Heflat Kabeera wa Izdiham Katheer (Big Parties and Heavy Traffic)

Keeping up with this blog with such sporadic internet has become a bit of a challenge! Much has happened over the past few days--there is a bit of unrest among the Jordanian public because the King decided to end oil subsidies, and as a result, the cost of gas has risen significantly, directly affecting all sorts of transportation, as well as heating. Perhaps in reaction to this, there has been price inflation across the board over the past few weeks, against a backdrop of rising inflation over the past few years due to the influx of Iraqi refugees into the country. We're all giving the taxi drivers a few extra piastres, and everything seems to be fine. 

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....

Ma3 al-Usra (With the Family)

It is now Sunday morning, and since I don't have internet at home, I haven't been able to post since Thursday. I wrote this on Thursday night, after spending my first afternoon and evening with my family--needless to say I was VERY overwhelmed. In order to maintain the proper progression, I'll post this now and then hopefully write another entry later in the day to catch everything up. Enjoy!

2/7/08

To say I am in culture shock right now would be a huge understatement. Whatever adjustments had to be made on a surface level over the past few d ays is no comparison to what I will be adapting to over the next few months. I had said earlier that I seemed to have more arabic training than many of the other students on hte program, but being around my host family for the past few hours has made me wonder how on earth someone who has had less, let alone no Arabic is surviving! My host mother, Maha, is very nice, but really speaks very little English--when it is just the two of us, we usually are able to figure out what the other is saying, but at times, come across a communication barrier. So far we have had either Ra'ed, my host father, or Isabelle, another SIT  student staying with Maha's mother who has had great Arabic traning in Yemen, to help us fill in the gaps. However, as the night wore on, and I became increasingly tired, it was harder and harder to keep with the frenetic pace of her speech--I need to be at full concentration at all times!

More than ever now, I am realizing the true magnitude of the challenge that lies ahead of me, and am somewhat intimidated, but very optimistic. Despite the frustration, I have already begun to see, in the  first day, the benefits of living with a family. Maha and Ra'ed live in a modest apartment building owned by Ra'ed's family in a tourist-free part of Amman--my room is formerly Daoud's, who Maha insists gets scared and refuses to sleep alone, so the room has been unused for a year, despite the mouse and cheese carpet, frog curtains, and Disney pictures that dot the walls. Though Maha insists that Daoud has wanted a sister, I think he is now coming to realize that his days as an only child may be over, and he spent most of the evening running around, screaming, and generally trying to be the center of attention in the most adorable way possible. After unpacking, we ewnt over to Maha's mother's house ,a much bigger apartment that houses Maha's parents, two brothers and two sisters in their late twenties, Maha's uncle, as well as a Sri Lankan maid, Camila. On a sidenote--before being picked up by our families today, our director made a big deal about not interfering with the maids--I remember being told by someone who had done the program before how uncomfortable she felt with the whole situation, that it was very exploitive, etc etc--apparently one former student felt this way to an extreme, somehow smuggled the maid to the airport with him/her to try to get her to the US, and the student is still in ongoing litigation with the family...ridiculous

At Maha's mother's house, I walked into the living room to find Mohammed ogling Arabic pop stars in surprisingly risque outfits on television (though he insists SHakira is his favorite and the only people who don't love her are the blind), while the older  genderation (mother, uncle) sat on the couch, smoking. It's a little disconcerting to be sitting with elderly women in hijab and their younger sons while watching Beyonce and Jay-Z music videos. The entire family is always talking at once, interrupting each other, yelling, on separate cell phone calls etc etc. simultaneously, which makes following conversation, in colloquial arabic, quite a challenge. An impromptu dining room was erected in the living room with the addition of a plastic picnic table, and out came the enormous platter of rice and chicken, salad and yogurt--needless to say my  appetite  doesn't match up to any of these people, and I am always being chastised for not eating enough. The sheer amount of food consumed in this country is insane, and though people often say Middle Eastern food is pretty healthy, the constant fried food, soda, sugar in the tea and coffee (I miss Splenda!) makes me think otherwise.

After much conversation and increasing fatigue, Isabelle and I were taken on an errand which turned out to be one of the most interesting of the day-tomorrow, there is a wedding in the extended family, and both Maha and her sister had ordered new traditional Jordanian outfits from a dressmaker who lived up in the jebels (hills) of Amman. The neighborhood reminded me a little bit of Fiesole near Florence--tons of zigzagging little streets packed with different shops, all open late at night with tons of foot traffic. Traveling as a group of five, we were escorted into the dressmaker's house, took our shoes off and went to sit down in a parlor while the sisters tried on their dresses. Inside, one Palestinian and one Jordanian, were warming their hands over a portable gas stove (a fixture in every household I've seen thus far, regardless of social class), while watching Al-Jazeera. Being a bit more adventurous with her Arabic and more alert than I was, Isabelle started trying to engage the women in a political discussion, and asked her what she thought of the situation in Israel. The women began a rapid-fire response that neither of us could understand, but after much revision, it was simply reduced to the fact that a) she hates the Jews b) there is nothing she can do for her people.

(At this point, I passed out...more to come later)

Fil al-Shawaariya3 (In the Streets)

Yesterday was a wonderful, wonderful day! After being more or less shell-shocked upon first arrival--jetlagged, culturally overwhelmed, etc. etc.--things have begun to settle down and I am beginning to feel more comfortable moving around the city. In the morning, we were broken up into groups of four and given a list of a few tasks in a certain neighborhood, where we were promptly dropped off, told to complete tasks, and find our way back to headquarters in 4 hours. My group had been assigned to somewhat of an artisans' district, and our tasks led us to a few craft boutiques overflowing with authentic Jordanian and Palestinian handicrafts--jewelry, embroidery, dresses, furniture, dishes, and the like. Ever conscious of trying to be respectful, I began tentatively questioning the shopkeepers in Arabic, usually to find them completely proficient in English! Throughout the different socioeconomic classes, (although of course somewhat less in the lower stratum), it is hard to find anyone completely ignorant of English. Nonetheless, as we more or less had no street map, we found ourselves getting around largely by asking directions of the locals, who, on the whole, were very very friendly. 

A few general observations:

a) stray cats, everywhere! they are beautiful, and I have to remind myself they probably all have rabies or some similar affliction in order to avoid petting them

b) All the sidewalks are anywhere from 1-3 feet off the ground, probably to protect pedestrians from the EXTREMELY aggressive driving, which makes no sense because everyone in Jordan is constantly late, schedules mean nothing, and there is no reason for anyone to be in such a hurry. I tend to be a rather awful backseat driver, and I've had numerous near-nervous breakdowns in cabs over the past few days....apparently you just need to say insha'allah and let fate take over. For the record, the number one killer of Americans in Jordan is traffic accidents.

Nonetheless, the sidewalks undulate up and down (not due to erosion, but on purpose), and they are fun.  c) RETURN OF THE CASSETTE TAPE--usually considered a relic of my childhood, these are in heavy circulation here--one particular ADD cab driver we had insisted on switching tape mid song, rewinding, fast forwarding, etc. etc, for a good 20 minutes while in traffic--truth be told, all the Arabic songs, once they get going, sound prettttty similar to me

A token globalization story: We were given 3 Dinar to go find a small gift for someone else in the program, and my group ended up going into a small music store. One Arab man sat at the cash register, with 3 giggling Asian women around him, all dancing to a Billy Joel music video blasting on the TV. The shelves were filled with burned mix cds for 1 JD, and 2-year old American music--the hottest new single was Mario's "Let Me Love You"

I was proud of myself for successfully bargaining for my first time--usually not a strong point of mine, but another classmate and I were in search of our first Jordanian scarves and after offering a first price I cut a deal with her since we were getting two. Moreover, two different salesmen, one the proprietor of a gift store, the other at a shawarma store, complimented me on my arabic, and one asked me what country I was from since he wasn't sure! Not sticking out as an American tourist is, sadly, somewhat of a compliment here. 

In the evening, my program took an excursion to Madaba, a smaller town outside of Jordan to go to Kan Zaman (I have to say, really blows the SF version out of the water). Though I usually consider a menu of options to be a luxury, at many places, they simply start bringing you tons of courses as soon as you sit down, which is great because you end up trying things you wouldn't have otherwise in the end. The food is absolutely incredible here, and I am usually so full from all the appetizers that I am completely full by the time the main course arrives--tabouleh, hummus, babaganoush, kebab, pita, kefta, kebbeh, fried cheese, and always, lots and lots of shisha. The restaurant was designed so you appeared as though you were in a rocky cave, and after the meal, a live musician came. My primary academic director is a man named Ra'ed from the Badia, the rural region in which I will be spending time in a Bedouin camp later on in the semester, and he kicked off a massive dance party and taught us all traditional dances--it was truly wonderful.

In just a few hours, I will be moving in with my host family, where I will be living for the rest of the semester. 

Vital details: Mother, 24 (!), named Maha....(Al-Kitaab users, you understand why this is amazing), Father, another Ra'ed, educated in the US and knows English very well, unlike Maha (which is good so I will be forced to speak Arabic with her more). One son, Daoud, 4, who really wants a sister, and is learning to play soccer. What more could I ask for? Maha is a friend of our head Arabic coordinator, and she says she is very humorous, loves to laugh, and put us together because she saw that I like to dance and she knew Maha has always wanted a daughter, despite having conception troubles. Even better, Maha's mother's family lives in the same building as she does, and is also taking on another girl in my program, Isabelle. In short, I am incredibly excited and anticipate a weekend filled with massive family bonding. I'll report back on Sunday....the new Monday here

Amman fil Noor al-Eyom (Amman in Daylight)

My first full day in Jordan has been both overwhelming and intoxicating--despite the Pizza Huts and KFCs that dot the metropolitan area and claims of Amman's Westernization, it is clear to me that an entirely different set of social and ethical rules apply here. As it was orientation, we received a massive debriefing from the various SIT staff members, largely on appropriate conduct that will prevent any security incidents. Although the crime rate in Amman may be much lower than many American cities, our ignorance of the delicate social nuances, and the effect certain actions may have, make us more at risk to provoke a situation that we may otherwise avoid at home. For starters:
1. Always walk at a fast pace, with purpose, and do not appear to be wandering around or exploring
2. Never maintain sustained eye contact with someone of the opposite sex, for this can be interpreted as a sexual provocation
3. If people catcall or say things to you, pretend you don't hear them
4. If someone is honking at you in a car, it is probably a man, and by no means should you turn around, for even acknowledging it with a glance will be taken as a reciprocal gesture

Essentially, keep yourself more or less isolated from contact with people in a public space. It's interesting to see how living like this your entire life can affect someone--today after our group went out to lunch, one of the female staff members took me to the ATM so I could withdraw some Jordanian dinars. After having heard her speak in front of the group earlier, I knew she was a perfectly articulate and intelligent person, and so during the car ride, I tried to make conversation with her, but to no avail! I was just asking basic questions along the lines of where she grew up, how does she like working for SIT, etc etc, to which she responded more or less monosyllabicly. Usually, it is the staff who is trying to get this sort of information out of us so to see her be completely unable to communicate was a bit shocking. Had I been a male student, I would have completely understood, but this just took me by surprise.

Aside from all that, throughout the day I have been struck with how lucky I am to be here, and how excited I am for our classes to start. I have enjoyed trying out my Arabic with waiters and taxi drivers, and can't wait to see the improvement that hopefully will come with the intensive language training. The SIT headquarters is in one of the nicest parts of Amman, a mintaka (neighborhood) called Abdoun...let's just say our next-door neighbors are the Venezuelan and Azerbijiani embassies, armed guards patrol the streets, and we are stationed in a beautiful, spacious marble residence, complete with a library, 4 classrooms, sitting areas, a kitchen, and offices. Tomorrow we will be taking an extensive tour around the city in order to get our bearings, and will continue to venture out more on our own. Until then...

Intatibaa3 al-Awul (First Impressions)

After about 7 hours of waiting in airports, 10+ hours of flight time, and 3+ cups of rice pudding (yay AirFrance!), I am finally in Amman!! Truth be told, I was surprised by the ease of the trip--the first leg, from JFK to Paris, only took 6 hours, while the second leg was only a mere 4 hours. In terms of my fellow passengers, however, the two flights could not be more different. I had a lovely row-mate on the way to Paris, a young man named Chet en route to his sister's wedding in India. Originally from Sydney and now a Vice President of Management at Goldman Sachs in New York, he had a lot of interesting things to say about the current recession, the Middle Eastern Economy, and the life choices you make post-college graduation--all of interest to me! Moreover, he gave me his card and extended the help of the Goldman SOS system in case I ever got in trouble--gotta love the friendly fellow passengers. Upon boarding the flight to Amman, the shifting gender percentages (heavily in favor of males) was readily apparent--aside from the girls on our program, you could probably count the number of females on one hand, and they were split down the middle, a few older ones in headscarves, and a few more in more modern apparel. The men were fairly aggressive in their eye contact, but otherwise, paid us no attention. It was dark when we reached Jordan, and perhaps due to sporadic electricity, as well as my meager knowledge of Jordanian geography, the landscape, from above, appeared to be a series of swirling lights, with frequent gaps of total darkness. As soon as we hit the ground, the cell phone of a man started ringing in front of me, throwing out peals of Arabic pop music--I was in the Middle East!

Along the half hour bus ride from the airport to our hotel, my eyes were glued to the window, absorbing all the contradicting elements of the landscape. There were rocky bluffs, ample sand, along with seemingly out of place patches of snow. The cars on the road ran the gamut, from Mercedes SUVs to tiny, broken down pickup trucks with mysterious odds and ends poking out of their backsides. Once at the hotel, we were assigned to temporary rooms until we move in with our families on Friday--most amusing of the process was the elevator, which was TINY, could fit no more than one person and one suitcase, whose buttons had no direct correlation with whatever numbers they purported to represent. The dinner served, aside from some very tough chicken, was absolutely delicious--probably the best hummus I've ever tasted, as well as a few things I didn't recognize, but decided to try anyways. Our Academic Director seems very nice, and I've enjoyed using my Arabic--it seems like most of the kids on the program have taken fewer semesters than I have, so it's nice to be able to help people out with basic conversation, after typically being frustrated by my arabic studies back at Brandeis. Tomorrow, we begin our orientation, and hopefully I'll get a hold of a cell phone, some Jordanian dinars, and general know-how. Until then, Ma'a salaama!

Intatibaa3 al-