Adventure Time!

Where do I even begin?

The end of May marked 3 months within the country of Kuwait, which meant it was time to go for what we call a "visa run." I decided to go to Jordan for 8 days to 1)Renew my visa 2)Reflect on the last 3 months and prepare for the next 3 and 3)Relax and come back to Kuwait refreshed and with a new level of motivation for the next part of my internship!

I started my trip in South Jordan, staying in a small town called Ras An Naqab (about an hour away from Aqaba), with a missionary family who kindly and generously welcomed me into their home. This family is part of a group who works at a clinic in the town, and a large part of their work is with the Bedouin people around the area. The first thing I noticed about Jordan was how different the weather was from Kuwait, cool winds and evenings were such a nice treat compared to the now constant heat of Kuwait (its now getting to 45-50 degrees daily!). The day after I arrived the adventures started! First stop, PETRA! As you might already know, I am a major Indiana Jones fan, so going to Petra was a real treat (think Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the place where they find the Holy Grail, the outside part of that building is the Treasury from Petra. I also sang the Indian Jones theme song in my head the whole time there, and wore a fedora for the occasion - go me!)! The family who was hosting me for the week have 2 kids who came with me, as well as another guy who was visiting Jordan from the States. The four of us spend the day learning about the Nabetean people, the city of Petra (which comes from Peter, meaning rock) and exploring the various trails and sights. This meant a lot of walking, mostly uphill! I made quite a few friends with the Bedouin children who are constantly following you and trying to sell you postcards. Instead, I opted to share some of my food with them and also ended up giving away a few pens for their schooling. I even let one girl borrow my camera for a bit, she had so much fun taking pictures of me and my friend as well as the various tourists going up and down the trails. After our full day at Petra, our group made a quick stop in the town of Wadi Musa, to the place where they say Moses struck the rock and water came out (although when I went to Mt. Nebo later in the week, the people there were saying it was just down the road from the mountain). I filled up my water bottle and it is actually some of the purest water I have tasted.

The day after Petra was a day of rest, as it was Sunday. I attended church with the clinic staff which is held in one of their homes and we sang a couple of Arabic worship songs, which were beautiful. After church it was back to the home of my hosts to celebrate the birthday of their son!

Monday, the 30th, was my birthday, and I celebrated by going to Wadi Rum with my hosts children (they became my adventure companions!). Wadi Rum is famous not only because of its incredible desert beauty, but because Lawrence of Arabia spent a lot of time there as well. We rented a jeep for the morning and went driving around the desert, I even got to ride a camel too!! The boys in charge of the camel rides took us to the ruins of an old Nabetean temple. I asked them how old the temple was. The hummed and hawed until one of them quickly said in Arabic, "Just tell them its 100 years old!" My friend who speaks Arabic told me what he said, and we started laughing because the visitors center had told us they were around 2000 years old! We stopped in at one of the various Bedouin tents around the area and had some tea, after which I had the chance to dress up like a Bedouin! We also got to see some ancient rock carvings. It is astounding to be in all these places seeing and touching things that have been there for thousands of years! In the evening my hosts surprised me with a cake and sang happy birthday to me which was so thoughtful of them since I was feeling kind of low about not having any of my loved ones around me to celebrate with.

The next day was a bit quieter, but still had some adventure of a different kind in store for me. This adventure was going around with my hosts to visit some of the Bedouin people. This was a really cool experience. There is nothing quiet like sitting down and sharing some tea with Bedouins. Our last visit of the day was out at a Bedouin tent to visit a family, our group quickly grew as the lady we came to visit also had her sister-in-law coming over with her family! We all sat down just outside their tent enjoying the last bits of sunshine for the day and talking together (well, for me I must admit it was more like listening). One of the ladies went away to make tea, she came back with four cups (all they had) so we had to drink our tea at different times. I should not have watched her preparing my cup to put my tea in, because when I looked into the water bowl she was using to wash the glasses, I definitely saw some things swimming around in there. But I rationalized in my mind that the tea I was about to drink had been boiled and thus, should be fine to drink, so I manned up and drank every last drop! I find Bedouin tea quite good, but it is very sweet! After our tea and visiting, I took out my camera to take some pictures of the children who were playing with a skipping rope we had given them. This started off one of the best hours of my whole time in South Jordan. Seeing the joy on their faces from something so simple, and having them pose and showing off for the camera was so much fun to capture. They will be photos I cherish forever!

My time is South Jordan taught me a couple of things:

• I need to learn Arabic, especially if I want to continue working here in this area of the world. In Kuwait, everyone speaks English, and the women that I work with speak Nepalese so I haven't felt a need to learn it, but now I am extra motivated to start!
• I really love and am intrigued by the Bedouin people and other groups like them in the Middle East.
• As much as living in a city is great as it has everything you could ever want and need, being out in the countryside, in a smaller setting away from the city mindset is so refreshing and, dare I say, possibly more fulfilling for creating relationships and getting involved in the community.

The start of June marked the next part of my time in Jordan, North Jordan. The day was started by driving up through Amman where we stopped at an olive wood craft shop. My hosts bought my a gift for my birthday there, a beautiful olive wood bracelet. The products are all made by those in need, to help support them. We continued on from Amman up to a town called Mafraq (about 15 minutes from the Syrian border) where there is a lung disease clinic that I have heard so much about for years! I was so excited to finally see the place, and what is going on there. It is a really beautiful facility, and the staff are wonderful. They have a lot of Bedouins with TB and asthma who come there to get treatment. From Mafraq we went straight back to Amman to drop me off at my hotel in historic downtown old Amman. I stayed at a place called the Arab Tower Hotel, I was not quite sure what to expect, as I had only seen a couple of photos on the internet, but it was wonderful! The staff were all so friendly and helpful, it included breakfast, free internet and various day trip that you could sign up for at reasonable prices.

My first night in Amman I went for a walk downtown (which really was right out the front door of the hotel) and ended up walking over to the Roman Theatre to scope it out for my complete Amman adventure the next day. I ended up meeting a tour guide/driver who offered to take me up to the Citadel since the sun was setting. I was a bit tentative at first, but my spidey sense was not tingling so I decided "Hey, I am here to had an adventure!" so I went for an early evening tour. I am sure where my mom hears this story she will be mortified, but seriously, I never felt that I was in any danger, as I knew my protector was watching over me and he was driving slow enough that if I need to jump out of the car at any point I could make a clean getaway. The only downside of the whole thing was that he was trying to make me his 4th wife, and I had to constantly side step from his comments on how beautiful I am (haha). Aside from his attempts to woo me, he did tell me some very interesting things about the city and I got some really great shots of Amman at sunset. Amman is built on 7 mountains, which makes it very picturesque! The rest of my evening was spent in the souq, scouting out some souvenirs and gifts for my family (they are going to be very spoiled when I return to Canada).

Day 2 was spend going all around downtown Amman. I slept in and went down to have my breakfast and ended up meeting the manager of the hotel. He told me there was a shortcut to go up to the Citadel which made the usual 20 minute walk into a 5 minute walk. He said he would show me it, but he ended up accompanying me the whole way, and hung out with me as I explored the ruins up there (it is at this point that I am starting to realize what I am going to be spending most of my time doing in Amman; avoiding becoming any ones wife!). It was unfortunate, because with him there, I felt I needed to rush a bit and so did not take all the photos that I wanted to. Regardless, he was a very friendly guy, and it was interesting to discuss the hotel and practice English with him (I ended up teaching him a new word! Influencial. Maybe I should look into teaching ESL?). We parted ways, and I went down to check out the Roman Theatre. While there, I found a little trinket that someone had left with a tag on it saying for the finder to take it with them and put it somewhere new for someone else to find. I brought it back with me to Kuwait, and look forward to placing it somewhere in the next couple weeks. I did a bit of shopping and made some friends with some of the people in the shops. One thing I have noticed about this city is that people really remember who you are. Every morning in the hotel I was greeted by name, and shops that I had stopped in the day before would say hi to me as I walked by! The other thing I have noticed is that the people here can not pronounce my name - Rebecca. I think it is because North Americans pronounce it with a hard R, while here they seem to roll their R's more. So when they say it, it comes out more like - Rrrray-beck-ka. In the evening I went up to Rainbow Street, which is in a most Christian area of Amman. I would compare this street to 17th Ave in Calgary, its where the nightlife happens. I went early in the evening to enjoy a nice dinner at a place I had read about called Books@Cafe. After I went for a walk and stopped in at a coffee shop to enjoy a nice Latte before heading back to my hotel for the evening. Going to and from Rainbow Street also became an adventure since hardly any of the taxi drivers here speak English (yet another reason to learn Arabic!). My first taxi driver kept stopping the whole way there asking people for directions and then wrote them down on a piece of paper for me if I wanted to come again.

Day 3 in Amman was the big adventure day of my time up North! I got up bright and early to go on a day trip with 2 Russian women to Madaba (where there are some famous Mosaics) - Mount Nebo (where God showed Moses the Promised Land, and also where he is though to have died) - the Dead Sea (to float around, cover myself in black mud and take tourist photos) and finally the "supposed" Baptism Site of Jesus (Israel has theirs right across the river from the Jordan site). It was such a great day trip. We had a good driver, and the Russians made for some good company, even though only one of them spoke English. When I was at Mount Nebo, I ended up meeting a group of burn victims. One of them, a young guy, came up to me asking if I could take a picture. I though he meant of him, so I started to turn on his camera and line up the shot, but it turned out he wanted one with me. I obliged and this became the beginning of a long series of photos with every single member of the group, as well as a couple extra people after that. I found out from their leader that they were all Kurdish people from Afghanistan who had been attacked by the Taliban. I am not exactly sure why they all wanted a photo with me, I am guessing it has something to do with me being a female, and a foreigner, but it was great to meet them and encouraging to see them all out, enjoying life, despite their severe burns. The Baptism site was interesting, and regardless if that is where Jesus really was baptized of not, it was a great reminder of what He has done for us, and just knowing that he was in the same area where I was 2000 years ago is pretty cool to think about!

We got back to the hotel and I rested a bit before going out for my last evening in Amman. I wanted to try and pick up a couple more things from the souk so I went and walked my now familiar shopping route. I don't know if it was because it was a Friday night or what, but during my walk that night I was very aware of every single eye on me as I passed by the various shops. It is very uncommon here for a women to walk around alone, especially a westerner. As long as I ignored all the leering and cat-calling, I was fine. Despite this I did manage to obtain, an unasked for, number of the guy who sold me some perfume (he wanted to come back to Canada with me haha) as well as have a guy follow me around for a bit trying to get me to come up to Rainbow Street with him for the evening (he thought that telling me it would all be free, on him, would change my mind), I told him no, so he then decided it would be a good idea to accompany me on my shopping so that I would get better prices! As kind and thoughtful as his offer was, he eventually saw that I wasn't too into the idea, and then asked if it was not good for him to be with me. I told him yes, and that I was married and he instantly apologized and backed off like a gentleman (if I am planning to travel more here, I definitely need to get a more noticeable wedding ring, or perhaps start wearing rings on all my fingers for extra protection!).

The next day I returned back to Kuwait. My taxi driver to the Airport was a nice young man named Fadi, who was probably the most gentleman like guy I met while in Jordan. Even though he still gave me his card (you know, just incase I come back to Jordan and need a taxi driver) but he kept the conversation to a minimum and instead when he did talk, it was to show me things and tell me about stuff around the city, oh and he gave me a discount on the taxi fare to the airport, cha-ching! Aside from the unwanted male attention that you may receive if travelling alone, Amman was a really interesting place to visit, and Jordan as a whole was extraordinary! I really do hope to go back some day!

Oh and don't worry, I returned back to Kuwait husband-less.

It was so nice to have some adventure, as Kuwait doesn't really seem to have much (although I remain optimistic!). Also, it was amazing to be back around mountains again for a whole week, I miss the Rockies so much! And to see green trees that haven't been planted, and wildlife that is natural to the area! It was definitely a nice change of scenery, and made coming back to Kuwait a bit hard, but I feel so ready for the summer months now and am excited to get started on some new projects as things quiet down for the summer.