Monday, March 7, 2011

The Badia

So I haven't posted in a while because my computer died... It's better now and there'll be more on that in a later post.

But first: the Badia.

My homestay was in the northern Badia, which is a semi-desert region in Northeastern Jordan.  We started out from SIT for the North around maybe 10am, and we all wore traditional bedouin clothing.

Here's me sporting Dishdash and Kuffiyeh

We were dropped off from a private bus one by one, and my village was the one farthest out from Amman. We drove through Mufroq on the way, which is where Jordan's main Air Force Base is, and then east. Along the way we dropped students in maybe 10 different villages and drove by an incredibly old church.


I arrived with Ben and David who also live in my village, and we met my host mom first who had a sweet bedouin lip tattoo and a traditional thob with a head piece that made like a triangle. Then my host dad who is the village moqtar, which is one step below a sheikh came over, as did a neighbor to say hi.  They knew NO English so Ben, who is not a beginner like me and Dave was incredibly helpful in the first few minutes. 

My house was in a small village near a hill. 
That's my host mom and house. 
And there's the hill with a great view towards Syria, which was about 5 minutes away. 

Despite the fact that I had a nice house with a great sitting room with floor cushions ringing the corners, I only slept in there. I spent most of my time hanging out in a traditional tent... with satellite TV. 

Home sweet home. 

The fam hangin out around the Sobh (where they burned everything from wood to trash to styrofoam)

We had a constant supply of really sweet tea and arabic coffee. 

They made me pose when I was taking pics on the last night. 


I lived with a huge family.  I had 10 host siblings ranging from maybe 5 to late 20's and the four oldest had children of their own.  I loved the kids, they were incredibly nice and loved to try to talk to me. On the first day I ate a lunch of rice and chicken (probably from their stock), and then for most of the rest of the days I had fresh vegetables and homemade yoghurt (awesome) with bread and sometimes zata and olive oil.  

Towards the end of the first day I went out with the family to take out the goats which was cool.  A bunch of the little kids followed me and wanted me to take tons of pictures. 

They'd yell at me "soorah! soorah!" So I obliged. 


She was my favorite.



That's my host dad. Abu Yasir. 

Though I spent most of my time over the 5 days and 4 nights hanging out in the tent and talking to all of the random friends and family who would come in to say hi, I did get to spend some great time outside in their olive tree grove and on the hill near my house. 


The view from the hill was really beautiful. 

People in the Badia wake up really early, which was definitely interesting.  I'd wake up at like 730 or 8 and all of the kids would already be at school.  Most of the day I'd hang out and watch arabic news with video from Libya.  It was pretty incredible that out in the middle of nowhere, where we'd hang out in a tent all day sitting on the floor we could get live video from protests and all of the older kids had their own cell phones.  

In the tent there was an interesting seating etiquette.  There was no section for just men or women, but men usually got the nicer seats on better cushions and closer to the stove.  If an older sibling came in, the younger ones would immediately move out of the way for them.  As the guest, I always had a great seat. 

Most of the family had very limited english skills, which was very useful for practicing arabic. One of the daughters who was only there one night was very fluent, but she was also an English teacher, and she mentioned her tajika exam results so I think she was very intelligent. 

It was a pretty crazy experience being surrounded by arabic constantly. and though I couldn't engage in profound conversation I became pretty attached the family.  Here's an excerpt from my Badia journal on the last night:

"When everyone went to bed Ahmad and I stayed in the tent.  He had been using his limited English to tell things about himself jokingly that I already knew… He said: “Ahmad no money… Ahmad no car… no house… no married… no love… no happy!”  It was a hysterical moment, and when we were watching a show where a woman killed her husband (with comically bad special effects) he said “Umm Yasir to Abu Yasir…” I was laughing so hard I was crying.  "

Though I was often very bored just doing homework, reading, or watching arabic TV in the tent, another student Paul made a great point that whenever he'd get bored he'd just picture himself on a map and realize what an incredible experience he was having.  So true.

It was really sad on the last day when I left and didn't get to say goodbye to the children because they were in school.  Hopefully someday I will visit Jordan again and return to my week long home in the desert. 








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