Location:Amman is the capital of Jordan. It located in the northwestern corner of Jordan east of the West Bank and Jerusalem. Because it is so close to the West Bank, many Palestinians either work here and return to Palestine, or have moved to Amman completely. Just as well, I have found an unusually high residence of Saudis (from Saudi Arabia) here. Although I can expect someone to tell me that they're Palestinian here, the Saudis have the habit of wearing the traditional Saudi wardrobe in public which is a instant indication of their nationality. Although not every man wearing a thobe is from Saudi. I have to be careful to not assume it because sometimes their from other southern countries such as Oman or Yemen.
Fashion:
In Jordan you will find a broad spectrum of clothing. Everyone wears pants outside no matter how hot it is. Only occasionally will you see boys wearing shorts or girls wearing knee high skirts out at the stores and restaurants. Thankfully for me, skinny jeans are popular here so I fit in quite fine. Interestingly enough, even the girls who wear the hijab (the vail to cover their hair and neck and ears) tend to wear skinny jeans. Of course the idea of a muhijaba (woman who wears the hijab) has many different interpretations and one can see that by looking at how the different girls dress here. Although the hijab is very popular in Amman, it is not required (politically or culturally). I have mananged just fine without wearing a hijab and you will see muhijaba and non-muhijaba all socializing just the same. Here the hijab is a matter of religious choice. I would argue that because I am a Christian, I feel no reason to wear a vail to cover my hair, but that opinion changes from person to person. Many muslim women feel inclined to cover their heads, but they usually don't condemn someone for not doing it. For example, I am living with a host family and most of the women in the family choose to be a muhijaba, but one does. They don't think any less of me nor treat me differently. Although that is also a matter of differences of religion. Some muslim girls would say that you are not a muslim if you do not wear the hijab while other muslim girls choose not to wear it and feel no reason to.
The fashion of the men are pretty universal. They wear jeans and a t-shirt. Some men like to wear button down shirts and let their chest hair pop out, but that is by far not the majority. Over all, I feel like the men are better kept here as compared to the United States. Even though they often wear t-shirts, the shirts will be well kept polos or button-down dress shirts and everything is matching. It seems like going out of the house here requires more effort. People dress in anything within the home, but girls would never be caught without make-up outside of the house and men always dress their best even though they are just going shopping. Even school uniforms are well cut and fashionable. The amount of make-up that girls wear here exhaust me. My host sisters will spend 30 minutes before leaving the house to fix their make-up. Even girls who choose to be more modest by wearing the hijab cake on the make-up.
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| Typical building in Amman. |
Amman is a city build on top of hills. The buildings are all built on top of each other. Each building houses five or more families in it. The cars are parked on the street or under the building in car ports. Everything is made from bricks made from the rocks. Whenever rock is removed, that proves a place for a new building to be built. There is no such thing as going "straight" in Jordan. Almost all of the roads have some type of turn or bend in them. The roads that are straight are no where near perpendicular with each other and the usually get broken up with a traffic circle so you have to turn anyways. Most of the roads are paved but they do not all have curbs. Then those which do have curbs have very high ones. There are no "curb checks" here. You just damage your car, which if you look around at all the different cars, most of them have some type of crape or dent in them. Although this isn't from the curbs, but from the crazy traffic.
As compared the United States, everyone here would get reckless driving tickets. There are lanes painted on the roads, but no one pays attention to them. It's basically like schools of fish all trying to swim in the reefs of the oceans. They are all going their own direction all at once and it's matter of getting where you want to go in the least amount of time without hitting anyone. Car horns are not a way to express anger or peril danger. Here, they are used to inform people that you are coming up on their side and to not turn into you. Being a pedestrian requires skills in physics as well as courage. Thankfully, I learned from the culture in Guymon (my hometown) when to start walking towards a car to make it across the street before the next care gets to you. If you don't do this, then you will be standing on the side of the road for a very long time. When traffic is consistent, then most people just take advantage of the cautious drivers and make the traffic stop as they walk across the street. Really if you just pay attention to everyone and everyone around you, you'll be fine in the street.
With that being said, it is good to be aware of everything, but there are things that you do not want to show attention to. Such things that I've experienced are are the guys yelling out of their car window and people coming up to you to buy something. I usually pay no attention to them. Their is no need to. All and all though, I feel like growing up in the community that I did had given me the experience that I needed to be completely fine here on the streets.
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| CASSETTE TAPES!!!! |
I am a technology person. I make videos and graphics so I pay attention to things like that more than the average person. Amman has fascinated me with how it is caught somewhere between the world of 1990s where they listen to cassette tapes and the modern era where you can get internet on your phone. My host sistered took me to a cassette store to by a tape for their brother-in-law and I just laughed! No wonder why Arab music is so hard to find on YouTube, they are still using cassettes. But just the same, most of the cell phones here can carry WiFi. Although, the internet is not overall very accessible. Even though restaurants or even the college say that they have WiFi, it is hardly high speed and it is often hard to access. Thankfully my host family has internet in their home so I am able to post this blog.
The advertisement here is incredible! I have found both extremes. Internationals businesses have advertisements that occupy the entire side of a build (like you would find in Dallas TX) but then, local businesses still hand write their promotions. The larger businesses will have everything in Arabic and English, while the smaller ones only have it in Arabic. Restaurants usually have everything writing in Arabic on their menus, but honestly, it's hard to translate Arabic dishes and even if they did, the name would still be the same. Between my drive from the University and my home, I see it all. Pioneering technology in advertisement, as well as a local vender selling grapes on our street corner.
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| Gas Station where you get full service |
Jobs are hard to come by here and those who do work get paid very little. I have found people working everywhere. They guard a gate at the university or they pump gas at the gas station. In one store their will be four people working when there is only seven customers in the store at a time. Large stores employee people to supervise each section of the store and to provide service to customers. Where in American we have made technology work, here, they employee people to do it. Most people seem to only stand around at their jobs for large parts of the day. Of course I only see the for front of the job market.
As we were driving around Amman (while my host sister was learning how to drive), we crossed small sections of the city where the urban met the rural. Tucked within all of these buildings, there was a small field that had little vegetation where a boy was leading a herd of sheep. It was interesting to see how his forty sheep fallowed him as he rode on his donkey around the field. A few blocks away I saw another group of people, mostly children, picking through the trash, putting trash in their bag on their donkey. Hidden between buildings I find blank blocks of land were there are farmers and people who live in tent.
Male/Female Interactions:
In Amman you will find girls and boys talking. It is especially common at the University. If you go to less populated areas in the University you are bound to find a couple sitting alone enjoying a drink and conversation together. Outside of the University is less mixed. Usually I find families together then groups of young men spending time together out at the store or on the street. They tug on each others shirts, hold each others arms, and talk about the girls walking by. Girls on the other hand have their own groups of female friends, but they spend more of their time inside of a restaurant or at someone's home. The house is definitely the women's domain. This is where they take off their vail and change into something more comfortable. Here they don't have to put on the front of make-up and style like they do for the world.
Language:
I am here to learn Arabic. I am taking formal Arabic classes at the University of Jordan. There I only tested into level 3 of 7. At level 6 you're allowed to take classes at the university. I find myself quite comfortable in my level so I won't change. There are many things that he is teaching us that I already know, but there are a lot of vocabulary that I do not know. I was thinking before I took the placement test that if I get into a lower level class I would be fine with it because I wouldn't be so stressed. Other students who had tested into higher levels said that they are hard for them. I'm not sure how quickly someone can go up in levels but next semester I will go up. The class as all been or professor testing the atmosphere of the class so far. Now that I'm certified to teach English, I find myself observing his teaching style just as much as the content of the class.
Outside of the classroom is something completely different. Honestly, I can understand most things that they say in class and I can understand a large majority of what is written, but I hardly understand anything what my host family says. It's improving slowly. The Jordanian dialect has a sweeter tongue for the girls. The Arabic letter ق ("qua") is pronounced like a "ga" by the boys here but girls pronounce it at "ah". So the word دقيقة ("daqiqa" meaning minutes) is pronunciation "dagega" by males and "da'e'a" by the girls and some of the boys. I've been trying to train myself to see the ق as an "ah" but it is challenging, but in class, it is probably better that I don't. I was told that sweet girls say the ع as a "ah" as well. So because I don't say طبعا incorrectly, I sound like a sweet girl. It's all about having the girls use softer sounds. I've been told before that I sound cute when I speak in Arabic. I guess this dialect should be easy for me. There are so many differences in vocabulary and honestly it takes my host family a while to understand when I speak in formal Arabic. Even the simplest words such as "cat" are different here. My host family has been doing a great job teaching me the local dialect and today at lunch I actually understood several words they were using! I hardly speak in Arabic still. I think that I'll have to actually understand before I can ever reply, so every mean time or evening hooka (which here is called shisha) time spend with me trying to understand the dialect and to learn new words.
A quick tidbit about the Jordanian dialect: "No" is either "la" or a click with your mouth as you lift your eyebrows and "Yes" is simply "Ah." Often times I mix them together...I need to work on that. But my host family likes to shake their head no and say "yes" so I guess we're all the same.
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| Side stores. This one is selling bananas. |
My host family eats one large meal a day. This has been a huge struggle on my body! The first meal I had with them was a very large meal and probably the best Arab food that I've had. (I apologize to all of my wonderful friends who have cooked for me) I truly enjoyed it, but since I find it better for myself to eat small amounts several times a day, I didn't eat half as much as they did before I was full. Then I find myself hungry again by dinner time, but they don't eat. This has been really hard on my body. Hunger mixed with the heat and studying, I sleep large portions of the day. My family thinks that I don't like their food because I don't eat very much. I've tried to explain that that is not the case. I think that they are slowly understanding. One day I slept through meal time (which is typically around 3pm) and I was very hungry by 7pm. I was looking around in the kitchen but of course I have no idea about how to prepare any of their food. My host mom asked me if I wanted McDonald's. I politely refused. I feel like they assume that because I'm American I like fast food. I guess I'm a strange American it that way.
My host family eats around the large coffee table that sits in the middle of their living area. They have a dining table located in the parlor, but the only time we go in there is when we're studying or need to go out the back to the car. It varies on how we eat. Most days we all get our own dish and fill it with the food that we want from the pans and bowls sitting on the table. Other times we all just eat out of the same dishes. We always pull the couches around and all nine of us eat off the coffee table. We do use spoons, but usually we just use the pita bread to pick up food. Tons of dipping!
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| Laying on my bed (where I spend most of my time) |
Honestly, they think I look Arab so they don't think twice about it. There is such a mix of people here that I don't really stand out. My host bother Osama looks whiter than I do. He has a white complexion with blue eyes and he has a full face and full figure. I would think he's American until he starts to talk. They reverse goes for me. Usually whenever I have to ride a taxi (which is twice a day to go to school) I ask the taxi driver if they know English just so they will be prepared. Whether they say yes or no usually doesn't matter because we talk in Arabic anyways. My saying is, "If you know a little English and I know a little Arabic, then we will meet somewhere in the middle." We went to the store the first weekend I was here and the salesman in the store swear that I had some type of Arab decent in me. "Sorry sir, I don't."
It is interesting actually being in the Middle East. I use to tell everyone that I wanted to live and work in the Middle East, but in a way, I felt like I was deceiving myself by assuming that I would love a place that I had never been too. Now I'm here and the reality of the Middle East is staring me in the face. Thankfully, I'm staring back at it and my confidence still has not changed.
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