My last posting was about my trip to Jordan with my school. I have since begun another adventure, but of the opposite sort. Through this past school year I have connected with an American family that lives in Bethlehem. They have gone home for the summer, and I needed a place to stay between the semesters. It was a perfect match, and now I am housesitting for them until they return. It is not a huge house, but neither is it a small one. It’s around 2,200 square feet and I am all alone for the most part. I am in a nice neighborhood, so there are people around, but the house itself is mostly empty except for me and my books. After the family departed and I began to think about the next couple months in this home, I realized that this will be the first time in my life that I have ever lived by myself for an extended amount of time. Whether it was in my parent’s home, my sister’s house, the apartment, or campus housing, I have always had people around with whom I could share life. This new thought of aloneness was very disturbing at first…and still is to some extent. In being all alone, though, I am completely in charge…and responsible.

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It is strange to be the one who is in charge of meals from the purchasing ingredients to washing the dirty dishes, but without consultation with anyone else. I have often done all those steps in meal creation before, but usually not just for myself. Other people are often involved in some stage of the purchasing, creating, cooking, cleaning and advising. Essentially what I eat now (as some of you already know) is completely based on my cravings. Last night I was desperate for chocolate, so I made brownies. I had needed some potatoes in my life earlier in the week, so I went to the open air vegetable market and bought 10 kilos of potatoes. I have since had hashbrowns at least once per day since that purchase. Meat is expensive over here, so I am now on my fifth day of a meatless diet. Knowing that I’m missing out on some proteins, I wandered down to Fufu’s Supermarket and bought some mystery beans in a can. I can successfully read Arabic words now, but I don’t always know what they mean. These beans ended up being some type of black-eyed peas with jalapeños. Once I mashed them together and served them alongside hummus, they really weren’t that bad.

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I guess my diet isn’t really meatless, for I have had eggs over the past couple of days. Hmm…are eggs really meat? I’m not sure what category to put those in. Ah well, they do make wonderful omelets and are a necessity in brownie-making, so I don’t think I’ll give those up any time soon.

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I have also come to the realization that a person should check to see if the top of the pepper shaker is firmly attached before vigorously shaking over one’s frying egg. This peppered specimen was given to the cat.

Peppered Egg

My cravings also led me to waffles the other night.  I was in the middle of making them when one of the neighbor kids wandered by.  I’m not sure what he was after, but he looked hungry, so I gave him some waffles too.  I think he was more interested in the syrup though.  His name is Araz.