random convo's

Tuesday Feb 14th 11pm
More things of notice today:
With the family today there were many interesting conversations. while sitting down and playing with the A3bla (the small) at the kitchen table, Ahmad and Rai3ad (son of brother A3beer) were sitting eating shawarma, and this was the first time that i finally got to speak with Ray3ad even though i've seen him multiple times. He asked me questions about whether or not i had a license, and when i was able to start driving, asked about traffic, and which is better. he also asked me to compare damascus to Amman. He asked about paintball guns. He asked me about the types of animals that i had in my house also. When we were on this subject his dad made it clear that he wanted to leave. He called Ray3ad and said that he was leaving now, very sternly, Ray3ad said just a minute, as he wanted to continue listen to me talk about the type of animals i had at home. But then i told him to go, his dad had already walked out. But i guess what happened is that while ray3ad was getting ready, his dad actually left him... and didn't come back to pick him up to take him home. It was kind of funny, and ray3ad was upset, but later some other relatives that were over took him home. What was funny was the discussions about why his father did this that came up later after ray3ad had left. A3mr, which i'm thinking is A3beer's brother as well (father of A3bla the small one and Bishbush), who is kind of a much softer spoken person, made a point of talking to A3beer about it, but he spoke so low that no one except a3beer could here, and i don't know what he said. after he had left, and old a3bla had come over and the whole family was describing the situation to her, they were talking about many things, and i'm not sure if i caught them all, but it sounds as if there was some reasons that had to do with other family relations for why Ra3yad's father was so intent on leaving, and didn't care to wait for his son. they also described him as easily mad and anger, kind of rash i guess, but they thought it was a funny occasion. I was wondering the whole time if it was because he was speaking with me, and his father didn't want him to be speaking to me, but that never seemed to come up in the conversation (i'm not sure if they thought i was understanding what they were saying or not). A3beer also said something about "mudelela" and ra3yad's father not wanting him to be spoiled, but i'm not sure in what sense she met (perhaps in just following his fathers orders, or in another way). Anyways i thought it was funny that he just left his son.

There was also another interesting conversation about giving food/accepting food. Essentially what happened is that the family had bought shawarma for everyone to eat tonight, but only really our family ate it (just them who were hungry i guess), but when A3mr and his family were leaving, Batool/A3beer offered them the rest of the sandwiches that were eaten to take home. A3mr at first refused and then they began the whole, 'no take it' and then 'no it's ok', then 'no just take one' ok i'll just take one, ' no take more, you all need it more' then ' but you all need it' here we'll keep one for Muhamad and you take the rest' ok, fine. The whole argument i'm normal... i had thought it was a normal exchange while it was going on, and a3mr just seemed to be replying in what i thought was normal. But later Batool made the point to say that it was funny how a3mr got upset when she was offering him the food. She essentially just pointed out that she wondered why he got so "ma3sub" when she offered the food, when they had bought it for them. Originally i was surprised that she had made this comment because i thought the interaction was something completely normal, not anything unusual in the way of polite "no's" and such ( i didn't think that he had gotten upset), but then i realized that i feel like this family has a completely different outlook on food, as i'm used to expecting from families i've dealt with. When i refused the eat the sandwich because i wasn't hungry, it wasn't a problem, and i wasn't asked again. i don't know, i guess i just really don't know what are the "polite" things now. I could also be misinterpreting how Batool really felt about the situation, but i guess what i'm really just surprised about in general is again the idea that i don't really know what's 'normal'. Perhaps i'm over analyzing the experience, because i'm so worried about every move that i make around food.