My host mom had to do a bit of shopping, and so I went with her and she showed me the lay of the land, so to speak. I also saw a sigh that I did not think I would: a whole room full of Jordanians waiting their turn patiently. No queues, no pushing – it was amazing. The phone company had the “take a ticket” method, which actually worked very well – until our number didn’t seem to appear on the screen and we had to spend another 10 minutes finding someone to setp out of the rigid alignment of slips to see us. We also stopped by a little one room craft store to pick up more yarn.

I had a fun time going to services this evening. I set out an hour and a half early, just to make sure I could get there in time. First, I walked around our area, making sure I could get back to the house from the main landmarks. Success.Then, on to flag a taxi and drive to 1^st Circle. I wandered around the streets , looking into the little store fronts. Surprisingly, the majoriy of people there seemed to be Americans….I think our program’s other group (for just the Advanced Arabic Language program) was the majority of the people.

Having read that the service began at 5:30, I wended my way through the side street and finally found the building, surrounded by a high gate on which all the solid gates were barred. This did not look promising. I continued around the road, to the side and back of the building; there was a carport that connected with the rest of the compound, and I entered the courtyard. Exploring, I found myself going up some stairs and then saw that the outer door of the sanctuary was open. I went through it and then opened the thick oak door of the sanctuary. It was completely dar – again, this did not look promising. “If only I can find a bulletin,” I thought. “This is, after all, Jordan time – I suppose 10 minutes before the service really means 30.” I turned and was on my way out, when a shadowy figure appeared in the dark doorway.

A little older woman stepped into the gloomy sanctuary. I doubted the existence of her teeth.

“Ahlan wa Sahlan,” she said. Given the circumstances, I’m surprised she didn’t demand, “Sho malik” – what’s your problem?

“Hello! Um, my name is, “ I introduced myself in Arabic, “When are the services? Is there something here?”

She held up six fingers and talked rapidly in Arabic. I assumed the meeting was at 6, then. “Here?” I asked.

“Yes, yes, here,” she replied.

“Thank you!” I wasn’t sure how to thank her for not calling the police that a prowler was going through their sanctuary.

I spent my time in a supermarket - now, although the shop was only one room, I could swear that it had as much variety as a WalMart - except the one thing I wanted, facial soap. The items were stacked two or three deep on the shelves and in the aisles. Services were in English; I was familiar with the order from the Book of Common Prayer, although I was a bit frustrated since this was the newest version of it and I am accustomed to using the rite with traditional language. Coming back, I think the world’s fastest taxi driver or at least one that wanted to bring back memories of home to an American by driving like a Nascar professional.

And now to bed – classes tomorrow morning!

Funny Advertisement

In browsing around the internet (shway, very slowly, of course) I keep getting these sidebar advertisements saying “Meet Arab men now in Jordan!”

Silly computer. If I wanted to meet single Jordanian men, all I have to do is hail a taxi and smile. No hassles with slow internet required.

New House

Following yesterday's last bit of orientation, we had plenty of time to pack our belongings and then we were picked up by our families. My host family consists of the father, an engineer, the mother, and two children at home and one in the US.

I am living in the Deir Ghbar (I need to learn to pronounce that before the end of the semester) in a large condo-style house apartment. Dwelling place. There we go. There is a main trapezoidal room, surrounded by a hall connecting the rooms. At one end of the semi-circle is the family room, with one couch to the side and one in front of the television in its ornate cabinet; on the other side is a French window. Past the second couch is the ample kitchen with its grey granite tops, curved around the main room. The main room is not used often: there is a living room set, covered with sheets and only used for receiving non-family guests. The son uses its tile floors for practicing basketball with a plastic basketball net. There are three bedrooms, a laundry closet, a guest bathroom and the kids’ bathroom. My room has the high ceiling like the rest of the house and the tile floor. A large window looks out on the other apartment and down into its small patch of green grass and shrubbery. The walls are plastered and painted in blue and orange, reminding me strangely of a French orphanage or private school for girls. Not that I have ever been in a French orphanage or private school. But it reminds me of one. I have a large white desk and a a white closet; the closet and the bed are charmingly childish in style, like a little house with a roof on top. (It was the older sister’s room from childhood.) The bed is comfortable and warm. Alhamdulillah!

Amman Transport

There are *at least* three types of taxis and two types of buses. The first type of taxi is a private taxi. Now, this private taxi comes in various flavours. First, there is the taxi that is specially licensed to only pick up passengers from the airport and take them to their destinations for a fixed rate depending on the area of Amman or Jordan (19JD to the further part of Amman and 109JD to get to the border of Iraq). The second type is the normal yellow taxi that you hail on the street. To get anywhere within the city of Amman during normal times costs 2.5JD or less – providing the meter is turned on and the driver realizes that you know the meter is turned on. (In “Survival Amiyya,” we learned the very important phrase of turn on the meter, please – sgharreh al-saddat, lao samaht.) There is also an ordered private taxi, “Taxi Moumayez” that is a privately run fleet that can print out receipts, although the meter runs at a higher rate and advances more quickly. It wants to be the best taxi company, and even prints out receipts, but there are instances where the drivers have been very late or early. Biseer – it can happen. The next type of taxi is called as “servees” – it is a shared taxi and runs on a fixed route, going in circles. However, this route is not published anywhere, so I don’t know how people actually figure out how to use them. Again these are cheaper – but until my Arabic consists of a little more than 50 words or so, I will have to wait, I think.

Then are the buses….oh, the buses. The first kind are the most well established and prevalent. They are privately owned and do not have a fixed schedule, but run as soon as they are full. The routes, too, are apparently confusing – I do not think I will try to figure out how to get to the university with them until I can at least read Arabic enough to sound out the destinations. However, they are very cheap. Then there are the publicly owned buses – these are newer and rarer. There are also buses one can rent for touring destinations, though I don’t think I will be using them any time soon!

There is also the option of walking about; however, this has many problems. In the first place, there is the matter of the sidewalks. They exist in some places, but any description will fail to do justice to their narrowness or their sudden stops and starts or their charming unpredictability. I must charitably note, however, in some places the sidewalks or store front pavements are quite attractive, being made of colored tile and carefully decorated with Islamic art or shapes or words.

The weekend is here!

Today is the day we meet our host families! So excited.

We also had more orientation. And more good food.

I don’t know next when I’ll have internet – Sunday, perhaps? My family is said to have internet at home, but I don’t know how much/how fast/what’s available, etc.

A few other notes:

I need to update my mailing address, so please don’t send anything yet. Also, I wouldn’t really ask you to send anything (other than perhaps a letter, and not necessarily even that) because of the expense to you in sending it and also the expense and hassle to me in picking it up. There are many import duties here.

Also, the week runs Sunday through Thursday, with the weekend being Friday and Saturday. And operating hours of banks are like 9am to 3pm. With a 1-2pm lunch break. Apparently.

Unfortunate side effects of growing up.....

You know old age has crept upon you when you realize that Jo was right in refusing Laurie. And you know senility has approached when you actually agree that Amy and Laurie were an excellent match, despite your despising said demoiselle.

I think I want my childhood back now.

Political update

In orientation today, we were carefully instructed to let our parents, family, friends, and random US acquaintances to know: we are safe. Jordan is not undergoing revolution. US media sometimes like to scare people in order to get more viewers and promote their own agendas. In the director's opinion, no, Jordan is not next n the list of countries most likely to undergo a violent and bloody revolution following the French or Russian examples of the three previous centuries.

In short, there is a new Prime Minister, but this in not an unexpected or irregular occurrence: in fact, he is, I believe, the 9th new PM in 11 years. There certainly are multiple political issues at the table, but on these, you can easily find and appraise the facts as well as I can - indeed, with regular internet access, probably better than I can. However, rest assured the streets are quiet at the moment.

Swaffy - waffy!

Today was more orientation minus the touring old ruins. Following breakfast, we were bussed to the University of Jordan campus where we went to the CIEE office just outside one of the main gates. It is in the Khalifeh Plaza building: on the lower levels, there is a sort of store complex, with a Gloria Jean’s coffee place, another sort of food place, and a store that sells some sort of electronics, I think. Possibly haircuts. Between a poor memory, no observation, and a substantial lack of Arabic skills, I am not entirely sure what services were proferred.

Up five floors (which we walked because the elevators are eternally slow and because they had a weight limit and there were many of us) and we arrived at the CIEE offices. The indoor walls are painted a lovely bright blue, which is unlike any of the painting I have seen here. We then had a lesson in “Survival Amiyya,” with “Amiyya” being the name of the Jordanian dialect. It was called “Survival” because either if you made it out alive of the hour you could go on with the rest of your semester or because it contained some useful Amiyya phrases necessary for getting around the city and to the UJ campus.

Unfortunately, I remember very little of the phrases. This is compounded by the fact that I do not really read Arabic and that I had no paper on which to take transliterated notes. The professor, however, was wonderful. He was very animated and lively, and made the class very fun yet intense. He came in speaking Arabic loudly, expecting us to return his phrases. A few of the kids knew what to say; but of course, since it was Amiyya and not MSA, they did not all know all the correct phrases. I know how to say “I want”, “to go”, various words for yes, and “At last/It’s about time.” "What's up" is pronounced, approximately, "Shu fee ma fee?" to which one responds "Safweih wafeih!" (or something rather like it. Swaffy waffy, I have decided, will be close enough.)This made my day.

One note of interest: the Amiyya word for “To go” sounds something like “Aruah.” Now, one of the reasons I was interested in studying Arabic stems from the conlangs I made years ago. (Conlang means “constructed language” and there are many people that enjoy playing with them; yes, it did stem from reading LOTR perhaps a little too much. No, I never learned Quenya or Sindarin. And no, no Klingon. I promise.) At any rate, the word I decided to use for “to go” was “Arunah,” pronounced very nearly exactly like “Aruah” (however it actually is transliterated). Cool!

From the CIEE office, we went to the Talal Abu Ghazeleh Organization: it’s a section in the building created by, you guessed it, Talal Abu Ghazeleh. He is one of the wealthiest Jordanian businessmen (he works in accounting/business-y things) and has a strong sense of corporate social responsibility; of course, it only makes sense for him. He needs a Jordanian workforce that not only has the education, but also the “soft skills” of English, communication, technology, etc. to lead in an increasingly globalized and competitive market. Right. You didn’t actually need to know that. The thing is: it has a lot of computers and some classrooms. It is also where we had the nitty-gritty details of orientation. I’ll save you the minutiae.

Then – lunch! Seriously, the meals here are the highlights of my day. True, we are at a hotel and even at the UJ campus we were eating in the room available for rent so the food was better than normal – but still, it’s like a party in my tummy. If we are what we eat, I might very well turn into a tall glass of mango juice. (I also experienced the UJ restrooms, but again, I will spare you the details. If I am not careful, this will turn exclusively into a report of my gastronomic and water closet-ic adventures, neither of which make for very satisfying reading or remembering. Suffice it to say, I will be remembering to pack my own TP and hand sanitizer. Maybe rain boots.)

A walking tour of the UJ campus in the cold and wind followed. It is a lovely campus, although my attention was arrested by the paint on the trees halfway up to prevent the ants from eating the bark. I was also distracted by all the musilmehs in their hijab. Hijab (and the occasional niqab) is not unusual in Jordan – perhaps 50-70% of the population covers, I would estimate, depending on the area. No, it was the contrast: they were all dressed far more stylishly than any of us bedraggled Americans. Their jeans were painted on tight, beneath which were shining black knee-boots. Their black wool pequod jackets provided the perfect foil for designer handbags. To top it all off, their elaborately wrapped hijab flowed off a towering-style of hair (although I have heard rumours that a bottle or can of some kind is actually used). The nearly cone-style rises from the back of the head up, reminiscent of a poke bonnet or a costume of Princess Leia’s.

Then, we returned to the CIEE center over the handbook information. There were two rounds of multiple choice questions. The third round was fill in the blank. The final tie-breaking round was drawing a map of Jordan and surrounding countries. I ended up with second place, which was a nice phone credit card.

Finally, we returned to the hotel the dorm where I skyped with Mary for a lovely time and then with my parents. Another absolutely delicious dinner: babaghanouj and hummus with pita and cheese with roast tomatoes. There was also this pale white, flaky square that was on a tray with baked cauliflower. I’m not sure if the square thing was cauliflower or potato or something else. It was good, though. (I really do need to stop detailing every single meal here. Who do I think I am, Julia Childs?)

And now, to write and deal with slow internet. I am thankful I have internet at all, but at the moment I can’t access email and it takes at least 10 minutes for any given page to load. However, listening to dear old Dietrich makes the wait nearly enjoyable.

Tourists!

Today was the first day of orientation. Breakfast at 7 (again, delicious). A group of us then went to look for an ATM – although we didn’t find one that worked. Returning to the hotel, we were herded onto two large charter bus. We began by touring The Citadel: there’s a Roman temple to Hercules, an ancient church ruin, a (presumed) Umayyed-era mosque ruin, two palaces, and their associated houses. It was, surprising, cold as we were on the top of a mountain with the rains coming in, making us thankful to enter the small and crowded archeological museum. The artifacts were interesting – they had things ranging from late Greek sculpture, Nabatean monuments, some Dead Sea scrolls, a trepanned skull, and bodies of children buried in jars to golden Roman jewelry, Bronze age bronze daggers, medieval chain mail, and fossils of various animals. However, I was vastly surprised by the apparent lack of security: the building itself consisted of one main exhibit room with three exhibit rooms off it. The pieces were arranged in long glass cabinets, not protected by any special form of lock or laser guard. In the room containing the Dead Sea scrolls, there were apparently no security cameras and the scrolls were in glass cabinets with a very simple, widely available lock.

With the rains, we skipped our scheduled tour of the nearby Roman amphitheatres and instead took the tour bus all through Amman. Going through the older, First Circle area of Amman was particularly fun due to the number of small shops lining the streets. From there it was quite a contrast to the “Beverly Hills” of Amman, Abdoun. Here, a basic plot of land is 2 million JD.

Finally we parked and walked to “Wild Jordan,” where we had the cultural context discussion and coffee. More walking back to the bus and another tour of more of the city. Then we went to Jaffa for a late lunch. We went down a series of stairs running between houses; crossing multiple, narrow one way streets we risked our lives. Then into a small opening in a wall, we trailed through another series of stairs – down, down, into a smoky atmosphere. We sat at a long table with a glass top covering drawer-like displays of spices. Around us were shebaab, smoking hookah. The babaghanouj was particularly delicious. (Yes, I did come to Jordan for food and yes, it is doing very well to meet my expectations.) Another bus trip, and we were back at the hotel.

We decided more touring was necessary, so a group of six of us headed out to a supposedly nearby shopping district. To get there, we had to walk quite a distance. This is not a problem if there were anything resembling a sidewalk. Instead, we walked through deep red mud or blanaced along a curb between the raging traffic and a deep rut filled with water. Finally arriving at the shopping district, we asked around for an electronic shop. Unfortunately, our lack of Arabic did not help us find anything. The shopping area was very upscale: if I had wanted something from Guy Laroche, I could have found it here.

I left the airport building to look for a taxi. I waited for a moment, holding back against the outer wall under the awning. It was dark and raining (finally!) in Amman. I found a large poster listing the rates…the details were in Arabic but the main cities were in English as well. (Interestingly, it only cost a little over 100JD to go from Queen Alia to the Iraqi border. I was not tempted.) I edged toward a group of people that looked like they were getting taxis. How do you hail taxis here? This was not covered in predeparture! I can do it in New York, but how do they do it in Amman?

“Taxi?” Two men were coming toward me, saying what I assumed was taxi.

“Yes,” I said.

“Geneva?”

“Zhaneeva?”

“Yes. Geneva.”

“Okay, Zhaneeva.” I thought we were talking about the same place. One of them took my luggage and stored it in the trunk. The other handed me a document in Arabic (although, fortunately, the numbers and the main city names were also in English): this was the official charge, since only specially licensed taxis can pick people up from the airport. (There were policemen around and the vehicle had an official looking insignia on it, so I wasn’t concerned).

The man who had helped with the luggage waited for the tip. I held out a 5JD. “I don’t have any change….”

“No small money?” The driver said.

“La, la.” I replied.

He sighed, pulled out a 1JD and handed it to me to hand to the man who had taken the baggage. I knew the ride would be between 20 and 23JD, so I knew I had the correct bills to take care of it all.

We headed off, driving from the outskirts of the city. “Going to Zhaneeva?”

“Yes.”

“Reservation?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, okay, good. Ahlan wa Sahlan! Welcome to Jordan.”

We took off. I was pleasantly surprised by the driving; although we definitely were going down the middle of the road, making three lanes where there were supposed to only be two, it wasn’t a bumper to bumper chaotic mass of honking horns and dodging motorbikes with families of five on board. Of course, that might have been because it was raining.

As we drove from the outskirts of town into the city proper (I think…I haven’t exactly examined a map yet), the scenery remained much of the same. The white houses in their distinctive style of squat corners and rounded windows did not look particularly inviting in the rain and drizzle, but they did look interesting and full of character. The driver listened to the radio as he smoked, constantly flicking his hand out the window to either get rid of ashes or gesture to other drivers. They were talking about, of course, the situation in Egypt; this was evident from the mention of the Egyptian leader(s) and common words like sharia and the names of the various political movements.

We pulled up to the curb of one hotel.

“Zhaneeva?” I looked up at the hotel as he suddenly pulled away. “No, no, this is not Zhaneeva.” He turned around and headed back the way we had come. I could tell we were in an upscale part of the neighborhood – not from the fancy houses or cars but from the upscale restaurants. How could I tell they were upscale restaurants? All their writing was in English: Popeye’s, KFC’s and a Wendy’s. I have never eaten in a fast-food restaurant that looked as nice as these did: fancy lighting, fashionable paint jobs, and wide glass fronts that beckoned you to experience the fatty taste sensations within.