Call to Prayer

This is the view from the balcony in my room. If you listen closely you can hear part of the afternoon call to prayer. 

الى المسجد!

السوق

الصور

Living in Jordan

Fun Fact: Because of the dire scarcity of water in the region, water is delivered once a week daily in Jordan and stored in tanks. For this reason it is very possible to simply run out of water until your next delivery date and for tap water to be undrinkable because of the bacteria that can sometimes accumulate in the tanks.

Amman is a very modern city. I felt guilty at first because I had been preparing myself for a very rural and non-Western experience, but then I reminded myself that my fellow study abroad friends in Europe are enjoying such amenities and that they don't make this any less of any "authentic" Middle-Eastern experience. After all, this is how much of the people in the Middle East live; half of the population of Jordan lives in the city of Amman. That said, our dorm is extremely nice and I do feel like we are learning more about the upper class way of life because of that, so my experience won't be entirely the average Jordanian's.

Regardless, there are still differences. Although I don't like to dwell on comparisons between the US and here and instead consider it a wholly new experience, I thought people might be interested.

Things about my living conditions I'm still getting used to:

-Not having clean hair. Our shower has very, very little water pressure so showering isn't very effective. I find that cupping my hands and gathering water to splash my body is the best way. Then I wash my hair in the sink. My roommate showers next door--apparently they have a better shower...I might start doing that.

-Not being able to drink the tap water. I haven't tried it yet but all the Americans I have talked to admit to getting sick from it. I still can't bring myself to buy water so I just bring my water bottle to our classes and fill up from the filtered water fountain there.

-No toilet paper in public restrooms. We have one of those European washers things in our bathroom

that I had to use before we bought toilet paper. I have since learned to carry a roll around with me.

-The call to prayer. At around 5 am the mosque next door performs the morning call to prayer. It is hauntingly beautiful and doesn't both me, but I do love hearing it at other points in the day a bit more.

-Using the elevator. For some reason our dorm mothers constantly urge us to use the elevator rather than the stairs, even though we live on the second (really the third) floor. They also tell us just to give the doorman/guard money to fetch us things to buy rather than walking the local shops within a 500 meter radius around our dorm. We think that might be because the Arab girls who live in this dorm are used to servants.

-Smoking. Although juice and coffee is not allowed in the academic building smoking is. Also the girls who live in our dorm smoke hashish a lot and try and get us to when we hang out. I usually point in my chest and say "asthma" as an excuse.

Attached are pictures of my dorm room. We also have a very small balcony that I hypothesize is for smoking.

Perhaps I will post later about cultural differences.

On another note, for all of those who I freaked out about the harassment with:

The harassment from guys here is not bad at all and nothing like Egypt. I have gotten comments and honks and one bus driver stuck his tongue out at him and grinned in a suggestive way, but other than that, not much and nothing that I can't simply ignore. I even heard one guy say to another guy that was leering at me "Haram alayk!" which means "Shame on you!". It is by no means a daily burden but rather a rare and unintrusive occurence. All of us overestimated the conservativeness of the clothes we wore, although as I learned this summer, just because you can get away with it and the locals wear it, doesn't mean it's culturally sensitive. 

Cell Phone

If you want my cell phone number (incoming calls are free even if they are international it will just cost you buttloads!) email me and I'll send it to you and we can talk tomorrow. I haven't figured out the country code thing though.

Music Party!

Arabic Fun fact: the literal translation for concert in Arabic is Music Party (or Music Celebration). 

When you can't speak the same language as people, you start to notice the connections people make that transcend language. Our cab driver to the concert we went to tonight knew "Can you speak Arabic?" and that's about it, but he played English music on his radio and we all sang along to the part that went "lalalalala". Music is amazing that way...this was my first real concert outside of college ones and I loved the way the energy flowed through complete strangers regardless of whether the words were Arabic, English or Arabizi. On the other hand, it's very scary when you don't know the  language or the area well enough to tell the cab driver how to go home.

We got a lot of important information today about classes and such, the best news being that we have Thursday, Friday and Saturday off! We don't know exactly when our classes are until we take the placement exam (on Wednesday apparently). Wednesday is also when the language pledge starts so if you want to skype me in English tomorrow would be the time to do it (shoot me an email).

We also have a very strict curfew. When I say strict I mean if we are not home by 11:00pm we have to sleep outside or find somewhere to stay. All the girls kept getting invited to this underground after party after the concert but we had to get back or we'd get locked out. Which was probably for the best, but it might have been really fun.

I promise I will post pictures of my apartment soon.

Arriving in Jordan

I made it to Jordan alive today after two really long flights. Luckily I met another family on the same flights as I, a Jordanian mother and her two daughters going back to Amman. She knew some English and was incredibly patient with me in trying to understand my shaky Modern Standard Arabic. It was just nice to have a friendly travel buddy. I met up with two other Middlebury students in Paris and all of us continued on to Amman. I ended up sitting with another girl from our program from Tufts who is very sweet and just as excited and anxious as me.

First thing I noticed when I stepped out of the airport was how different it smelled. And the dust. The three of us spilt a cab to our apartments, and I am very grateful we did because the colloquial Arabic spoken by the cab driver is way over my head. After I was shown my room and went down and met some Jordanian students who are studying at the German University here. They are very hospitable and eager to show us all around and help us settle in. They introduced our landlady to us as their mother and kept saying that we are all family here. Fareh and Mjdd (I apologize for the total guess on spelling) made me a turkey and cheese sandwich and tea and really wanted me to try their hashish. They're taking us to the mall tomorrow to buy phones and towels and food. I am more nervous than I was about the pledge now because our new friends really want to talk with us in English and  because my Arabic is so rusty (and my Amiyya non-existent!). We have a placement exam tomorrow and our first day of orientation. We all feel silly here because the girls dress however they want...they are also totally living the high life: you can call down to the desk and send money in the elevator and the guard for our building will go out and buy the stuff you ask for (even though all the shops we could ever need are really close by!). Our apartments are like hotel rooms! I'll have to get used to using the toilet without toilet paper, cooking on a  sketchy portable burner and buying water though. More tomorrow, my roommate and I really should be getting to bed!