
On Wednesday, the universe gave me a gift: our classroom was very smelly. For this reason, Fadi was convinced to take us on a field trip, aka out for shawarma and kanafe for lunch instead of class. Haneen, another teacher at Qasid, tagged along.

We walked down Shahid street with Haneen, who was wearing converse, jeans, hijab, and fanny pack, with blue eyeliner; and Fadi, wearing a button down shirt and khakis. Sitting outside Alia eating our shawarma and kanafe, we continued our long-running debate on mustaches versus beards, and the old man in the doorway of the restaurant watched us and tried not to laugh. Sometimes Christian breaks into full-out FuSha (formal Arabic) when he gets into a mustache bit and it’s really funny.

This was a real good sleepy weekend, with no field trips. We watched a movie, slept in, cleaned our apartment really well, and went to brunch at our new favorite place. To give you an idea, we ate salmon scrambled eggs with potatoes, coconut french toast with pear compote, and avocado toast with pesto and poached eggs. On our way out we all went in on a loaf of chocolate raspberry banana bread to take home and it changed my life. Parts of Amman, like Abdoun, have a pretty hip food scene.

Our Uber driver on the way back, named Zachariah, ended up being one of the nine founders of the Jordanian Food Bank. He said he volunteers there for two hours every morning and two hours every night, and when we asked him if he needed help, he told us that there are 417 other volunteers who work there — mostly college students at the University of Jordan.
My speaking partner Mona told me about her trip last week to a conference in the Emirates, by herself. This was a big deal. She’s the baby of her family, and a young, unmarried woman, so her parents were entirely opposed to the idea of her going, but she went anyway and had a great time. Mona is really chill and funny and she’s become one of my favorite people at Qasid. She can always tell if I’m having a hard day and she’s also Annie’s speaking partner so she knows about all of the drama in our little world. A lot of times she tells me, «هيك الحياة», “that’s life.”

On a whim, Annie and I tagged along to visit a mosque with some other BYU kids. We had to put on a big baggy robe with a hood to cover our hair, which was really comfortable and also made us look kind of like Sith lords. Right at sunset, we were sitting cross-legged on the thick carpet while a man stood and sang the call to prayer. I looked up at the ceiling and felt a deep peace. Men hurried in from behind us in their jeans, business suits, and thoubs to join the line praying at the front.

To get a break from our normal speaking routine, after class we went on a run to Sports City, even though the sun was setting (it gets dark at 5 pm now). When we got there we talked to people about their opinions global warming and whether the media blows it out of proportion. Everyone we met, regardless of age or demographic, agreed that it was a big problem and that we needed to take more action. After we ran out of people to talk to we ran a loop around the forest trail in the dark and then back home, stopping to pick up some curry powder from the spice store.
And then we made curry and ate it together at the dining room table. Sometimes life is pretty good.
Also, this happened?
“I don’t know about you, but I pretty much need a lot of saving.” Kirk

