ramadan mubarak!

I am currently enjoying a smoke-free Jordan. It is indeed Ramadan, the month of celebration, hunger, grumpiness and late nights. We have been warned by our professors, host families, and our program director about the craziness of Ramadan. It was quite a sight to arrive at the bus station on Sunday morning to see almost all of the snack stands closed up and all of the fidgety people without cigarettes and those tiny cups of coffee, both of which are like extra appendages for Jordanian men (especially at 8am). A few of us are fasting, some because their families are and they wanted to try, others out of necessity since it is difficult to buy or eat food during the day and you can forget about eating it in public or in the presence of any Muslim. This includes water. The tiny CIEE office that is our refuge for the month is packed with about fifteen kids after class each day, scarfing sandwiches and water. Since my family is Christian, I’m not officially fasting although I don’t eat anything between breakfast and dinner when I come home at about 5.
On the subject of food, on Sunday night my uncle and two cousins took me to Cozmo, the city’s biggest and ritziest supermarket to find chocolate chips. We went at around 7pm, right around sundown, and the city was completely dead. No cars were on the road, and even less people were on the streets. The first iftar is clearly a huge deal. A drive that normally takes fifteen to twenty minutes took us about eight. Every other house is decked out in string lights in the shape of the crescent and the star. Yesterday I went to Safeway (another large grocery store) for chocolate chip cookie ingredients, and it was mass chaos. Worse than the mall on the day after Thanksgiving. To end the story of the Ramadan chocolate chip hunt, Cozmo had two bags of actual Tollhouse, for FIVE JD each. That is $7.05 for one bag of chocolate chips. Needless to say, I did not buy them. I had to settle for a couple of bags of Jordanian chocolate chips that actually look even better, and rang in at a more reasonable $4.90 each. What a deal! Regardless, I think that baking chocolate chip cookies on Thursday will be a pretty sweet event.
Instead of doing my reading for archaeology on Sunday night, I sat outside tonight with my mom, two aunts and an uncle, drinking coffee and talking in Arabic-English for about two hours. It was awesome and reminded me how lucky I am to have been placed with a family that is young, around all the time, and willing to speak to me in Arabic, repeating words over and over, letting me butt-in to conversations to ask “shuu hatha?” They wanted to know about the biggest differences between Jordan and the U.S., why I wanted to learn Arabic. We talked about economics, and of course a lot about food. Each day I go back and forth, feeling motivated and confident about my language acquisition to realizing how little I know and how far I have to go. Thankfully the former feelings usually win out.
For something out of the ordinary, we took a trip last weekend to Jerash (right photo), Um Qais and Bethany. All three places were amazingly well restored and kept up, completely dead, and really, really hot. Jerash actually was denied UNESCO status because it was thought to have been restored too much. Um Qais was the most impressive for me, mainly because of the views of the Golan Heights (left photo!) and the Sea of Galilee. Bethany was more exciting for all of us because of its proximity to Palestine rather than the whole baptism thing. Palestine is literally on the other side of the dinky Jordan River, about twenty feet across. Opposite the little wooden platform on the Jordanian side of the river is a hulking and immaculate concrete visitor’s center, topped with a big Israeli flag.
One last thing. I was not expecting much from Jordan in the way of clothes shopping. Boy was I wrong. At home, I have been known to schedule things around half-price Wednesdays at the Salvation Army (both Biddeford and Portland locations), and I’m not afraid to admit it. I dread the day that I have to surrender my ridiculous junky t-shirts for grown-up clothes. I am not a fan of business casual.
There are two big souqs in Amman on Fridays. One is at the huge Abdali bus station, and the other is at Jara in first circle, I think. Abdali (in photo) is down the street from my house, so we’ve ventured down for three Fridays now. I was expecting to find the typical rip-off made in China Tommy Hilfiger and Gucci type junk that markets like that usually specialize in. I was wrong. Abdali is the largest Salvation Army I have ever encountered. Not only that, it is open-air, sells fruit and vegetables, and everything is one dinar or less ($1.41). A lot of the clothes even have actual Salvation Army price tags on them, and there seems to be a disproportionate amount of clothing from Texas and Germany. If only those charitable church-goers from First Baptist Sugarland knew their donations were being hawked by some very loud twenty-five year olds from Marka… I love it. This week’s gem was a t-shirt from BARRY MANILOW’S 1985 COPACABANA TOUR! Now that is a rare find.

DID YOU KNOW...

...that Jordan is the third most water-starved nation in the world, according to my friend Greg quoting some UNDP index. Yes, while the average national consumption of water for the rest of the world hovers around 7,700 cubic meters a year, here in Jordan it is 200. If you look at a map and also considert the climate and topography, it makes sense. The shortage is blatantly clear in every aspect of life here. This means only bottled water or expensive and limited filtered tap water to drink. For many families, including my own, water comes once a week. I'm not sure of the actual process, but somehow from Wednesday night until Friday morning, our tanks are filled and we can shower freely and do all the loads of laundry we want. For the rest of the week, water is precious and I think for most people here, bathing daily is just not something that is done. Having a pretty big head of hair and American hygiene habits (10-20 minute showers daily, deep conditioning, etc.) I was a little worried at first when my family explained to me the water deal and looked at me a little strange when I wanted to shower a couple of days in a row. In America I like to conserve and recycle and be earthy as much as any college kid, but nothing makes you appreciate those efforts until you realize what it is like to have a shortage of an essential resource, permanently. It puts those "crazy gas prices" that we worry about at home into perspective.

Here's a photo of Nardeen and Tamra following a play-dough extravaganza.



Today I ventured out with Yasmeen and Ed to the MECCA MALL. This mall is gargantuan and immaculate. Five floors, and still finishing a lot of construction. I actually ate my first Cinnabon. Seeing women in abaya at the mall thoroughly confuses me. I understand that they are probably there shopping for their families or maybe for themselves to keep up their appearance for their husbands, but it still seems weird to me.

I think that everyone should know that Thomas Hamill made my day by sending me a huge email in response to the tiny one I sent to him yesterday. I have a feeling that this could be the beginning of a beautiful written correspondence. He is quite eloquent and hilarious.

Also on the subject of home and emails, I have been getting emails from Smith hockey, and I am going to miss those crazy kids and being on the ice more than i can SAY! I hope that the elders will lead a great fall season and I plan on checking in regularly.

This weekend we will have our first trip OUTSIDE OF AMMAN! I, for one, cannot wait. We'll be going up north to see Jerash, Bethany and Umm Qais. Talk about BIBLICAL history! Should be a pretty fun time. Our director even made us a packing list. I hope that none of us will forget shoes, sunscreen or spending money.

Our first "evening out" was had last Thursday, at Jamila and Laila's apartment. Pasta, cheesecake (with oreo crust), and nargileh were served. They happen to have the top floor apartment along with patio and rooftop access, and it just so happened that there was a partial lunar eclipse that night!

at home

A lot has happened in the past week or so since I last wrote. On Thursday, we moved out of our little hotel in Shmeisani and into our HOMES! I am living with a family in Jebel al Weibdeh, very close to busy downtown, the huge bus station, and popular shopping areas. Jebel (hill or mountain in Arabic) Weibdeh is really quiet despite this, especially in the evening. Weibdeh is also considered a kind of arts and culture destination as it's home to two contemporary galleries, the French Cultural center, and a couple of little artsy, fancy-pantsy cafes. I'm very glad that I am so central, although Amman is sprawling and it's difficult to identify one spot as city center. Weibdeh has a high Christian population and is pretty relaxed in terms of dress as well.

No one walks anywhere in Amman, in part because there are no sidewalks, but also because of the lay of the land (very steep hills) and the spacial distribution--your mosque and your butcher might be within walking distance from your house, but your school, gym, grocer, etc., probably aren't. Weibdeh is great because we do get to walk quite a bit, at least to church and the bus station, and just to walk, and there is a nice little circle in the middle with a garden and park benches. Being at the very top of the hill, we also have a great view of the flag.

My host family is Palestinian, like the majority of Jordanians. They are Christian and speak very little English, and although I speak very little Arabic, we've been getting along fine. Everyone is happy to help me learn new words, I have been checking English homework, and my littlest sister even sat me down for a lesson on colors the other day. We have a huge extended family, which has been really fun and reminds me a lot of home. In fact, three of the other girls in the study group are my COUSINS! One lives in the apartment behind me, the other has been over for lunch a few times, and the last one was a total surprise--she showed up for dinner with her family on our first night at home. So far, we have had a lot of family time. I have three little sisters, Jaquiline (15), Naheel (13), and Nardeen (6). My host mother works at a daycare and also as a seamstress, she just finished some beautiful curtains (and she makes amazing yogurt), and my host father is a pharmacist.

The University is huge, with over 30,000 students. Our building is brand new and quite nice, but most of the other buildings were constructed in the mid-sixties and seventies, and look it. I think there was a collective gasp from our group when we saw the MS DOS computers in the library. The campus is quite big and the buildings very uniform, and makes me miss the familiarity of Smith. Yesterday we took a walk to find the north gate, and ended up making a wrong turn somewhere along the way. A five minute walk turned into forty minutes, which was fine except that we were in long sleeves and it was in the 80s by about 11am. Internet is not a huge thing at the university and there are only a couple of places we can access it, usually with a time limit and strange hours. I am in a cheap internet cafe right across the street now, and I have a feeling this will probably become a part of many people's routines here, especially with the staggered class schedule some of us have. The cafe owner just walked around with an aersol can of air freshener, and sprayed the entire place. I'm used to weird things, though. Our neighbor wraps his remote control in plastic wrap. Whatever floats your boat.

We have colloquial (spoken) Arabic for the next two weeks along with a guest lecture each day. We start our regular class schedule on the 15th. The professor is hilarious and my class is only about 8 people and a lot of fun. I am in the beginning class and ahead of the game so far, but I am hesitant to move up since I have the equivalent of only about half a semester of Arabic. When we start Modern Arabic though, I will be taking that dreaded placement test since there are six levels! Wish me luck. I have some studying to do.

Yesterday we had only just finished our guest lecture on our first day of class when the director, Allison, told us to stay in the classroom because there had been a shooting downtown. If it's news to you, a gunman from Zarqa killed a policeman and one British tourist, and wounded six others at the Roman Amphitheater in downtown Amman. We were put under house arrest for the day, and will be getting another "briefing" later this afternoon. I think all of us are settling into routine and feel very safe and welcome here, especially away from the group and with our families, but it is unnerving to think that we were in the amphitheater a week earlier, same day, same time, all thirty-two of us walking around together. I was looking at some of the photos I took there today. It seems like this incident was unavoidable and hasn't elevated anyone's paranoia, but nonetheless it is scary.

ON a lighter note, it has been fun trying to figure out where everyone on the program lives. We are scattered all over the city, and on Thursday some of us are having dinner over at one of the apartments! It will be cool to see what the apartments are like. From what I understand, the landlords are almost like a host family themselves. I am also starting to think about plans for break, since I am off for what looks like a month or so. Options include but are not limited to: India, Tunisia and Morocco, Palestine and Israel and Lebanon, and Syria if I can finagle a visa.

In other news, I am still anxiously waiting to get sick (from food and water) like everyone says we all will, and I will be sending postcards as soon as I can.

CHECK OUT barbie in hijab!