Jordan, Part 1

As I must have mentioned elsewhere in this blog, I bought my first Arabic learning text in December 2000. After several thwarted attempts (I’ll write about those sometime), I began earnest Arabic study as a Critical Language Scholar in Jordan in 2007. This post will showcase the emails I drafted back then, along with some reflection on how much has changed for me and my relationship with Islam, the Arab world, and the MENA region.

Sunday 17 June 2007, 15h 23min 49s

We finally left the airport around 7pm and it's now 10.21 pm. I am in an apartment at the American Center for Oriental Research with 4 other women. They are all super nice. I saw white pepper trees for the first time ever. Everything is amazing. There is currently something (a cat maybe?) mewling outside the window. I also hear some nice Middle Eastern music in the distance. It's pleasantly cool and dark.

Anyhow, I'll write more later, I just wanted you all to know I'm safe and I can't wait for my friend Andy to come down from Damascus.

Nicki or Pop-please let my mom know I'm safe.

Monday 17 June 2007, 6h 56min 28s

It’s 1.30 pm and we’ve just finished our in-country orientation here at our residence at ACOR. We arrived last night at about 8 to the American Center for Oriental Research and I was in bed by midnight. I share an apartment with 4 other women, and 2 of us share a bedroom (the other 3 are in the 2nd bedroom). We have a kitchen, bathroom and living room with comfortable, serviceable furniture. I’ll take pictures and send them shortly.

The temperature inside our apartment stays comfortable and despite the dry heat, there is a fair amount of gentle breeze that keeps things livable. We had the pleasure of a security presentation from the US Embassy and there is an armed Jordanian guard outside. We are assured that the area is quite safe.

Our classes begin Wednesday, and the university can be seen across a busy highway from the balcony at ACOR. The ACOR residence is built into a hill, so even though my room is on the 6th floor, it’s only 2 flights above the entrance level where the guard is posted (at the expense and insistence of Jordanian authorities). It’s also up a nice little hill, assuring that on the daily treks to and from the university, I will be exerting myself. We also live within walking distance of souq sultan, the nearest market where there are stores and things to buy essentials. Dinner is provided, and we are told that our cook (with 46 years of experience cooking for Americans) prepares decidedly Western meals, which is disappointing. I will therefore seek out Jordanian food as much as possible for lunch, which I’ll be taking mostly near the university, as we have class Sunday through Thursday from 9 am till 3 pm.

About the residence: despite the building being commissioned and purchased by the US, the plumbing is decidedly Jordanian. As such, we have been instructed several times to put our “hygienic paper” in the “covered rubbish bins” adjacent to our nice, clean Western toilet. What fun! We are told that the cleaning crew will empty these receptacles once a week, but 5 women produce who-knows-how-much paper waste in the Western excretory ritual, so I imagine it will be likely that intermittent self-emptying may be necessary. [This comment amuses me, as just last week in Cairo, I arrived late to my conference in time to hear the speaker refer to how obsessed westerners are with excrement. So true].

We’ve also been invited to a 4th of July celebration hosted by the US Embassy specifically for under 35s quasi in our honor featuring the theme of “Future Jordanian Leaders.” It’s a tremendous privilege and I am very much looking forward to it. Also, we’ve been issued fabulous, brand-new text books with dvds, and we will have access to both optional and mandatory tutoring throughout each school week. I’ve seen from the bus window from the airport Burger King, Popeyes, several McDonalds and other American delights.

Lunch is in 7 minutes and I’m hungry, so I’ll close here. More updates to come!

OH wait, I almost forgot to mention: the 4am call to prayer. Magical it is to be awoken to the blaring chanting that starts at one mosque and starts again at about 5-minute intervals at each of the different neighborhood mosques.

Tuesday 19 June 2007, 10h 50min 42s

[personal message to Andy, studying beginning Arabic in Damascus]

As usual, loved the update. Ah personal space issues. I'll write later in more detail, but I am super proud to have navigated to and from the supermarket in the taxi-using my sparse vocab (Tla'a al ali-the name of my neighborhood, left and right which I've forgotten already, I suck).

Wednesday 20 June 2007, 12h 01min 05s

Today, Wednesday, we had our first day of class (Finally!). There are 7 other Americans with me. We have 2 hours of Jordanian colloquial Arabic and then 3 hours of Modern Standard Arabic.

But before I get into that, Monday I attended a viewing at the 13th annual Franco Arab Film Festival-which required my first taxi ride. Luckily one of the 3 of us who went is in the intermediate class, and she took control of telling our driver the destination. The movie, Making Of, was Tunisian and was the dramatization of the birth of a terrorist/suicide bomber. Artistically it was pretty bad (ugh, especially the mangled title), but interesting nonetheless as the first Tunisian move I’ve ever seen. Even though the taxi had to turn around twice, we did manage to get home.

Tuesday we toured the university, which is huge. There are 35000 Jordanian students and about 1500 foreign students (including other Arabs). Most of the women cover their heads and no one wears a backpack or sunglasses. It is very hot and I have no idea how they can bear it fully covered in black, some of them even wearing gloves. On the tour I fell down and bruised my behind and my left forearm on some slippery stairs behind the library. I now have a huge bruise on my arm. [ah the first of many clumsy encounters with slippery Middle Eastern surfaces].

After the tour of the language center and the university, I went with 2 of my roommates to find the “upscale” grocery store in Amman. Empowered by the successful taxi rides, I made sure I knew the words for right and left and off we went. The grocery store was huge, clean, stocked with myriad international items (including soy milk) and air conditioned. I also experienced a Jordanian KFC—we were starving and there was no other food around—it was like an upscale café complete with plasma screens, upholstered chairs and funky Arab music. We even got extra fries for promising to return.

Three of us went back to Al Hussein Cultural Center for the last showing at the film festival—WWW: What a Wonderful World—a Moroccan movie about an assassin that falls for a policewoman. It was awesome-except for the ending. Anyhow, I am now a pro at Amman taxi rides. It costs about 3 bucks to travel to a destination about 35 minutes away. Shocking!

During the short break, I finally had a shawarma-tasty spiced chicken in flat bread with onion. After class, some of went to the bookstore and impressed (NOT) the clerk with our new vocab. Marhaba, keef halak? Ma salaama! There was a children’s book called “Pussy in Boots” featuring Lord Kalem and young Samir-we got a good laugh at the Arabization of a western classic.

Amman is hot and hilly. There are hills everywhere (and stairs). When we get back into our apartment, we all promptly remove our pants, long-sleeved shirts and garments and don tank tops and shorts. I anticipate losing weight here rather easily, unless I get so lazy that I just pay the 45 cents it costs to get a taxi up the steep hill from the university to ACOR. [I gained weight that summer…HAH!] It will only get hotter before the summer is over. Fortunately the ACOR residence is well situated into a hill, so cool breezes and shade keep us cool indoors.