Yesterday I began to feel my first bout of homesickness, and my head was definitely elsewhere in classes today. One of my professors, as an illustration of some cross-cultural education concept (don't even get me started on SIT's whole schpiel with this stuff...I'm so over discussion yellow box problems (putting an object in the middle of a group, asking different people to describe what they see, arguing in circles for hours on end on the inevitability of personal interpretation and the value of differing perspectives), asked why, in America, when watching movies, popcorn was always included in the scenario, and why not something more tasty? After classes, in response to this, I dragged a few of my classmates to Safeway with me (yes, they have Safeway here, and it is way better than in California! Two stories with furniture, huge barrles of spices...etc etc) to get some staples to remind me of home a bit. I walked away with Splenda, microwave popcorn, flax banana almond cereal, soy milk, baby carrots...all the essentials you would never find in an Arab household. I was surprised, but happy, to find many of the same projects you'd find at any Trader Joe's in the States.
In connection with this, however, was my first (self-acknowledged) incident of me being a stupid tourist, which occurred when I somehow left my cell phone in the taxi that had brought us to Safeway. Hana discovered this only when she tried to call me, and a man picked up, who she thought was her host dad, and proceeded to call him Baba. Luckily, the driver was very nice, and offered to come bring it back to me at the Safeway after he finished his prayers at the masjid. Ten points for incredibly nice cab drivers--I doubt that would ever happen in the US.
Many people on my program, myself included, have begun to become a little frustrated with the city and our living situations, in certain ways, namely that it is very hard to get around, and everything takes tons of time. I wake up at 7 every morning to get ready for classes, get to school around 8:30, and then have classes straight til around 4. Since our homestay families, especially those of girls, all want us home around 8, we have a short block of free time in which to do something additional, and as a result, it's hard to accomplish much of anything .If I run errands, then I can't go to the gym, If i go to the gym, then I can't go out with friends for shisha, etc etc. This brings me to my next subject...MEDINA AL-RIYADEEYAH, aka Sports City. So famous that its name extends to my entire neighborhood, this is a gigantic compound comprising of a full-size stadium, a mosque, an outdoor park for walking, and God knows what else, it is so huge that I initially thought it was the University of Jordan campus. After feeling perpetually gross as a result of the eating, sitting around, eating more, sitting around, that is endemic in the Jordanian lifestyle, I decided to check it out with my friend Will, who seems to enjoy his endorphins as much as I do. First off, there are armed guards EVERYWHERE in the compound, and some quite intimidating--however, once we identified the proper building the gym was in ("King Hussein Youth City") we found the security guards inside to be much more amiable. As far as I can tell, the Youth City is comprised of tons and tons of fully furnished foyers, ballrooms...lots of empty unused space that looks like it could be in a hotel, as weoll as tons and tons of metal detectors, none of which are switched on. The gym area itself is much more populated, and quite nice, and also has locker rooms with showers, sauna, etc--huge because some host families limit the amount of showers their students take per week (not mine, yet, but nonetheless). After joining yesterday, I went back for my first workout, hoping to jolt my metabolism.
Observations: A) I'm not sure how new the whole coed gym thing is here, but....good lord, Arab men need to wear more deoderant!!! I'm usually not too hardcore at the gym, but after weathering the initial wave of body odor emanating from the guy next to me, I put my machine on an inordinately high level to ensure I would be constantly breathing through my mouth. B) Naturally, the gym had way more men than women in it, so I was naturally curious to see what the other women were up to (staring at them=a bit more appropriate than the men, though both are equally interesting). Aside from the other American girl there, on the whole, the other women at the gym seemed to be there..more for show than for exercise. Let's just say I seemed to be the only female in there breaking a sweat, which I think some of the men didn't know what to do with. I was befriended by one of the trainers, Ahmad, who kept trying to weigh me so he could assess which weights I should be using, despite my telling him multiple times that I didn't know my weight, didn't think it was important, and pretty much only did cardio. On the whole, the gym is a pretty intense environment but completely necessary in order to maintain my sanity here, I've decided.
Aside from all of this, I have settled in with my family, and had a wonderful weekend with them--despite my frustration with things outside the house, I truly enjoy my time with them. Upon further investigation, I have realized that they are Palestinian, originally from Jaffa...in fact, most everyone's family is Palestinian, 70% of the population is Palestinian! Moreover, as Dad Ra'ed explained to me, the government made it so Palestinians are restricted to jobs in the economy, while the smaller Bedouin population is allowed to participate in the army and security services, so on the whole, the Palestinians are much more affluent. I was very, very lucky to be able to attend a huge family wedding on my first weekend with them, which pretty much was just like going to prom all over again. After initially being unable to go due to a lack of invitation, Maha and I stopped by the mother of the groom's house in our itinerary of Saturday social calls, and quickly secured an invitation from the groom himself, who we found sitting in the kitchen eating cereal--he said he wasn't nervous at all, but he would let us come so long as we promised to dance a lot since his wedding "was not for the old people" (he couldn't have been older than mid-twenties). Another person in the larger family circle who I've come to enjoy is Sarah, a 30 year old woman from Switzerland, originally a doctoral candidate at the University of Jordan, who befriended the family years ago and has since been somewhat adopted, and is over for dinner constantly. It is wonderful to have someone I can communicate with in English and French, and who has been in my position as a Westerner and a woman new in Jordan. On the whole, she is very funny, and blunt, and cannot stand how "everyone in Jordan likes to pretend certain things don't happen when everyone knows they do". Sarah is very low-maintenance, and so the ensuing preparations for the wedding that follwed were overwhelming for all involved. Jordanian women take dressing up VERY seriously, and before I knew it, Maha had dragged me, Sarah, Isabelle, and her younger sister Mais to the neighborhood salon, where tons of women were being done up---all looked more or less like bridezilla. HUGE curled hairdos sticking out from their heads, incredibly heavy makeup--we were debating which shawl I would wear to cover my shoulders, and my initial inclination was red--Maha then insisted I must then wear red eye makeup, so I decided to go with a more subtle pinkish gold (all has to match, nails included). In the end, the huge production was very worth it---the wedding was absolutely fantastic, (best buffet known to man), but quite different from your typical wedding in America--no wedding crashers here, since the bride and groom were from the same family so all the guests knew one another, and, the waiters came around with rows and rows of multi-colored sodas and juice---no alcohol was served. There were many traditional rituals involved in the ceremony, including shaving the beard of a groom (amidst chanting dancers), and bringing the bride into the banquet hall in a canopied throne carried by masked men! All in all, a very good weekend....
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