Diplomatic Bazaar

We had a cool opportunity last weekend - volunteering at the Diplomatic Bazaar. It's a yearly event in which lots of the embassies set up booths and sell goods/foods from their countries. ALL the proceeds go to a local orphanage, which is pretty amazing.

 

For our part, we showed up at 8:30 Saturday morning and helped get ready, but mostly we just wandered around and looked at all the booths.

At 11 or so, there was a meeting with the ambassadors, their families, and the Princess of Jordan, Basma bint Talal. Zack, Matt, and I were assigned as 'security' for this meeting. We had to block off the hallway from anyone else. It was hilarious. We had no idea who was legit, who was supposed to be in the meeting and who wasn't....

Good times. After the meeting, the Princess cut the ribbon and the bazaar then opened to the public. I got to meet her! She shook my hand and asked me what I was doing in Jordan and how I liked it. We started in Arabic and then turned to English. She was really sweet. Of course I had to throw in that we were all from BYU. Later some other students mentioned LDS Charities. Just doin what we can...

I was an 'usher' so I basically just wandered around all day and talked to people. Several of us students volunteered and they all had different jobs - selling raffle tickets, face painting, selling popcorn...

 

 

I would also switch with them so they could eat lunch.

LUNCH. T'was awesome. Just some rice and chicken from Brunei, samosa from Pakistan, more samosa from Lebanon, and ice cream from Jordan. SO GOOD. I wasn't very impressed by the US booth - just hotdogs and cupcakes. Go America.

 

 

Some of us also got henna... Mine was done by a Sudanese woman.

 

It was just a really fun day. People are so nice and willing to give. It was a reminder that there are so many good people in this world trying to do what they can to help others.

 

Also, yay for diversity. Our world is the coolest.