A Far Cry from Cocoa Pebbles

So, I have been sick and blogging goes by the wayside when real life comes up. Luckily, and in my mucous-filled idiocy, my Baba is a doctor and gave me everything I needed to recover from what I think was the flu. Unfortunately, that meant antibiotics, but as it is rude to refuse help, I acquiesced and now I feel a bit better.

Anyway, one thing I wanted to share the other day was a short story about animal innards. The other morning I had something for breakfast that looked sort of like Cocoa Pebbles, and tasted something like what I imagine dog kibble and happiness would taste like. Imagine my surprise when I found out that what I had been eating was, as I had only remotely suspected, chicken liver. I have no shame -- this former vegan loves chicken liver. It was delicious. After seeing goat heads, brains, sheep's liver, hooves and hearts in the window of a shop last weekend, though, the surprise was not quite as grand as it otherwise may have been.

On a completely different note, over the last couple of days I have become curious about a couple different topics as they relate to Jordan....

Firstly, the treatment of the mentally ill. One of my host brothers is quite obviously a little different (it's difficult to fully gauge mental illness given the language barrier), and his situation apparently has something to do with the fact that he was ill when he was much younger (around 6 to 10) and was given a lot of medicine during that time. My information availability bias makes me think that it had something to do with bipolarity, but I'm really not sure. This has made me wonder about whether there is any kind of support infrastructure in place for the mentally ill (or their families) or if individuals, like all children until they are married, remain completely the responsibility of their parents indefinitely, since they are often much less likely to get jobs, buy houses and get married (which are all necessary for moving out of the house in Jordan, particularly the getting married part).

Secondly, Amman has a somewhat incomprehensible transit system. For pedestrians, there are a few (usually blocked) sidewalks, some medians in the middle of four-lane highways that pedestrians are expected to cross, awkwardly slippery streets and a handful of stoplights and traffic circles. Crossing the street is, in fact, very much like playing Frogger with your life. I actually just saw my first pedestrian signal today! Moreover, the buses don't have predetermined stops, per se, but seem to stop whenever someone waves at the bus driver or whenever someone on the bus asks the bus driver to pull over. These buses are also much smaller than US buses. Finally, forget about bikes. Just forget about them. Pretend they don't exist, as you wouldn't be able to ride on main streets without being hit, maimed or otherwise injured and you wouldn't be able to ride on side streets because the city is essentially built on 8 hills that are paved questionably. What, then, would be the solution? At present, most people take cabs or buses everywhere. Is there be a more self-propelled option?

I present both of these topics somewhat selfishly because now all of you reading this know what my homework is, so I can't bitch out -- I'm going to do some research over the next couple weeks and will report back.

Sorry for the disjointed post -- I'm still not quite 100%,

anneke

p.s. If anyone knows anything about these topics already, please do let me know