Conversation

Today in arabic class we learned some especially throaty sounds, kha, and ha.  My throat was tired afterwards, so some classmates and I remedied this with some falfel sandwiches in downtown =) Once again, eating took priority over photographing.  We wandered through downtown Amman for a bit afterwards and explored some alleys off the main road in the drizzle:

Afterwards I hopped in a service car to ride up to Fattaleh Pharmacy and visit grandma...or so I thought.  I was on the wrong side of the main road through downtown and I ended up riding up Jabal Amman instead of Jabal Webdeh.  Of course the service car driver didn't speak a word of english and was of no help...and I hadn't realized my mistake until I was fully committed to the adventure. I was probably too focused on trying to understand the driver rambling off in arabic about something.  It turned out that he was just complaining that people slam the doors of his car and they really don't need to. HE, in fact, has just blown on the door before and it's closed harder than he ever would have wanted it to! (quote). Arabs truly have a way to make a story/rant out of anything.  After the other riders had gotten out of the car, and we drove a bit  more, he pulled off to the side of the road and I mentioned something very quickly.  I think it was something like "what are you still doing in here" I must've looked lost.  I got out of the car, aborted mission: visit Grandma, and hailed a cab to take me back home since I was already a bit late for lunch with my aunt and cousins.

I wasn't too talkative after not having things go my way. About halfway home, the driver started prodding me with questions. "do you speak arabic" "where are you from" "what are you doing" "do you like the university" etc. etc. etc. I've never realized that it's not breaking any expectations to be quiet in the US, but in Jordan, it's the expectation to be talkative...maybe? I gotta spend more time here.  I bet it's easy to get out of conversations with people, but people at least attempt to converse. I'm sure that this leads to a lot of talking being pretty unsubstantial, but who cares? (sometimes). I'm realizing more and more that conversation for the sake of connecting with people is kind of a lost habit back home.  The primary American example I can think of for conversation for the sake of connecting with people is a sleazy businessman talking really loudly and telling a bad story/not funny joke and leaning forward to end with "Am I right! mwahaha" as if not to care whether or not it was entertaining/funny/enjoyable. (you know what i'm talking about).

I got to my Aunt's house, and had a few moments of arabic brilliance while making lunch and her and my grandma about my day.  After lunch my Grandma turned on a Turkish soap opera dubbed in arabic involving affairs and divorces (go figure), and I relaxed on the couch, but even then, we were still chatting here and there and I felt like it was quality time.  I can't wait to see how my feelings on this develop as I stay here for longer.

Cheap Lunch

Today some classmates and I ate at the University of Jordan's cafeteria.  The food was great--this is a common trend here in the Middle East. The University of Colorado's dining halls could take some pointers from these guys!  I got some hummus, pita bread, laban (yogurt), arabic rice, a chicken leg, and a mirinda all for about one and a half Jordanian Dinars (about $2).

Prices here in Jordan are so funny, some things are way cheaper, and others are super expensive.  You can get the best falafel sandwich you will ever have for about 40 cents, a pound of tomatoes from the grocery store costs about 14 cents, the taxi meters start at 25 cents and a ride across Amman will cost no more than 10 bucks, but an ipod sync cable costs more than 30 dollars. Prolly an import export thing, my economics side will need to do some looking into this...

Climbing at Karak

Today we went climbing outside near the Dead Sea.  This was definitely the lowest elevation climb I've ever done! about 1000ft below sea level.  Catching my breath was never an issue haha.  The wall was about 300 ft tall, made of limestone, and just a bit steeper than one of the flatirons.  At the top of the first pitch, as I was belaying Nick, he yelled down to me "look at these homies who are follow us up the climb!" Our friend Hakim is a guide here in Jordan and was with some clients at the bottom of the crag we were climbing at, so I was expecting that Nick was talking about them, but instead I turned around and saw two little bedouin boys who scrambled up the talus on the side of the wall and were traversing across the wall on the same ledge that I was belaying on! It was kinda surreal to be wearing a harness, tied into a bolted anchor, and belaying someone, while these two kids were scrambling barefoot across this ledge.  Hakim yelled in arabic and convinced them to turn around and come back, thank god.  It was kinda scary to see them turn around and try to slide down on their butts to get down! But don't worry, they made it back home safe and sound just in time for lunch. 

Univ. of Jordan and the Arabic Alphabet

Yesterday was our first day exploring the university of Jordan's campus.  I was happy to find out that we will actually be taking classes on the university's campus, even though the CIEE office is right across the street.  UJ's camps is not public like most american universities campuses, which  created for a bit different feel once we got inside.  I saw some Ammani girls walking around talking on cell phones chatting with friends, etc, and thought "Mom! That was you!" (except for the cell phones haha) What a weird feeling.  Mom, I seriously felt like I was walking in your footsteps, except not as cliche as walking-in-your-footsteps sounds.  Very cool.  Miss you sooooo much =) and don't start tearing up because I'm about to.

Here are some pictures of the UJ campus, it's GORGEOUS.  Not what I expected in the middle of Amman.  Of all the campuses I've been to, it reminded me most of the University of Washington believe it or not--so many trees densely lining the walkways:

Just past the entrance, looking at the main clocktower:

Big building--forgot which one:

After we toured the campus, I sat through my first Arabic class. There's only 6 of us who have had no formal arabic lessons yet so I'm excited for the small class. Trying to think in Arabic is quite difficult when you don't have the switch installed in your brain yet.  My cousin Karim said I need to step on the clutch and change language gears in my mind hahaha. First I need to find the pedal.

Today we had an orientation on housing and cultural adjustment.  Telling us how Jordanians are way empathetic, less private, more gossipy, louder, more social, etc etc etc.  Everything that I already know, and have experienced, but never had presented to me in a powerpoint presentation.  This was my favorite part of orientation so far, I feel like I have such a better understanding of what personality traits of mine are likely because of my heritage; mostly the traits about interacting with others =)

This afternoon I got an arabic lesson from my Aunt and cousin, Karim.  I now have spelled the entire Arabic alphabet! this is a great accomplishment than you may think..there are 28 letters, and all arabic is in cursive...kinda.  Letters look different when they stand alone, when they are at the begining of a word, middle of a word, and end of a word.  So you must learn four shapes just to learn a single letter!  And of course, not all letters connect with all other letters, so most words come as two parts.  Also, all the letters in the alphabet, are not all the letters in the arabic language.  There are the couple of rare letters that are just around to confuse you.  Also there are different accents that can be added to each letter to change the way that the word sounds...and therefore what it means as well.  Also, if you want to sound really legit when you read Arabic, you can pronounce the word differently if it is acting as the subject or object of the sentence.  Believe it or not, all these rules actually make spelling and piecing words together a bit easier than in English. There is a rule for EVERYTHING in Arabic.  Whereas in English or French (and I'm sure Spanish as well) there are tons of specific exceptions to the rules, in Arabic there IS a rule that governs everything when it comes to reading and writing.  The exceptions are the acceptable deviations from those rules, not random exceptions to the entire language.  Does that make sense? It's also worth noting that most people do not know, or follow, the nitpicky rules that make your head spin.  If learning Mandarin is the holy grail of vocab, perfecting arabic must be the holy grail of grammar.  Here's my name spelled in arabic:

 يزن فتالة

And don't forget to read from right to left!

Day Two, life is gooood

Hi Friends!

Today was the first day of CIEE orientation.  We met up early this morning, hopped on tour buses and were herded around Amman with a professional tour guide and CIEE staff.  It was cool for me to be on the tourist side of things, since all my time in Amman thus far has been with family and experiencing the city more like a local. It was interesting to think of what differences between Amman and the US I have taken for granted all along, and what is must be like to never have seen the city and just be plopped on a bus driving around.  The other kids I've met in the CIEE program have been pretty cool, mostly International Relations majors, and all interested in the Middle East--duh.

Even just being in Amman 3 days now, I've noticed myself comprehending more and more Arabic I'm hearing in conversations, now I just gotta be able to think of the words and say them myself! Having people talk to me in Arabic and responding in English is kinda fun, but when I recall an Arabic word on my own and slip it in I feel even better!  I'm not always right though.  Yesterday I slipped and fell up some stairs (don't worry, I'm fine) while I was carrying some Lentil soup (yes grandma is fattening me up) and I was so happy that I remembered the arabic word for slipped..even tough it turned out I almost the arabic word for slipped.  Now I actually can't remember what the arabic word for slipped is, but I did back then! Maybe if I slip again, It'll come back to me.  Which is quite likely cause it has been raining since I got here. The drainage for the roads in Amman is pretty bad (possibly non-existent?).  Dad and I were driving through downtown Amman (which is the lowest elevation part of the city) and water was halfway up the tires of cars, literally splashing cars exhaust pipes.  You could probably skim board down some of the more water logged streets while it's raining, if you didn't get run over.  Driving, awesome. I need to take a video of me crossing the street, quite exciting.

I've had 2 little arabic alphabet lessons from my Dad and Grandma in the back of her Pharmacy.  I have started to recognize some letters and can start to piece a few words together. I can now spell, "house" and "dad" and "mom" and "yazan" and "Basma".  Today I was visiting my Uncle and 3yo cousin, and enjoyed watching his kids TV show, I think Arabic dubbed Sesame Street is about to become my new favorite YouTube channel.  Some of my little cousins kindergarten arabic books may be "disappearing" soon haha.  oh! or even better, I'll just read them children's books once I can. Perfect. I am excited to learn the alphabet and start to piece together more syllables...but watch me eat my words as soon as I'm assigned a homework on it haha.  

Hello from Amman, Jordan!

I'm here! Sitting in my father's old bedroom in my Grandmother's house in Amman! To get those of you up to speed, who don't already know, this semester I am studying in Amman, Jordan with the CIEE study abroad program. My homestay is my Grandma in Amman =) and I will be taking classes (in English, except for my Arabic classes) at the CIEE office which is right across the street from the University of Jordan.  

The flight's all went well, except for a little rescheduling after our flight out of Seattle was cancelled since there was snow, rain, freezing rain, and more snow all the day before I left. It's been great having my Dad along for the traveling; he has some business in Jordan for the next couple of weeks. We had some fun checking into our rescheduled flight out of Sea-Tac when the British Airways ticket-agent took away our free upgrade to business class since we were switched from American Airlines which was cancelled due to weather--we tried our hardest to persuade them to honor out American Airlines upgrade, but they didn't, we flew coach.  I also had a little excitement on the flight from London to Amman as I attempted to dodge some flight attendant's as I made my way to the bathroom while the fasten-seat-belt-sign was on. The flight attendants felt so adamant about NOT letting me empty my bowls, that one of them unfastened their seat belt to physically stand in front of the door to the bathroom with their hand out, palm facing me, making it explicitly clear that there was no way I would get in. Just as soon as I got back to my seat, the light ding-ed off. Go figure... Luckily I picked up a copy of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo before I left Seattle. What a gripping book! 

Arriving at the baggage claim in Queen Alia International Airport felt way different than any of the other dozen or so times I've flown in. That's when it hit me, I AM NOT GOING TO BE IN AMERICA FOR FOUR MONTHS.  I've stood at the baggage claim in Amman's airport dozens of times before, but this time it felt foreign. I knew I was going to be living in Amman, it would be home for the next 4 months, not just a 2 week vacation spot. Luckily there was an immediate sign that there were some similarities between Amman and back home:

I saw this sign on a cigarette carton at the duty free in Amman. I hope the author didn't create that warning because of a traumatic childhood experience..

Here are two pictures from inside the airport: