Independence

Independence.  Here in the Middle East and more specifically in Jordan, young people don’t have independence.  This is seen by the fact that children from ages eighteen to forty are still living at home.  Not only are they living at home, but also if they are male than they never cook or do that much household chores.  This concept is a cultural concept that has been followed throughout the years.  When I tell people that I don’t live at home with my parents and not even in the same town, they do think this is quite strange.  For someone here to gain independence and move away from home they need to get married.  Sometimes when that happens they still live in a bottom floor of the same house or same building structure.  This has to do with how important the family is to Middle Easterners.  Plus for a girl it is harder for her to gain independence because once the sun does go down that means that girls should be home and should not have any business outside the house.  So even though it is not against the law to be out at night the social customs do prohibit girls from being out to much longer after the sun goes down.      

            This past weekend I went to Aqaba and was able to scuba dive a couple more times.  It was just neat to get out of the cold of Amman and go down to Aqaba where it is significantly warmer.  Diving this time I did see lots of fishes, a giant eel (as fat as my leg and long too), pufferfish puffed up, scorpion fish, a big octopus trying to hide in its home, anemone fishes, and many more.  Overall it was a real good trip. 

            This week is the last week of teaching for Arabic classes and starting on Sunday we start Arabic finals.  Those finish up on Thursday after taking the post proficiency test (which figures out how much we learned this whole semester).  Than the week after that I have my two area studies finals.  So this weekend I will most likely stay in Amman or only take a half day a trip somewhere because I will be studying.  Mumkin the last weekend before area studies finals I will take one last trip.  Not exactly sure on that trip for sure or if I will even be going at all.  I will write latter when I have time.  إن شاء الله