The Continuing Saga of the Sheep

So I honest-to-God forgot about the ram's horn I had in my checked luggage when I filled out my custom's declaration. In any case, when I got home and pulled it out of my suitcase, my dad's first reactions was, "ooh can I make a shofar out of that?" So of course since I had no idea what I wanted to do with it, I handed it over and before I knew it he had found DIY shofar instructions on the web. Next thing I know the house smells like dead animal (again?!) and he's boiling the horn to get the cartilege out. Then it has to dry for a while and then you cut off the end so you get a hole the whole way through. It's kind of a small shofar and doesn't work so well...but he got a squeaky tkiyah out of it last night. Now we can have our very own Rosh Hashanah services with our very own homemade shofar.

Home Again!

So after 5 days of depression and packing and chaos and canceled flights and crazy old people...I'm home!

Here's what I wrote yesterday in JFK:

I’m sitting near this crazy old lady waiting for my flight from JFK. She keeps asking everyone if they’re going to Maine. She’s nuts. She just talked to this one guy:

“Are you going to Maine?”
“Yup.”
“Do you live there?”
“Yup, in Gorham”
“Oh that’s great. What are you doing down here?”
“I’m stationed here, I’m in the Navy.”
“Oh you’re in the service! You should be wearing your uniform, it would get you to the front of the line. Not during Vietnam, but now.”

Really, lady? She hasn’t shut her mouth since she sat down: “is that seat open? I’m old. Let me sit down.” She’s not even that old. Maybe in her 60s.

“Go ask one of those girls. Put your Navy hat on and go ask them.”

She cackles like an old witch.

There’s also a legit cowboy standing in front of me. With a huge HUGE probably like 5 inches across belt buckle and actual boots and jeans and a teal plaid shirt and a vest and a cowboy hat. Either he just rode his horse here or is really into making fashion statements.

This place is absolute chaos. They’re boarding like 8 different flights out of the same gate, there are people that I swear have been here all night at least, and everyone just looks so dejected and forlorn and pissed off. Welcome back, kids. Welcome back. (The End.)

So here's what happened. JFK was a shit show. We were lucky enough to get on our plane, and then proceeded to sit at the gate while they couldn't figure out whether or not we had a tug, or a de=icer, or gas, and there was airplane traffic, and after three hours of this nonsense they let us off the plane and decided it was canceled. So a few of us rented a car and trucked it up to Maine - but the trip that should have been 5 hours ended up being 7 and a half because of weather and bad roads. Not only that, but this one old guy we were driving with was legit crazy. He was 71, and lived in Nashville, and kept telling us about his life in the music industry and his family and country music and was basically just crazy. He wore all this silver and turquoise jewelry and had a thick southern drawl. It was nuts. Quite a welcome back, I have to say.

Ho Hum Doldrums

I am completely done. Last test was yesterday...it came, it went, I conquered. Today about the only notable thing I did was go pick up my second passport (finally) and read a few chapters in a book. FOR FUN. Which is SO not Jordanian. At all. I took a nap. I watched TV. I ate. I blogged. Sounds like a heck of a day, right? We will ignore the fact that I felt guilty all day because I got myself in trouble for breaking curfew last night...whatever, it was worth it - out till 2 dancing the night away (yes ma, sober). Self-imposed punishment is always a fun thing. Tomorrow I suspect will be busy busy busy! Meeting, shopping, picture swapping, farewell dinnering, saying good-bye, drinking ourselves silly...or not quite. It's crazy that the semester's almost over. I am neither mentally nor packing-ly prepared to leave in 4 days. We are all busy trying to squeeze in that one last thing before we go and preoccupied with making half-baked plans for meeting over New Year's back in the States. People are slowing dropping off but no one is really ready to realize what it actually means. People are just getting depressed, or drunk, or turning into hermits (yes, that one is me), and then we'll all kind of just leave, and that'll be it. It's weird. We've all gotten so close and we know each other so well, but we don't even know each other's real (U.S.) phone numbers. It's like a parallel universe...

Marrying Sheep

Here's what's gross: I ate sheep intestines. And little stomach-flesh pouches stitched shut and filled with rice. Those were not my faves. But I'm sick of talking about sheep.
Here's what's cool: I went to an engagement party! It was crazy. All the girls were SO SO SO done up. It was very cool to see them, with their hair and the makeup and the dresses. There are pictures on my phone so if I figure out a way to get them to my computer I'll post them. But the one thing it did make me realize is that I don't EVER want to do that to myself - not get engaged, I mean, but put on that much makeup or that much effort into my hair. But is that so surprising, knowing me?

I killed a sheep.

Or rather, I watched a sheep die, get skinned and butchered, and documented the entire event. To be honest it was rather nauseating and I couldn’t actually watch the exact moment when the sheep’s throat got slit in the middle of the driveway. First he’s alive, and next thing I know there’s a puddle of blood and a slice through his neck. Anyway, aside from the overwhelming reminder that life is short (oh, the humanity) and death is just a butcher’s knife away, it was a very cool process to watch. Granted watching the squeezing out of the intestines (bile and poop spraying everywhere…) was a little more than I needed to see, and the post-slaughter preparations of the meat, feet, and head smelled up the kitchen (and my clothes) rather more than I would have liked, it was fascinating. I was wondering whether I wouldn’t be able to eat meat again after I watched the whole process but in the end not only did I eat its meat, I ate its vital organs. I’m not a fan of sheep liver, but some of the other parts weren’t bad. It reinforced my conclusions that if I am going to eat meat, I have to be able to stomach the fact that it gets killed. Anyone can pick an apple off a tree and eat it (except apparently for the fruitarians in Notting Hill…), but I’m thinking maybe you shouldn’t really eat meat if you can’t kill (or at least actively watch the death of) the animal you are going to eat at least once. I was talking to some of my friends later and they were talking about how that was so gross and they don’t want to know where their meat comes from or think about how it ends up on their plate but really, at least with this sheep, I know how it lived (more or less) and I know exactly how it died and what happened to it afterwards. Yeah, I couldn’t exactly eat pounds and pounds of it, but I had a greater appreciation for what I did eat. You can’t help but think about the slaughter when you’re eating it and it makes it that much more real, kind of. I don’t know, I can’t really explain it but basically if you ever get a chance to watch your own meat get slaughtered, do it. Yes it’s gross and sad and all that but it’s humbling at the same time. Very Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Where to go to feel Middle Eastern.

Imagine:
A room suffocated with argileh smoke, the smell of the tobacco, coffee, tea, and food, packed with people talking and laughing, sounds of an ‘oud, traditional music, clapping, and singing reverberating through the air. This is Jafra on a Wednesday night during ‘Eid break and probably my favorite evening activity I’ve experienced to date.

2 Ma’amoul, 2 Sheep, and a Car Accident

And more pictures than probably was strictly necessary.

I apologize in advance, but the extreme quantity of notable occurrences that have happened to me in the last 48 hours necessitates the exorbitant length of this post.
I will narrate in chronological order.

Two nights ago two friends of mine were leaving, so I went over there for their sort of “last supper” deal. We ate, talked, hung out, and by 10 pm I was sitting around a table with all the women of the household, an aunt, and one of my friend’s moms, making ma’amoul à la Palestine. You take a clump of dough, roll it into a small ball about half of a golf ball, roll it out until it’s about 3 or 4 inches long, push it with your fingers so it’s flatter and kind of has a trough down the middle, then you take the tamar filling stuff, roll that into a ball and then into a snake so it fits in your trough. Wrap the dough around the filling, so you have a filled tube, and then make it into a circle, attach the ends, and voilà! Into the oven and sooner or later you’ve got zaki ma’amoul.
The next day it was time to buy a sheep for slaughter, because it’s Eid al-Adha and that’s what you do. Eid al-Adha celebrates that time when God was testing Abraham and told him to take Isaac to the top of a mountain to sacrifice him, and then took a ram instead. At least that’s our version of the story but it’s something like that. Anyway so that’s why you get to kill a lamb (or two or three) this week. So I was walking (which is totally not done in this country but whatever I just wanted a walk) towards my friend’s house because I was going to go sheep shopping with them, and I had just crossed an intersection when I heard a HUGE bang. HUGE. Thank God I had crossed when I’d crossed because debris from the crash skittered to within 10 feet of where I was standing. What happened was some girls were driving and turning right onto the road when a big ol’ tow truck came along and took off the entire front of their car, basically all the way back to the front axel. There was coolant spilling everywhere, all of a sudden people appeared on the street from out of nowhere, got the girls out of the car, made sure they were okay and then started shaking each other’s hands and greeting each other like this was just another day in Amman; Hey there Mohammad, how’s the family? Eat any good mansaf lately? Anyway so I basically stood their for 5 or so minutes until I got of the courage to take a picture of it…
I finally got to my friends house, a little shaken up to be sure, but all in one piece, and we headed out to the sheep selling venue. I’m not entire sure how to describe these things. It’s like a vacant lot on the side of the road, movable fences organized into contiguous pens filled with sheep, rams, goats, and probably some other animals or half-breeds all spray-paint marked to designate their vendor. People would walk around, browsing the goods for sale, and then start to ask questions about weight and age and things like this, all of which are apparently very important in sheep purchasing. Then the sheep is chosen wrangled, and stuffed into the trunk to be taken to to await its slaughter and transformation into mansaf. But a picture is worth a thousand words in this case…
Phew. We’re getting there. When I got home after sheep shopping I walked in to find the women and girls of this household sitting on the floor around a big bowl of dough and a tray of tamar filling, making Jordanian ma’amoul. What’s the difference, you ask? So for these, you take a ball of dough about the same size as if you were Palestinian, now flatten it in your palm, and take a ball of filling about the same size as the dough ball and put it in the middle of the flattened dough. Now close the dough up around the filling and roll between your hands so it’s sealed. Now you put it into this wooden mold thing, which when you pop it out makes it look kind of like an Aztec pyramid. Then you bake it and eat it!
Okay. Almost done. So today was the first day of Eid al-Adha and I was determined to spend it with my family doing whatever they were doing. So we got up, had breakfast, blah blah blah, we find out visitors are coming! All of a sudden we are making mansaf, the traditional Eid meal – rice, a yogurt sauce, sheep (or is it lamb? I forget), and topped with toasted almonds. I leave the room for a few minutes and when I come back, the meat of an entire freshly slaughtered sheep is strewn about the kitchen, being designated for charity, mansaf, or in the case of the vital organs, to be cut up into stew-size pieces and saved for a meal at a later date. Next thing I know I am slicing lung into bite-size pieces and throwing it into the colander along side liver, kidney, heart, spleen, and – wait for it – esophagus. The weirdest/coolest part of the whole thing, well except that I was touching a lung, was that this sheep was killed two hours before hand. The inside of the lung, inside all the fatty part, was still kind of warm! It was really cool to be like, hey, this is a whole sheep, and it just died, and now we can look at its organs and judge its health and cut it up and then eat it! And you could tell by the color of its organs that it really was a healthy sheep.
So then the mansaf was cooked and served, with the head of the sheep (which had to be done in a pressure cooker because apparently heads cook slowly?) the crown jewel of the platter. Important cultural factoid: if you are having guests for a holiday you are supposed to slaughter an entire animal to serve them because it’s a sign of respect. How do you prove that you did this? You put the head right in the center! Another fun fact: mansaf is traditionally eaten with ONLY the hands – no utensils, no plates – so it’s basically you make balls of rice with the yogurt stuff and pull strands of meat off the bones with your hands. The best part of mansaf (well I don’t do it but I like to watch other people) is that when you are mostly finished eating you just sit around picking the “delicious” parts off the head, such as the cheek, the tongue, the eye socket…you get the idea. It’s like Thanksgiving, the Farbers, and a turkey carcass, except way more badass.

Tomorrow I am supposed to go to my friend’s for more sheep slaughtering (this is the one for whose purchase I was present) and eventual mansaf eating…I don’t know how much more of this I can take!

Smell That?

It's in the air. End of the semester fever/exhaustion is about to set in. It's only seven hours away. Post-test was this morning (S. 'n' C. for those in the know) and the big debate for Allison's class is this afternoon. And after that, shit's gonna hit the fan, my friends, because we are DONE. (Okay, so there are a couple more finals, but they're not for more than a week...so we have time to celebrate, right?) Now all that's left is Eid, vacation, the farewell dinner, and the long flight home...and back. Oh didn't you know, though? I'm coming back to this desert kingdom, I'll escape the cold New England winter (sad) and forsake a daily shower and properly flushing toilets, once again put myself at the mercy of King Hussein and his revenge.... but it'll all be worth it, I hope. And insha'allah I'll be back a third time, we'll see, God willing ya'anee...

And maybe even ערצ ישראל לפסח, anyone want to join?

يوم المفتوح

Open Day!

What a spectacle. 60-some odd college students, uppity Jordanian professors, staff members, and 2 hours of songs and skits. What could be better? We in مستوى خامس did a rousing rendition of Hashemi Hashemi to open, which basically included us running around like idiots while Ari, the only guy in our class, shook his booty à la Napoleon Dynamite in what may have been a fairly accurate imitation of the King - not that I would know, never having seen him dance. Then I also read some dumb paragraph about a city, and then I was in debkah, which is traditional dance, and it was AWESOME we were so good. It's like a mix between riverdance, the horah, and ridiculousness. And THEN our class also did Snow White! And I was the Evil Stepmother/Queen, and I was SOOO good. It was so fun. Except then I was exhausted and went to bed last night at 9:30/10 and woke up this morning at 9:00 which was great great great. Finally! Real sleep.

Ya Haram!

Today we had class outside, on the shady walkway where couples do their thing, girls smoke, and generally things get crazy. So of course we were bound to see some extraordinary sights. Actually it basically was the best thing ever. There was a guy and a girl, in jilbab and hijab (jilbab is the long coat thing) and they were totally touching each other, and a few times I could have sworn they were going to start making out. They were all holding hands, and poking each other, and stroking each other's faces... So mish munasib (not appropriate) in public. Or, really at all. Okay, so this is becoming a gossip column. But actually it is an interesting social observation...we were asking our teacher about it and he was telling us that a lot of times things like this happen when a girl is told "no, no, no" all the time at home by her father or brother or whoever without discussion or explanation, and then she goes out of the house and finds someone who will talk to her or whatever, and gets herself into this haram relationship. It's really sad actually, because then she is looked at as less respectable, our teacher even used the word 'gabia (stupid), even by us. It was interesting to see how a lot of us reacted to it - like how could she do this, she's compromising her morals, you can't do that in public - whereas in the states (well first you probably wouldn't see someone like her) PDA, or any physical contact, between guys and girls is totally 'adi (normal). Weird, how we've gotten so used to this societal norm. Going home is going to be quite the reverse culture shock.