Journey to Jordan

Today (Thursday) was yet another interesting day.  Like yesterday, my emotions were fluctuating in strange ways.  On this day, I started realizing all the “lasts” that I was experiencing, and that made me start to miss Jordan even though I haven’t left yet.

The morning started out easy enough, but after I wrote a couple of blog posts I started looking around for my flash drive and realized that it was gone.  I looked around for it for a while but it wasn’t in my bedroom.  I ran through all the places I’d been with it the day before and figured I’d probably left it in the university.  That was ok, though, because I had a couple of things to do up there before leaving for America–and besides, there’s a lot more to do at the university than there is at my homestay house.

Sure enough, I found my flash drive in the language center.  Thank goodness!  Used the internet for a while, went downstairs to look at the tests (they were graded, but we wouldn’t get them back until Dil looked at them back in the states, so this was our way of seeing what we’d got).  I did pretty well on the final, and it was good to know that.  After that, used the internet again, walked around the university, and realized that this was the last time I’d be up here in a while.  Kind of weird to realize that.

Because I didn’t have any minutes left, I was waiting for a call from Gini and Nikki.  They were volunteering somewhere in the morning, and we had planned to go to wast al-balad after they were finished.  I read Seven Years in Tibet to pass the time.  They called me around one thirty and I met them at ad-dustour to head down.

Gini has a completely different take on going home than me.  I’m kind of sad to be going, but she’s angry and upset because we really have no purpose in still being here.  That’s understandable.  Despite this, I think we all had a good time.  We walked around, I bought some gifts for my family, we had juice at Palestine Mountain like we always used to, etc etc.  I was glad just to walk around downtown one last time.  Wast al-balad is probably my favorite place in Amman, and I’m going to miss it.  Missing it already, in some ways.

After that, we headed up to a contemporary art museum in Jebel Webdei.  It was an interesting experience.  The art was pretty cool, especially some of the Palestinian stuff.  You could tell that wars and conflicts had influenced several of the artists.  My mom would really have loved the museum (she’s an elementary school art teacher).

Afterwards, we hung out in the gardens outside, relaxing and doing nothing in particular.  It was a little hot but nice in the shade.  Nikki met up with some friends and left with them for lunch.  Since her flight leaves tonight, we said our goodbyes.  I’ll probably see her in Provo, but she’s already graduated and leaves for South America on the 30th, so really it’s just another goodbye after that.  Crazy.

Me and Gini relaxed for a while, then headed back to our homes (which are relatively close to each other).  I went upstairs to the roof in the evening to use the internet and chat with friends.  It was a beautiful evening, with the call to prayer, the twilight, the fireworks, and the whole city spread out beneath me.  My battery died, I packed up, and then realized that this was probably the last time I’d be up on this roof.  Crazy!  I just kind of stood around up there, drinking in the place as much as I could until finally I turned and went back downstairs.

So that’s what my day has been like.  One “last” after another, one goodbye after another.  I feel like I’m in limbo until we step onto the plane, and until then, I’m simultaneously missing Jordan and looking forward to getting back to the states.  It’s a weird, weird feeling.