Ohh the Badia. This is not a lamenting "ohh" this is an oh there are too many stories to write type of "ohh". For 4 days I lived in a small village about 15 mintues south of the Syrian border. I stayed with a host family who had four amazing children- Aya (2), Ayat (4), Raheem (9) and Muhammad (12). During my time there I had to keep my head covered, wear a thobe (long dress), stand up when men entered the room and help with cleaning and cooking. I slept in a house but many families in the winter live in a tent because it's warmer than the house. Also there is a lot of tradition behind tents and being close to the desert.
I'm am not usually very good with children and am not very patient when it comes to little ones but I was blessed with great host brothers and sisters. The food was amazing and meals are eaten differently than in the US. Usually there is only one big meal a day. I had Mal Grouba, Rashoof and Mansif (I have no idea what ingredients are in these dishes) and they were all amazing. The meal is served on a big, round platter and everyone sits around the platter on the floor and digs in. There is a lot of sitting and lounging on the floor. Instead of chairs, there are mats and pillows on the floor.
My host father's great grandmother is still alive and I got to meet her. She is 100 years old and I was amazed that she is still able to get up and down from the coushins on the floor. There was a little bit of an awkward situation because she doesn't speak English and is very hard of hearing and my Arabic is limited. She ALWAYS wanted me to come and sit next to her and kept asking questions that I never understood. I still wanted to make a connections so I thought about what my grandma might do in that situation. So even though I didn't understand her I just did a lot of hand holding and smiling and tryed to send good love vibes. At the end of the 4 hour visit my host dad said that the great grandmother thinks I am a very special person and that she is glad she met me.
Now for horrific story #2...worse than the shower experience. One day I went to visit the girl's school in the village. The father just dropped me off at the school and I was shown around by teachers and swarmed by girls. I went to a few English classes and somehow got roped into teaching 3 English classes. In one class of 6th graders I was attempting to teach the five senses when I got flooded with a sea of questions. "What is your name?" So I write my name in Arabic on the blackboard and they all cheer and clap like. "How old are you?" "What does Katie mean?" "What are your parent's names?" "Do you like Jordan?" "Jordan or America better?" "What is America like?" "Do you love Islam?" "Am I pretty?" "Do you pray?" I was getting flustered with all the questions and had way too many young girls crowding me and suddenly they decide that they want me to sing. They are all yelling for me to sing and waiting and I completely freeze. It gets to the point of an awkward silence and I cannot for the life of me think of any songs what so ever! I realize that I am not going to be able to get out of this situation so I start racking my brain for songs. This whole time I'm thinking "Katie!! You are a musician, you remember the lyrics to tons of songs, you have 15 days worth of music on your iTunes! Why can't you think of anything!?!" Then I have a breakthrough but unfortunatly the breakthrough consists of "Jesus Loves You" and the Theme from the Brady Bunch. Now Jordan in 80% Muslim so Jesus Loves You is ruled out and I am left with the Brady Bunch. In a cracked, nervous voice I started singing the story of a lovely lady who was bring up three very lovely girls...and then I can't even remember the rest of the words so I start making things up and just singing along to the tune and it was horrible!! I was hoping that the girls would be excited with any performance but this was not the case. They clapped after I wrote my name but there was no clapping after my singing. This is still a little painful to think about. And now it's time for a shower.
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