First Monthiversary!

Hi again! It’s hard to believe that I’ve spent a full month in Jordan but as of yesterday that is the case! When I first started classes, a 15-week term seemed like forever, especially after being accustomed to 10 week trimesters at Carleton, but it’s going by faster than I could’ve imagined. That being said, I still have most of the term ahead of me so maybe I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself. All in all, each week has been better than the week before, so let’s hope the trend continues!

I don’t think that class has necessarily gotten easier, but I think I’ve gotten more accustomed to expressing myself in Arabic and not stressing about the mistakes I make. At our level of Arabic, one of our teacher Noor’s main goals is to develop our fluency both in speaking and in writing. I think the word she uses more than any other is “quickly”. As an example, in class we do something called “fluency activities” in which we have to talk about a topic for five minutes straight. Then, we try to repeat the same information in 4 minutes, and then in 3, 2, and 1 minutes. Ideally, with each pass we eliminate our pauses between words and streamline our ideas into a coherent summary. We also spend a lot of time focusing on structure and sentence linkers as well as gender/number matching.

Moving forward we’re getting to the point where we can talk about complex issues in Arabic, which is really exciting. For example, yesterday in class we started discussing the role of women in Arabic society and the rights conferred upon them as well as the discrimination they face in society. It’s really interesting to talk about these issues and try to understand them from an Arab perspective. I’ve also gotten a little sick of talking about my daily routine and my experience in Jordan over and over, so it’s nice to move on from that as well. One week from now we start our two content courses in addition to our MSA and dialect courses, which I’m looking forward to. I’ll be taking Discrimination and Marginalization in the Middle East as well as a course on Sharia, or Islamic law.

Last weekend my language partner Muhammad and I took a trip to Souq al Jama’, the Friday market, where I bought a Kufiya, a traditional headscarf from the Middle East. The name Kufiya is a general term that means “from the city of Kufa”, located in Iraq south of Baghdad, but variations of the headscarf are used across Egypt, the Levant and the Gulf States. The black and white Kufiya was famously worn by Yasser Arafat and has become a symbol of Palestinian identity, while the red and white checkered headscarf tied by a black rope (called iqal) is prevalent across the Gulf States and usually referred to as Ghutra. The Jordanian variation is called Shemagh and consists of a thicker fabric with a red and white checkered pattern, often with fringes on the edges. Interestingly enough the Shemagh didn’t emerge until the 1950’s, although the basic idea of a headscarf has been used by Arabs and Bedouins for centuries to protect their skin from the harsh sun and sand. In my experience, most of the people I see wearing Shemagh are older men, and it is not as popular with the younger generation.

The souq is roughly organized by what goods are being sold, and so far I’ve seen a gold and silver street, an alley full of tailors and fine suits, areas with secondhand clothes, kitchen supplies, perfume, books, meat, fruit and spices… and on and on. We walked through the animal market, full of chickens and turkeys and ducks and pigeons in rather cramped cages. After that was the bird market, selling songbirds and parrots and ornamental birds. Dogs are not very common in Jordan because Islam considers them impure and they are generally not allowed in the house (which, historically, helped prevent the spread of disease). I suppose that’s why the bird market has partially taken their place. Aside from dogs and birds, the city is overrun by stray cats everywhere. The amount of times I’ve nearly jumped out of my skin because of a cat leaping out of a dumpster is a little embarrassing.

Since I haven’t done anything particularly touristy in the past two weeks, I thought I’d take the opportunity to cover some of the subtler aspects of life here! Considering I haven’t lived in a big city before, one of the first things I had to adjust to was the noise. Most prominently is the call to prayer, which sounds all over the city five times a day. One of the foundational pillars of Islam is for practicing Muslims to pray five times a day at specified times: Fajr (dawn), Zhuhr (early afternoon), Asr (late afternoon), Maghrib (sunset), and Isha’a (night). There is even an optional prayer called Tahajjud after midnight, but this is a personal choice. Mosques broadcast the call to prayer from their minarets as a reminder to all, but it is not required that all Muslims stop and pray at that exact moment. Prayer is an intimate act in which the worshiper communes directly with God, and as such it is usually a private affair, and worshippers can be somewhat flexible with the exact time they pray at. As of yet I have only seen one person praying in public in the entire month that I’ve lived here.

The weekly exception to this is on Friday, or Jama’ (day of gathering) in which worshippers gather at mosques in the early afternoon for congregation instead of the Zhuhr prayer. Shops generally open around 2 or 3pm, and before that the city enjoys a rare respite from the usual chaos. Personally, I like a slow start to my Friday mornings and to enjoy the quiet that consumes the city until the afternoon.

The second most prominent sound, at least in the neighborhood I live in, is Beethoven’s Für Elise.  It took me a while to figure why I kept hearing this tune multiple times a day coming from outside. Was it an ice cream truck? Nope. It’s the propane truck, going around selling tanks of propane to fuel the stove. In addition to Für Elise I’ve also heard it play Jingle Bells and even Happy Birthday once.

Besides the propane trucks, the city is rather congested with cars since it lacks a decent public transport system. Uber exists here, but taxis are often the most convenient and cheapest method of transportation here. However, if you ever visit Amman be warned that the taxis’ driving style can best be described as “bold”. Very few streets have lane lines, so cars squeeze as many as they deem fit into the crowded avenues and proceed to sneak through gaps and cut off other cars to get ahead as quickly as possible. Pedestrians aren’t safe either, since there are few crosswalks and even fewer sidewalks. Jaywalking across a 4-lane avenue is no big deal here, you just have to time it right. Unsurprisingly, car accidents make up the 4^th leading cause of premature death here, and we received a special warning during our program’s orientation to always be careful crossing the streets.

Besides the main roads are dozens of cafes which play a central role in the social life of Jordanians. While alcohol is legal for those over 18 here, it is socially taboo to be drunk in public and is generally somewhat difficult to find (and expensive). Instead, cafes take the place of bars as a place to socialize and enjoy a cup of coffee and smoke argileh (also known as shisha/hookah). Cafes range from more casual venues for socialization and watching sports to quieter, more modern cafes that are great for studying.

The other very common store, for some reason, are pharmacies. I don’t know why, but there are a ton of them. Maybe Jordanians get lots of headaches and colds?

If you’re still here, thanks for reading all of that! I know it was kind of long, but I had to make up for missing last weekend, didn’t I? Stay tuned for next week because I will have lots of adventures and pictures to share with you! Tomorrow morning we leave on a 3-day fieldtrip to the Dead Sea, Petra, and Wadi Rum! As you can imagine, I’m very excited!! Speaking of which, I have to go pack now. Until next time!