ecology: study of environment

The past three or four days (depending on what timezone the counting begins) have been a little rough. We ate some eggs and "hashbrowns" on the plane (we think), and my stomach was feeling a little weak after that. Erin's started to get achey too... By the time we landed, it was "morning," though we were not sure what ever happened to the night? We ate some hommos and falafel for breakfast, and then went to sleep. We woke up for dinner (grapeleaves), and went back to sleep. And that was the last time Erin was out of bed for over 24 hours. That night, I was throwing up pretty bad...including on the floor of our room. Erin cleaned that up. She's a good friend. After my worst was over, Erin was throwing up all the next day. I was still pretty weak stomached but about 10 hour ahead of her with that virus/food poisoning or whatever. Anyway, we got up for a few hours (from 2am-5am), and slept again. I'm not sure if we'll ever get onto Jordanian time, but we'll see.

It is currently a national holiday in Jordan (their independance from Britain). So, thursday-sunday have been off day for everyone, including us. Which is good, being sick and all. We are planning on going to the refugee camp tomorrow (Monday), and then should know our work schedule/etc. by Tuesday.

Being our first day moving around like normal people, we took a walk around my dad's neighborhood. It's a pretty nice area, but we will stand out terribly.

A few pictures:

We didn't get a good shot of the shepherd, but here is some of his flock. It was neat to hear him yelling something along the lines of "GGUAAAHHHTT!!! BAHHH GUAHHTT!" to his sheep and goats when he wanted them to come closer. Here's another, slightly naughtier flock of sheep. This is what happens the second the shepherd turns away...
Just a picture of houses in the distance. They're all white and made of stone.


Anyway, we were on that walk for a couple hours.
Erin is now studying her Arabic workbook, and I'm about to do the same. But, before I depart, here are a few shots Erin took around the house that she wanted to share with you all:


You all might think this is a "hookah"...but if you want to be culturally savvy, you'll start calling it an Argeelah. My dad used to smoke it when I was in elementary school, before they were popular in the states, and my friends used to think he was doing some kind of wacked out drugs.


I'm not sure why Erin wanted to display the basement fridge, but here it is. Olives, and some kind of cookies. I guess it is a good display of Middle Eastern cuisine (or maybe just my dad's appetite).

Here's the clock above the computer. I found out during our walk that Erin knew several arabic numbers on house addresses. I asked her when she learned them, and she said she'd been studying the clock for a while. What a go-getter.

Coca Cola. Great. But on that note... we stopped at a little snack cornerstore thing during our walk, thinking even though we were about to make terrible fools of ourselves, we better start somewhere. So we go in, and spend about 15 minutes perusing the mysterious candies and drinks. I also checked the shampoo section for stuff that might work better on my thick huge curly hair...it being a country full of Arabs and all. No such luck. Maybe later... Anyway, we finally look at our three items (my peachy fruit juice thing=2.00, erin's berry "vimlo"=1.25, and some tiny litle chocolate weird cracker candy thing for like 1.00). So we add this up.. the total should be about 4.00. 4 what? We're not sure..but 4. So we gather ourselves, take deep breaths, and put them on the counter. The guy tells us "60". We wonder what happened, and give him 20 Jordanian Dinars. He grunts, saying something about how he doesnt have change for that. So we wonder if maybe 1 Dinar will do it? Sure enough, that's perfect! He takes 1 Dinar and gives us change. Good lesson for the white dummies new around town.... Don't worry, its all good now, my dad gave us a much needed explanation on money.

Hopefully the next post will actually be substantial. Just a lot of cultural musings so far. See ya.