Umm Qais & Border Guards

Umm Qais is located in the far north of Jordan near the city Irbid and right near the border between Israel, Jordan, and Syria; specifically, next to the Golan Heights. It is an ancient Roman city and contains the remains of Roman Theaters and the old Road to Tiberias, an ancient stone road that ran for thousands of kilometers. The ruins also contained an old Ottoman village that aren't as old but still have some fascinating aspects to them. What I liked about Umm Qais the most was many parts of it are don't attract a lot of visitors, only the main sites, so we were able to walk among the old Ottoman village amidst dozens of weeds and growth which made it seem more ancient and more obscure. Plus there is always the added factor that there weren't many people around, tourists or workers so we were able to go all over the place, climbing things when we wanted to, walking through houses, standing and overlooking the Golan and climbing through the old Roman Theaters.
At one point we walked over to the edge of Umm Qais to get a better look at the valley and we saw a couple of Jordanian soldiers camped out near the edge of the hill with their weapons, binoculars, and a military field phone. We walked up and started talking to them and they were really friendly, mostly I think they were surprised by how much Arabic we knew and how much we could talk and understand. Unfortunately it wasn't as much as I would have liked. We talked about a number of different subjects but when one of the soldiers just went off about relationships and marriage I got lost despite the fact that we have spent almost all of the last two weeks in my Jordanian Amiya Culture class talking about marriage. I managed to keep abreast of the conversation enough to grasp the general ideas, or at least what I thought they were but my ability to really understand is severely limited. I know that it is better now than where it was a month ago, and certainly better than where it was a year ago, but some days it doesn't feel like I am really picking up the language even though I know it is just slow process that takes time and consistency. I asked the soldiers a couple of questions about what they were doing there and what they were looking for but if they answered the question I didn't understand it so I might as well not have asked, but then again at least I tried and was able to hear more Arabic.