’t follow the family’s rapid-fire conversation. It was peaceful at night though, when everyone took their mats and blankets off a huge stack and spread them out on the floor of the TV room. All nine of us curled up on the mats and fell asleep. Every night we woke up around 4:30 a.m. to eat a small breakfast before dawn. I honestly couldn’t eat at that time of the morning, but I still got up with the sleepy-eyed children who mechanically dipped their bread in oil and slowly swallowed it.

On my last day in the Badia, my eldest host sister took me to her school. It felt great to actually take a walk beyond the confines of the house. First we lined up outside the school and did half-hearted calisthenics as the principal shouted into the megaphone. Then we chanted “Jordan first!”, sang the national anthem and raised the flag. Since it was the day before the Eid holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan, most of the girls were at home cooking or were taken to the larger city of Mafraq to shop. Consequently, the teachers didn’t even attempt to have class. I was paraded from room to room, where I was surrounded by girls bombarding me with questions. One group of twelve girls barricaded the door with desks to keep their teachers and the other students out and preceded to ask me about Hollywood movie stars. At their request, I sang “My Heart Will Go On” from “Titanic“, and tried not to cringe. They also showed me their best dances moves and begged me to shake like Shakira. And I did. Probably not my finest moment, but it sent them into a fit of giggles and they tried to imitate. Then they told me all about their plans to study at universities and become doctors or teachers. Despite their graffiti-covered school and isolation in the Badia, they had big dreams. I hope these earnest, ambitious girls are able to achieve everything they want.

Monday night we anxiously waited for the Eid announcement on television. When the news broke that the Eid would start on Tuesday, the kids ran through the house shouting “Eid bukra!” Since no public transportation runs during the holiday, the other students and I were picked up by a bus and taken back to Amman so we could be with our real homestay families during the holiday. I was honestly sad to leave my Badia family. As I was packing, Munira tried giving me her own dishdashes and hijabs to wear. She even pulled hair clips out of her daughters’ hair to give me as gifts. I was overwhelmed by her generosity and left with a box of cookies, a few hair clips, a hijab and a bolt of cloth to make my own dishdash. I hope to return some day, inshallah!

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My newfound Jordanian friend invited me to her aunt’s house for iftar. Located on the outskirts of Amman, the house was lovely and had a beautiful garden and patio. Tonight’s specialty: munsuf, which is a bed of rice covered with lamb, and janeeb, which is a sauce made from dried yogurt. When I arrived, her aunts had their sleeves rolled up and were cleaning a sheep in the kitchen sink. Cleaning the head properly is the most important task. They washed out the mouth, nose, and ear holes, and then dropped it into a pot of boiling water. Later they put everything in a giant metal vat over a fire outside and boiled it for a few hours.

In the meantime, the aunts asked me to make an apple pie. One of the aunts had lived in the Midwest for a few years and she was hoping to see how I made this quintessential American dish. Without my grandma’s recipe or the familiar U.S. ingredients, I had to improvise a bit. Plus, she handed me a giant 16-inch dish. This was definitely the largest, strangest pie I’ve ever made. The maid went out and picked a giant bucket full of apples, so for most of the afternoon I sat at the kitchen table peeling and slicing while the other women buzzed around me, preparing the feast. They watched as I rolled out the giant ball of dough and helped me shape the crust. By the time twilight fell, I was streaked with flour, but I had a decent-looking pie ready for the oven.

For dinner, all the relatives came over to eat the munsuf. The women and I sat around one table, while the men all gathered around a giant plate of munsuf in another section of the courtyard. This was the first time I had eaten a meal separated by gender, but with so many guests perhaps it was just a matter of practicality. One of the men brought over a piece of the sheep’s brain for me to try. I couldn’t turn it down because it is considered a huge honor to be offered this delicacy. I popped it in my mouth and tried to chew it. It was horribly soft and salty, and it stuck to the roof of my mouth. I started to gag, but forced myself to swallow and smile. Many of the women started laughing and I feared I my face had betrayed me, but then they told me I was brave. Many of them don’t like the sheep’s brain either. My friend, however, licked up her piece of brain happily.

After dinner, the men gathered in one circle to smoke argeela, while the other women gathered in another circle to chitchat and eat qataief. I tried baking my pie in the oven, but I had trouble getting the right temperature. Also, I failed to turn on the top burner in the oven, so only the bottom of my pie was actually being cooked. Eventually, however, I pulled it out of the oven, baked to my satisfaction. In the meantime, the aunts had called more relatives to come over to the house to taste the apple pie. I was very nervous as I carried it out into the courtyard and served it to all the relatives. Of course, they all complimented me and said it was delicious, but when I tasted it I realized the crust wasn’t quite right. Oh well. The uncle who owned the house said to me, “Tonight you are just like my own daughter.” I felt so happy to be welcomed by the family.

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1. Listening to “Barbie Girl” while cruising towards Mount Nebo: Last weekend a few friends and I ventured out of Amman and towards the Dead Sea. My host brother arranged for a friend of a friend of a friend to guide us around the village of Madaba and surrounding area. We piled into the back of a minibus and our new Jordanian friend and the driver blasted “Barbie Girl” and several Enrique Iglesias songs while they drove us on the windy road up to Mount Nebo. As they belted out “Bailamos,” we gaped at the beautiful scenery passing by our windows. We just about melted in the heat, but the views were incredible. Mount Nebo is where Moses saw the Promised Land and then died. From the top we saw the sweeping plains of Transjordan, the Dead Sea, and of course, Israel shimmering in the distance.

2. A waterfall in the desert? What? At the suggestion of my host brother, we ventured out to Hammamat al-Ma’in buried in a gorge near the Dead Sea. He promised me beautiful waterfalls, but I must say that I was doubtful as we wound our way through water-less hills dotted with a few scraggly trees, loose rocks and few signs of life. The hills were varying shades of brown and black, and everything was covered with dust. The road down to Hammamat al-Ma’in crisscrossed the canyon wall with hairpin turns. I really thought our van was going to careen off the edge more than a few times, but once we got to the bottom, it was fabulous. There were several huge waterfalls spilling from natural springs in the canyon. Before I reached the main waterfall, I stuck my foot in a stream, expecting it to be cool and refreshing. Instead, I scalded my foot and hopped around in pain for the next few minutes. Thankfully the waterfall was tolerably hot. It felt fantastic to stand under the waterfall and get a full back massage by the pounding mineral water spilling over the cliff.

3. The best Roman ruins outside of Italy: My second weekend in Jordan, a few friends and I ventured north of Amman and up to Jerash, an ancient Roman city. The ruins weren’t as well-preserved or extensive as Pompeii, but I was still impressed by their beauty. We explored two giant amphitheaters, a long hippodrome, Roman temples, markets, churches, and even a crumbling Umayyad palace. The columns were burnt a beautiful orange color and jutted up dramatically from the dusty landscape. What I loved the most was that we were allowed to climb all over everything – there were no roped-off areas or “Do Not Enter” signs. We freely roamed the hill, scampering over fallen columns and exploring dark passageways. I’m disappointed that we missed the Jerash Festival, a huge celebration of music and culture held every summer in the ruins. I’m sure viewing these ruins by night would have been an amazing experience.

4. Enjoying a palatial view: For iftar one night, my family took me to their relative’s house in the hilly, old part of Amman. The extremely narrow streets were clearly built before cars made their way to Amman. After driving up a precariously steep and windy road, we were treated to a sweeping view of Amman. From their roof we could see the sprawling palace complex on the next hill over. The view was dominated by the giant Jordanian flag, waving from the tallest flag pole in the world. While the rest of Amman is a sea of beige, square houses, the palace complex seemed strikingly green, with the roofs of tall buildings peeking out through the trees. My host family joked that from their roof you could see the King eating his breakfast.

5. Cruising Amman with a local: Last night a newfound Jordanian friend took me and a fellow American student on a nighttime drive around Amman. Even though we had only met her one other time, she was extremely generous and friendly. She insisted we speak in Arabic, although we slipped up quite a bit, and blared techno music as we sped through the streets of Amman. She took us out in the boonies to a 100-year-old café where we smoked argeela and chatted. Along the way she pointed out the best nightclubs and cafes to go to – which will be more fun in another couple weeks when Ramadan ends. She then took us to her favorite coffee stand in Amman, where she shouted out her order without leaving the car. She handed us steaming cups that seemed to be filled with more sugar than coffee, but it was delicious. We then found a pool hall and bowling alley, but it was too crowded for us to play. Today I’m going to her house to learn how to cook the iftar feast. I’m excited to learn!

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Tonight I visited a mosque for the first time with one of my Arabic teachers and a few other female students. I’m sure we made quite a sight –- a bunch of fair-skinned Americans self-consciously fumbling with head scarves by the light of a streetlamp outside a mosque in the middle of Amman. With all our hair and skin covered, we removed our shoes and walked in.

I must say I was surprised that we were not actually going in the mosque; instead, we went under it and into the basement. Apparently only the men are allowed to pray in the actual mosque. We went to a long, unremarkable room and listened to the imman’s voice broadcast through a speaker. The walls were lined with shelves for shoes and posters with Qaranic verses. Children ran around, pulling on their mothers’ robes and trying their best to distract them from their prayers. The women stood in straight rows of 50 or more, kneeling and prostrating on command. Their foreheads touched the thick blue carpet almost in unison. The breeze created by the ceiling fans caused their long robes and abiyas to billow around them. Some were dressed in all black, while others were wore delicate floral prints or checks. Sequins and beads adorned some head scarves, while others were plain and white. As I watched from the back of the room, all I saw was a wall of multicolored fabric standing and kneeling. It was quite beautiful.

After she completed a set of prayers, my Arabic teacher explained them. When you stand with your feet together and your hands across your belly, you are signifying that the only space you own on earth is the space beneath your feet. It’s supposed to be a humbling posture: no matter how much wealth you have, you still only occupy that small space. Next, you bend over with your hands on your knees, showing deference to Allah. Then you drop to the ground and kneel, touching your forehead to the ground. This is to remind you that you came from the earth and are still part of it. Then you sit up and say that there is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his messenger. Next you turn to each shoulder and greet the two angels sitting there who record all the good and bad deeds that you do. You repeat these movements over and over again, sometimes taking breaks. My Arabic teacher said that some people will stay from after the iftar to the early morning hours.

Then a few other students and I joined the prayer line and started the movements. Honestly, it reminded me a bit of yoga class with all the calisthenics. It was a bit comforting to go through the movements while listening to the soothing chanting of the imam. All the kneeling and standing reminded me of the Catholic Masses of my childhood, minus the fancy altar and candles, of course. I felt extremely uncomfortable in my hijab though, and more than once a nearby woman chided me because it came undone and showed a bit of my collarbone or hairline.

After we finished a set of prayers, about a dozen women came up to me and my classmates. Several wanted to know if we desired Arab husbands, because their sons were available. My Arabic teacher laughed nervously and told them we weren’t on the market just yet. I asked if the women cared whether we were Muslim , and she said no — being American and attractive were sufficient requisites. Other women came up and asked if we were Muslim and what we were doing there. We chatted with them a bit, and a few gave us books about Islam.

On our way out, my teacher showed us the wash room next door and the proper way to cleanse yourself before your prayers. You are supposed to wash your hands, arms, eyes, mouth, nose, face, neck and feet three times each. She methodically washed each of these body parts, counting softly as she splashed water on herself. This is supposed to wash away any dirtiness or sin that you saw or experienced in order to purify yourself before you present yourself to Allah.

Overall, I was struck by how welcoming everyone was in the mosque and I found many of the rituals to be very beautiful. I was a bit unnerved that the women were only allowed to pray in the basement, probably because I’m used to the family atmosphere in my own Catholic church. In the mosque, only the imam seemed to have a role in the service, whereas during Mass, many people help with the readings, collection, and communion. I think I missed the participatory nature of a Christian church service. Nevertheless, the two services were much more alike than I would have imagined. The singing and kneeling were all familiar and comforting. This Sunday I hope to attend a Catholic church here in Amman and see how different my own religion is half a world away from home.

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