Orphans, Horses, and Break Dancers Oh My!

So this weekend I went out with the group Jordan Volunteers again, and played with orphans. I would have to admit that playing the Orphans was way more fun than hanging out with the Elderly people, but for different reasons. Don't get me wrong I really enjoyed the Elderly people, but little kids are just so cute.

Today we took the orphans out to the middle of no where basically, in an area near Madaba. Not the city itself, but somewhere within the general area. So we were about an hour or so outside of Amman, itself. It was actually really very beautiful, for having absolutely no real greenery. Anyways, we were out in this area to take the kids and help them ride horses. It was pretty funny, mostly because I had one idea that I was thinking of, like when I grew up and we would go horse back riding out in the country on American saddles, and so I had this type of idea going into it. However, when we finally arrived there I was surprised to learn that it was more like a training ground, with a small area for riding horses. Then there were like 3 horses that were ridden by all of the kids as well as most of the Volunteers. So it was really funny, because there were three men with each of the horses who would walk you around the training area and then that was the end of your turn. It kinda reminded me of the little kiddie petting zoos, where they have the pony ride, where you get on a pony and ride around in a circle. Regardless, it was still really fun.

When we first got there we were expecting to have 4 bus loads of Orphans, aged somewhere around 5-10 years old. However, when we showed up, only one bus had showed up and we had 3 buses full of volunteers. As a result the ration of volunteers to orphans was a little off, but it work out just fine. We were divided into groups and while several groups waited to do the horse (pony) ride, the other groups went and played on a giant slide, a zip line, a climbing wall, and a rope bridge. Let's just say that had we been in America these other things would have been condemned as unsafe/safety hazards. The slide looked like it was part of a half pipe, and it literally went straight down and then straight into the ground, and was built on this really rickety tower. The rope bridge was a hazard in more than one way. Either you were gonna fall like 3 feet onto your face because of it swaying from other people, or by the time you had "safely" crossed to the other side, then you had a hand full of slivers and probably some good rope burns. Additionally, the climbing wall also had a really bad rope which resulted in several of the volunteers ending up with major rope burns all over their fingers and palms which were basically bleeding because of how much it had ripped through the skin. Finally the zip line, was actually fairly safe, until you got to the end, because you would reach the end, stop suddenly and if you weren't holding on tight enough then you would fall on your butt.

Nevertheless, everyone had tons and tons of fun. The horse riding was fun, even though it was in a circle, mostly because it was funny to ask the man holding the reins to make the horse go faster. It made me feel like a little kid again. Also, there were these three little girls who learned my name really fast, and then every time or almost every time that they saw me they would come up and ask me to take a picture of them, and of course I couldn't say no since they were just so cute. So I have like 20 pictures of these three little girls. Additionally, I have become the official photographer it seems like of the Jordan Volunteers group, and so I was going back and forth between the groups taking pictures of everything, which I really enjoyed. As a result, I took about 270 photos today of everyone and the kids, and everything else. So yeah, I don't really know what I will do with all of these photos, but I do know that I will be giving a copy of them all to the group sometime soon.

The day was made even better, because I was able to dress up and look straight up cowboy. I had my boots, jeans, and western styled shirt, and so the other students with me kept telling everyone that I was a cowboy from America. It was pretty funny. My boots were a huge hit with them all, and so I was showing them all how high they went, etc, and they were getting a huge kick out of it. It was even better because, after I showed them my boots, they began asking me where my spurs and sheriff star were. I told them that I didn't bring them with me, but it was pretty funny.

In addition to going out with the Orphans on Saturday, Friday night after, I went with a group of students down to Rainbow street in Amman, which is the place to be on Friday night. Every Friday night, traffic builds up down that street to the point that it gets backed up for about a mile. The street is literally the place where all the shabab go and play their music really loud and look at girls, since they can't really interact super freely as far as dating goes. Additionally, during the summer, there is a market there that opens up on Friday nights and sells all sort of jewelry, art, and touristy stuff, but it is still always packed with natives as well. It is probably the equivalent to a farmers market or flea market in America the way it is set up, but it is still really fun. Anyways, this week, while returning home from the market the group I was with were stopped by some shabab who told us that they were about to have a break dancing competition that was sponsored by the Prince of Jordan. So we turned around and watched it. Some of the guys were really good, and others were sub-par. I took a lot of pictures, but eventually I got crowded out by people continually standing in front of me, which was highly annoying. There is no concept of personal space in the culture, oh well.

Finally on a finishing note I want to suggest a great dessert. Get some pita bread, or other flat bread, and warm it up and place some warm banana either inside the pita bread, or between two thin slices of the other bread that you are using. Additionally the bread should be of the white kind. After you have warmed the bread and added the warm banana to it add a healthy coating of warm Nutella over the top. Serve warm. It is AWESOME!! If you don't like it you probably did something wrong.