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It was a long weekend. We got off Saturday due to Labor Day. That was a surprise and sure made for a relaxing weekend. Instead I seemed to be able to fill the whole thing up. On Friday morning I went on a picnic with the church and we played games like balloon volleyball, minefied and american football, and soccer. Afterward I was invited to a guy’s house so I went with him and spent the night with his family staying up till 2 in the morning only to have his kidoes wake us up early. I had to catch the bus from his town back to Amman to make it to a teacher’s home who invited 6 of us students (not counting kids) to her home. Since I took the time to mention the kids and write that entire thing it would have been easier just to say “and 3 kids.” We had a feast. After that I had to make it back to the gym and open it up. I finished lifting and had a friend over to watch a movie. Woke up Sunday, went to church and then out again with some more folk for lunch, called my mom and then hung out with the shabab (the young hoodlam boys of the neighborhood) till 10 and finally got home. I went to bed and studied. It was fun and exciting but man–busy.

4/20/07
Gardening today. Had some breakfast and coffee and around 10 I went to my friend’s home that has a garden that I have worked in a few times before– if you remember. When I got there I expected to get started right away but I forgot I was working with a culture that is more laid back and Friday is more like Sunday where I am from–kind of a slow day. But as I look back on my Sundays growing up it was also one of the days we achieved the most because my dad wasn’t working at the store. So he wanted to get a lot of stuff ready for the next week for us kids to do after school. Anyway I get there and the first thing they want to do is drink coffee. I finally convince them that I came for work so we head out. 10 minutes later the mom and dad show up so I must go greet them, make small talk, and finally get to work. After 20 min they yell at me to stop and come drink more coffee. So I go drink the coffee and to pass the time I show them how my gas grill that I made works. I brought it over so that we can bar-b-que. I hadn’t yet used it for chicken, so this was the first time. Eventually we get back to work and pull up the entire garden. We don’t even spare the grass. Everything goes. Even not one but 2 trees. I didn’t like them so I convinced them that if we pulled them out there would still be enough. Matter of fact, have 8 almond trees. I suggested 2 would be just fine. They agreed. I started on the first tree, and they kept pulling the yard. Then we also started tilling the soil again. Where I removed the trees it made room for a bigger planting area. After a while we had to start cooking. We put on the chicken. They convinced me that low heat would cook the chicken the best so we tried that. It didn’t work. It took to long, so I turned the heat up and it worked better. On the 2nd round a few friends came over and we had a good lunch. After lunch I pulled up the 2nd tree and we threw all of the weeds and the trees over the wall. I had to run home and shower because I had a friend coming. I returned and convinced them that now that the soil was ready for planting we should plant something. We bought some plants: bell pepper, eggplant, cauliflower, cabbage and cucumber. They didn’t have any squash, but I convinced the plant vendor to get me some corn seeds and some black-eyed peas. Later I will go pick them up. As we were buying plants my friend decided to buy some rose bushes and mint. I bought some more strawberries. So now we have a proper garden. I failed to mention to my friend that every time I plant roses they never survive save the last one I transplanted last summer at home. It survived. They seem to do very well here, so I hope they work. That ended my “Sunday.” I felt like I deserved my Dr Pepper I had bought yesterday.

Oh another odd thing is I knew a lady who a week ago left for Syria. A week later she told someone that she was now married. So I guess that makes Syria the Vegas of the Middle East.

Yesterday I ate some bad mayo and wow–in the night I woke up thinking I was really sick at my stomach but I went back to sleep. Then I woke up again and got really sick to my stomach. I went back to bed but the next morning, since I was at a friend’s house I had to leave. I went to school and luckily it was grammar day. I sat in class and everyone asked if I was drunk. I said, “First, it is 9 in the morning and second, I have never had a drink in my life,” and I explained the bad mayo. Then everyone proposed to tell me the best thing to do for my stomach and it was interesting to hear the different remedies from the different cultures. It ranged from eating just potatoes or garlic to drinking tea with mint. Drinking 7-Up was the most agreed on solution with yogurt high on the list. I was surprised that no one told me to take some asprine or any kind of drug. Are we changing from anti-bactiral soap to now using “herbal” remedies.

I came home and outside our home they are building a new road. The bulldozer broke a waterpipe so all the neighboorhood kids were playing in it. The bull dozer made a dam to stop the water. It was at least 3 hours before someone came and stopped it. Today was interesting and it is only half over.

I finally got to go camping my way. It was great. Well half-way my way. I convinced a guy to drive us out and drop us off in a valley. I wanted to just stay there because the food we had was not for backpacking. But good ‘ol democracy prevailed. We voted and the consensus was move, so off we went. Our new location which was about a quarter of a mile away through the river was hard to walk with a heavy pack. We got there. Instead of setting the tarp up we had the shade of the cliff covering us so we just laid on it, started a fire and then I started cooking. We had hotdogs, chili and my favorite cobbler. I didnt have a dutch oven so had to improvise. I also didn’t have real charcoal but the pan I used worked just right. While I was cooking the rest of them went out and caught a bunch of frogs and put them in a plastic sack. We all sat back and watched the fire and ate. It was so nice and relaxing so of course because it was a full moon we had to go swimming again at night after about 3 hours of swmming earlier. It was great. You could see just as well as during the day. We had fun. The only thing was I made a pot of coffee and didn’t want to throw it away so I drank it and didn’t sleep at all. With the moon so bright I sat there thinking of all the stuff we talked about. One was the theory of relativity, time travel and light speed. So I came to the concludion that the theory of relativity is all relative. Technically we could be going at the speed of light relative to someone elses and we be unaware of it. So if we are going at light speed why cant we go back through time and blah blah blah. Anyway I finally got some sleep, but then it started to sprinkle. My bag is water proof so a guy asked me to help get everyone under the tarp but I said no and no one else moved. It ended up stopping so not to worry. We woke up and I started the fire up again and started to cook breakfast. We had some more frogs so we cooked them and marshmallows. Then for the real breakfast we had bacon eggs and bread. It was nice. We sat around and filtered out some more water. I started to get tired so I went and properly set up the tarp like at Philmont boyscout camp and felt good that I still knew how to do it. I crawled underneath and started to sleep. The rest of them went hiking down river. I woke up and went to find them. They came back after 10 min so we had lunch and packed up camp. We walked up stream to our pick up spot and found a great swimming hole where we swam for about another hour and then we hiked on up, met the van and off we went. It was nice to get out and do something different. I hope to get involved with local Jordanian boyscouts. It would be fun.

I got to go hiking with the boyscouts last weekend and it ended up being 20 kilometers long and all down hill. We started at the Palace of Herod where Josephus, the historian, said Herod had John (the baptist) beheaded. It is on a hill that over-looking the Dead Sea. It is only 7 kilometers right to the Sea, but since we had to hike 10 miles for a requirmant in the hiking merit badge we had to walk around and take another road. The first two miles were nice and not terribly up or down– just rolling hills and then it started… down, down, down we went for the remainder so we tried to find creative ways to get down. The best was skipping. The old guys said it would injure our knees, but I was more worried about the boys getting blisters. That would not be nice. Well we got to a place that was flat and had a nice walk, but we’d had no shade ever since we left the parking lot. This flat part had been cleared for farming. There was no shrubbery of any kind and the sun was just beating down on us. The road kept zigzagging around in the flat area so we walked right through the field to the other side. On the other side we stopped for lunch. We were on the backside of the hill overlooking a beautiful valley that had some beautiful waterfalls from the hot springs that came from the mountain side. The valley was so steep that it reminded me of the canyon walls without pretty colors, just very light brown–almost white. All I had for lunch were nuts and candy bars. That was all I could get at the ducan right before we left. So much for being prepared. But I did some trading and got a sandwich from one of the kids, you know, that never eat thier food but allways trades for twinkies. In this case he took cashews and pistachios. Then we were off again and down the hill we went for the rest of the way. When we got close to the end we off roaded it in a valley and found some other hot springs. Finally at the bottom and saw the old Roman port. Some of the kids jumped in the Dead Sea but my feet were throbbing and I was afraid the salt water would just irritate them. Another time. We drove home and I had to go directly to the gym. I showed up and fell asleep on the desk for about an hour, got done there and went home.

Today I decided that I was going to try to find a new way to school and take another bus or service that a “friend suggested was much better and faster than the one I have been taking. So I went to the line and it was just as long as my original one, but I decided to give it a try and see what would happen. After waiting about 5 minutes a bus shows up a guy hopps off and says blah blah blah and everyone in my line runs to the bus. Well I asume that is what I am to do so off I go, get on the bus, get a seat and sit down. About half way to where I want to go he takes another road. I’m thinking maybe this is just a short cut. But nope. So at the next stop I get off and have to walk up and down a mountain. The only problem is I don’t know this mountain. I have never been here. So off I go and all I had was a (nus) 50 cents. So I had to make the most of it. I watched the other people to see where they walked and eventually I got down to the road on the other side. I had 2 choices: either walk to the left and up the mountian and be at school or go to the right and get in a service(it is like a bus but a car). I was tired and had already walked over one mountain. I didn’t want to show up at school and just collapse so I took the service.