O, Fortuna!

Today, I spent the morning in the police station in downtown Amman. Fortunately, they only took my fingerprints and then allowed me to go free. More fortunately, there was a group of us along with a driver who spoke Arabic in order to deal with the police. Most fortunateliest? I was only going for a visa extension.

The basics of how visas work here in Jordan: you get your passport and then you apply for a visa. You can get a multiple entry visa before you leave the States or you can get (only, I believe) a single entry visa when you arrive at Queen Alia. Once you are in the country, you have a month to get an extension on how long you can stay in country. If you don’t get the extension you have to pay 1.5 JD/day over when you leave the country. Also, if you leave the country, you have to buy a new Jordanian visa when you come back to cross into Jordan again. Otherwise, you can apply for residency, which is good for a year and which allows you to cross Jordan’s border without getting new visas at the border; it also decreases the amount that you have to pay for tourist extensions. Now, the downside is that it can be highly bureaucratic to get through all that needs to be done for it and the process takes 6-8 weeks. In the meantime, you have to go get your visa renewed, which is what CIEE did for us the first time, taking us in groups to the police station to get our fingerprints.

We then returned to classes; but, due to a misunderstanding, some of us went quite a distance from where our class was, back to the office building where we though we would be having class. This was a mistake; fortunately, again, the program director was on her way to campus and drove us and so we made it to class on time.

With only one class for the day, I decided to do some exploring. First, I went to find the copy shop where my book packet (only 7JD for all the books I will need this semester!) was. This was by the North Gate (el-bawaba esh-shamaliyya, as we have learned). Since I was near the main gate at this point, near the office complex, I had to cross multiple lanes of raging traffic. Fortunately yet once again, there was a function at the mosque, and so there were many men getting ready to cross the street. I first used one group of them to make it across two sections of roads, to the relatively safe haven of a shopping complex. I then followed a group of women across several more lanes of traffic before finally making it to the complex building where the copy center was. The copy center was located upstairs and had no signs downstairs; it was a small, one room affair staffed by an aged man who spoke about as much English as I speak Arabic. To get there, one had to traverse up a (stopped) down escalator while the up escalator was being worked on, torn in pieces right beside you. This did not instill confidence. Having found my book, I decided to come back the following day where I could break a 20 JD on it.

Now at the North Gate, I decided to walk all the way to the South Gate and hail a taxi from there, thinking it would be closer to home. The University campus is 650 acres; from the North to South gate it was about a 25 minute hike. Some students have said they want to go hiking around the Wadis in Jordan: I think that hiking across campus shall be more than enough physical activity for me. Arriving at the South Gate, I realized that this would be a poor place to get a taxi because first, the taxi would be heading in the wrong direction and secondly, it was a raging horde of speeding and merging cars. Thus, I decided to set out on foot to find some nice, quiet neighborhood from which I could get into a cab peacefully and without undue risk to my life.

I walked along the road, facing the traffic, since there are no sidewalks in that area. Finally, I came to an area in which there was at least a raised curb. If Amman is built originally on 28 hills, I think I walked up about 27 of them. Finally, finally, I realized that I was not approaching any nice and quiet roads and that I did not recognize my surroundings and that I had probably walked all that distance for nothing. At this point, I hailed a cab that was fortunately already stopped after just dropping someone off. Between my being further away and the insane traffic around 1 PM, the drive was an extra 50P.

On the other hand, I recognized my first printed word on a sign today: Abu (which means father). It was on a restaurant; why, I do not know. Given, however, that I only know three consonants, 3 short vowels, and 3 long vowels, it was the best I could do unless, of course, a restaurant had the name “Toot” (raspberry) in its title. I can recognize “toot.” I can also recognize “abat”; but since that means, “she refused,” I do not think I will be finding it on any restaurant signboards.

This was, I think, enough adventure for one day.