Traffic in Amman and A Proposal

People drive crazy in Amman. I've seen this so far mostly from the back of taxis or trying to cross the street. Today though, I was walking home from Suq Sultan, near my apartment building and an accident. One car tried to make a quick left turn and got hit by oncoming traffic. His car veered off the road and hit a stone wall. Within 15 seconds every car on the street had stopped. All the men got out and, before even 30 seconds had passed the car was surrounded by at least 20 men. They helped the guy out of his car, someone brought him a big water bottle and helped him sit down on the curb.

Earlier today, I received my first proposal of the trip. I was in a bookstore, trying to buy flashcards, which was difficult because no dictionary that I can find includes the word for flashcard or even notecard. Although women aren't supposed to speak to strange men, generally, I figured it would be okay to try to explain to the shop owner what I wanted. He was very helpful and brought me some big index cards. I asked him if there were any smaller ones and he seemed surprised and asked me if I spoke Arabic. I told him I spoke a little and that I was studying more in Amman. Women aren't supposed to give any extra information about themselves, doing so is considered flirting, but he seemed genuinely, platonically interested and he was an older guy so I figured it wasn't a problem to offer up literally 4 or 5 extra words to practice my conversational skills. He went to the backroom to get smaller notecards and brought them out to me. He asked me how many packs I wanted and added, as a side note, that I was very pretty. I didn't really know what to say so I just said thank you and tried to ask how much the notecards were. The word for how much in Ammiya is Addish. I asked addish pointing to the cards, and he told me 2JD. Then he kept asking me addish? addish?. I didn't understand what he was asking I figured it was a language barrier and just tried to give him the money for the cards. He started saying, in Arabic, something that sounded like 20 or 200JD, I wasn't really sure which. He then got out a piece of paper and wrote down 250000. I was confused because I knew the notecards couldn't possibly cost that much, so I asked my friend Morgan to ask him if I could pay him with a twenty or needed smaller bills. She came over and had conversation with him in better Arabic than I understand. Apparently, he was trying to buy me from her, although I'm not sure why he thought she was the one in charge of me. We weren't really sure if he was trying to buy me as a wife or just asking how much it would cost to sleep with me, but we paid for the cards and left.

Here it's pretty common for men to sort of tease Western women, proposing or propositioning them, even if they're dressed as conservatively as I was in a floor length skirt and a loose, long sleeved, high necked shirt, that covered my wrists. I asked another friend about it, who spent a semester in Egypt, and he explained that it's a kind of joking but serious at the same time. It's roughly like the men are saying "do you want to sleep with me? Ha! Just kidding, but, you know, really, if you did there's a room in the back...just joking, of course...but it's there. If you're interested." Generally they don't really expected anyone to respond to their proposals or take them seriously.

I'm bothered much less by being hit on by men here than in the U.S. In the States, if someone is hitting on you on the subway you just put up with them or move your seat, you can't really scold them and get them to stop, it's like they think it's their right to make sexual jokes about you, tell you how nice your body is, or talk about how they'd like to take you on a date. Here though, men will offer to take you on a date or tell you you're pretty, but, as I learned after the fact from a friend of mine, if you click your tongue in a disapproving way or tsk tsk reminding them that "hadda haram," that's forbidden, they'll back off because they know that the way they're talking to you is inappropriate. It seems like some men like to test Western women, but, if they realize that you know what's acceptable behavior and what's not they'll apologize and leave you alone.

The vast majority of my interactions with men here have been very pleasant. Even the man who tried to buy me was very polite, only looking at my face, and avoiding eye contact, which is considered the respectful way to address a woman.

We have our first official day of classes at Qasid tomorrow! We catch our bus at 7:40AM. Ma salama.

More Souk Pictures!

Lamps for sale!

Souk Stalls.

Stall selling baby clothes.

This stall sold watermelon juice (عسير البتيق). The watermelon with cheese on it is called a watermelon pizza!

One final note for the night

Over the last few days a few of us been hearing noises that sound suspiciously like gunshots. We haven't really talked about it much to each other because we didn't want to seem paranoid or like we were overreacting. Finally my roommate asked our Academic Director Emily about it and she explained that we're visiting Jordan during wedding season. Apparently the tradition in Jordan is to celebrate a new marriage by firing semi automatic weapons into the air. Luckily, Emily assured us, there have only been a few accidents. People do the same thing in the US on the forth of July and other holidays, so nothing to worry about.

It's ironic that even though so many people picture Jordan as a pretty dangerous place and tried to convince me that I shouldn't go, I feel much much safer here than I did when I was in Lima or Chiclayo in Peru. That might be because when I was in Peru we were only allowed to go out in groups of 3 or more and only for a few hours. Here we're encouraged to use the minibusses to get around, practice our Arabic by fighting with taxi drivers, and even get ourselves lost to interact more with people and really learn the layout of the city. I've only visited West Amman and T'la Al'Ali so far. West Amman is pretty touristy while T'la al Ali is a fairly quiet residential district (except when there are weddings like there are right now. Then the music lasts late into the night and can probably be heard for miles). I'm loving my time in Jordan and look forward to experiencing more of Jordanian tradition and culture, though I doubt I'll get a chance to fire a congratulatory shot of my own! Ma'salaama!

PS I'm sitting in my living room right now, realizing how much work I have to do this summer to become really proficient in Arabic. I'm practicing the words for left and right with my roommates, who both speak better Arabic than I do, so that I can give better directions to taxi drivers. I've just learned that the word for left changes depending on whether or not one is facing Mecca. The word for right can also mean North, depending on the location of Mecca. As a non-Muslim I'm not used to immediately determining where I am in relation to Mecca, let alone while giving directions in Arabic in a city I just arrived in. It's a challenge, but a fun one.

السوك (The Market)

This evening we went to one of the Souks in downtown Amman. Souks are made up of individual stalls where people sell crafts, jewelery, antiques, and snacks. We managed to get there uneventfully, or so I thought, until I realized my phone had fallen out of my pocket in the taxi. Luckily, the taxi driver saw this as an opportunity to make some extra money and drove the phone back to the apartment building he picked it up from, found some of my friends and sold it back to them for 5JD. I felt a lot like a stupid America tourist, but at least it'll make a good story. The Souk was crowded, but fun. I didn't buy anything yet, just took some photos and ate potatoes spirals, ice cream, and watermelon juice.

One stall sold spices.

Jars of sand.

One alley of the Souk.

Shawrama.

A Yemeni Lunch

More pictures are uploaded here: http://picasaweb.google.com/110531768025162610549

For lunch our Arabic tutors took a few of us out to their favorite places around Tla'al Ali, the neighborhood where we live. We ate traditional Yemeni food in the traditional Yemeni manner, using our fingers as silverware and bread to scoop up sauces and liquids. I've uploaded a few pictures from the restaurant and some others from Tla'al Ali. I know this is a short entry but I wanted to post the restaurant pictures. The food and atmosphere were both great!

First Day in Amman

This evening two friends and I took a cab to Rainbow street, in the center of Amman. We walked around for a while, looking for a good place to eat and happened to pass by some beautiful buildings on the way. I took some pictures and posted them below. I found an especially pretty castle like building with blue walls and gold lions on the walls. We tried to take pictures but got yelled at by a guard with a big gun to delete them, so we figured we should. He checked our cameras to make sure we deleted them all. Apparently we were taking pictures of the Iraqi embassy, which isn't allowed. Oops. We had a great dinner and a great evening at a hookah bar. On the way home we got a little, maybe a lot lost, trying to explain to the cab driver in our broken Arabic where exactly we lived. It was a great adventure though and we managed to get home in one piece!

On another note, if, in all the information we received about dressing in a culturally appropriate manner, someone had mentioned that when a woman goes out with wet hair in Jordan or in the Middle East in general it's assumed she just had sex and is probably a prostitute, I probably would have brought my blow dryer. Guess I'll be buying one here or showering right before bed.

Jordanian Flags

University of Jordan

Jennifer, Morgan, and Morgen

Downtown Amman

Right now I'm sitting in my 6th floor apartment in Tla'al Ali Amman, listening to the call to prayer, the same call that woke me up at 3:30AM this morning. Most cities and large towns throughout the Middle East have loudspeakers that broadcast the call to prayer, which lets Muslims know when to pray, five times daily. It's beautiful, but I'll have to get used to hearing it throughout the night. It's easy to see that Jordan is a very religious country; as soon as we arrived in the airport we could see the ladies prayer room and the men's prayer room so there's private space to pray even when traveling.

After we left the airport we took a bus through Amman to our apartment building. I was exhausted when we arrived, but was excited to see my new room. The apartments are really nice, we have a kitchen, living room and bathroom for the four of us who are sharing a suite. I took some quick pictures during our first day here, I'll take and post better ones later.

This is the view from my window at night.

This is a view of the capital of Jordan, Amman. I took this picture in the field next to my apartment.

This is another view of Amman, you can see the main highway of the city in the background. That's me and my friend Tyler.

Amman.

D.C. Orientation

We haven't even left the country yet, but we've already experienced our first taste of traditional Jordanian hospitality. The Jordanian ambassador to the United States, Walid Hadid, came to speak to the group. He brought us each a souvenir tote bag decorated with a map of Jordan. Inside the bag were a few booklets about the country and a giant sticker of the Jordanian Flag. He spoke about the subtleties and beauty of the Arabic language, explaining that he's had difficulty expressing himself in English since we only have one word for love while Arabic has over 100. He also talked about the misconceptions about Jordan, in particular, the view of Jordan as another oil-rich Gulf nation, when in reality, Jordan has no oil and is a very poor country, especially compared to some of its neighbors.

After the ambassador spoke three 2009 CLS Amman alumni, two men and a woman, talked about their summer in Jordan and answered questions. The men mentioned that some of their most memorable experiences were some of the spontaneous adventures they went on with their Jordanian friends, such as an impromptu late-night excursion to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth, where they floated effortlessly in the water, which supported their weight especially well given its extremely high salinity. The ended the night sleeping on the beach under the stars then drove back to Amman early in the morning for classes. The woman spoke about how she was able to see a different side of Jordanian life than the men. In an Islamic society like Jordan it would be inappropriate for foreign men to be invited into a household for tea or dinner if there were any women in the house, either wives or daughters. Foreign women however are often welcomed into the homes of female friends and acquaintances. Many of the female CLS 2009 scholars were able to be a part of traditional Jordanian home life, and even attend the lavish wedding parties, which are segregated by sex, where women gather with the bride in their best clothes to feast and dance together, gaining a unique perspective on the world of Islamic women unavailable to men.

I hope I'm able to experience both the excitement of impromptu adventures with our Jordanian speaking partners and see what daily life would be like for a Jordanian woman in her home. I'm not sure if I'll be able to go on the same type of excursions as the men or if it would be inappropriate for me to tag along, but, after hearing their stories I know that, no matter, I'm about to have an incredibly rewarding summer. I'm so grateful for this opportunity. I feel very lucky. We're leaving for Amman tomorrow so my next update will be from Jordan!