It’s been a very long two days, and I have so much to write about, more than ever before. The past two days have been filled with long, important meetings with all kinds of people from all walks of life. However, I’ll focus on the two most interesting ones: the British Embassy on Monday and yesterday evening with the Sheikh of Ghor Safi, a little village just south of the Dead Sea. For a village as small as Safi, which specializes in Potash production, bananas, and concrete blocks, Sheikh Suliman is more of a friend and elder to his people, and although it was a little intense, the meeting was a lot of fun.

I’ve been learning a lot of Arabic over the past few days, usually picking the most oft-used phrases out of Philip’s conversations with Ahmad and his older brother, Majid. My “Arabic For Dummies” book that I brought with me from America is turning out to be useless, as it specializes in foohsa, or “classical” Arabic which isn’t much use in Jordan where so many words and pronunciations are different. Philip has bought me a new book, this one with a computer CD, but I’m afraid it isn’t going to be much different! But everyone is very patient with my rudimentary skills and Philip reminds me to just take it easy and not try to learn everything at once. The words I use most often are moomtez, musboot, and shukran, which mean excellent, right (as in, I agree), and thank you. My mother and my old manager back at DoIT would be amused to learn that I quickly picked up the word for “like” in Arabic as well, yanni although Philip tells me that when he hears people use it (including himself) he wants to smack something. I’ll try not to let my use of the word “like” in English flow over into my Arabic.

Anyway, onto the meetings. The wife of a high-level member of the embassy got in touch with Philip recently, looking to get the British embassy into a recycling program. We met with the managers of the various sections of embassy management, from the housing for the employees, to the on-site restaurant/club, all the way up to the interior manager of the embassy itself. The meeting went really well, and the manager of the club in particular was very interested in setting up a recycling plan as soon as possible. Philip believes it may be possible to bring in 15-20 JD’s a day from the Club all by itself, before even adding in the embassy at a later date. However, so many of the Bellehdia (trash collectors) make a living from pilfering aluminum and plastic out of the cans that Philip requested a secure area for storage between weekly pickups.

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So it’s been about three and a half days since I got to Jordan, and they have been busy ones. Because we don’t have the contract with IRD yet, Philip is having Ahmad and myself spend a lot of time fixing up the house, which he wants to turn into a cafe. The bathrooms need to be resealed, the rubble from the old demolished house needs to be removed, and a gate needs to be put up to prevent the street cleaners from wandering into Philip’s yard to pick the figs and olives off of his trees. On top of that, we’re all meeting constantly with various organizers around Amman to try to start up a recycling program, and Philip of course still wants me to bone up on my Arabic with Ahmad as much as possible when we do get that computer-teaching contract.

It’s been weird to get used to the Call To Prayers that echo through the streets every few hours. A few months ago I went to a meeting of the Madison Muslim Student Association where they gave a call to prayer that was breathtakingly beautiful. These ones here are so frequent and common that they just use electronic loudspeakers now, which means that my (extremely) limited knowledge of Arabic has no hope of deciphering the guttural, muffled voice on the other end.

Because of the extreme scarcity of water here (thanks to Israel diverting massive amounts of the Jordan River to top off their swimming pools and keep their lawns perky) the toilets are all extremely low-flow. The pipes here can’t even handle toilet paper. Yes – before you ask, there is toilet paper here, but it can’t go into the toilets. Thus came my first experiences with bidets and spray hoses for…cleaning purposes. Philip’s house is so new that water heaters and pressure are a little bit of a problem, too – the cold, dripping showers are an interesting experience, but needless to say, I no longer need coffee to wake up in the mornings. These are all things that we’ll have fixed up over the next couple of weeks.

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I don’t have much time tonight for extended writing (as I only have internet access from the house of one of Philip’s friends, Winkie) but I wanted to let everyone know that I’ve arrived safe and sound in Jordan as of about 10:45 this morning. The flight was excellent; once you understand that you’re a six foot tall man who needs to reserve an “exit window” seat on the plane so you can stretch out to your full length, flying is no longer an uncomfortable situation. On my first hop from O’Hare to New York, I sat next to a friendly young Spanish woman who was in America with her parents to visit her sister, a teacher at a University in Ohio. We tested out our knowledge of each other’s respective languages, and the two hour flight well, flew by! Although I very almost missed my flight from New York to Amman (thanks to a half hour wait on the tarmac in O’Hare for no apparent reason) I found my massive 767 plane comfortable, and was fortunate again to have a wonderful conversational partner for the next 13 hours with Ann, an elegant older woman heading to Amman to visit her husband. Ann and I hit it off right away and chatted for hours about our plans in Jordan, our traveling history, and joking about the food and movie selection. She even helped me out when I arrived at the Queen Alia airport, carrying one of my massive bags (against my protests). There was almost a snafu with the Jordanian security when they repeatedly scanned one of my bags and saw the long, black oblong tube that could have looked much more threatening, although once they opened my bags in front of me they discovered it was a spare laptop battery.

I was met at the gate by Ahmad, a young Jordanian clutching a sign with “Zach Heise” printed on it. As we chatted on the 20 minute bus ride from Queen Alia into central Amman, I learned that he had been working with Philip for many years since he was in high school, and that he would be aiding me as my translator. We seemed to hit it off right away, laughing and joking as we sped along the highway past the sand-swept date palms and military checkpoints. They don’t seem to have clearly-delineated lane markings in the roads here, which meant that my heart was in my throat as cars, buses, and people weaved about each other at breakneck speed, each searching for a speed advantage over their fellows.

I met Philip soon after arriving at his house, and spent the next few hours chatting with him and another associate about refugee aid, vocational training, and administrative policies. By this point, I was struggling to keep from nodding off, and after helping Philip put up a few tables in his otherwise-empty home, I finally collapsed into bed in my room and instantly fell asleep.

When I awoke just a few hours ago, I met some of Philip’s friends (colleagues, I think?) down on the first floor, but then he and I took off down the block to have dinner with his British friend Winkie, whose computer she was gracious enough to yet me use. On the way, Philip and I stopped by a vegetable vendor, where he and the vendor conversed in rapid Arabic, chuckling and laughing, glancing at me and singing “I Want To Live in America” from West Side Story. Everyone’s hospitality for a tired young American has been astounding and appreciated, and I hope to be the best intern I can to repay everyone’s kindness!

I look back at my post from a little over a year ago, before my trip to Britain, and I can chuckle about how simple a 3 week vacation in the United Kingdom is in comparison to a year-long relocation to the Middle East. Today, my last day in the United States, has been filled with the endless bureaucracy of the mover: calls to AT&T to cancel service (after sadly giving back my iPhone a couple days ago), to my banks, and, joy of joys, to the Department of Health to find out what sort of vaccinations I should have gotten a week ago. Thankfully, they got me in this afternoon without much hassle and I got some nice 3 inch long needles of Hepatitis A and Typhoid Fever in each arm. With Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” ringing in my ears, I journeyed off into town to try to find adapters for Middle Eastern power plugs.

On my way out of town, I happened to pass by the old Karate America, where I got my first-degree black belt over nine years ago. My instructor, Steve Godfriaux, gazed at me through his office window as I came in, motioned me in and stared in me in wonderment as he extended his hand. He was a little more grizzled, a little more gray, and a lot more mustachioed than he had been in my middle school days, but his handshake was as bone-crushingly strong as ever (thankfully, my arms were still numb). On my last day in the country, it was great to catch up with the man who for five years was an integral, charismatic, and dynamic part of my life. He asked me what it was that I thought I had gained the most during my time as a student in his studio. “The ability to seek and embrace change in my life,” I told him: my soon-to-be international employment being the most obvious example!

Not much remains to do now, with 14 hours before takeoff. A few more clothes and computer-instruction books to pack, my last dinner with my family, and a brief rest before awaking in the wee hours to get a ride into Janesville with my parents (saying goodbye to them at the Van Galder bus stop) and be at O’Hare before the recommended 2-3 hours before the flight.

This time tomorrow, I’ll be chasing the horizon and somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, in’shallah.

Most Wisconsinites (and more than likely every single Illini) have been to Great America at some point in their lives, but Cedar Point in Ohio is something special. With approximately 17 major roller coasters, dozens of smaller rides, and bottled water going for $3.50 for a twenty ounce, it was an amazing trip to make last week with my friend Derrik, a good way to say “goodbye” to America by feeling my insides turn to gelatin while being fired 420 feet straight into the air.

Some highlights of the trip were the Dragster (the one I just mentioned), and getting trapped on the Raptor, which is one of those “alternative” roller coasters that were designed by sick minds who apparently were having competitions to see how many people they could get to lose their sandals.

However, it seems that a Saturday in early August is not the best time to go to Cedar Point if you actually want to ride the rides. We ended up waiting in line for 5 hours total for 3 rides, before lunch. That’s where a stroke of luck arrived in the form of the very thunderstorm that almost prevented our Raptor ride: the heavens opened, the screaming crowds vanished into their minivans, and after the skies cleared at 9 PM, there was maybe 500 people left in the entire park for the last two hours. Needless to say, we made the most of that limited time and rode about 7 rides during those last hours.

I’ve been at the Wisconsin State Fair for the past three days working with my old 4H show choir group, the wonderful Showcase Singers. After being a 4Her in the group for a couple years almost a half decade ago, it’s a little odd to now be one of the chaperones now. But the kids are great and I’m immensely proud of them. I’m going to keep this entry slightly more consise than my usual wordy essays; my parents got me an iPhone last week as a combination birthday/graduation present, and I’m testing out the new free WordPress app on its little screen with this post.

Also, here’s a couple pictures from yesterday, their first shows. Hope this app uploads this post properly! (And yes, the second shot is the group posing with governor Jim Doyle and his wife – so cool!)