Habibi Amman
Salaam alaykum 🙂
This is my 2nd full day here. It’s midnight and Im sitting on a roof terrace at my homestay. I can see all of Amman from up here and all the far away city lights look like freckles I guess. Here’s a picture:
it was taken by Hannah 🙂
because I am not good at remembering to take pictures yet. And I’m listening to What’s up? From 4 Non Blondes. Ok so now that I’m have written about how awesome this is, I want to make sure I write about how scared I was the week before I came and the first day I was here so that I never forget it.
m not
I feel uncool for admitting it but I WAS SO SCARED… The day before I came I was crying so much and I came two days late because my program started the same day my brother and sister-law had their wedding <3 so since I was two days late I felt like everyone was already friends and I felt saddddd. But that only lasted for less than a day because the other students in this program are so funny and awesome and welcoming, it’s sweet.
I didn’t want to forget about it because I want to remember to just have faith because things pretty much always work out. No need to stress. As long as I am doing my best things will work out 🙂
So far we have eaten good! We have eaten fool, hummus, cheese manoushe, chicken, kefta, chicken maklobah, and falafel.
Yesterday we went to a center where they try to teach others about and preserve Palestinian culture so they fed us and showed us these beautiful handmade traditional Palestinian dresses— they said they take about 2 months to finish each because the embroidery is hand-stitched!! The woman who told us about the dresses was so inspiring, she talked about the importance of having pride in who we are and where we are from! She talked about how there is not much expression of tradition and culture anymore and she showed us her wedding dress which was a really beautiful traditional Palestinian dress. Then they took us upstairs to watch the debke dancers practice!! So cool!
Today we got our host families and it was such a happy moment to see everyone connect with their host family for the first time!! My host mama is this absolutely inspiring woman from England who moved here over 30 years ago! She speaks beautiful arabic and she is sososo funny! She is a gym instructor! I’m also living with one other girl from the program- Hannah- the one that took the picture!! Our host mama has already made us feel so comfortable and welcome within just a few hours 🙂
I also talked to my real mama and baba a few hours ago :))
My dad flew with me here to Jordan and now he is in Palestine and I’m so happy he is there and I am so happy he came here with me for the first 2 days… Alhamdulilah I am so fortunate to have the family and home that I do <3
Habibi habibi habibi
Reem