Goodbye, Jordan

Hopefully this post doesn't get too sappy. But it is our last day here, which is rather sad. Soon we'll have to head back to Orem, BYU, school, and work--real life. There are a lot of things that I'm going to miss about living in Jordan:

-Signs in more than one language...

-Our bridge (the yellow and blue one in the picture above)
-Falafel on every street corner
-All the history, both Biblical and political
-Petra
-The Dead Sea
-Crazily decorated taxis
-Sunshine everyday
-The company of the Slades
-The Call to Prayer
-Our Branch
-Singing every verse of every song we sing in church

A super-crazy taxi

There are also a number of things I'm looking forward to when I get home:
-Water
-Sunshine with a chance of rain
-Having something to do everyday
-Our own mode of transportation
-Salad, and any other foods that aren't fried
-A little less dust
-A dryer
-Milk that doesn't go bad 2 days after you buy it
-My family

Well, I suppose I'm glad to be heading home, but Jordan has become a part of us, so now when we go home we'll miss it, too!

Accidental bus ride

Transportation in Jordan can sometimes be a hassle...well, it's always a hassle. The main mode of public transportation is the ubiquitous minibus, which are privately owned and go pretty much anywhere. They usually follow a set route, but are sometimes negotiable, like the one we took to Wadi Mujib and the Dead Sea. You always risk not getting on the right bus.

Since I take the bus to and from school everyday, getting a wrong bus is a semi-common occurence for me, but is easily fixed, since the bus driver usually changes his route for me (weird stuff...)

We had a similar problem going to Jerash. When we got to the Abdali bus station, I started looking around for the line of Jerash minibusses. The destination is always written on the side of the bus, and I had seen Jerash busses before, so I knew that they existed. I soon found our lucky bus. On the side was written "Amman to Jerash Camp" and in my momentary ignorance, I figured that meant a military camp or a tourist campground. I asked the driver if it went by the main Jerash ruins and he replied affirmatively. So off we went...

It didn't take me long to figure out what the Jerash Camp really was. The bus was full of Palestinian refugees heading home to their ghetto refugee camp. Hmmm...that's kind of dangerous for Americans to go to, since they place direct blame for their situation on us and Israel. But we were already underway, so we decided to ride it out.

An old guy next to me asked me why we were on that bus - he already knew we were Americans. He then drilled me on America's policies with Israel and started getting angry with me. He used an analogy 3 different ways to explain his anger at Israel - "What if someone came and kicked you out of your house at night? Would you try to get it back?", "What if I stole your bag and drank all your water? Would you want your water back?" and "What if this was your bus and I stole it from you? Would you want it back? Would you fight for it?"

I just kept telling him that I didn't support Israel and didn't support America's policies towards them and that I was against the war in Lebanon and Palestine. He couldn't believe that an American would say such things.

It didn't help that he spoke to me exclusively in broken English - it made the others on the bus very wary. I responded to him in Arabic the whole time, and it was pretty funny when he asked me halfway through the conversation if I spoke Arabic.

Anyway, during his heated conversation, some guy got on the bus and sat in front of me. He heard that we were talking and turned around and yelled at the old guy "Do you know what you're talking to!? Do you know where he's from? He's a Zionist supporter from America!!". The old guy just said "Yeah, I know. It's okay - he likes Hizballah - he hates the Jews." That wasn't completely true - I definitely don't hate Jews (since I'm 1/4th-ish Jewsih), and I'm not completely against Hizballah - but I wasn't about to negate my "redeeming qualities" in front of the angry guy. He angrily turned around back in his seat and was mostly silent during the rest of the trip.

He only spoke up in response to the BBC news that was on the radio. Every time America, Bush, Condoleeza Rice, or Israel mentioned, he and half the bus would mumble something. Once, after Rice was mentioned in one news report, he turned to me and said "That's your stupid foreign minister coming here. What are you going to do about it?!" I just ignored him and remained silent for the rest of the trip.

It was a huge relief to get off that bus at Jerash. Fun experience, yes. Something I want to do again, not really. At least, not during an Israeli war.

The way home was easier and much more peaceful. We found a busy intersection where tons of people were waiting around for something. I asked if they were waiting for a bus to go to Amman, but one girl responded by telling me that there were no busses to Amman and that we had to find a ride. Some guy overheard our conversation and came to offer us a ride for 6 JD for all of us. Since we paid 40 piasters each coming up, that was way too expensive, so we declined his offer. I asked other bystanders, and they all agreed - there was no bus to Amman. We decided that there had to be a bus to Amman, so we walked down the main road to find the city bus station. After 10 minutes of walking, a large bus for Amman pulled over and we got in.

Our bus drove up to the intersection where everyone was waiting, and everyone got on - even the girl who denied the existence of such a bus. Unfortunately she didn't see us on the bus...I had so wanted to call her bluff!

One of the coolest places in Jordan - Wadi Mujib

We have a three day break this weekend, but instead of going out to some far away place, we decided to go to a little-visited place in Jordan - the Wadi Mujib nature reserve. If you read about it it sounds really boring - it's just a big animal reserve on the shores of the Dead Sea. It's really quite amazing though.

All along the shore of the Dead Sea there are fresh water springs that flow into the huge body of salt water - water coming from the mountains (but not from runoff - who knows where it comes from?!). One of the larger creeks is Wadi Mujib Gorge - part of the main reserve - which is a long hike up the river through a narrow canyon, ending at a tall waterfall. Immagine Petra's Siq with a fast moving river coming down, like the Subway or the Narrows hike in Zions National Park. Pretty amazing stuff.

We hired a mini bus from the Muhajereen bus stop by the 3rd circle in Amman. We negotiated the price for the whole day - 50 JD. Slightly ludicrous, but we only had a group of 5 (the three male BYU students in Irbid, Curtis, Stephen, and Andrew (aka Sami) came with us), so we took it. It was nice, since we had the driver wait for us wherever we went.

After about an hour drive we made it to the trailhead and paid the 7 JD per person. Once again expensive. Oh well. After paying we started hiking. We walked on man-made, metal bridges for a couple minutes until we came to the edge of a cliff with a metal ladder hanging down. Thus began our long, wet hike.

Stephen getting in the water

Beginning of the hike - notice the same rope from the previous picture.

We had to swim twenty feet across to the other side of the river, where we could actually stand up and walk. We hiked in the shallow water for about 30 minutes, heading up the narrow canyon. The water gradually got whiter and rapider and deeper. We then got to some steep, small waterfalls/cliffs that we had to climb up.

Hiking up the small waterfalls

Sami stuck in one of the waterfalls

Some video of the beginning of the steep waterfalls

As we got closer to the main waterfall, the water got even faster and the cliffs that we had to climb up got higher. Ropes were provided on one of the difficult ascents. As we climbed, we took lots of breaks in the water, playing in the powerful mini waterfalls.

Nancy in mini waterfall

Me in mini waterfall

After climbing up all the rapid waterfalls, we made it to the main one, which was a lot more rapid and powerful than the other small ones (duh). We all had fun running through it, trying not to get knocked over or lose anything. Curtis's watch got ripped off his wrist - it's still up there somewhere (maybe we'll find it in our sink someday). Stephen lost his glasses, which Sami miraculously found under the pummeling waterfall. It was amazingly fun!

Me in the main waterfall

Us at the base of the waterfall

Us in a wall of very hard water

Me getting pummeled by the waterfall

Nancy falling in the waterfall

The cool waterfall

After a long while at the top, we headed back. This was a lot more difficult, and a lot more fun than coming up. The group that left before us took the ropes that we needed at the steep climbs, so we had to jump down some of them and slide down others. The undertow was really strong on some of the waterfalls, making it difficult to get away and continue. We were all completely bruised by the time we got to the end. My shoes didn't survive - too many fast currents, poweful waterfalls, twisted ankles, and big rocks.

That's Andrew's sock -
the sole had already floated down the river.

Once again at the beginning of the hike, we spent half an hour jumping back in the water from that first cliff with the metal ladder. The surrounding water was extremely deep and very warm - perfect cliff jumping water. Even Nancy jumped!

We then found our bus driver having a smoking/tea break with the guys at the trail head desk. We got back in the bus and went up to Amman Beach on the Dead Sea and met up with the Slades. We spent a little while floating in the Dead Sea again, but it wasn't as fun as the first time. We had so many stratches and scrapes and bruises from Wadi Mujib that the salt just stung. It hurt way too bad. I still love the Dead Sea, though.

Us floating in the Dead SeaNancy exfoliating herselfUs trying to get out at a very rocky/salty part!

After a while there, we found our driver, once again chilling with the ticket and security guys - with tea - and came back home. It was an amazing day! We highly reccomend Wadi Mujib to anyone thinking about going! It's an incredible place! (Just don't go to the Dead Sea directly after...ouch!)

Madaba for Mosaics (June 24)

This Saturday we decided to go to Madaba, the biblical capital of Moab. Madaba is a rather small town but is very famous for its mosaics. In fact, throughout the city you can see signs that say, "Nazarenes for rugs." "Palestinians for Mosaics." and so forth. They sound kind of like political slogans but I think it is really just poor English.

Our Lonely Planet guidebook said that, unlike other mosaics, such as the ones you find in Italy, the mosaics in Madaba were built as floor coverings and could withstand anything, etc., etc., etc. (We just won't tell them about Ostia Antica, a lovely had-been port of Rome where there are many floors that are mosaics). However, I won't argue that the mosaics in Madaba are very extravagant. I can't imagine how long it would take to tile my kitchen floor let alone to tile a chapel floor like this one found in the Virgin Mary Chapel (25 piasters with a student card for the whole archeological park).

Floor of the Virgin Mary Chapel

Nancy in the Virgin Mary Chapel

After visiting the Virgin Mary Chapel, we headed out to Elias' tomb--not that they are very far apart. They are in the same archeological park...

Andrew in Elias' Crypt

Detail of the floor of Elias' Chapel

Perhaps the most famous Mosaic in Madaba is the Map of the Holy Land found in St. George's church (1 JD per person). The original map was built Byzantines but later a Greek Orthodox church was built on top of it (after it was unearthed). The detail is amazing, and sometimes quite amusing. Note the fish swimming away from the dead sea or the lion, which has been defaced. There are palm trees surrounding Jericho and a wall around Jerusalem. It was definitely the coolest map I've ever seen!

The Jordan River

Jerusalem

We tried to find the museum after visiting all these chapels, however the locals were not too helpful in our pursuit and we kept ending up at the visitor's center. After wandering around the city for a few hours we decided to just stop and have lunch. We looked around for a place with seats and finally found one. It looked decent when we first looked at it, but then we sat down.

The fridge was one of those Coke fridges used to store...pop. This fridge had everything in it! It had beans and salads and meat and some stuff that was spilled all over the bottom shelf. We ordered some pop and they poked around in the fridge for a while before we told them we didn't really want any pop. We didn't really want anything from the fridge.

Our food took a while to come, even though we just ordered falafel sandwiches. So, we're all eating our sandwiches (we: Me, Andrew and Rachel--a girl who is staying with us for a while) and I start to notice these little bugs on the table. After examining the bugs for a while I came to the conclusion that they were in fact cockroaches. Since I have never seen an actual cockroach, I asked Andrew what he thought. He agreed with me--and he actually knew since he has had experience with cockroaches in Italy... There were also cockroaches on the wall over by where they were making the food, but big ones! Gross! We didn't get sick though, so I suppose it was sanitary enough...

We decided to just go home after that. We didn't want to go around looking for the museum only to end up at the visitor's center again. It was getting embarrassing since the same people were working there the whole day (those tourists are here again?!?). We were really lucky to catch the bus since apparently they don't run between Madaba and the Abdali station that often (at least, that's what we were told). They run between Madaba and the Wahadat or Righadan stations more often.

You can catch a bus from the Abdali station that goes straight into the heart of Madaba for 40 piasters. Once you get into Madaba you're on your own. But don't worry...if you get lost, just ask people for the museum and you'll end up at the visitor's center where you can get a map (your choice of Italian, German, or Arabic) and faulty directions. But there are a lot of cool things to see there so I definitely suggest going.

This is a picture of the Bedouin tents that Andrew took as we were zooming by them in the bus. You may have to zoom in to get a good look at them.

Bedouin tents

Citadel and Ghettos

We went up to the Citadel today. We were going to go to the Dead Sea but we all weren't feeling very good in the morning and since the ride to the Dead Sea is pretty curvy we decided that we should probably stay around Amman.

We left for the Citadel around noon. It's pretty easy to get there because the taxi just drops you off at the top of the hill (getting back home was a different story) and you buy your entrance ticket (2 JD per person) and explore. Nothing is labeled so it would have been nice to have a tour guide, but we did have the Lonely Planet book and it explained some pretty crucial things. It's strange exploring the ruins here because you can climb on anything you want. The only thing they have blocked off are the wells--and that's probably a good thing because they are deep and full of trash. Andrew knew quite a bit about the architecture from his history classes (he's excited for his humanity classes where he will learn even more).

It was really fun to explore everywhere but it was so hot! The only shade we could find was in the Ummayyad Palace so we frequented there quite a bit. We were noticing with the ruins that the walls were so thick making the rooms rather small, but apparently it pays off because the Palace was so much cooler than standing in the sun!

The museum (Citadel archaeological Museum) was pretty cool, too. They had a tour that went all through different time periods, showing the Bronze period, the Iron period, the Roman period, the Byzantine period, etc. They had a ton of things from biblical times that were so cool to look at! It really made us realize that this is a Holy Land.

After we finished exploring everything we decided to head back to town. The problem was, there wasn't really a great way to get back to town. We had two options: walk down the big hill to town or take the stairs through a Palestinian ghetto. We opted for the main road but, it didn't go all the way down, so we ended up taking a whole bunch of windy side roads anyway.

I was hoping that we would come across some of those windy roads since I had read about them in books...but hadn't seen any yet. They really are quite windy. I think we would have gotten lost if it wasn't for all the children pointing us to the Roman Amphitheater. We were so tired once we got to the bottom of the hill! We decided to go find a place to eat.

Andrew really wanted to go to a restaurant that is mentioned in the Lonely Planet so we found that place. It was pretty good, although I thought it looked pretty sketchy at first. We walked in and they threw pita bread in front of us and brought us falafel and humus. It was good...and super cheap. All five of us ate for 3 JD.

We also went to a fresh juice stand. The juice was so good!

It was a fun trip but short outing (since we weren't feeling too great this morning, I think it was quite an adventurous day).

Air raid maybe?

So, we were sitting and eating dinner today when we suddenly heard a loud sonic boom - a fighter jet flew right over our house. When I ran out to the balcony, I saw the jet, and then one minute later, helicopters started flying by. 19 of them. They circled Amman for about 10 minutes until leaving.

At the Dead Sea we had a helicopter patrolling the beach to make sure nobody swam across to Israel. Military police are pretty good here. Who knows what the 19 helicopter convoy was doing today - they were flying towards Iraq before they started circling Amman. Maybe we'll find out in the news soon.

Just another cool thing that happens here.

Technology...

Since we're new to this blog thing, we're still discovering new and cool things we can do with the blog.

Like commenting. We just discovered a way to allow anyone to comment on our posts. If you read our blog and want to say something cool about it to us, go right ahead! We can see the comments you leave. Please leave us comments so we can see what you think about it all!

Also, we added a link to Jeremy and Bridget's Blog. If you all remember, he's the assistant director of the program - we went to the Dead Sea with them a while ago. They've got interesting stories too... Also we added a link to Jason and Crystal's Blog, who live with us.

So, moral of the story - leave comments! We should have fixed it so that you can comment even if you don't have a blogger.com account.

Hope to see your comments!

Goats in Amman, Andrew in the Dead Sea

Here is our local goat herder with his goats--they eat trash.



And here is Andrew snacking in the Dead Sea--he eats pita.

Independence Day in Amman

So, yesterday was a pretty fun day. It was the Jordanian Independence Day - 60 years ago the UK dissolved the Palestinian protectorate and formed the country of Transjordan, which later was renamed Jordan after it took the West Bank from Israel in one of the many wars they've been having.

Because of that, we got a three day weekend (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday). We hoped to go to Petra for the whole three days and stay in a hotel there, and Kirk told us to go out and see stuff, but the next day, he sent out an e-mail saying that all travel on Friday (the Sabbath here) was prohibited, meaning that our Petra plans (and everyone else's) were dashed. Lots of people got mad at him since he gave us no alternatives. It seemed like we'd never be able to leave Amman for extended periods of time to see other places. A few days later he called a meeting and told us he'd make other real 3 day weekends for us to leave and see stuff in Jordan. So hopefully we'll have time soon to get to Petra.

So, since we were stuck in Amman for the 3 day weekend, we went downtown to see what ancient things exist here. One of the main sites is an ancient (duh) Roman amphitheater that is extremely well preserved (Europeans use rock to build buildings - Arabs make their own brick out of sand - when Europeans needed building materials, what better source did they have than a huge colosseum sitting in the middle of town, not doing anything. The Arabs just ignored the big stone things here. Plus, it never rains here - minimal weather damage).

The theater is huge, and is part of the old Decapolis city of Philadelphia (modern day Amman, obviously). The main capital is on the top of a huge hill, now called the Citadel, and the old temple, or Acropolis, is up there too. Most of those buildings are destroyed now after numerous wars and stuff over the past 2000 years, but it's still pretty cool.

When we got our tickets (1 JD each - cheap), we walked in and an old, nearly toothless man came and proclaimed himself our guide for 5 JD. He then started giving us the tour before we could say no. He took us through the two museums and the main amphitheater really quick so that he could take us out to a small souvenier store and force us to buy something. We left the Slades in the shop and ran back to the amphitheater to take more time in it. It was nicer without the guide reciting a made up tour. For example, in one of the musems they had a whole bunch of mosaics from the city of Madaba (near the Dead Sea - biblical Moab). One mosaic was clearly labeled as "boy with wig," but the old guy said that the mosaic came from the amphitheater and was a picture of the king of Rome (wouldn't that be emperor?)

After that, we went to the main market to buy some cheap DVDs - 1 JD each. We bought Paradise Now last week, about 2 Palestinian suicide bombers (Nancy wrote about that earlier), so we bought 5 more yesterday (Ice Age 2, The Wild, Munich, The Benchwarmers, and the Legend of Zorro). We watched The Benchwarmers when we got home, but the quality was horrible, as was the film. Some guy filmed it from the back of a theater, so we got the audience laughing along and occasional popcorn breaks and people standing up to go in and out of the theater. Hopefully our other movies are good quality like Paradise Now.

While we were in downtown, the Jordanian Air Force put on an airshow right above the market, so everyone on the streets (and the cars) stopped and watched for 10 minutes. It was pretty cool. Later that night we heard fireworks, but couldn't see anything because our window faces away from downtown.

Today was pretty uneventful - we just went to church, came back, took a nap, got the wireless working, and cleaned and organized and relaxed. Tomorrow we'll do some more stuff in downtown more, maybe, and I have tons of homework to catch up with.

We're at 100%! Finally!

Okay - I hope you all enjoyed the pictures of the Dead Sea and of our apartment. The Dead Sea post was actually written a while ago, and we haven't posted much lately because of some more changes.

First of all, not only do we have DSL, we have wireless internet too! We bought a router a few days ago, but for some reason, I couldn't get it to work at all, even following all the instructions. I was even on the online chat help thing with Linksys for 1.5 hours and they couldn't figure it out. I spent well over 20 hours the past 3 days trying to make it work. So, today, Nancy suggested that she try. In less than 5 minutes, she had the wireless up and running. I don't know how she did it. Magic I guess. It works now!

Second, we don't live alone anymore in our wonderful apartment (that's finally growing on us - we've been here for two weeks now!). The Slade family moved in with us. Jason is a BYU alum who graduated a while ago in Near Eastern Studies/Arabic (the predecessor to my current MESA major) who's currently in med school in Illinois. He is working on his MD/PhD dissertation and is doing it on Arab health care, so he's here studying Arabic at the UJ like me, but is going to try to set up internships and interviews with hospitals here. He brought his wife Crystal and their almost 2 year old son Ezra. Ezra is such a cute kid! The Slades got here on Tuesday night, the same night we got internet.

The internet was such a hassle! I spent a week and a half calling Jordanian Telecom, Wanadoo (our ISP), the landlord (who isn't really the landlord), and went all over Amman by myself to different government buildings scattered throughout the city. On Tuesday both Nancy and I spent all day with JT technicians and tried to get the Wanadoo guy to come and just give us our password. He called at 5 saying he'd be over at 6:30. Then he called at 6:15 saying he'd be over at 7:45. Then he called at 7:30 saying he couldn't come that day, but maybe the next day. We gave up hope and pretty much resigned ourselves to never having internet. At 9:30 he called and said he was here. He decided randomly to come that night and set us up. It was a miracle!

So, today, I finally unpacked and organized everything. Everything is now perfect and set up and working properly. We are no longer gypsies in Jordan. We are technology enhanced Middle East gurus loving every minute out here now!

So, that's all for this post. I'll make another one about our adventure yesterday.

The Dead Sea (Saturday, May 20, 2006)

On Thursday, which is like a Friday because it is the last day of the work week, I was over visiting with Bridget and she asked what Andrew and I were planning on doing for the weekend. We weren’t really planning on doing anything, but Bridget said that she and Jeremy were planning on going to the Dead Sea—so Andrew and I, as well as the Joneses (Ariel and Matt) decided to go too. It was so fun!

We met at Kirk’s house at 9:00. Andrew and I walked there; it takes about 25 minutes. It used to take 30 but then we discovered another road that makes us backtrack less. On the way we saw a horse being used to plow the islands of the road. That was kind of strange…I guess they don’t have roto-tillers here.

Since we got to Kirks a little early, I got to hold Miriam while the Palmers finished getting ready to go. From Kirk’s, the Palmers, Andrew and I caught a taxi to go to the bus station by the Third Circle, where we were meeting the Jonses, in order to get on an early Amman-Dead Sea bus. (Zahran Street is one of the main streets in Amman and there are 7 really fancy traffic circles on it. They are well-known landmarks. The church is right off of the third circle, as was this bus station.) The bus was kind of junky, but it was cheap (1 JD) for an hour’s ride. We kind of got ripped off because Jeremy only had a 5, so he paid for Bridget and himself (Miriam rides free—she’s only 8 months old) and for Andrew and I. But then, even though he told the money collecting kid that he paid for all four of us, the money collecting kid insisted that we pay as well. So we did. We were a little upset, but it was still a pretty cheap bus ride.

The drive was really interesting because we got to stop by a little village. It was so strange. People were looking into the bus and pointing and waving at us. They were telling people to come out of their houses to look at us…I suppose the not too many Americans travel through that village. It was a really cute village. I think that everyone must be banana farmers there because there were so many banana fields. And everyone had flowers in their gardens. It was really pretty.

No sooner had we left this village and the last of the banana fields behind than the landscape was totally arid. It was an amazing dichotomy: lush fields with bananas (and some corn and bamboo and flowers) to parched landscape with nothing (no trees, very little desert grasses).

Then we arrived at the Dead Sea. It was a beautiful sight: red sand and rocks, palm trees, the clear blue sea, and the mountains of Israel/Palestine in the background. The cost to get into Amman beach (that’s where we went because they have change rooms and freshwater showers…and it’s the cheapest beach with such commodities) is 1 JD for Jordanians, 5 JD for foreigners, and 2.5 JD for students. (It’s a good thing that we got our student ID cards a few days ago!) The beach was beautiful, albeit there was trash scattered all over, and we took a nice spot under a bamboo umbrella.

Bridget said that even if people tell you about the Dead Sea, you are not prepared for how it feels to be in it. It is pretty strange. At first I thought it was pretty normal until I tried to stand up and had a hard time getting my feet to go back down to the bottom. It was really cool! I think that even my mom would have enjoyed swimming there! The water was warm and you couldn’t sink. Andrew and I were just floating on our backs…our stomachs…straight up and down in the water…completely effortlessly. It was so cool! There were people reading the newspaper just lying on their backs. I did some synchro (without dunking my head) and it was so easy! I could just lift my legs into the air and not have to scull or anything. Andrew even ate his pita sandwich floating on his back.

I don’t know how salty the ocean is compared to the Dead Sea, but I can tell you that it is a whole lot saltier! If you get a drop in your eye you can’t see anything until you rinse it out (with fresh water); it burns so badly! If you get it in your mouth, it also burns, so you spit and spit and spit to try to get the taste out of your mouth. There is so much salt that while you are in the water you feel all oily and then after you get out the salt starts to get all grainy on your body. (I’m still picking salt out of my ears!) There was salt all in my hair and all over my skin. It was kind of gross, but I think it’s better than the chlorine feeling. The sand collects on the shore as well as all over the bottom of the sea. We picked off a bunch of salt crystals to bring home with us. We got some really big pieces! There are huge pillars of salt in the sea—literally! A word to the wise: don’t shave the day you plan on going to the Dead Sea, and don’t go in if you have any open wounds. (Poor Andrew had a blister on one of his toes…ouch!)

The Dead Sea is famous for its “magical” healing powers. The muds and waters of the sea are supposed to cure almost any ailment (headaches, skin disorders, etc.) People were smearing themselves with mud to clean their skin. Andrew and I did as well. It kind of burns because there is sand and salt mixed in the mud so when you scrub yourself with your pores get exfoliated…and then the water gets in and it burns. But it did feel really nice. People actually collect the mud and sell it. Others make lotions and soaps out of the minerals. I don’t know why anyone would buy it. You walk in the Dead Sea and can sink up to your ankles in mud (before you get in so deep that you can’t keep your feet down anymore).

After a few hours (like 4) we were all pretty much done—Miriam especially. So we had to find a way home. We hired a van to take us back for 20JD. He took us right back to Kirk’s house, so we didn’t have to hire a second taxi. That was nice. However, we had squished too many people into the van so we took a lot of back roads in order to avoid the checkpoints. (On the way to the Dead Sea we got stopped at 2 checkpoints, we got ID-ed at one and questioned at the other – there are tons of checkpoints all along the road that goes parallel to the Dead Sea-Jordan River-Sea of Galilee since Israel/Palestine is less than 5 miles away and there are a few little problems over there…). One road took us to the middle of nowhere! There were a few Bedouin tents and then an even smaller village than before. This one was just a bunch of mud-brick homes, not that mud-brick homes are abnormal because people still make their own bricks in Amman, but these homes were one-room homes with no electricity or anything. It was pretty amazing how scarce everything looked. We had to slow down for an old lady to cross the street leading her donkey…

Now we’re home, showered, fed, and dead-tired! All that sunshine will do you in. Andrew and I were joking that because we’ve now fully experienced the lowest point on Earth that we should climb Mt. Everest…I’m not sure that is going to happen. I’m not really one to complain about the heat…but I do whine about the cold a lot! In fact, Amman has been too cold lately…the Dead Sea was much warmer and the sun was much more concentrated. Andrew and I both got a little burnt. It was a good day though! And this week is a short week so we are looking forward to having next Thursday off of school for Jordanian Independence Day (60 years this year)…maybe we’ll explore Petra!

Pictures from the Dead Sea

Floating in the Dead Sea

Close up of salt that was "growing" in the Dead Sea

Nancy floating in front of fat Russian guy

Mount Nebo, the River Jordan, and Umm Qais

Yesterday (Saturday the 6th), we took a biblical tour of Jordan that Nadal set up for us. He is a strong member of the branch here in Al Husn - served a mission in South Africa and speaks English perfectly. He also has connections all over Jordan (anything you need, just ask Nadal). We were supposed to leave Amman at 7:00 in the morning, meaning that the Irbid/Husn people needed to leave at around 6:00 am. This is problematic because Jordan really doesn't wake up until 10:00 am so trying to get a Jordanian bus driver up to drive earlier than 6:00 was asking a lot. He was quite late and laughed at us when we told him he was late. But we all got on the bus and promptly fell asleep for the hour and 15 minute ride.

The rides from Irbid to Amman (and vise versa) are really quite interesting. You go up a hill at 20 miles an hour because you can't go any faster and then you go down the hills much faster (as in, I never see break lights come on). Imagine riding through a canyon road going 100 miles an hour around curves. It's interesting. The view is interesting as well. There are a lot of olive orchards and vineyards and pottery kilns. You can also see the bedoin tents and houses carved into the rocks as well as a lot of caves. And then the goats. There are tons of goats in Jordan. People herd goats up the highways and through towns (including right through Amman). They tether goats to poles at the butcher shops. It's interesting to see the goats there. They look so nervous - and then you realise that two goats are currently being skinned right in front of these two goats. It is really quite gross. They do it all right there on the street for everyone to see. Everyone has goats!

This trip, however, we didn't take the main highway. We took a "back way" which was much more windy and a few girls got sick. We had to stop the bus for one to get out. It was a pretty sad ride, but we finally made it to Amman and picked up the rest of our group. We all got on the bus and Kirk wanted us to sing hymns, so we sang one verse of something before everyone fell asleep. After singing alone for a while, Kirk got the message that we were all still struggling with jetlag and he sat down.

Our first stop was Mt. Nebo. It is on of the mountains that Moses has been known to be at. There is a statue of a staff with a snake on it that is really quite cool, as well as a church that is famous for its mosaics. From the top of the mountain you can look out over Israel and the Dead Sea. We saw a little bit of Jerusalem, Jericho and a few other well-known biblical towns, as well as the site of the dead-sea scrolls. It was really neat.

Statue of Moses' Staff with Snake
Us inside the Moses Memorial Chapel

View from Mt. Nebo in front of Church

View of Dead Sea from Mt. Nebo (on left hand side)

From Mt. Nebo we drove down past the Dead Sea to the River Jordan. The road was so windy and had so many switchbacks (we had to keep holding our breath and praying that the breaks wouldn't give out!) but down at the Dead Sea everything was pretty flat. All of our water bottles got crushed as we went down because of the change in pressure. We didn't get to stop at the Dead Sea though. We will go back another time. Instead, we carried onto the River Jordan. We had to stop at a lot of check points because the borders are not very well defined (our cell phones welcomed us to Palestine) and there are mines and snipers all over the place. If you get off the trodden path you are in real trouble.

John the Baptist SpringChapel of the Jordan River

We did a little hike around the River and found John the Baptist's Spring. It is a little pool of water that springs up from the ground (hence the name) and feeds into the River. The water was very clear and cool (no, we didn't drink it). We then continued on to the "Chapels at the River." This is the proposed spot of baptism for the Savior. It has some chapels and some steps leading down into a big hole (the water has been diverted back into the Jordan River so it is empty now). The Savior was baptised at "Bethany beyond the Jordan" so chances are he wasn't actually baptised in the actual river and since there was a font at these chapels, it seemed pretty likely that "this was the place."

Nancy dipping in the Jordan RiverAndrew and Nancy in front of the Jordan River
(The West Bank is just across from us.
Note the flag of Israel and all the fences!)

From there we went down to a platform on the river. We were on the East bank. About 10 feet in front of us was...the West bank. Seriously...if I jumped from the rail of the platform I probably could have landed in Israel. If I were to swim across the river, it would have taken me 2 strokes. It really wasn't all that wide. But, with the snipers and land mines, we decided to stay on the Jordan side with our snipers and land mines. If we had attempted to cross, there would have been trouble, but we got a nice picture of us with the Israel flag waving in the wind. We also touched the river. It was murky brown and pretty warm.

Oh, and the Al Husn branch met us at the Baptisimal site and we sung hymns in English and Arabic. That was pretty cool. We sang some of the primay hymns about baptism while we were looking out over the river and that brought a whole new meaning to the songs.

Alas, we are moving on again. This is kind of how the whole trip went - in and out. So, we're on the bus again on our way to Umm Qais. This is apparently pretty cool, but we didn't quite get there. It's supposed to be a great picnic area with a lot of vegetation and trees but, since it is right on the border of Syria and Israel the borders are, again, pretty disputed. They were having a military demonstration up there (in the middle of no where) so we couldn't go all the way.

Us with Sea of Galilee in Background

We went as far as they would let us and then we got out and look over the Sea of Galilee. Standing on the ground where the Savior did almost his entire life ministry was pretty cool (remember that Jordan and Israel were the same country. Jordan used to be Israel or vise versa...the borders are all pretty fuzzy here).

"Fastlink wishes you an enjoyable stay in Syria..."

It was neat to see the cities in a distance, and get a message on our cell phones welcoming us to Syria (even though we were still in what is considered Jordan). But because of the men sitting behind machine guns who were urging us to get back in the bus and go home we weren't there very long. There are a bunch of ruins up there and we would like to go back to see them.

Ruins at Umm QaisIt was a wonderful trip. We'd like to do it again, maybe taking the whole weekend or just doing one site a day.

We're settled in (kind of)!

So, after a long day (not enough time to describe it now - we'll do that tomorrow since it'll be Friday and we have church), we are almost moved. We're not in Amman anymore. We're in a city 1 hour north called Irbid. It's on the maps in the back of the Bible, between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, to the east of the Jordan river. We're 30 minutes from the Syrian border, and are therefore close to Lebanon, Palestine, and the Golan Heights.

It's a beautiful area and not very many people live here - 40,000. There are bedouin tents all around and goats in the neighbor's yard. This is the real Middle East, not some westernized city!

So, that's all for now - we'll write about today tomorrow!

مع السلاما