2 exhausting days

I am going to break up these posts into 2 for the past 2 days since they were so action packed.

First some commentary about the first day i arrived in jordan. When I first made it here, I was greeted by some good friends, I made myself at home, and then I checked out wikipedia to try and get a basic understanding of my surroundings in the country of jordan. I was then asked by a filipino woman if i needed any clothes washed, and i said yes and gave her some. I was shocked to discover that she was a maid, and that she would do what the family asked of her. She brought me tea and coffee, and even snacks without me asking. I felt very awkward of how helpful she was, and found out that many families in jordan have maids. when i did a further examination, apparently even people who would be considered lower class in the us have maids. Apparently there is an agreement with the filipino government to send over the poorest of the poor to work for 2 years as a maid in someone's home. First, you must pay the government for the right to use a maid like 4000 dinars or about $6000. Then you pay her flight to jordan, and then you pay her salary of only 100 dollars a month!!! I think a fair way to describe the conditions of these women's servitude slavery light. I some think it is hardly fair to pay someone 100 dollars a month, and probably amounts to exploitation. Some families beat their maids, and some do worse things to them. Although they come here knowing what they risk and will be paid, so the desire is there. In the US i think the relationship maids have here would be very stigmitized against the host because of the conditions, but then again this is not the US. So there are thousands upon thousands of Malay, Chinese, and Filipino maids here living with families. Now for other info.

On Friday I got on a bus headed for the ancient city of Petra, considered to be one of the new 7 wonders of the ancient world. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed here, as well as Transformers 2 and Tomb Raider, as it is very very impressive. I think it is the most outstanding archaelogical site i've ever seen, and ive seen all the sites in the yucatan including chichen itza. the main building was stunningly beautiful. the nabateian civilization around the time of christ built massive buildings into the side of mountains. they were sort of greek and were powerful because of their trade routes. Like any good tourist location, there were hundreds of locals trying to sell their goods, and some of the people i felt so sorry for i gave them the change i had. of course, i also think that some of these people need to give presentations on how to aggressively sell and market material, as they have their 4 year olds running up to you and saying please buy please buy. so much for child labor laws.

Petra was also used by the romans and the greeks. I walked on a road that was 2000 years old and ran into an ampitheater that seats 4000 people. this is random but i was walking around looking at the sites and i heard a guy speaking spanish with a mexican accent so i talked with him in spanish for a while. it makes me feel better since i dont know arabic that i can at least speak in one other language. they have a joke, whats another word for american, monolingual. anyway, we loaded the bus and drove to wadi rum, a huge desert.

i got on a four wheel drive truck and rode around and i rolled down a sand dune fast, and could not stop rolling at the bottom because i was so dizzy. maybe ill post the video on youtube. we went to see bedouin tents and danced to arabic music, as well as had an arabic meal, then we went to spend the night in the city of aqaba, which is a resort town on the red sea.