Friday... a day of Rest?

I just think it's cool to see the name in Arabic Script

Again, I'm a bit behind but that is simply because my life is so dang cool/awesome here that it's hard to write about all of it.

Friday.  The day of the mosque or the day when most Muslims go to mosque at Noon for Friday Prayer.  It is also the day when most political demonstrations occur in Amman but unfortunately I haven't seen any of these yet.  For me, as an American Christian, it is odd to think of going to church on any other day than Sunday but when in Rome we must do as the Romans do.  Going to church is very interesting in Jordan since the Church I attend, the LDS or Mormon church, is not officially recognized in Jordan.  Since we are not officially recognized as a church, any Jordanian Members must be especially careful or they be followed by the Jordanian Secret Police.  However, the church group here is quite small and I enjoy it greatly.  We have services in both English and Arabic and although I don't understand much of what is being said, I always attend the Arabic classes and will begin attending the Arabic Sacrament Meetings soon.  This week in Sunday School I was able to differentiate between the words the Arabs were speaking and got the general picture that we were talking about modern day prophets.  You may laugh, but anyone who has studied a language and then spoken with a native speaker knows just how dang hard it is.  Anyway, church was fun and I got to talk to some of the Ex-patriot members who are currently working at the Embassy.  They said we can get a tour of the embassy and maybe even meet some of the personel.  SO AWESOME!

Ahmed and Aussie strolling down Sharia Medina

  After Church we headed back home where I promptly took a Sunday nap and ate some food in preparation for meeting up with Mr. Ahmed from the previous day.  Because of a miscommunication in time we ended up meeting Ahmed about 45 minutes late but like the typical Arab he wasn't angry at all. We walked around the Roman Ruins downtown for a few minutes and he then informed us that he had to leave to go see a friend, handed us 5 Dinars and told us to go get a drink and wait for him to return in an hour.  It being my Sunday, and eating Pizza on Sunday being a tradition in my home, we found a little restaurant that we like to frequent and I ordered a pizza that looked oh so delicious.  I then, however, found out how Jordanians make their pizza; WITHOUT SAUCE!  Instead they gave me a ketchup packet (I personally think it is somewhat of an abomination to eat pizza with ketchup) so what I ended up eating was basically a glorified grilled cheese sandwich.  By the time we finished eating it was close to 7 so we headed back to our meeting spot with Ahmed and waited.  Then we waited, and waited and waited some more until about 9:00 o'clock we finally decided that the "Insha a'allah period" had ended and we were gonna head home (I'll right about Insha a'allah later).  Of course, right as we were getting Ahmed calls and asks us where we are and what we want to do for the rest of the evening.   We told him that it was late and so we went home and he asked if he could visit us at our apartment.  Being concerned with safety we told him no and then told him we would see him next week.

Desert with Ahmed

  However, as I began to think about it I realized that we may have offended him greatly and I didn't want to burn any bridges with a potential wonderful Arab friend.  We figured that we could see him again tonight and we asked him to meet us at the Kentucky Fried Chicken that is close to our apartment.  There he insisted on buying us a second dinner and we had a great time talking and joking with him a lot.  He then told us that he wanted to go on a walk to get some desert so we proceeded to walk to the local desert store.  On the way Ahmed would stop every few meters and tell us a different story or ask us a different question such that the walk that should have taken about 15 minutes ended up taking about an hour.  Also as we were walking he told us that he wanted to take us to get a massage in Aqaba so we can feel how nice Arabic massages are and then demonstrated to us an Arabic massage on the side of the busy road.  Something you have to know about Arab men is they are extremely touchy with their friends.  It is quite routine to see two grown men walking down the road hand in hand or arm in arm.  It is casual and there is nothing to it, just like how they love to touch your head or side a lot.  Or how you must kiss each other on the cheeks when greeting one another and how many times you kiss is how important the other person is to you.  Well, Ahmed did that with us and I got photographic evidence for which I am so happy!
  Overall, today was amazing and filled with adventure as well as a lot of speaking in Arabic with Ahmed.  It was so much fun and just another wonderful day in my journey to Jordan.

Fun Fact:  If you ever want to find an Egyptian in Jordan, look at the ones doing the dirty work like construction, cleaning, or garbage pick up.  Many times they are in orange jump suits with "sanitation" written on the back.  Egyptians do the menial jobs that Jordanians feel are below them and are treated much like the Hispanic population in America.  Very interesting!