"No. It's Smaller Than Me."

His mother sent him into the kitchen to get drinks, and 4-year-old Abdu Rahman ("Abadi" for short) came back into the living room carrying a 3-liter bottle of 7-Up. Watching him proudly carrying in that massive bottle, I said "It's bigger than you are!" With righteous indignation and a tone that brooked no misunderstanding as to his size relative to a 7-Up bottle, he declared "No. It's smaller than me."

Abadi is the most adorable 4-year-old Bedouin I've ever met. In fact, he's the only 4-year-old Bedouin I've ever met.

His parents, Daif Allah ("Guest of God") and Hamida ("Praised") are the parents of 4 sons and 3 daughters. They are from a Bedouin clan, and they live outside of a small town southeast of Amman. Their oldest son, Badr, is going to school at the University of Jordan (where we're studying). My fellow BYU student Joe Nielsen met their second son, Bander, when he came to the University to visit his older brother. Bander invited us to spend Jordan's Independence Day with his family, and his parents welcomed us with open arms.

Nobody in the family speaks English, which gave us a really good reason to step well beyond our comfort zone in Arabic. They were all really helpful and excited to teach us. As the boys showed us their chicken coops and garden, our agricultural vocabulary expanded from "chicken" to include roosters, hens, chicks, goats, snakes, figs, unripe, and onion.

Abadi, still a little shy and suspicious of these strangers, was excited to discover that he had an attentive audience while he showed us how he could write his name on cinder block with black rocks from the garden.

An hour after we got their, Hamida called everyone in for lunch. She had spread a mat on the living room floor, and we all sat down on the floor around it. We watched as she brought in round tray the size of a small table and set it down in the middle of our circle. She started scooping chicken and yellow rice onto our plates, along with carrots, peppers, peanuts and lemons, all steaming hot. Joe and I were about to start eating when we noticed that we were the only ones that had been given forks.

Joe turned to Daif Allah and said "We don't know how to eat Bedouin-style. Teach us!" Daif Allah grinned. "Get rid of the forks!"

So we looked at the enormous steaming platter and followed his lead, digging in with our hands. As if the food itself wasn't incredibly delicious enough, Hamida had also made bowls of sauces and salads to mix in with the chicken and rice. Yoghurt makes finger food messy. They offered us towels to drape over our knees while we were eating; I guess they could tell that we're not as practiced at keeping our knees out of the food.

While we ate dessert--watermelon--I looked at Abadi and said "Do you like this mish-mish (apricot)?" He nodded. His mom looked at him and prompted reconsideration: "Is this apricot?" He thought for a minute, then lit up and said "No! It's watermelon!" I laughed and said "Mish mish-mish!" There it was. The punchline I had been baiting for. "Mish" means "It's not." "Mish-mish" means "apricot." "Mish mish-mish." AND THEY LAUGHED! I've successfully executed a joke in Arabic.

After dessert--watermelon--Zaid (the third son) brought in bowls of roasted watermelon seeds. I popped a couple in my mouth and started chewing. Hamida saw me chewing, stopped in the middle of her sentence, laughed, and said "Hold on! I've got to teach you how to eat these!" Apparently you eat them like sunflower seeds, not like nuts. When she had finished her demonstration, she laughed again and said "You eat them just like Abadi!"

After dinner, and after talking for a long time afterwards, they drove us to the bus stop in town so that we could catch the bus back to Amman. They left us with an invitation to come to their oldest daughter's engagement party on Friday, and with an open invitation to consider them as family.

This is the best Jordanian Independence Day I've ever celebrated. Here's to the wonderful people of Jordan.