Life in general- friends, food, volunteering...

Its July 22 and I found a moment to use the family computer while they're all at a neighbor's party. I've put a few pictures up to give an idea of some regular daily stuff:
1. I took a stroll down to the Roman ampitheater in "Wast albalad" with my roommate gini and our friend joe. we went to meditate on earlier events of the day, but we also ended up talking to this nice Palestinian family. They were probably drawn to us by Joe's shirt that a has a cartoon that pretty much represents Palestinian oppression. Its normal for people such as this family to want pictures with us Americans. so this is one of 'em. Strangely enough, 6 people were shot and killed about a week or so later in this same location. We're not allowed to go there anymore, even though the attack was not hostile towards westerners or any specific people at all. Apparently the killer just went mad and shot himself afterwards. This incident has upped our safety-awareness factor and we are not allowed to go to any of the concerts at the music festival in Jerash this year either. It is a big event, but since this year is the 60th anniversary of Israeli independence, or the NAKBA (catastrophe), it could possibly be a targeted event. SO, that a no-go for BYUers.

2. This is me and 2 of my friends on campus: Khalud and Amal. They help me out with my homework and such, and i get to try and decipher whats coming out of their mouths when they talk to me.

3. This was a candid shot of an Enrichment cooking lesson. We do these every 2 weeks. This time Eva was teaching how to make pesto-stuffed tomatoes and caesar salad (i had no idea anchoves were involved). This is after our Japanese sister (i can never say or write her name correctly so i wont try) taught us how to make sushi. she's in the corner there. i'm excited to make my own sushi, its not too hard!
These appetizer cooking classes are valuable for many of the sisters because knowing how to do appetizers in a catering business can make you 100's more than you already make. And that is the kind of employment opportunity that is realistic for some of the sisters from the Philipines and other countries.

Other normal daily stuff:
I volunteer 2 days a week at one of the Relief International centers. It's a school for refugee children and refugee teachers, i mentioned it once in a previous post, and I get to spend 3 hours a day, 2 days a come along with me. Improving their English means being more able to pass it along to the students. There are a lot of Iraqi teachers who have come to Jordan from Iraq pretty recently. They've been witnesses of death, kidnapping, and other horrible things that we probably just cant talk about any ol' time. Besides Iraqi's, there are Palestinians too. Its hard to get the children into the regular school systems, even though its been recently opened to refugees. There's just not enough room, apparently. The center also provides an opportunity of employment, or at least volunteer experience to those refugees who can do nothing but sit at home because work in Jordan is illegal for them. This is what I've been told, i'm interested in looking at the laws a little more closely. Anyway, I LOVE every minute at the center. I love the people there, and this is one step i needed to feel more secure about a future working in a similar kind of organization.