Be Still My Heart!

I bought her entire album on itunes. It's one the best I've heard in months, years even.

As a bookmaker and lover of most things folky, this video stole my little making heart.


Lisa Hannigan - Lille
Music Videos at www.roxwel.com

This video/song sealed the deal.

There and Back Again: A Joyful Return to Jordan

We have made it back and this is our tale:

We left for the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge Border Crossing north of the Dead Sea at about 2pm on Saturday afternoon. We were very graciously driven right up to the border checkpoint by some friends and they bid us a fond farewell. Packs upon our backs, we headed into the fray.

And it wasn't too bad.

I mean, the flies were everywhere and we had to wait for several people who were sharing the same brain cells to figure out what they had done with our passports. But we got across to Jordan and happened to meet some American students who were told to leave class in Cairo because of a swine flu outbreak (fancy that, an epidemic occurring in Cairo! Imagine!) We split a cab up to Amman and we found the Sydney Hostel without a problem. It is on Prince Muhammad Street, right downtown and we were greeted by a very friendly receptionist. Since the dorm rooms were under renovation, he "upgraded" us to a private room at no additional charge. Don't get me wrong, we were thrilled to be in a private room, but "upgrade" is certainly not the verb to use. All the same, it was a very inexpensive place to stay and provided us with very adequate accommodations.

We set out immediately for Wild Jordan, a swanky little cafe/boutique that sits at the end of a street where we bought one of our favorite paintings last summer of a line of Arab sheikhs done in very Impressionistic style. We had a little feast involving coconut fried shrimp, a chicken wrap, curry and two fantastic smoothies. Mine was a mint-and-lime lemonade and Brooke's was a banana coconut Croccan. We rolled back down the street to our lodgings and fell asleep.

The next day, we marched up King Hussein Street leading out of downtown in between Jebel Webdeh and Jebel Hussein up into Abdali. My dear friend Hassan has his shop right on that street, across from a dilapidated Daihatsu dealer. We met his next door shop keeper, Bashir, whose brother works in Utah selling cars. We chatted with him for about 20 minutes while Hassan made his way back from downtown. It was so good to see him again, still chain smoking and very proud of the new wall in his studio and the recent success of his calligraphy. He also showed us the entry he will send in soon for an upcoming conference of Arab art and poetry in the UAE next year. It was a banner-sized excerpt from the Quran and he pointed out one tiny mistake where his son had jogged his arm while he was drawing. More on little Abdullah in a second.

After agreeing to have lunch with his family the next day, we said farewell and got a spot of kunafa, something with which I feel into deep smit last summer that full of crunchy sugar on top and piping-hot goat cheese on the bottom (Way better than advertised! I swear!).

More on the Jordan trip coming up after Brooke has her meeting with the group that is hiring her to teach English.

Aint Nothing Gonna Brake-a My Stride

You may wonder why I've been posting every 30 minutes. I'm sick. That's why. I caught a Mcnasty cold on Monday morning after a weekend of festivities for the Jewish New Year Rosh Hashanah (I'll post about the fiestas later). I've pretty much been in bed since then but today I got out of bed, showered, ate regular meals, and put on some makeup.

Why? We are going to Jordan tomorrow! A dear family in the branch offered to help us get our Visas (he's a Foreign Service Officer) and give us a ride across the border into Jordan and we couldn't resist the offer. Snot or no snot we are going.

I think. I also convinced Max that it would be fun to stay in one of those crappy mixed dorm rooms where they rent beds for 11$ a person a night. Really. We are staying 3 nights backpacker style in the Sydney Hostel for 60 bucks or so. Sweet deal....maybe not so sweet rooms. I kept saying "But we'll never get to do it again! We'll have kids or be too old. Let's just do it once and if it is a nightmare we can upgrade." The room only has 6 single beds in it and yesterday it was empty. I hope that no one signs up and we will have paid 22 bucks for a private room. I shall report.

We Are Fans

Big giant ones. We were SORELY disappointed in "Glee", but this new fall series is amazing. It strikes the perfect balance of smart and cynical with heartwarming and funny as all get out.

Blog Stalking: Foreign Service Style

Evidently, bid lists are out. I'm not exactly sure what that means yet or if all bid lists are out or just some, but the blogosphere is a flutter with bloggers who have just learned that the bid list, the list that contains many locations throughout the world, one of which will be their home for 18 months to a 3 years, is out.

I have done a little bit of blog searching lately with the terms "Bid List" "Foreign Service Bid List" "State Department Bid List" and found some pretty great blogs of some pretty interesting people. Several times I have been able to catch the first post some years or months back about the list being out and then follow the people right up to when they disclose there new home. It's actually thrilling. And a little bit embarrassing too, but they are posting it for ALL to read so I shouldn't feel too snoopy.

It's a big deal, this bid list issue. There is a lot that goes into determining where you go on a given tour in the Foreign Service.  We will probably spend at least two of our tours, one of our first, in an Arabic speaking country. I actually feel fine about that. We have loved the Middle East so far and the idea of staying here seems familiar to both of us. We can't believe how foreign something like China sounds, but Bahrain? Bring it on. The possible Arabic speaking countries (where we have embassies) are as follows:

Algeria
Bahrain
Chad
Comoros
Djibouti
Egypt
Eritrea
Iraq
Israel/Palestine
Jordan
Kuwait
Lebanon
Libya
Mauritania
Morocco
Oman
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Sudan
Syria
Tanzania
Tunisia
United Arab Emirates
Yemen
*There are African countries on this list too, so really I should say "Middle East/North Africa".

There is at least one unaccompanied tour on this list (Iraq) and probably several hardship posts, but that list fluctuates. Hardship posts are just that, hard. A location usually qualifies based on strenuous environmental, political/social, or geographical situations in the region and things like access to goods/services/healthcare. U.S. Business Week did a study recently on The Hardest Hardship Posts that helped me get a better hold on things.

The bottom line is, we will probably go many places that are hard. Perhaps I'll have to be without Max for a time and perhaps I'll get malaria. Especially for the first little bit, we should just expect difficult places. But we feel really good about this decision. And I should say specifically I feel good about this decision. Sometimes when we tell people what we are doing they get this idea that "Isn't that nice of Brooke to follow Max around even though she'd rather be doing something else?" And that couldn't be further from the truth. We may decide that foreign service isn't for us sometime in the future, but for right now I am very excited about the opportunities we'll have to learn about the world, to travel, to do good work for our church, and the opportunities our children will have. Will it be hard? Yes. Will it be rewarding in ways I can't articulate? Yes. But the more people we meet who have done the foreign service for years, the more our choice is confirmed. The values that they hold and have instilled in their children are the same that we would like to focus our lives on.

So, I keep looking at the hardest hardship list and gearing myself up for that. It's a kind of pessimistic optimism. If I can conceive of the worst and plan for it to the extent that I am able, it will be manageable and everything else will seem wonderful.

Beard Update: Entering the 3rd Dimension

Hello friends. You've probably done it, too: drawing a beard onto the face of some unsuspecting picture or other drawing and silently laughing to yourself at the vandalism. Well, for several weeks now, my own beard has been similarly flat, like someone took a brown/red Magic Marker and colored in the appropriate areas on my face.

But no longer.

Behold! A beard that sprouts beyond the confines of my face and into the 3rd dimension! Huzzah!