May 30th- Dinner at Waed's

            Great day in Irbid.  I spent all day looking forward to dinner at Waed’s house.  We had normal class, and normal lunch (falafel sandy).  After class I went straight home because I had to give Waed and Muhammad passport photos that I had to RETAKE because I lost one of the ones that I bought from CVS- annoying.  Anyway… THIS is my passport photo.  The guy who took it was like very seriously setting up the shot (fixing my hair, telling me to stand up straight, and not to smile).  Anyway, I went back to the apartment and gave them the pictures.  I wanted to shower and have alone time, but we did not have water.  I will diverge and talk about the water situation for a moment…

            Water is EXTREMELY scarce in Jordan (it has a terrible ranking of global water availability~5th worst in the world-- I have to re-look up that stat, but it's something like that).  Our apartment has one water tank that gets re-filled regularly, but you have to kind of summon the water to each individual apartment.  There is a 100-liter water tank for each apartment, and you are supposed to flip a switch by the lights to fill up your tank.  You can only have the switch on for an hour or so or else the tank will overheat and something bad will happen.  As a group of 10 people (3 apartments), we have left our tank on 3 times… our doorman (hes not a doorman, but IDK what to call him… housekeeper?? name: Abu Muhammad- more to come about him later) had to cut the wire to our apartments’ tank twice, and another apartment once.  It’s bad, but not as bad as it could have been if he didn’t (then EVERYONE would loose water).  Once he cuts the water, he calls the electrician to fix it, but it is a pain in the neck and means that we don’t have water until the electrician comes (which is actually quicker than I had expected).  Basically, we just have to get used to this new system, and can’t mess up again.  I put post-its around the house to remind peeps, so insha’allah it will not happen again.

  Anyway- we did not have water in our apartment, but I showered in Jack’s apartment and then still had the alone time that I wanted in our apartment.  After my shower and alone time, I went to the roof and rested & read one (out of 12) of the US Weeklys that I was able to sneak into my suitcase against my mom’s wishes.  It was great.  More peeps joined me, and then we went downstairs to get ready for dinner!!

            Waed told us to wear warm clothes because she lives on the “mother of the wind” hill, and it gets very windy at night, so I wore jeans and a ¾ length tee shirt with a scarf and brought my Patagonia. We took taxis there.  I took a taxi with Waed and Nicole.  Waed was telling us about what it was like coming home for the first time after spending three YEARS abroad.  She was telling us that everyone said she looks so happy and different, and the cab driver thought she was American too.  She taught him some English grammar on the ride over, and then we got there.      

            We were welcomed with very warm arms.  Waed & Muhammad's families were there.  It was hard to keep the families straight- there were a lot of people there. We sat in the family room and were kind of separated.  The American students were on one side and the family members were on the other side.  Waed came in and dispersed us, so we were all sitting together.  It was kind of awkward at some points, but it was great once we broke the ice.  I was sitting with Sarah and Muhammad's sister, and made the most rookie mistake in the book. In Arab culture, if someone complements you, you are supposed to give them whatever they complemented you on.  In an effort to break the ice, I told Muhammed's sister that her ring was "jemeela".  She immediately took it off and gave it to me.  She wouldn't take no for an answer, and kept on saying "halas" "halas" like- it's done- blah blah. I felt so terrible, but there was nothing I could do.  Nicole has a picture of the ring... It's from Palestine and is nice, but not an every-day ring... more of a going out ring.  I will wear it in good health
       We had MANSIF, which is slow-cooked lamb, rice and yogurt sauce.  It was so good, and Molly is a vegetarian, so they made grape leaves, which were SO good.  Muhammad's father is a HOOT.  They call him the encyclopedia because he knows SO MUCH.  He was going over Arabic conjugations with me at dinner, which was funny.  He took a liking to Max.  They became fast friends, here's a PIC!  
            At the end of the night we all went UPSTAIRS and sat around a fire and chatted more.  The mother of the wind hill was VERY high, and you could see ALL of Irbid (see main pic...)