the routine

There's a fair amount of variation in daily routine, but most days follow the same basic outline. We wake up when it's light out, around six o'clock. We eat our bread with cheese or olive oil and zatar and drink our tea and milk. (We eat lunch and dinner at typical American times as well, unlike in Amman.) The one of the women and I bring the herd to get water while Abu Laith drives the car ahead with the rest of the family. We always went to the same place for water near our first camp. They had dammed a slot canyon with cement, and would lower a bucket into the pool and pour it out into a trough for the sheep. (I asked Abu Laith if he/they had built it, and he said yes, but I'm still not sure whether he did it himself or inherited it, or whether anyone else was also utilizing it.) By the time we get there with the herd, Abu Laith and the kids are sitting on top, ready to draw the water. From there, we take the sheep to one or two other places before returning to base. Abu Laith takes the kids in the car to wherever we're going to hang out for the next while, and the women alternate walking with me and the sheep. The day consists of alot of standing while sheep eat and sitting around drinking tea. Sometimes other families joined us for part of the day; on the first full day I was there, a friend from the program and her family hung out with us for most of the afternoon. There's a fair amount of solitude built into the sheep-herding life, but there's also alot of socializing. At four o'clock, we head back to the camp, where the women feed the herd (not that we haven't spent all day facilitating their eating) and milk the goats. We had company for dinner and beyond more often than not, and usually went to sleep between eight and ten.

Some people might mean this sarcastically, but you know me, so you can probably grasp the depths of my sincerity when I say that this is really the most delightful thing I can imagine doing with my college education.