Finally

So here is what I have. The pictures took too long this time, so you just get writing.

Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th:
Saturday is our travel day so that is what we did. We left our apartment promptly at 7:30am and headed to the Jordan River. On the way we stopped at the sea level point and took pictures. Then we continued on to the river. It was a good thing we went there first because even at 8 or 9am it was really hot and very humid. We got there and climbed into one of the tourist shuttles, it’s more of an open safari vehicle than a shuttle though. We stopped at Elijah’s hill, where they think Elijah was translated. Then we kept going on to a point and looked at the Jordan River. Then we went to the site that is suspected to be Jesus’ baptism site. Then we went to another part of the river where we could actually touch the water, which was kind of gross, but another one of those once in a lifetimes. At that part, Israel/Palestine, depending on where you are, was right on the other side. It was really weird. Both sides had their own flags flying and guards standing at the edges. There are some old churches surrounding the area (one of the reasons why they think they know where it is), but I was more interested in the history of the area then the cathedral ruins. From the bank we could also see Jericho. It is now looking like we may not be able to go to Jerusalem, so that might have been as close as I will ever get. Then we headed to Mt. Nebo where Moses looked out over the Promised Land and later was translated. It would have been a lot neater if it hadn’t been so hazy, but on a clear day you are supposed to be able to see the Dead Sea, Jericho, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and other cities. There were also ancient church remains there too.
After that we headed to a souvenir/mosaic shop. Elaine says that it is the best there is, but after spending as much money as I did and then seeing prices here in Amman I have a feeling EVERYTHING was GROSSLY overpriced. Let’s just say you all better love your gifts … a lot. After the shop we went and got shwermas and freshly squeezed juice at a little place. We headed to Mukawir. It is in the middle of a desert, well everything was, but that is where Herod built his castle. It is the place where Salome danced and then requested John the Baptist’s head. It was probably a 20-30 min walk along a stony path up the mountain to get there. It was pretty much ruins, but they had reconstructed some pillars where Salome would have danced. After that we headed to the Church of the Map. It is a really old mosaic map of the Middle East that is pretty accurate. We got ice cream and headed home. Then we went for a little walk up to a candy store and then the bread store. A pretty full day. A lot of the stuff was kind of get out of the car, take a look, and then leave, but I still wanted to see all of it.
On Sunday three girls went with some students to a labor and delivery clinical. When they got there they said everyone loved them. One doctor or nurse said “You deliver babies?” and they were like “Oh, no, we’ve just watched before.” And the man said “No. You deliver babies.” So they all actually got to catch babies. They said that their students just sat around and studied, but they got to do everything. I kind of wish I had been able to go, but we are going to try to see if we can go visit sometime soon. I don’t know if it is a possibility but it’s worth a try.
Instead the rest of us went shopping. We left at 10, which is late, but nothing was open until noon. We putted around and then went out to lunch at a disappointing restaurant. Then we went to Ali-Afgani. The best souvenir shop ever, well the best I’ve been to yet. This is the little store that let us know how much we overspent at the other place. We were probably in there for like 2 hours choosing different items. The salesman was really nice, pulled everything out of the bags so we could see, and gave us deals on everything. When we were finally ready to check out we told him we were really sorry for using so much of his time and that we would be coming back later and with more people. He said no problem, gave us his card, and free pens. I got almost everything I wanted/needed so we were all really happy. We met up with our other half and went out for ice cream at a little shop near our house. I guess we do that a lot. Did you know there is an ice cream flavor called “Arab?” Every time we ask what it is they just say “Arab.” I can tell there is pistachio in it, but we don’t know what else. Clinical tomorrow, that’s it.

Random: So here are some things I’ve noticed and some things people have asked me.
- In the hospital we work with a UJ student and follow them around. We are supposed to help them learn proper nursing care and assessments. Like I’ve said before they can recite the book word for word, but some have never even used a stethoscope.
- It is hot now
- I’m having a lot of fun
- Almost every minute of every day is planned. Relaxation is rare
- I now go to bed early and wake up early. It has never been like this before. I crash around 10:30 and wake up refreshed at 6:30. Too bad it will all be ruined when I go back to a time zone 10 hours behind me
- My English is suffering. We all talk like we are uneducated now
- Jordanians are very straightforward and rude according to our standards
- Jordanians are also VERY competitive
- They do not exercise let alone understand why anyone would, but to be fair the women can’t in front of people.
- The elevators take forever. I took the stairs to the 6th floor, which is really like the 8th or 9th, and beat the students
- Apparently this is how the floors of the hospital work: -2, -1, Ground, 0, T.G. (we don’t know what that one stands for, it is the mystery floor), OR, Private rooms/OB, 2, 3, 4 …8?
- Curbs are at least a foot high
- The sidewalks are not for walking but to prevent cars from driving on them
- There are no traffic laws
- There are some traffic laws, but no one follows them
- Nobody wears seatbelts
- Car seats do not exist
- Lines in the road either mean it is the edge of a lane or it’s the place you should line up the middle of your car
- Sometimes it’s a 2 lane road, sometimes it’s a 3 lane road, sometimes it’s a 4 lane road
- Honking is everyone’s medium of communicating
- It is perfectly ok to light a cigarette inside, or outside, or in a car, or where ever you like
- Women smoke too, just not in public, and if in public it’s in the bathroom
- Taxi drivers don’t always know where you live
- Everything is mostly pretty cheap
- Their opinions of Americans are what they see on TV
- Our opinions of them are also wrong
- Prayer happens 5 times a day
- There is a gas truck that circles constantly playing the weirdest music. At first we thought it was the ice cream truck, sadly it is not.
- You can get away with almost anything anywhere being a young, blond haired, blue eyed American
- The fruit here is really good
- Arabic is hard
- They drive pretty nice cars
- There are cats EVERYWHERE. Not cute cats, gross, dirty, mangy, cats that only have one eye.
- I miss clothes that fit me and I blame Katie Cullen because she forced me to get things that practically drown me and no one else abided by the “buy it a size bigger than normal” rule
- I don’t think I ever want mensaf now that I know what it is
- Everybody wants to feed you
- Everybody wants you to go visit them
- Everybody is willing to help you
- Jordanians love Americans and will do almost anything for you
- The things I hear the most are “mishmushkelah” (no problem),“As you like,” and “How do you find the Jordan?”
- I only have two weeks left.
- There are times when I feel that I’ve actually made a difference.


Monday 18th:
Today was a really good day. We went to clinical for the morning and then in the afternoon we were invited to attend the Jordanian Nursing Council. I’m not really sure why we were invited or how we got invited, but it was a pretty big deal, with pretty important people. First because we came straight from the hospital we were in our scrubs and everyone else was dressed up. Then it was all in Arabic so it was a little hard for all of us to stay awake. After they were done with all the speeches we were able to go into the back room and meet Princess Muna Al Hussein … in our scrubs … and sneakers … while chewing gum. She is the current King’s mother, but they call her princess for some reason. Again, I really don’t know how we got this privilege. I think we were all a little star struck, but she was really nice and spent probably 10 minutes talking to us and taking pictures with us. I was surprised at how much of her time they let us use up, but it was really cool. First the Pope, then the Princess, and on Friday we are meeting with the US Ambassador. I don’t think people realize how insignificant we really are, but I will let them continue treating me like this.
Anyway after Princess Muna we went and ate lunch at a shwerma place again. Then Sonja (our clinical instructor) had a presentation. Then walk home in the heat. Then the highlight to the evening, we went to Elaine’s favorite restaurant, Rema Al Bawadi. It was REALLY cool. It is a pretty snazzy joint. They have normal tables inside, but most are outside under a huge Bedouin looking tent, everything is pretty low to the ground, and it is family style and they serve you on these huge gold dishes in the middle of your plate. There was also hookah everywhere, which is gross, but added to the atmosphere. Aunt Jenny made me realize how much my entries focus on food, but you will have to bear with me once again. We had mint lemonade. It sounds weird, but it was amazing. We also ate fried cheese, little pastry things, babaganoush, hummus, and the mixed grill (chicken, lamb, and beef). It was nice to go to a nice restaurant. They don’t have many come in, sit and eat situations here. I think that is it for today. Hope you are enjoying the novels I write!

Tuesday 19th:
So I don’t really feel like writing tonight, but I have to keep you informed right? Today we went to clinical and we had the opportunity to go to a pediatric floor at a different hospital. Well once we got there, they realized that it was a military hospital so we needed permission before we could work there. When we walked in the head pediatric person/supervisor said “Oh, you were at the conference with Princess Muna yesterday?” We said yes and then she responded “I saw you on the news this morning that is how I knew.” So I think that means I’m famous. They tried to get us permission, but we ended up sitting in the lobby for 2 hours until they finally said we had to leave. We went back to our clinical for one hour and then we met with Dr. Ahmad. He has given us a few “seminars” (not lectures as he puts it), but today was just on culture. He let us ask him anything we wanted. Religion here really isn’t a taboo subject. We actually got pretty deep and were asking a lot about Islam. He said he wanted to meet with us again tomorrow to ask us questions about our beliefs.
For our evening we contacted the BYU Arabic students and went to downtown Amman. There are about 40 BYU students here who are studying Arabic for 3 months and they offered to take us downtown because we can’t go alone and we can’t go without males. It was really nice to have people here who can speak the language, and are willing to translate everything for you. Downtown Amman was a little scary, but what else would you expect? We shopped around for a few hours and then ate pita, hummus, etc at a little restaurant. I also had some of the best lemonade I think I’ve ever had, better than Pretzel Time. We headed home and that was our day … in the summed up non-detailed way.

Wednesday 20th:
Clinical is beginning to drain us. We aren’t going to bed early enough any more and it’s beginning to get hard to wake up in the mornings. We have so much planned that it is almost stressful to think about everything we have to do. We had clinical this morning until our 10am break. We said our goodbyes to those we probably won’t ever see again and took a lot of pictures. Then we were supposed to have a 2 hour lecture on EKGs, not exactly what we wanted to be doing, but the doctor was really late so we ended up going back to clinical. Whitney and I went to the surgical ICU and got a little tour. Then we checked out emails. Then we met with Dr. Ahmad again. He had looked at mormon.org to get some information on our church and had some deep questions in return. It is reinforced over and over again that we are not to proselyte at all on our study abroads so it is hard to know where and when to draw the line, especially in a culture that is so open to hearing about others’ beliefs and when someone is asking you specific questions. He found it really interesting and was surprised how many similarities we share. I think we may have overloaded him with information, but it was still really cool and he thanked us for sharing so much with him.
After our missionary moment we went to Al-Afgani with all of the other girls so they could see what they have to offer. Now it is off to Enrichment where we will be getting some authentic food recipes from Jordanians … at least that was the idea.

Thursday 21st:
I”M DONE WITH CLINICAL. Yes, it is true, today was our last day working at the university hospital, and it was bitter sweet. It was really hard today. I felt like I was just going through the motions (yes, like Buffy), and there was so much to do. We took vitals this morning, then break, then we had a culture class/discussion on Islam from a professor of religion, then we had gotten treats delivered for us to take to the different floors of the hospital. The man was like 45 minutes late and we had walked to and from the hospital like 5 times, it was hot, everybody is kind of sick right now, and we were worried about getting other things done in time. We delivered the treats, finally, and then we met most of our students in the lobby. We invited almost everyone over for American cookies and some Jordanian treats that we bought. I think maybe 12 girls ended up coming. We walked home with them and then just had a party. We made them eat the cookie dough and ½ of them spit it into their napkins. Some LOVED the cookies and others just stuck to the Jordanian treats. They danced and thought it was hilarious that we had bought belly dancing skirt. They tested them and out. After a while, and a bunch of pictures they finally left. I felt sorta bad because during the party I was quieter than usual and after they left I crashed in bed instead of helping clean up. Like I said, today everyone has been feeling sick, in different ways, but still everyone. It is a little suspicious. I woke up from my short nap and no matter what I did I was freezing, which is weird seeing that our room is probably 80 degrees, I had on all my sweats, and I had on all my blankets (I usually just sleep with a sheet). So I think I had a fever, but it is hard to tell because I haven’t had one in a while, we don’t have a thermometer, and my head didn’t feel hot, at least not to me. So I took some Ibuprofen and slept it off. Now I feel pretty good. Hopefully it was just a weird hypothermia thing. I was a little disappointed because there was a seminar at the Sheriton we were invited to attend and the speaker was the Doctor who started bone marrow transplants in Jordan, but I think I made the right choice.
Tomorrow we have church. Then we are going to a party at the US Ambassador’s residence. There are definitely some perks to being here. Saturday we are traveling with the student council from the university and we leave for the south on Sunday.

Friday 22nd:
So, no wireless at church today. It just wasn’t working. I think I am use to this whole, as the Arabic students call it, Frabath. It was a pretty normal church day. After church some of the boys who had helped us downtown came over for left over cookies. Again, it was nice to be able to have real conversations with people instead of trying to get someone who barely understands English to get what you are saying. Then at 6 we went to the US Embassy for a party at the Ambassador’s. He is a member of the church, but isn’t allowed to attend church because he is too much of a target. Anyway his family and he invited basically the whole ward and any influential people to us over. Some of the college of nursing people were able to go and they were so thankful that we invited them. The embassy was really nice. There was also some really good little snacks. It was beautiful outside and the perfect temperature. We took some pictures with the Ambassador and chatted and then headed home. Tomorrow we are going to Umm Qais with the student council. Then (hopefully) we will go some place with internet.

Saturday 23rd:
Today was … interesting. We started with getting to the college at 8:15am to go with the student council to Umm Qais. The student council really wanted to take us around, so we let them. It is about a 2-2 ½ hour drive so we read and slept and such on the way up there.
We finally got there and I thought it was really cool. I have a pretty good tour guide book so I read before and then when we get there I know everything about it and can basically be the tour guide for whoever wants to know what they are looking at. Umm Qais is another one of the Decapolis cities, but almost everything is built with basalt so it is black instead of white. It is also where some believe Jesus cast the evil spirits into the swine. After we were done there we were going to get some falafel sandwiches and head home … or so we thought. First they tried to take us to Ajloun, but we told them that we had already been there and that we needed to get home and have a meeting with Elaine. They said “Ok, we will have you home by 5, no lets make it 6.” It was way later than we wanted, but doable. After driving around for like 2 hours trying to find falafel we told them we didn’t care what we ate, we just wanted to eat. We went to a little restaurant in Jerash and had mixed grill, hummus, etc. Before lunch we literally had some mental breakdowns. We were tired, hungry, and things were not going according to our plans. It also didn’t help that whenever we were on the bus they were playing Arabic music as loudly as possible and clapping and dancing. It was fun for the first 20 minutes, but after that you started to worry how much damage you were doing to your eardrums. Yeah so after 7 hours it started to take a toll. There were literally tears, not from me, and frankly I was a little surprised at how some reacted when things didn’t go their way, but food helped. Food always helps. So we get back on the bus after lunch and we are so happy to finally be going home and it is 5:30. Then they pull over to a random little stream and start getting out. They wanted to walk around the bank and eat watermelon. We reinforced the fact that we had to get to Elaine (because we are going on a week long trip tomorrow and we sorta needed details). They understood and then said “Well, what if we get out and take a group picture?” We could agree to that. We get out and the next thing you know the watermelon is sliced and being passed out, they lit the hookah, and the bus driver is taking off on a horse. I guess they didn’t understand. The river was pretty gross and there was trash everywhere, but they still yelled at one of the girls for throwing her watermelon rind in the stream. I guess she didn’t understand that you are supposed to keep it on the bank like they do. At 6:15 we reloaded the bus and finally headed home. Our “afternoon trip” turned into an 11 hour hostage situation where we had to pretend like we were having fun. So yes I am a little bitter about today, because we didn’t get home in time to get ready for tomorrow and it is now 1am and we are leaving in 6 hours, but I am grateful that we were able to go see Umm Qais and that the student council was so excited to show us around. We really are lucky.

Thursday 28th:
So I didn’t write everything down last week because we were traveling and I didn’t take my computer. I don’t really want to go into great detail about everything we did, so I’m just going over the highlights. We left Sunday and drove down to Petra. On the way we stopped at Wadi Mujib, which is like the Grand Canyon, Moses’ Spring, and Karak, an old crusader castle that is really well preserved. I think that was all we did. It was really nice to stay in a hotel with clean sheets and fluffy pillows. The next day we walked around Petra and bought things from Bedouins. We stayed there one more night and in the morning we drove to the Wadi Rum desert. It is beautiful. We took a little desert tour and watched the sunset. Then we returned to our Bedouin camp for an authentic meal and dancing around the fire. After a night in a Bedouin tent we woke up early and rode camels out to see the sunrise. Camels were fun and scary and smelly and a lot of things that I will tell you about later. After a ride back to camp we ate breakfast and headed down to Aqaba on the Red Sea. We toured another castle, the one Lawrence of Arabia stormed, and took a little tour in a glass bottom boat. Somehow, through some force of nature, something convinced us to all go for a dip… fully dressed. So, I’ve been swimming in the Red Sea. After that we headed to the Dead Sea. We stayed in a 5 star hotel, the Movenpick. It was SO nice. We got there late that night so we just ate dinner, one of the best dinners yet. It was a huge buffet that had food we actually recognized. We went to bed, ate a buffet breakfast in the morning, and then swam in the dead sea. It was SO fun. You just float, and there is nothing you can do about it. We also covered ourselves in the infamous mud head to toe. Then we washed off and spent the day at the pool. A little too long by the pool, we all got sunburned, but not too bad. Now we are back home.
Tomorrow right after church we are leaving to go on a 2 day trip with the BYU Arabic students. We are going to Shabuck castle, Wadi Dana, and Kara … again. I think we are going other places as well but seeing as we just got back, we don’t know yet. I don’t think I will be taking my computer on that little trip either, so it may be like this again.