Christmas...

It is really wierd to drive down the street or talk to people around town and so many people have no idea what Christmas is. It is real eye opener when you think about it. It is not just that they do not celbrate, but a lot of people do not even know what the reason is for the season. I hope they come to the understanding of what the holiday is for...

Supermarkets

After school today I had to go run errands to get some food for our flat. I will never take shopping markets for granted again. It was awesome when I first got here that we had to go to the market to get our fruits and vegitables. I love going and negotiating in another language for the price I know the food is supposed to be. I really do I think it is a lot of fun. The only problem being when you have to go to the market, then the "grocery store," then the bread store, then another store. All before you can come home and put the groceries away. It looses the luster and remember it is winter now so we only sweated a little bit :). Yes it is nice that at the market we hire a guy to follow us around with a wheel barrow and he takes all of our stuff out to the car for us. Then he even loads the food into the car which is awesome! Getting proposed to and having people find us in the market because are white so they can sell things to us however is not always the most appealing. Another day another adventure in the land of sand. Hoping for snow soon ;)

Stoplights.

What do you think about when you are sitting at a red light? What you are going to do later? What errands you have left to run? How late you are for work? How annoying the traffic is? Well when we sit at traffic lights here we are offered anything from chewing gum to a car wash. Sometimes the children that are offering are so persistent that they lay on your car so that you can not move. Not to mention you have cars coming from every direction regardless of what color the light is. So my mind does not wander much while I am sitting at stop lights, even though I am not driving. All the kids really want is a bottle of water, which we give them whenever we have one in the car. Can you blame them is it hot!

Happy Thankgiving humility...

Happy Thankgiving to all! I learned a lesson in humilty this year. As we were headed to Thankgiving dinner for our team there were children asking for money or food when we have so much. Right there as we were headed to dinner. It is one thing when you see these kids on tv, or in some sort of comerical. However when they are walking along side you as you are celebrating a time to be thankful, it is heartbreaking to see these people that have nothing. As Americans we are truly blessed in so many countless ways. The hard thing being we could not give the kids all of our food, because then they would be ringing the doorbell unendingly of the place we were at and it is someones house. We give the kids candy most of the time or our leftovers, or we order extra food at the places we go to eat. There are always more children though that have absolutly nothing. How can we say no to children and watch them suffer I do not know. I was so proud of one of my students though for giving to a child that was begging for money when I went out with her. I guess the best way is to remember these people and children and continue to love them in any way that we are able. It was a definite lesson in humilty seeing the children each day and on thanksgiving it meant even more...

Cultural Differences in a good way :)

Today we were driving back from another persons house and we got to an intersection. Everyone at the intersection was looking out of their cars and just stopped. We could not see what was going on and tried to see around the cars eventually we saw that three cars had gotten into an accident. The amazing and awesome thing was that people were coming from everywhere out of their cars their little stands on the side of the street. Just leaving whatever they were doing to go and help the people that had just gotten into an accident. Part of the reason for this is that the ambulances are well not that effective or quick and you would rather not go to the doctors in this country. So what you have is the people around you. I was completely amazed at how many people there were enough people at each of the three cars to probably pick each car up and then some. The people are not affraid of getting sued or being late to some meeting, they just want to help in any way possible. This does not help in the whole traffic area, because everyone just jumps out of their cars and leaves them in the middle of intersections. I have never seen a better example of helping your neighbors though.

The Importance of Soccer...

I get to school today and hear that the phone has been ringing off the hook, because there is a holiday and all the parents want to know if there is school or not. I am completely confused as to what the holiday is. Can you guess? It is a soccer or football game Egypt vs Albania. About 10 of my kids were not in class today and we had to cancel conferences and go home early because the bridges were closing and it was going to be impossible to get anywhere. It is a new one I have had school cancelled for snow, ice, possibility of ice, but never for a soccer match. You learn something new every day :)

Something I did not mention before is that this game was the last qualifying game to get into the world cup and the winner being Algeria gets to go to the world cup! The airport was trashed and there was about 12,000 riot police out defending the country from being attacked. The traffic was ridiculous!

Laundry?

Attempting to do laundry here is quite entertaining. Yes your clothes smell clean, for about 5 minutes and then everything is dirty again. There is so much dirt and sand that even when you do wash things they still look dirty. This place sure is hard on clothing :) I mean we do have a washing machine and laundry detergent. We are not completely out in the boonies, it is just more difficult to think something is clean for a longer period of time when it has sweat stains after you have had it on for about 5 minutes.

First Arabic Lesson

I had my first Arabic lesson this week, lets just say it was entertaining. I did not speak any English, but we did translate between the two different dialects. Then we would both laugh and say oh Mush Kila (problem). It was the most I had laughed in a long time, plus later when my class had come back. Since my teacher is the same as one of the teachers for the class. One of my students was telling the teacher I speak Arabic and she said yeah and she speaks more than you do (In Arabic.) Lets just say it is going to be fun adventure learning another version of Arabic. Good thing I love languages!

A fun day at the Market

We decided to go shopping today at the market, kinda like what you may consider a mall. Except completely different :) Before you leave you have to wear your poor clothes so that the shop owners do not think you actually have money. Just getting there is an experience, you get in a rickshaw which is basically a scooter with a big backseat. Hope that you do not die, because well they are crazy drivers. Then watch the scenery and we were all hoping we were going in the correct direction, but none of us really knew. Lets call it a new definition of trust in a person you just met, well negotiated a price with, meeting is a little much for a man and a woman to do ;)

Then we get to the market and start wandering around, careful what you say or how you look at any object, or someone might think you want it. Once you decide you actually like something then the bargaining starts it goes something like this... except in Arabic...

Me: For these three things 15 pounds good.
Shop Owner (SO): No 45 good.
Me: Look of being appalled and insulted 45 is expensive!
SO: (smiling now cause I am a white person speaking and arguing in Arabic) 45 good price
Me: No 15 good price
SO: Ok 40, 40 good price this from good country, you get three.
Me: 15 is a good price, how much would you charge if I was not an American...
SO: (Laughing again) Ok for you I give you 35 cause you speak Arabic.
Me: But how much if I was from this country? (A lady walking by starts laughing)
SO: Same price, I give someone from here for 40 I give you 35.
Me: No 15 good or I dont want.
SO: (gets worried) Ok ok 30.
Me: 15
SO: 29, then 28, then 25.
Me: 15
SO: 20 good 20 Ok Finish.
Me: Ok but you better give me a good price I live here.
SO: Ok then you come back and see me again.

If the Shop owner is not defiant you know it is not a good price, and if all else fails walk away and the price goes down really quick.

Really it is fun, just can get frusterating because they all think because I am white I am rich.

Wouldn't you like to do all your clothes shopping in another language where you have to negotiate for prices?

Odd things about my new home...

I have not updated my blog in a while, so I decided to tell you some of what it is like to live in my new home.

• When the power goes out no one even blinks, and you usually still have internet.
• You sweat all day long.
• You think it is a nice day when it is only 80 in the morning.
• Your kids are freezing and you are sweating. (Miss turn off the fan!)
• You never knew you could love the little Tweety bird so much! This is a place that serves smoothies.
• The electricity can run out in your classroom while you are trying to work there on the weekend, and you have to go somewhere else. They buy electricity pre-paid.

I am not sure what else to tell you guys about my new home so you should ask me questions! More later :)

Pictures

For some reason I can not get the link between my picasa web album and my blog to work so here is the address if you want to check out some of the pictures I have been taking. http://picasaweb.google.com/jrazey Enjoy! I will work on fixing the link. If anyone has any ideas on what to do...

Wecome to 5th Grade :)

Welcome to 5th Grade!!!! This is my classroom, I forgot to take pictures before I put everything up. Just trust me it looks a lot better!


That brown box kind of thing on the wall is all the switches for the fans in my room there are 6 :)

The white box on the wall is the air cooler :) This room used to be a balcony so it gets real hot.

Back in the corner there is my desk with a brand new computer and printer!!! How awesome is that :)

My Flat :)

Welcome to my new home! Some people are asking so I thought I would show you all around.

Front door we are on the third floor.

Our dinning room and fridge, see we even have electricity :)

Living room with our computers in the middle of the room.

Kitchen with water filter and gas stove.

My bedroom I will be sharing with another teacher that will get here next Saturday. On my bed there is no bed right now, because the breaker blows if we run both air conditioners. We will get that wiring snafoo fixed up though. Until then I took my matress to go sleep in my roomates room. So instead on my bed there is a very ominous stack of papers I should be grading right now :) Any volunteers?

Welcome to my new home! I have a picture of the bathroom but it didnt upload and yes it looks very American as well :)

Oh Jordan

Ok so lets say you are in the house and you hear music coming from a vehicle outside, not like someones stereo. More like just a toy type of music, what does that make you think of? Ice cream truck? Wrong in Jordan that is the gas truck that comes around to let you know they are outside in case you need gas.

Lets say you are going to the Super Market just to get a snack, and it is something that costs maybe 50-60 cents. All you have is a 5 dollar bill. Not a problem right? Wrong! You end up in an argument about that fact that you do not have any smaller change and this is all you have and he is saying the same thing to you. Oh Ramadan when no one buys much so no one has much money.

You are going to get into a car and there is a Man that is not a part of your family driving, where do you sit? Passanger seat? Nope you sit in the back seat and you should not talk to the driver especially if it is a taxi. You should also look out the window and not make eye contact.

It is getting dark out and you want to go for a walk, so you head out of the house. Then your ten year old brother asks you where you are going, because you might get lost in the dark by yourself. Actually it is not a good idea to walk by yourself anywhere anytime of the day. Just because I am a woman.

You are at school and one of your students asks why you are wearing short sleeves and you do not have your arms covered. Yes even children understand modesty and will tell you how to dress, then you explain to them you do not have to dress like that. This however does not dissuade them from telling you how to dress the next day.

Hmm that is all the oddities I can think of right now but they are all become not so odd to me. Since I have seen most of them before.

Oh the complications...

So today I had the "joy" of extending my visa for Jordan. When you come into the country they give you a one month visa, that then you are supposed to check in with the police station before a month and they will extend your visa. However I forgot and went over a couple weeks, so I had to go and pay a fine.

So this is how it went yesterday the bus driver for the school was nice enough to come with me to attempt to renew my visa. I paid the fine and actually this very nice man put my passport on top of the stack because someone told them I had family coming into town. However then we tried to find the next office we were supposed to go to and after walking in about 5 circles. Apparently it is not easy to understand what your job is here. We finally found the right place, the man asked me about 3 questions and told me to leave because I could not prove that I had a place of residence here.

So I went back today with my host sister... we did everything they wanted and got the fingerprints, by the way Jordan now has a blood test and fingerprints from me... We got to the last step where all the man had to do was stamp my passport and he looked at the receipt that said I paid my fine yesterday, and told me I had to go pay my fine today. It has to be the same day. Well that was back on the other side of the building, and the smallest room with the most people. We asked them if I could just pay the 1 and a half JD for the day, but they wanted us to fill out another paper and wait in line for this which had about 20 people in front of us. We got really frusterated and then the man yelled at my host sister, and I was really really lost for a while until about 10 minutes later we ended up with my passport stamped and went back to see the same guy that kept refusing me and he finally finally put the stamp in my passport so that now I could stay for 3 months in Jordan.

It may not seem complicated, but we were both exausted afterwards and also very frusterated. If I could just get my visa for Sudan none of this would be a problem, but such is life :)

Ramadan Pictures

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/08/ramadan_2009.html

A day full of adventures!

Today was not just any normal day I got to do two things that in I was in America they would seem pretty normal. I went to the hospital, and the grocery store.

Don't worry no one is dieing, my youngest host sister's hands and feet were swollen. I told them all they needed was either benedryl or steroid cream as I have a friend that had something very similar to it. Yet we went on an adventure. First we went to the doctor, but the doctor decided he did not want to work today so he did not come in. So then we had to go to the hospital. They told us to go to the children's area of the hospital and because my host Dad is in the military they saw us very quickly. However all they said was we dont know go see another doctor at the other end of the hospital. We went over there and the doctor that we wanted to see was talking on his phone and said he could not see us until after a lecture that had not even started. My host Mom does not take no very easily, so in the end she got her way and we were seen right away. They prescribed her steroid cream, and said it may be a virus infection we do not really know. The hostpital itself would probably make you sicker that you were when you first came. Just being there made me feel dirty! There were about 10 people in every room and it was a lot of fun! Then we had to go get the prescription at the other end of the hospital. I had lots of fun, and realized I hope I never have to go to the hospital in this country, however I am sure there are worse.

The grocery store was an adventure as well :) I have been to grocery stores before, just not during Ramadan when everyone is trying to buy everything in the store. It was also more of a local grocery store then I usually go to. You know how your mother told you to never go to the grocery store when you are hungry. Well everyone was hungry and everyone was buying a months worth of food. Or so it seemed. However people thought I was Arab since I was there so that was kind of fun :) I saw some pretty fun stuff as well, didn't go near the meat section though so I do not know about that area.

Funny how the simplest things are now the most complicated, it gets easier and not so surpising the longer you are here though.

Whats for dinner?

I have had a lot of questions about what kind of food I am eating or what are traditional dishes, So I thought I would show you. This is as traditional as you can get for Jordan it is called Mansef and yes that is a lamb head, well skull in the middle of the platter. Around it are the rest of the parts of the lamb nothing is wasted in Jordan. You eat this from the platter with your hands/ bread and they pour kind of liquid yogurt over it. It is very very good and there is always plenty of food!

This is a traditional dessert, called Kanafe. I am not too fond of it but it can be really good. It has a coconut wrapping and a chewy inside I really have no idea what it is made of. Of course it has pistachios on top which is a delicacy and very expensive, yet loved by all. Even the Arab ice cream has pistachios in it. Good thing they have American ice cream too I still prefer it to the desserts they have here.

There are lots of other dishes as well but these are the most traditional! In Arabic lets eat is Sahtain!

Let the games begin!

One of the things that I brought with me on this trip was a bag full of school supplies. Once my host family realized this they started looking to see what I had. I bought a bunch of games to play with my class. Of course all educational. One in particular that they really liked was Rummikub. I think part of the reasoning is that it is numbers which are much easier to translate taking away one part of the difficulty of speaking a different language as your first language. Dont get me wrong my whole host family speaks amazing English, just when you are playing a game you probably do not want to play Scrabble.

Every night now everyone wants to play Rummikub and they get really into it and very competitive. It is really fun and I can play it totally in Arabic now which is always helpful. As one of my host sisters said after we played the first time this game is very very very very very nice! Even the youngest has fun and tries to play usually she needs help but she is not bad either. I love the fact that this culture is so focused on family that the entire family can come around the table and play the same game day after day.

While I am waiting

So while I am waiting for my visa I found something to do. My host Mom is a pricipal at a preschool/ kindergarten I went there when I was here before. I went today with 26 little people and 4 adults in a bus (more like a van) to a kids play area. I ended up teaching the class most of the day. Then I got asked if I could cover for a lead teacher tomorrow. Wow these jobs just jump at me. Can you imagine being able to just walk into a daycare in the US? Or any place that kids are then taking care of them the next day by yourself when you do not even speak their language. It is ok though cause my 9 year old host sister can translate :P Should be an interesting day. I wish I had pictures but my camera is harban (still not working/ no charger) Sorry you will just have to imagine kids pilled on top of each other. The play area was much like a play area at a McDonalds in the states.

I'll keep you posted :)

Observations...

It is interesting coming back to a country that I have been to before. How quickly you think things are normal and the things that you forget about being different. Some of the differences that I forgot about are:

• Toilet paper is a luxury.


• There is not enough water to take a shower every day.


• When you go out you dress up even just to go to the store.


• Cars will not stop for you so you better run!


• People really want you to be able to speak Arabic and will help any way they can.


• Time is an interesting concept: yes the party starts at 6, no we will not leave till about 6:30.


• Street signs are just for looks and no one knows what you are talking about when you say some street name.


• When there is no school you stay up till about 3am and wake up around noon.

Other cultural differences make more sense to me now. I am more willing to dress even more modestly then before, maybe because there are not as many Americans that I am hanging out with. You do not go out at night you stay in and spend time with the family.

It is wierd though everyone still tells me welcome to the country or "Ahlan wa Sahlan" I am wondering at what point I will not look so American or if I can do that...

I tried wearing hijab or head covering the other day and my host sister said that maybe I should not wear hijab. I am too white :) gotta get working on that tan...

Address

I also have an address now email me if you would like to get it jrazey@gmail.com.

Visa

As of now I do not have a visa to get into Africa as you can imagine this was an unforseen complication. Today I postponned my plane ticket indefinitely which was very easy to do. I will know more later and hope to find out when I will finally make it to Africa.

Jordan

I made it to Jordan after a very long three days kind of. Wednesday did not really exist for me we chased the sun across the sky and then it was Thursday. Germany was good, but not a place I would want to spend a lot of time partly because of the jet lag and partly because I realized just how little German I actually speak...

Flying into Jordan in the middle of the night was gorgeous, there was a clear sky so I could see the stars and the city lights from the plane. Plus the plane was basically empty so I got a whole row to myself for some much needed sleep.

It is still Thursday and I am at the University of Jordan just trying to get out and do some stuff today so that I can adjust to new time zone. When I was getting off the plane I asked another American what day it was apparently I still thought it was Tuesday. This week just flew by!

Leaving

I leave the country tomorrow, so for the next week I will be traveling and then setting up my classroom. All in all it will be a whirlwind of probably the next couple of months as life settles into the new normal. My updates in my blog should be posted onto facebook, which I will not be using for the first couple of months of my time in Africa. If you would like to contact me please email me or post on my blog :) Thank you you guys are amazing!

School Supplies

As most students are just getting out of school and thinking only about summer. I find myself attempting to find back to school sales. Funny thing is when I ask stores they do not think it is wierd that I want to know when back to school sales are when school has not even gotten out until the end of the week.

I need to get all my supplies for the year and then take them with me, my problem being that I love to have lots of classroom books and those take up a lot of room. I guess I will have to sacrifice and take things like folders, pens, and pencils instead of all books.

Also I have had a lot of things given to me already so really all I need is a lot of folders, stickers, and other small things.

It is still weird to think that I will be leaving so soon! I have a lot of packing and organizing still to do and to figure out the best way to pack everything... maybe I will start tomorrow :)

Changing Direction

I know I have been indecisive, but I decided to make a public blog after all. Also I will be able to link videos to this blog. So all in all it will be bigger and better! There will be a choice to let me know that you are reading my blog which I would appreciate. I will just keep the information on this page information that I can share with everyone. The videos will help you understand what it is really like where I will be in Africa and this blog will be easier for me because I know how to and have used blogger before.

As you can see I have posted what the current weather is in Sudan right now and it is pretty hot. I can write this now and know that it will still be when people look at it because it will not be cooling off for quite a while. I will also be able to link my pictures to this blog from my picasa.

I am hoping this all will help you feel more like you are in Africa with me! Thank you so much for being flexible my blog really will stay right here the rest of my travels.