MARHABAN!

A candid shot of a group of children as we passed through their village. I took this precious snapshot from the window of the bus, from where I was seated. They just disappeared within a wink of the eye!

Marhaban! Hello! Marhaban! Hello! I'm still wrapped up in my Arabic world, so please bear with me when a few Arabic words appear now and then. You can learn the language with me as we go along. In the previous post I mentioned 'Ahlan wa sahlan' (welcome) and 'i lal li qa' (till we meet again). Learning a foreign languge is really challenging AND fun. You should try it.

Well, Jordan is another beautiful country to visit. Having visited so many countries, I must say all God's land is awesome. I really loved the bare rolling hills, the mountain ranges, the deep valleys, the red sandy desert, the aquarmarine Red Sea and Dead Sea - all so fantastic - Ma sha-a Allah! (What splendour God had created!) And the weather then was cool and refreshing, it being spring.

Jordan is the land of the prophets - Islamic and Biblical - land where many of Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him)'s friends lay buried, land conquered by the Byzantines, the Romans and the Muslims. I walked the path that they walked, I saw the scene that they saw . . . there's Jeraesh, Petra, Ijluun, Pella, Om Quais. Also visited old Damascus, Syria, beyond the border. I'll tell you about them later. Really it was so overwhelming.

I learnt more outside the classroom than inside. Met some nice people (and some not so nice, naturally). Chatted with the pretty salesgirl named Amani, the young man from Egypt named Rabeh at the grocery store, Sayeed Ahmad or Abu Yazid, our bus driver. I managed to be understood!

Yes. . . I learnt a lot. Stay with me! Ma' as-salaamah (Good-bye!).