traffic

fact: traffic accidents are the 2nd leading cause of death in jordan. don't worry though, i think i've already filled my quota for getting into one, because on the second day of orientation our bus squashed the front of a taxi while we were backing up. check that off the list!
side note: 1st leading cause of death=cardiovascular disease... you'd think they would quit smoking?

some friendly bartering

this morning i accompanied my host mom and sister to a pottery workshop, because farah needed to buy an engagement gift for her friend. she had found some handmade lamp-bases she liked in a store at the mall, but didn't want to buy them there because they were too expensive, so she was able to find out the place where they were actually made. so, we drove to this random looking row of car-repair stalls, turned the corner to go around back, and entered the pottery store (a treasure it would be very difficult to find if you weren't looking for it). once farah had found the lamp base she liked, the real action began: abeer stepped up and started to discuss the price. the store owner informed her it was 25JOD each; abeer said she would only pay 15 each. this discussion continued back and forth for about five minutes, at a very high volume, but in a friendly tone, with both abeer and the shopkeeper smiling and laughing at each other the whole time. with neither party willing to budge from their quoted price, abeer proceeded to bring out the big guns: she called a friend of hers who had supposedly paid only 15 for such a lamp base there, and handed the phone to the shopkeeper so that he could hear for himself that the price should be 15. the shopkeeper then discussed with the phone-a-friend for another five minutes, with abeer chiming in in his ear, with the name of allah being invoked as being on the side of both parties, etc. however, the phone-a-friend attempt did not persuade the shopkeeper to go down to 15, so they agreed on 20 per lamp base. abeer then proceeded to buy two extra for her own living room, in addition to the two farah was already buying. as we waited for all the purchases to be packaged, the conversation turned to the curiosity of my presence in the shop (note, this narrative makes it seem like i understand much more arabic than i do- in reality, the words i caught from this conversation were the numbers, 'allah,' and 'meghan,' and the rest was guessed/inferred from body language). anyway, when informed of my obvious visitor status in jordan, the shopkeeper gave me a tour of the back of the shop where all his pottery was made, and then informed me that all visitors to jordan/his shop have to take home a gift. i was subsequently pressed into selecting something from the shelves- my first choice, a small cup meant for serving turkish coffee, was deemed entirely too small, and i was instructed to pick something better. i thus came away with a beautiful bowl decorated with a flower mosaic- a wonderful memento of jordan and of the extent of arab hospitality.

beverly hills

my host family lives in the amman version of beverly hills, and i think this may be the nicest house i have ever been in in my entire life, anywhere it is insane!



i have my own room, and internet, both of which are extremely uncommon here. my family is so nice and very welcoming. my host dad is ibrahim, mom abeer, brothers ala, amr and mohammed (28, 26, 19), and sister farah (23). in case you can't tell from the fact that their son's name is mohammed, my host family is muslim, which is exciting for me to be able to learn more about their faith. however, they are also very modern- neither my host mom or sister wear the hijab, and they all dress in western-style clothes, except for today when it was cool to see my host dad head off for friday (muslim holy day) prayers at the mosque in more traditional muslim garb. ibrahim is a retired brigadier general (a.k.a. really important person- i think this must be where the family's wealth comes from) in the jordanian police, and he now teaches law at the university. abeer doesn't work, just takes care of the family. ala is recently engaged and currently working in dubai, amr is a law intern, farah works for a jordanian cell phone company, and mohammed is a second-year finance student at my university. all three of my host brothers are apparently champion squash players- mohammed is currently in egypt for some sort of tournament. they all speak some amount of english, which has made these first days of communication a little easier, but hopefully as my vocab comes back to me we'll speak almost all arabic.
also, in arab society, the concept of family is in no way limited to mom-dad-kids; in the course of today alone (think multiple visitors/visiting excursions and soooo many cups of tea) i met three of abeer's sisters- and their families- and her parents, as well as two of her friends/neighbors. friday is not only a holy day for muslims, but it is also considered family day, and visiting is definitely the activity of choice. it was actually kind of funny because i discovered that a fair number of abeer's family and friends also host ciee students, so many visits included other host-kids. but it was a great day, i enjoyed meeting everyone and definitely got a good sense of the family ties that bind arab society- and of the faithfully practiced custom of offering tea to guests :)

ahlan wa sahlan!

^which means 'welcome!' (to jordan, and to part deux of my blog). less than 24 hours in jordan so far and i've already had numerous adventures, the most exciting of which was swimming, or rather, floating, in the dead sea!! instead of holing up in a conference room today, we drove about an hour outside of amman to the dead sea, where despite the hazy and not-so-warm weather, we enjoyed the view and feel of the saltiest sea on earth/the lowest point on earth. the rift the sea lies in has some incredible geology- there were more different colors of rock rising up around the water than i've ever seen before in one place, and the faces and ridges are gorged in such a way that you know the water used to rush there.


the sea itself is shrinking due to evaporation and the derouting of its old sources by the surrounding countries due to their extreme water shortages (jordan is the 4th poorest country in the world in terms of water supply per capita), lowering in level by about 1 meter per year- not good! the water is huge but calm, and holds a peaceful silence over its valley. across the water are the hills of the west bank and israel, and on a clearer day we could've seen jerusalem in the distance- crazy.


"swimming" in it was lots of silliness- you literally cannot make yourself sink; if you try to swim freestyle your legs are floated uselessly up behind you and you don't get much of anywhere, so the best form of movement is rowing your arms while in a sitting position; if you try to float standing straight up the buoyancy just flips you to one side or another- i learned what the buoys in the lake must feel like just bobbing along :) and let me tell you, it is REALLY salty- tasting it burns your tongue, and if you are as careless as i am and splash yourself in the eye while attempting to swim, it takes a good five minutes for your eye to stop burning (oops). the water itself has a smooth silky texture, and when you get out and dry off the water, you are left with a nice layer of salt everywhere. anyway, quite the experience, a lot of fun, and a definite check-that-off-the-list thing for my time in jordan.


upon arrival last night mikki and i were for some reason treated to a private cab ride to the hotel instead of the ciee bus, so we jumped into the arabic speaking by chatting with our driver- it was a great way to arrive. after dropping our bags we were then treated to a wonderful little welcome party of baklava and tea with sage by simone, a girl who is starting her second semester here. it was interesting to see the reality of the separated-by-sex café scene, we women sat upstairs while men occupied the larger room downstairs. but everyone i've met here has been incredibly welcoming- from the ciee staff, to the man on the street who called out "hello, welcome!" to us while we were walking, to the kodak shop owner today who gave me as a gift a blown-up and flower-bordered version of the passport photo of myself i went there to take :) very kind, and very jordanian. mom, i'll be sure to bring that photo back for you because i don't know what in the world else to do with such a photo of myself haha.
all in all a wonderful time so far. hopefully dead sea pictures to come later, but apparently the whole country is notorious for slow/limited internet bandwith so we'll see :)

patagonia

so i'm a little belated with this post, but better late than never. i kept some notes during our trip, but i figure it's better to have everything chile in one place so i'm going to put parts or highlights or something of them here. in december my mom and jan arrived in chile ready for adventure. we spent a couple days on either end in jay's and my homestays (with unparalleled hospitality in both places i might add) getting to know santiago and viña/valpo, but the main chunk of the moms' trip we spent in patagonia. neither words nor photos can succeed in capturing the pure beauty we were privileged to see there, but it's got to at least be tried.


the trip was gorgeous right from the plane ride down- along la cordillera the whole way with great views out of the blues of the lakes and white snowy peaks popping out of the clouds.


the seven days we spent hiking in the park (torres del paine) were wonderful- we got super lucky with weather and barely needed to pull out our rain gear the whole trip. we did have a couple spots of extreme wind, but that was more fun than bothersome :) every day along the trail and every evening at the refugios we met fellow trekkers from all around the world who were inevitably very kind and also very interesting, spoke like five languages and were just seeing the world for any number of months- we were continuously impressed/jealous. simply incredible scenery- definitely in 'big' country, in the sense of the big tall mountains and rock faces towering next to us, and in the big neverending nature in every direction as far as you can see- everything seems to come in a single magnificent size. hiking along i would keep turning 360's or pausing to really look around me, and the views were never disappointing. the torres and the cuernos were unique and impresionante, glacier grey and its icebergs were pretty and stately with its jagged ice blue expanses, and the lakes came in every single shade of blue- sometimes more like green/grey like the glacial one jay got us to swim in- literally ice but exhilarating and worth it :), but no matter what shade they were the color was rich and pure.





the enormous hanging glaciers in valle francés were crazy- we kept hearing and seeing the thunder of mini-avalanches as gravity fought to bring them down from their ridges.


we came across wildflowers of purple, white, yellow, orange, or fiery red that seemed to be everywhere.


jay and i kept wishing we had danny (or any geologist) along with us to explain how or why the rock hills had so many colors to them- mostly a grey granite, but often crowned with black that looked like someone just painted a line of it across the top, and then sometimes infused with red-orange streaks brought out by the sun. a couple of nights we saw some really cool clouds- sort of a cross between beehives and thick whipped mashed potatos.


we never had to worry about water supply because you can drink straight from the streams and the water tastes bright cold and fresh. after great hikes every day we enjoyed the luxury of showers, dinner, and vino at the refugios, along with our week-long hearts tournament in which jay kicked us all, even mom :) we ended the week of trekking down by lake pehoe and got to look back on the W and see where we'd been and where our own two feet had taken us in only a few short days- i could have spent months there and been so happy.


but, christmas was coming and we had places to be so we headed for home, with a stop on the way to see some pingüinos (and pingüinitos!) in their natural habitat at the southern tip of the world.