We drove to a local Jordanian family’s house for a delicious dinner. It was a cool evening and thunder was coming from our bellies. As soon as we got there we quickly unbuckled and met our host. A smiling gray-haired man met us at the door and ushered us in to meet his wife. The first room reminded me of a sun porch. It had a plastic white table and baby pink walls. The second room where we would be eating was green, gold, red, brown, and yellow. It had four continuous couches going all the way around the room, only pausing for the door we came into and another door that I imagined led to the kitchen. Sitting on one couch were three little girls, one ten, one 8, and one 3.
I figured that my luck couldn’t get any better, but then I realized that they couldn’t speak English. Bummer! I sat down on another couch and they all came to sit next to me. I smiled. The people here were so nice! I asked the girls what their names were, momentarily forgetting that they didn’t speak my language. But then they surprised me by answering in English. “My name is Dhalia” said the ten year old.
“I’m Honey” the 8 year old chimed in.
“And that’s Lujhun.” (Probably spelled wrong but pronounced like luh-jane.) Dhalia finished.
“I didn’t think you spoke English!” I said delighted.
“What? Say again please.” They answered.
I sighed. Time to cross off English. “Do you speak French?” I asked in French.
They clearly did NOT speak French and started speaking Arabic to each other, trying to figure out what it meant. Another sigh, time to cross off French.
The mother began serving and handed us all a bowl of soup. It had noodles, carrots, shallots, and chicken. Then was the main course, chickenn with rice and salad. Ra’ed explained that in Arabic the rice dish was called maglooba which means ‘up-side down’ because when it’s done cooking you flip it up-side down so all the juices and yummies are on the top. During this course mom suggested that I teach some hand games to the girls. We spent about half an hour doing that, in which I taught them double double, and Ms. Mary Mack. They taught me Arabic rock, paper, scissors, shoot.
When that was done they took my hands and brought me through the other door. It was indeed the door to the kitchen and inside were three girls. Two of them were teenagers and the other looked like an aunt. One teenager spoke pretty good English and they all brought me into another room. They gave me a purple box which held a beautiful bracelet and a keychain box. They also had a pin of the Jordan flag for Carter. They let me give them to my parents then brought me into a dim lit room where there was another girl and a grandma. The aunt brought me a chair and the teenagers started speaking in rapid Arabic. Then everybody was swarming around me and the next thing I knew my hair was being braided and bobby pinned into a traditional Jordanian hairdo. They took lots of pictures of me and showed me my new locks. I looked like a princess! When I went back to the main room everyone ahhh-ed. I blushed, but I was very happy. For desert we had a locally grown fresh orange and a ripe banana. Mmm. Just the thing for this girl.
I promised to give Ra’ed and Magdy some silly bands for them, (a promise I fulfilled) and wished them well. We waved to each other until the van turned the corner.
NOTE: The maglooba picture is from the Internet. I’m really sorry but we have no real pictures from this. We tried to make it feel like we were locals instead of tourists and didn’t bring a camera.
