The Talented Mr. Nahha

The Talented Mr. Nahhas - 3 February 2010

Not too much to report on yet but have a few stories I can share. I had a “guy’s night” with my host brother Zaki last night. We went to his place, had a few snacks, and watched an action/bank robbery movie. It was a great time, although with Zaki as a new father, movie night also included pausing the movie to calm down his crying son. Nevertheless it was still a great time! I absolutely love his entire family! They are such nice people. They also have a live-in maid who helps out around the house, she’s always smiling and seems really nice too. We were warned to be careful interacting with the maids and being weary of how the family treats the maids too because there is rampant abuse in the Middle East, primarily because many maids are of Asian descent. No worries here! It seems as if their maid is part of the family and they treat her like it! I am also really jealous of the view from his patio, which has an absolutely amazing view of a famous citadel located in Amman. (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/Amman_Citadel.jpg/250px-Amman_Citadel.jpg)

After movie night I came back home and watched a little bit of the Middle Eastern version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Even though my host father recognized that it first originated in the US, and I mentioned it was very popular there, he still felt that he should explain the rules to me so that I could understand what I was watching. So now not only do I have a thorough grasp of the rules in English, but now also Arabic! He also gave me a high five, which I thought warranted mentioning because he is in his 70’s.

I also forgot to mention that I went on a really long walk the other day. I had never once planned to go on this walk and most likely will not do it again. Here is the background. The popular thing here for American students to do is join a gym. Everyone loves to work out so everyone is gossiping about which gym they’ve joined. Ladies seem to like one called Aspire. Being a Muslim country, Aspire is specifically a women only gym. I tried getting a membership since I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to get my groove on, but no dice. For some odd reason they just kept yelling at me in Arabic! (Joking, mom.) Anyway, my friends and I decided to try walking to a gym just down the street from the University called “Sports City.” All I remember is that we tried walking to it a few days before, it took a butt-load (technical term) of time and we never found it, and we ended up hailing a cab. The only difference this time is that we didn’t hail a cab. For some reason we just kept walking……and walking……..and walking until before I knew it, I was in my neighborhood! (Did I mention that a large part of this trip was down the side of a major highway?) I looked at it on google earth and realized it was about a 5 mile walk. Needless to say, I’m never doing that again. (My family wasn’t so happy either.)

PS: Mom, I got all of the classes I wanted.

FUN FACTS:

Jordan is the home to one of the most important, yet inaccessible sites in biblical history. Known as “Aaron’s Tomb,” it is located at the tip top peak of Mount Hor.

It is said that Moses was buried at Mount Nebo, in Jordan.

Every country with a land border to Jordan has a State Department travel warning on it.

The tales of Lawrence of Arabia took place largely in Jordan. The strategic port he helped capture was Aqaba, in the south, and if you ever watch the movie, it was filmed in Wadi Rum.