Deutschland, Deutschland Über Alles!

On Saturday, I leave with "the Germans" to see all of Jordan for a week. "the Germans" consists of a group of friends of Michael, who is a middle-aged German guy and friend to Abouna Imad. He's done lots of work with the scout leaders here in al-Husn over the years. Caroline and Marlise are coming too. We will be visiting the Roman Ruins at Jerash, Wadi Rum (where I will take my David of Jordan picture for the website - stay tuned!), Petra (which was elected as one of the new 7 wonders of the world last week!), and Aqaba (a really sweet gulf locale with plenty of motor boats to rent). I am really stoked. As an added bonus, I'm going to be able to speak German with people! No one in Jordan likes German (as the girls all say, "it's so ugly. 'I love you' is 'ich liebe dich.'" I've come across similar complaints from girls in the US though, so what can you do? al-neeseah! At least German girls like German). I will be sure to post many awesome pics when I return.

Water Fight!

Here's that water fight video I promised:

On Friday, July 13th, I went with 20 scouts to Amman to celebrate the 100th anniversary of scouting. In 1903, English Lord Baden Powell wrote a manual for military scouts that was subsequently used by youth scout groups. With encouragement from his friends, Baden-Powell was convinced to re-write the guide for youth scouts. In 1907, he held a scout camp for 22 kids of mixed social backgrounds to test whether his ideas about scouting would work or not. The result of his youth scout guidebook was a major pickup in scout groups and a general scout movement. Hence, Baden-Powell is generally recognized as the founder of scouting.

Patriarch (Arch-Bishop, basically) Mgr. Michael Sabbah said mass, and there were lots of other ministers giving each other all sorts of shiny medals. Pretty standard ceremonial stuff. At least they played music we could dance to for a while.

The day was fun enough, but really tiring. I love the kids, but after 12 hours I was glad to have time to myself in Al-Husn.

Today we had a crazy water-balloon fight. I'll post the video later today.

Summer Program

So the opening ceremonies for the Summer Program was on Monday. There are about 85 kids in the program, ages 6-14. They're separated into 4 different age groups. I run two different station: music and dancing. The kids are really cute. Even though there's a bit of a language barrier with the younger kids, they like to sing and do hand gestures. The little kids are way better than the older ones at swing dancing, too. The program basically keeps me busy and lets me learn a lot more Arabic. Plus I get to be a kid all day, which is great. I have two students now that I'm giving private lessons to: Krestal Nimry on the guitar, and her relative (pretty much everyone on Al-Husn is somehow related . . . there is a very limited gene pool here) Maia on the violin.

I actually got to go swimming the other day, which was great. There is a really cool swimming pool in the middle of town that's well-maintained and relatively inexpensive. On Friday, I'm going with the scouts to Amman to celebrate 100 years of scouting.

Interestingly enough, people here are shocked when I tell them that I come from a family of eight kids. The Christian families here tend to have three to four, something that surprised me at first. I figured that they would pattern after their Muslim neighbors and have more. Then again, even the Muslim families in Al-Husn are starting to have fewer and fewer kids per family. There is an emerging trend of globalization that has its roots in Amman and is trickling down to the smaller cities. Amman seems a lot like a European city, and it has a gargantuan four-story mall that has every Western store and restaurant you could imagine. Plus, the religious practice in Amman seems to be fairly low - Muslim women commonly walk outdoors without a hijab, and everyone dresses in Western fashion for the most part. It'll be interesting to see what happens in Al-Urdun in the next 50 years as this trend continues.

Demographically, Jordan is interesting because over half of its population is Palestinian. Although it's not open war, there are a lot of ethnic tensions between Palestinians and native Jordanians. I think that this tension will lessen as time passes, however, since even now most of the Palestinians have been living in Jordan for several generations. A third group of people, the Egyptians, also live Jordan. The Egyptian presence in Jordan is very similar to the Mexican presence in the United States. Egyptians do janitorial and construction jobs, and maintain their own culture and dialect of Arabic.

I have an opportunity to go to Israel, and I've already applied for the Visa. What remains to be seen is whether the Jordanian group we'll be traveling with will be allowed to cross the border (Jordan, being half-Palestinian, doesn't get on so hot with Israel). I've been able to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the Arabs' perspective now, which has been and will continue to be enlightening.

Happy Belated 4th

I forgot to add this photo I took on the 4th. Abouna Imad and I ate steak and french fries for lunch. God bless America!

Bedouins

Caroline, Marlise and I blend into our surroundings. It's like we never spoke English.

Art, Ambassadors and Arab Weddings

The last week has been a little slow. The scout camps are over, and the Summer program hasn't started yet. So, other than playing music, studying Arabic, preparing for the program, and writing things for Abouna, I don't have a lot to do. I'm going to teach the kids how to dance Swing, Waltz, and Polka, so I've been adding to my music collection. I'm also going to teach them how to sing 4-part Gregorian hymns. We'll see how it goes!

Caroline and Marlise were busy last week setting up an art gallery displaying the works of Dutch painter Piet Gerrits. Piet Gerrits lived in Husn for 5 years in the early 1900's. He is known for painting Biblical scenes with a particularly Eastern flair, using the locals from Husn as inspiration. For example, Piet Gerrits had witnessed a Husn woman holding her murdered son in her arms as she mourned. He transformed this memory into a painting of Mary holding the already crucified Jesus in her arms. Abouna Imad plans on including a Piet Gerrits gallery in a community center he is currently raising money for. This is Caroline and Marlise's project while they are in Jordan. Attending the gallery was the acting Dutch Ambassador to Jordan, who's a nice guy interested in maintaining the link that Jordan and Holland have through Piet Gerrits. I was able to practice German with the Ambassador's secretary, which was great because most Jordanians don't appreciate the language. All of the girls complain that it's ugly because "I love you" is "Ich liebe dich." Girls. A group of us went with the Ambassador to lunch at the Touristic Castle. It was a pretty interesting place. It doesn't really cater to walk-ins; it's more for group reservations and large-scale celebrations. Speaking of which, Caroline, Marlise and I were able to see a wedding. The wedding took place in the Al-Husn Church (I am currently a flight of stairs and 10 steps away from it), and the guests were all Christian Arabs. Wa'il was there, of course, because he is related to and / or knows everyone in Husn. We went ahead and got in line to congratulate the bride, groom, and their family. I got a lot of "okay . . . don't remember seeing you before" looks, which is pretty understandable considering they haven't. I also took some of their chocolate. I don't think I'm a very good wedding crasher. At the end of the ceremony, the audience erupted into Bedouin-style cheering (think "aiiilaiilaiiilaiiilaiilaiii"). It was altogether a good experience to see how things were done over here marriage-wise. The thing I like best about Jordan so far is the importance the people place on family life. Divorce is almost unheard of, and families are always spending time together. A typical evening for an Al-Husn family is to spend a few hours relaxing outside in the cool air, drinking tea and coffee. Neighbors will drop by, and there are always enough chairs to go around. Even the sitting rooms inside are remarkable. I have yet to see a sitting room in any house that will seat fewer than 12 people. There are some that I've seen that can sit around 24. Families are bigger here, and there is a tremendous respect for hospitality. I haven't met most of my neighbors. I couldn't tell you what their last names are. It's pretty ridiculous. I love technology, but I think it comes at a price: we can connect with a person anywhere in the world, but that makes us unwilling to walk out of our homes to meet the people to whom we live next door. Weird.