Ana Boheb Urdun

I love Jordan.

Last night was one of those nights where I found myself thinking several times, I love Jordan. Last night was the first time, since arriving June 2nd, that Amman felt like home, the way that I remember it from last year. I'm guessing this has everything to do with the fact that last year I lived in West Amman with a host family, and this year I am living in Hashmi. {Not that I dislike Hashmi, but if you've been to East and West Amman, you get where I'm coming from here}.

I reunited with a few relatives of my host family from last year at Ahli Club, way the heck out past Deir Ghbar, near the highway to the airport (over 3 dinars away from Hashmi by taxi). The relative is Circassian, so we met up with a bunch of her Circassian friends at what is apparently an all Circassian club.

{Circassians, referred to often as Cherkess, are a minority group in Jordan. They were driven out of the Caucusus by the Russians in the late 1800s. Yes, Jordan has become quite the catch-all for people who have lost their homes for one reason or another}.

I need to recalibrate myself to Arab time. We planned to meet at 6:00. I decided to arrive at 6:35 and thought I had done quite well with that judgment. Everyone else arrived at 7:00. Oh well.

Behind the high whitewashed walls was a lovely courtyard with waiters passing amongst a collection of tables. There weren't many people there as the work week here begins on Sunday so Saturday nights are usually quiet. Of those present, however, there were quite a few teen and young adult groups of mixed gender. It was explained to me several times that Circassians are open and okay with close friendships between men and women.

We did end up crashing an engagement party, and that was fun although a little odd. After watching a traditional dance practice session for teens inside the building, someone thought it would be fun to show us the real deal. We poked around to the second courtyard where a very elegant Circassian couple was clapping rhythmically, along with their guests, as attendees took turns dancing two at a time in the middle of a large circle. I was told that this was an important cultural dance for Circassians and that every Circassian knows it. Indeed, the guests frequently traded off dancing in the center (always one man and one woman), and everyone seemed to know exactly what to do.

The friends with us began to push us {me + another American student living with my host relative} forward. The other girl and I refused and clung to each other, until we realized that they were simply trying to get us to stand on the side of the circle with the women, and not with the men where we had been. Phew. They weren't trying to make us dance.

In order to leave, we had to cut across the circle right in front of the bride and groom, wearing jeans while she was wearing a sparkly gown. I made eye contact with her as I passed and I'm sure she was thinking, "Who the Hell..."

Despite being tired and having to work on Sunday, when we left Ahli we went to The Circassian Charity Association where we interrupted yet another event. Some man, whom we later learned is a very important general from somewhere, was speaking and taking questions from a lot of very concerned and intently interested people. I was later told that they were discussing, basically, how to get their land back from Russia and what the U.N. could do for them about it. Once again our new Circassian~Jordanian friends pushed us right through the middle of the room to open seats a bit close to the front.

That was over shortly after we arrived and, after shaking hands with this general whose name and citizenship I still do not know, we walked next door to Al Jeel club, another Circassian-only club. We did not stay very long, but saw a beautiful rooftop cafe with a giant screen showing music videos and quite a few young adults enjoying the place. There was also a vigorous game of soccer being played on the first level.

Around this time in the night, a whole bunch of memories from last year came flooding back. All of those late nights (even during the week) that we spent visiting relatives, house hopping until 11pm, me with my homework in tow. How it was fun to drive through the cool (temperature wise) yet vibrant streets, visiting relatives, eating food, drinking tea, and not totally understanding the conversation, but just floating on the sidelines. {Yet it also drove me crazy because it was usually on a school night when I had vocab to memorize}.

Agreeing that it was *almost* time to call it a night, we went to Sweifieh where I ate at KFC for the first time in my entire life. During this late night snack I remembered how, as much as it can seriously be a pain in the ass at times, I love the Arab shove-food-in-your-face aspect of hospitality. It's so attentive. Overwhelming at times, sure, but nice to pick up your last bite and have someone notice and shove a platter in your face for seconds. Last night I was so glad that I had chosen to live with a host family last year, because now I have an Arab (and part Circassian) family for life.

After the group finally split, I went home with my former host cousin because Hashmi is just so far away from life in West Amman {geographically and culturally}, and I wasn't going to take a taxi at midnight.

This morning, she and I caught up on all of the family gossip over Nescafe. يا الله.

Post Mortem

That's a good title for this post. I certainly felt rather close to death during a few moments earlier this week.

On Monday, I ran 26.2 miles and it was pretty darn awful.

I was quite surprised by just how terrible I felt from mile 15 onward. My 20 mile training run went rather well, so I wasn't prepared for just how horrible 26.2 could feel.

My guesses for what contributed to a not-so-great experience:

-Weather. 50 degrees is good running weather, but when you've been training in the frigid Massachusetts winter, 50 degrees feels hot. So hot, in fact, that while I was running I was continuously surprised to see people wearing sweatshirts and coats. I kept wondering why the spectators were so bundled up.

-Hunger.  I ate a ton during all of the waiting that occurs between getting ready at 6am and actually running at 11, but it still wasn't enough. I was really looking forward to the bagels at the athlete's village, but they ran out fast. I missed that bagel the whole way from Hopkinton to Copley Square. I didn't use the gels because I'd never used them during training and I didn't want to do something new in the middle of a marathon. (But note to self for future long runs). I didn't feel hungry during the last half of the race, but apparently I got super pale and my coach told me to eat something ASAP when he saw me at the finish line.

-Exhaustion. This was perhaps not the greatest time in my life to run my first marathon. I won't go through all of the activities going on during spring semester of my Senior year, but taking six classes and preparing for a thesis defense followed by moving to Jordan after graduation and finding a job was all a bit much to take on and I didn't fit in as many early morning training runs as I should have. Furthermore, 8 days before the marathon, my father sustained a traumatic brain injury in a bike accident. The week prior to the marathon was chaotic. I had classes, problem sets, thesis meetings, thesis edits, a flight home, a medically induced coma, a Code C, ICU, a flight back to Boston on Sunday, and running on Monday. Oy. We were instructed to relax the weekend before in order to be well rested on Marathon Monday. I was the opposite of that.

I guess it's not worth being disappointed about my time. Given the circumstances, I think I'll settle for being happy that I finished, happy that I had no medical problems, and happy that my father is now out of ICU.

Overall, I am glad that I did it. It's been fun to peek into the clique that is marathon running. Just as others told me would happen, I went from moments of thinking, I am never doing this again, to planning my next marathon shortly after completing the first. Despite my shorts that are bloodstained from chaffing, my shoes that are bloodstained, my toenail that has fallen off and the other that is soon to follow, and my ache-filled limp, I do want to run a marathon again. Mostly to have a better experience than the first. You know, Dubai hosts one in January...