We had Old Testament and Ancient Near East today, but only an hour of each. When we have class for 2 hours it is very draining. So today wasn't too bad. We can't go out til 3 on Fridays because the city is totally packed for Muslim prayers, so after classes we watched a couple movies, Overboard and Ever After. We did a service project too- putting together a bunch of the humanitarian hygiene kits that the Church distributes. We made about 600 in an hour, and they told us that every single one already has a home to go to, someone who has already requested it.
After 3 my roommate Katie and I went with a couple other people to the Old City. We met this guy at one of the shops and he was telling us about his girlfriend, how they had been dating for a year, would be engaged for about a year, and that he would already have everything they needed when they got married. I guess families here really provide for their children when the get married- he said he already has a house and furniture and everything like that. It's so interesting to find out the random parts of people's daily lives that seem so obvious and familiar to them but that we have so many questions about.
After that we went to Shaban's, I finally bought a pair of awesome genie pants, and we checked out this cool olive wood shop. They had nativities, scenes of the apostles, statues of Christ, Bibles with wood covers, and other neat stuff. It is all hand carved and so beautiful. Shopping is always fun, especially since Shaban always breaks out a couple bottles of juice when we show up, and keeps pouring us more and more while we look around. It's a really big part of their culture to offer people drinks, usually tea or coffee, but he knows the Mormon kids just want juice.
We went out through a gate we hadn't been through before on the opposite side of the Old City, and walked through some newer neighborhoods on our way back to the Center. We ended up taking a detour to buy some fruit at a small shop on the street where the Garden Tomb is. We stopped there and spread out for a few minutes. I was surprised how peaceful it was even with so many different tourist groups there. Everyone is very reverent and quiet, and lots of the groups will start singing their hymns and it is just a really good place to pray and ponder.
On our way back down the hill we ran into an Arab Christian lady. She started telling us how we shouldn't buy anything because they jack up the prices so much, and how dangerous it is to go around the city. She was about 85 years old. She invited us to come over and visit her sometime, since she lives pretty close. When we got to the lower gate at the Center, there were a bunch of Arab kids hanging out there. There are kids there pretty often, but usually just 3 or 4. Today there were about 15, from probably 6 to 16, and they were dancing! They had music and they were doing some cool Arab folk dancing, and then they taught us some of their moves. Mostly the little ones just kept laughing at us trying to dance but it was really really fun. It took us a while to catch on, and we still looked totally off, but we felt like we were doing pretty good and then they said that those were the moves kids do when they are first learning to dance at about age 5. So we have the dancing abilities of kindergarteners.
After dinner I had a meeting with the committee that I'm on to set up for the cultural dinners that we do. Next Wednesday we are having Arab night, so we were planning what we needed to do to get ready for it. I am in charge of napkin folding, so that summer working at the country club is finally going to pay off- I am now a pro at making napkin fans. I'm trying to plan something fun for Tuesday too for my birthday. Yesterday in Hebrew we learned the tradition of putting the birthday person in a chair and lifting them up as many times as how old they are. So maybe we will do that. Any way we do it I am super excited to celebrate!
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