185

Mansef delivery. With my very own water bottle full of homemade goat yogurt liquid stuff! I got it as a consolation prize because I was supposed to go to the family's for lunch, but they were busy and cancelled on me. So they showed up that night with mansef from their grandparents'. Love them.

184

Ahlan Wasahlan. Welcome.

Downfall - Matchbox Twenty, epic, stick with it for the choir

183

Ibraheim. Pure Sweetness. I freaking love this kid.

182

The new teacher in action! She is totally the best, and she is deaf so (novel idea) she uses sign language with the deaf kids! I completely love her, and so do the kids.

Instant Pleasure - Rufus Wainwright

181

Still loving the swings. Just wanted to draw attention to his shirt. Got to love the English on the shirts here. At least this one pretty much makes sense, in a nonsensical kind of way.
It reads:

Motocross rider.
JENS TIME
Never heard of it

Forgetful Heart - Bob Dylan

180

Ok so these pictures have a backstory. This is the wall outside my friend's Special Education center. Her director asked her to paint the number for the center on the outer wall (the yellow pages isn't exactly a thing here) and asked us to make it pretty while we were out there. So here we are, day one, painting the number and the outlines for all the cute little illustrations we did the rest of the way down the wall. All is good and cute and fun.

Here we are halfway through day two. Notice anything strange? We had to paint a nice fluffy cloud over the number for the center. Why would you do that? I hear you asking. Wasn't that the point in the first place? Well after the first day, my friend's director recieved some phone calls from the men in her family demanding that she remove the number from the wall, or they would come over and remove it for her.
Their reason for this? Though this is not the director's personal number, when someone calls the center, it will be her who picks up, and therefore it is her number. And a lady doesn't advertise her number on the side of walls.
A little extreme perhaps? Here's the backstory...
A week or so before we began this little project, there was an honor killing in the village next door (the director's home village). The event that led to the honor killing was that a woman's husband took a video of her while she was cleaning (or doing some other menial house chore) in her own home. This video then somehow got around to most of the men in that and the surrounding villages. The husband then told the wife's family that she was soiled and no longer wanted her. In order to cleanse themselves of having such a shameful daughter, her uncle and brother killed her. Now all the men are cracking down on the women to make sure they are all in line.

Now I don't like to post things like this, it's not pretty, and it is not representative of every Jordanian. Arguably it is not even representative of most Jordanians. It is however very real, and incredibly sickening.

Ok whoops. Been out of the house for a week, did so many things, and didn't take a single picture. Such is life. Tomorrow is another day.

Can't Get It Right Today - Joe Purdy

179

The Event of the Day. Drinking a dark beer. A dark beer, in Jordan. My very first since I've been here. It was like drinking liquified heaven. I had gotten it in Amman a little while ago and was squirreling it away to use as an incentive to do some crappy task. It was supposed to be my reward for doing laundry today. Laundry required too much effort, so it became my reward for...being so awesome all the time.

soft, pretty, calming (in short the opposite of everything that I like right now, but I still liked it) :The Middle East - Blood

178

Went on a wonderful sunset rehla (picnicish) with my neighbor's oldest kids and their friend. Of course, what is a rehla without a fire? So we made some delicious baked potatoes in this natural fire-pit rock. Here are the boys handling the fire beautifully. It was a great time full of dancing, potato eating, cookie eating, chip eating, pepsi drinking, and everything else that is good. There was even some stripping involved as we had forgotten to bring tissues (edit: the tissues were burned in the fire as I see by this very picture), and so Nishmee took off his undershirt for us to use as a towel. Because one cannot walk around at a picnic with dirty fingers, everyone knows that.

Here Comes Your Man - Meaghan Smith

177

It happened! A playground! I wrote a grant for the center to get us money for a playground, and, to everyone's surprise ended up building a real live playground. We still need to put sand under the whole thing, but it is being well enjoyed in the meantime.

Seriously, this kid has the best poses. And this is truly a pose, I have five other pictures taken in slightly different locations of him doing this exact same pose. He is truly an artist. See how perfectly it captures the emotions of 'oh how I love, my new playground!', 'oh my god I'm having my picture taken!', and 'tyra taught me good, broken doll pose is SO hot right now.'

She knows how to do a swing right.

Look at that excitement for the swings. Also he is very impressed by what an awesome swinger I am. I was SO HIGH! You all should be impressed as well.

What better time or place to burn the brush and trash from the center than ten yards from the kids playing on the playground? Then you can carefully monitor both for safety while napping in the shade on the high ground.

The Black Keys' grandfathers: Shot Down by the Sonics

oh wooow

ok.
EPIC fail.
I've only been gone a month, but if feels like longer don't it? I know, it hurts me too.
So tomorrow, we are starting again.
Forgive and forget.
Love.