Petra: Under the Sea

This is where I get to learn to Scuba Dive

All suited up and ready to go for my first dive!

  This past weekend, in honor of the 4^th of July, our group decided to take a trip down to the beautiful city of Aqaba.  Now, I may not have mentioned it before because I don’t think I ever actually wrote about Petra (something I need to fix I know), but Aqaba is amazing.  It is one of the nicest coastal towns I’ve ever been to and has really helped me fall in love with the sea.  Last time when I traveled to Aqaba I went snorkeling from a boat and experienced one of the coolest experiences of my life.  However, as I was snorkeling I saw beneath me a ton of different scuba divers and was extremely jealous.  From speaking with different individuals I found that you could do what is called a “Try Dive” in which you don’t have to be certified and you are only taken down to 6 meters underwater to ensure you don’t die.  I have always wanted to scuba dive, I remember wanting to be a marine biologist when I was little and constantly drawing pictures of scuba divers, so I decided the next time I went to Aqaba I would do a “Try Dive” and see how I liked it.

I have conquered the first dive!

Well, when we go to Aqaba on Friday afternoon, after a long, hot, and very loud bus ride down from Amman, I immediately called up the diving center with the lowest price and best ratings called Sea Star, and asked if I could do the dive.  They picked me up and took me to the center that was simply gorgeous.  I met a really nice retired Naval Seal there who I talked to for quite awhile and learned more about what it’s like to be an ex-pat abroad (something I am intimately interested in).  Finally, after ingesting some delicious pizza I suited up and headed out to the water.  Now, it was sort of scary to head out to the water so quickly because it seemed like I hadn’t really been taught anything about it, but the whole time I had one of the instructors by the hand and the other was behind me watching the whole time.  If you’ve never been scuba diving, I would highly recommend it.  It is a bit scary when you realize you are deep underwater and if things go really wrong something serious could happen, but luckily a lot of work has been done to make it as safe as possible.  However, the benefits (in my opinion) far outweigh the risks because under the ocean I saw the most beautiful things in my entire life (minus of course my fiancé ;-D).  Seriously, it felt exactly like being at Petra where you see all of these fish, corral and other living things in their natural and pure habitat.  Instead of looking at them through glass I was able to look up and see fish swimming past me and around me.  I saw a beautiful sea snake and witnessed ‘nemo’ first hand swimming in his sea anemone.  It was amazing and I instantly fell in love, which is why the next day, on Saturday, I convinced almost everyone in the group to go back to snorkel and enjoy the reef.
  However, plans never withstand meeting with the enemy and when I got to the dive center they said that I could start the certification process and they would apply the money I paid the day before to the overall price of the certification.  I went back and forth for a while but then I decided that I was gonna go ahead and get certified, which is not something I regret yet and hopefully never will.  This time there was a lot more training and I had to learn a lot more about the gear, how to work my inflatable vest that controls buoyancy under water and a few other things.  When we got to the water I had to intentionally fill my mask with salt water and then clear it while underwater (it is actually a great skill for those with facial hair, as I found out, because my mask kept filling up while I was diving).  I also had to intentionally take out my re-breather throw it away and then find it again, clear it of water and begin breathing again.  I learned how to communicate using signs about how much air I had and also how to communicate that I was out of air to a partner and that I needed to use their air tank until we got to the surface.  It was scary but really fun.
  The second dive was much better than the first one.  This time I was much more relaxed and willing and able to go more slowly and take in the wonderful sites.  The place where we were diving is a huge reef right along the shore that quickly plunges about 20 meters from the floor and you get a great wall of reef and water life.  We swam along that wall, this time going down to a depth of 12 meters, and I saw all manners of amazing things once again. I saw some ginormous fish that I don’t know the name of and chased a couple schools of fish that hopefully aren’t poisonous.  The most amazing fish I saw, however, was simply chilling under a fish and it was a beautiful lionfish that I think are rare to see even in an aquarium.
  The reason I say it was like Petra is how I felt as we surfaced and saw all the people a long the shore.  There they were enjoying the surface, the waves and the sand.  They were having a beautiful and wonderful time, completely unaware of the beauty that was only a few feet below the surface.  Just like when you finally walk around the corner at Petra and see the giant treasury, as you don you diving equipment and submerge you are immediately greeted with amazing and breathtaking beauty (although, breathtaking probably isn’t what you want under water so be careful about this one!).  Also, in addition to all of these positives you feel like a total bad-a donning all the gear and simply strolling into the ocean and disappearing.  It is quite awesome and you feel cool doing it.  Anyway, Aqaba was amazing and I can’t wait to return and finish my training and maybe even go on a few dives with a digital camera (you can rent them for not a ridiculous amount).  I’ll keep you updated!

i think it looks pretty darn cool don't you?

Syrian Sunset

   Well, I'm a little behind in multiple different ways but this past weekend I saw Syria!  Can you believe that?  I saw frikin Syria which I think is so darn cool.  Also, judging from what I saw... all of the Media is lying.  Seriously, the only explosion I saw was fireworks and there was no sign of gun fire or tanks.   Seriously, our media must be lying because my first hand extensive knowledge says they are wrong ( haha, I hope everyone knows that I am joking).

  Maybe I should explain why I was chilling close to the Syrian border, especially since people are probably freaking out right now.  Well, the director of our program, Ralph Brown, was in country and was able to get all of us students invited to a huge dinner in Northern Jordan with a very powerful family he knows quite well.  So, after church on Friday we all pile into some vans and made the long trip up to what seemed like the Middle of nowhere.  It was amazingly gorgeous and surprisingly green from all of the agriculture.  Of  course the family we were eating with had to show us all of their property and expensive possessions so we go to see a lot of camels and I even got to ride one, bare back!

Once again, I feel like the best way to describe the day is through a number of pictures so here you go!

This is dozer, the huge bull camel I got to ride bareback.
I was the first person in the group so he wasn't angry
 yet but it was actually surprising enjoyable

Dozer's disgusting mouth after he became angry a little later.
Camels are huge and have disgusting mouths.

This is the sign on the outside of the camel pen.
  Apparently a camel can kill  you quite easily.
Maybe that's what that disgusting smell was...

That is Syria in the background.  Pretty cool photo in my opinion.

This is "Sophia" the pregnant white camel in a different pen that
absolutely love to be scratched under the cheeks.
Is she smiling at my kiss?

Just a cool picture in my opinion

The Syrian Sunset...

So yeah, this was the most eventful thing I did last weekend and it was a heck-of-a-lot of fun!  Also, if you ever want to ride a camel bareback, just let me know and I can give you some pointers!

Maybe I should write about my internship...

Well, I decided that before I posted about the amazing weekend I had and all of the cool experiences that will probably fill four separate blog entries, maybe I should write a little bit about what I am actually doing here in Amman for my internship.  I admit, the problem with me writing about my internship is two-fold.  First of all, so far we really haven't been able to do that much in our internship for a variety of reasons, secondly to put it simply I am not here for my internship.   The reason I am in Jordan is to learn about the people and their struggles, to see the stories that we can't read about in America and to understand them better has I get a better grip on the Arabic Language, the internship is simply a way to do that cheaply and with some much needed help.
  So, my internship.  My internship is to work for the Jordanian Ministry of Social Development (MoSD).  I am currently stationed in Iraq Al-Ameer with one other intern at a community center that was closed down a number of months ago for renovations.  It is our job to help the center prepare to open, to operate effectively, and to find ways to improve the options available to the community through the center.  In addition, the other intern and myself have been given separate assignments from our director to analyze and report on surveys taken around Jordan and what the MoSD can do to help them.  It is quite fun and rewarding, I always love solving problems and analyzing information.
     As far as our work in Iraq Al-Ameer is going, we have not done much.  Our work day usually consists of about two hours of light manual labor, and hour of talking with the staff at the center, and then us returning home half-way through the day.  Because I am not here for the internship, it isn't completely bad, but it is sometimes very frustrating to realize how much we are paying everyday to travel and how little we are getting done.  Also, it is unfortunate to see the resources so needed by the rural community we are working in not available because work is not being done efficiently.
   Since describing what we do is sort of boring and would take a long time, I will simply show you in pictures:

This is one of many rooms that was completely covered
in furniture, we have since sorted and cleaned everything
in this room and others as well

A particularly bad and dusty room, it's amazing how much stuff
we located in this mess!

Repainting doors and windows

Cleaning the bathroom, especially splatter from paint
and plaster

Removal of old nasty carpet

Refilling water tanks, which promptly leaked
and are now empty

The location and destruction of dangerous
wildlife within the center
(Isn't it awesome this was inside the center?  We asked our "Grandma" Bedouin lady
 that is always helping us about the scorpions and what would happen if one
of them stung us. With a huge smile on her face she told that we would die and then
 went back to work.  Pretty sweet eh?  We are now freaked out anytime something
 slithers across the ground, including wind blown trash.)

Removing bushes and trees with broken tools mended with tied on phone-cords
that bush in the background used to be huge...

So, although we aren't doing much I am enjoying it and we also get to have more time for interesting cultural experiences, which you hopefully know by now is exactly what I search for.  Like right now, I'm actually on my laptop sitting close to the "Martyr's Memorial" which is the army museum for Jordan that I got to see part of today and will see the rest of later.

  Don't worry, I'll right about this weekend soon 

Karak and other random adventures

The Museum at Dana... sort of small but cool nonetheless

Pounding the Oregano with a rock

Today was a nice, rather slow paced day where we got to enjoy ourselves and basically do whatever we wanted for much of the day.  We didn't really have a plan for today except we wanted to explore the area of Dana a little bit and also have plenty of time to see Karak and get home before things got too late.  In the morning, about half of the group slept in late while the other half decided we really wanted to explore Dana village and see what we could find.  I packed up all of my stuff for a quick exit and then headed outside.  We had heard that there was some sort of giftshop and craft making area but were unsure of where we could find it.  I headed down an interesting little alley and found a nice bridge to cross over.  As I was crossing the bridge I started to hear pounding and thought it sounded interesting so I decided I would head in the direction of the pounding while taking pictures and enjoying my surrounding. Imagine my surprise when I entered a beautiful little building and found 5 or 6 women pounding the snot our of oregano with rocks to create the spice that we all use in our cooking.  I found it very interesting and was content to watch but was soon invited to join in and take a turn at smashing some oregano.  The dust got everywhere but it was surprisingly enjoyable especially when one of the women began singing a song in time with the pounding.  It made me realize just how cool this experience really was.  I was sitting there pounding oregano  when the rest of the group found me and started laughing because they always seem to find me doing something with the locals and having a great time of it.

Engraving my ring

  Anyway, after the I had taken a few pictures of the Oregano production, the girls informed us that there was silver smith shopped close by a long with a museum that sold all of the goods that were handmade here on site.  Of course I jumped at the opportunity to go see all of that stuff and everyone else wanted to go as well so off we went.  There was a cool little museum explaining the preserve as well as a guest house where we found that we had been royally ripped off with our accommodations and hadn't even seen the nature preserve or entered it!  We were more than a little mad with our tour guide but decided that we would simply come back later to enjoy the preserve and see some of Jordan's beautiful wildlife.  Also in the center was an awesome little gift shop with tons of hand made items for sale and two really nice ladies that informed us that a lot of the silver was made on site and we could go see the silver shop down stairs.  The silver shop was not very busy, they said they didn't have any orders, but it was interesting to see how they cut our and shaped everything by hand.  I have discovered, in Jordan at least, that if you stand around looking at something long enough the person doing the job will invite you to do it with them and teach you how to do it which I find is really cool and very nice.  Today was no different as they promptly placed us in a chair and showed us how they flattened the metal, cut it out by hand, polished and a number of other things.  As we were watching they showed us a polishing wheel and then asked me for my irish ring.  They then polished the heck out of it and made it look better than it ever had when I bought it in Ireland.  It was really cool, however, when they asked me to spell my name in Arabic and then engraved it on the inside of the ring along with a heart.  So now my Irish ring is engraved with " سكاي "    and a heart which I think is pretty cool.  I wonder what other cool things can happen to this ring before the end?  Well, after I got my ring engraved we took a few final pictures and then headed of to the North so we could see the ancient remains of Al-Karak the Castle.

The group before heading out of Dana

The castle from the top of the Umayyad addition 

  As we pulled up to the castle I knew it was going to be amazing.  It was huge and precariously perched on top of a huge hill overlooking all of the surrounding valleys and the dead sea which we could just see off in the distance.  As we were walking about to the gate I saw a little shop that said I could buy an audio tour thing for 5 bucks and thought that it would be sweet so I bought it, the only one in the group oddly enough.  Well, that audio tour was amazing but would end up creating some issues later on.  It turns out that the castle mount had been continuously inhabited for thousands of years but that the earliest fortifications dated back to the time of the Frankish Crusaders.  Since that time they were modified by all of the Islamic Dynasties and had amazingly preserve ruins of the castle.  I found out some amazing stories from the Audio tour about how Salah Din had besieged the castle on multiple occasions and how the castle had traded sides multiple times.  Apparently Karak is located on a major north south trading route and controls a port city on the dead sea.  The Castle was huge with a giant underground market that ran over 100 meters, a mosque, huge kitchen areas, a church, giant underground rooms, a stable, barracks and giant walls.  It was amazing and every step of the way the audio tour explained and directed me along at what I THOUGHT was a reasonable pace.  Something else that was awesome is that you can climb and explore anywhere you want.  So every random staircase I saw I could go up and every doorway leading to a dark hole, I could explore.  It was a lot of fun and allowed me to see some amazing views and spectacular ruins.

The "Bath of the Lily"

  Well, it turns out that although I thought we were supposed to all meet up at 5:00 everyone else had finished exploring the castle in under an hour.  When they were sick of waiting they called my cell-phone which I answered but had no response from the other end.  I figured my friend Austin had but dialed me and so when he called two seconds after that I simply didn't answer the phone.  Also, when they came looking for me in the Castle, much of the time I was underground and so I couldn't hear their calls or see them searching.  Basically it was a perfect storm to make it so that everyone else was waiting for me for about an hour while I was enjoying myself inside the castle having lots of fun exploring and listening to my Audio Guide.  I felt really bad when they finally found me but I stick by my decision to purchase the audio tour.  I think they are so much fun and they make the experience so much better because it is no longer simply a bunch of ruins but actually has meaning, stories, and interesting facts along with it.  I think any time there is an audio tour, people should purchase them.  Just my two cents, also make sure you have a meeting place and time set up with your group so everyone knows the expectation.

Just a cool passageway
I found while exploring

The view from inside the ruined mosque at the temple

  Well, that was pretty much the end of my adventures this weekend.  I'll upload some pictures on this soon so everyone can be jealous of my awesome adventures and I'll keep updating you.  Tomorrow I'm headed off to the Sheikh's house for dinner which should be pretty sweet!

Adventures with Heat Stroke

The Canyon of Heat Stroke

This was just one of the few things offered at the "market"

Today was the first adventure we had as a program and we went off to the Wadi Dana nature preserve and Al-Karak Castle south of Amman.  We were really excited to go to the nature preserve because on the website there were a number of amazing hikes that were promised including one to abandoned roman copper mines, a waterfall, and local craft shops as well.  I was really excited because we were also promised there would be running water at the 'rustic hotel' and I hadn't gotten a shower for almost a week.  Well, we woke up early and all jumped in a van with our driver Mr. Shoeki and headed down the freeway to Dana.  For breakfast I usually eat a piece of fruit or something small like that so I was really hungry when we arrived in Dana village at lunch time.  I hadn't bought any food along the road because Mr. Shoeki had told us that there would be many supermarkets open in the village and we could get food for cheap there.  However, when we arrived in Dana village our tour guide then informed us that all of the supermarkets were closed but that we would be able to eat when we got back from our hike because dinner was provided.  (Anyone who has ever hiked knows that his was a bad idea).  We wanted some snacks or something to eat so we pushed him a little more and were finally able to get him to take us to a 'supermarket' where they were selling only badly refined sugar that had been sitting on the shelf for far to long.  Well, I bought them just in case and then we headed out down the valley.

The sweet ruins I found and explored

  The valley was pretty cool, although hiking down hill was hard on the knees and the whole time I was thinking about how much it was going to suck to have to hike back up this huge hill.  The first part of the hike was pretty boring and quite ugly, it was simply really deserty and boring.  However, as soon as we saw something cool off in the distance we left the path and began exploring for real.  This is how our adventures truly began as we started to climb all over cool rock formations, sun bath, take cool pictues and generally have a great time.  We also discovered some ruins that were perched precariously on the top of a huge rock that were pretty fun to explore as well.  Most of all I simply enjoyed being in nature and being in peace for a small time.  Like always I spent some time simply sitting down and enjoying the peace while taking sometime to ponder (which most other people don't really understand here on the trip and is starting to make me sort of the joke of the group but that is ok).  At this point half of the group broke off and returned to the village in hope of finding a cooler hike with more to see while the other half proceeded further into the canyon where we could see beautiful green flowering plants in the base.  The valley floor was beautiful and quite like a jungle and the half that I was with spent some good time down there simply talking and enjoying one another's company.  Realizing it was getting a little bit late we then proceeded up the mountain and in an attempt to cut a little bit of distance from our trip we took a short cut which caused us to go up a very steep rock cliff.  As we got about half way up the cliff I bega to feel a little bit flushed, winded and dizzy so I sat down and took a little break.  I soon recovered my breath and continued waling, making it another quarter way up the mountain before feeling extremely weak.  At this point I took stock of my symptoms and what may ave been happening to me and decided that I must be suffereing from heat stroke or something related to it.  I was not sweating, my skin was extremely warm, I don't think I was dehydrated since I had drank almost two liters of water and I felt dizzy and extremely weak.  Unfortunately for me I discovered as we crested the rock hill that we were probably still about two kilometers away from the village, food, and cold water.

My 4 wheel drive up the mountain...

  Finally, putting my pride aside and realizing that I was in a dangerous situation I admitted that I was too weak to make it to the top of the hill and to the safety of the village.  Luckily we had cell phone reception and were able to call the village and explain the situation.  Although we were on a nice road they originally told us that they would not be able to send a car down to get us and instead would be sending a mule train.  Well, instead of making me sad I thought this was pretty cool since it would be a really cool cultural experience and after I felt better I knew it would make for an even cooler story.  Just as I was getting used to the idea of a mule train they called back to tell us that a car was on it's way and it was bringing cold water and bread for me because it was likely my blood sugar was low.  Luckily it didn't take too long for the truck to get to us and the scariest part of the entire trip was when he was turning around and backing up to the edge of a cliff in a manual.  I got scared but one of the girls that was with me, Jennae, actually screamed out and bit into her back pack because she was scared.  Anyway, the ride up was great and really saved my bacon so for that I am extremely grateful.

A small view of our beautiful hotel

  The evening passed rather uneventfully with us eating dinner, playing chess in a semi-permanent bedouin tent and talking with everyone in the group who I really like.  The best part of the entire day, however, was the fact that I finally was able to take a shower!  Although the water pressure was horrible and I didn't really have the things I needed it felt so good to finally be clean again after so long of a wait.  It was wonderful and I know that the first thing I do when I get home is going to be to take a really long warm shower and then dry off with a nice, thick, clean towel.  Oh glorious!  Anyway, tomorrow we go to Karak which is supposed to be the best and largest ancient castle in Jordan so I am really excited.  Hopefully I won't be suffering from heat stroke again tomorrow!