al-maghrib

in morocco now. spent 15 hours in this country before i even got to see my friend, meryem, whom i'm staying with. landed in casablanca @ 5 PM. caught a 8 PM to casa voyageurs. go in to this train station at 8:45 PM. bought a 12:45 AM train to tangier, scheduled to arrive at 7 AM. train didn't come until closer to 1:30...2 AM... we arrive in tangier @ 8 AM. train was a hard place to sleep and be comfortable. i stunk and was so tired by the time i got to tangier. traveled without a phone, so asked a lot of strangers to use to phone. also, was met with a lot of just pure helpfulness and friendliness. met some interesting people along the way to tangier. the one that that's nice about the midnight train is being to gaze out the window and watch the moon. still doesn't feel like i am here. took a shower after i got to meryem's place. ate breakfast, slept, ate lunch, slept... went out ... spend 2 hours trying to find a cab/bus. hung out in the old downtown. walked along the beach and even sat on the ledge near the beach for a bit, just enjoying the time. dinner after than another 2 hours of trying to catch a cab before we're home. tangier is a nice city - it's got some pretty views. however, it is incredible difficult to find a tasi, especially int he evening. chefchaouen tomorrow. this is the place i did my homestay in 2008 (that program was the reason for this whole interest in the middle east and i'm going to take arab even though its's hard as fuck... girl). don't know how often i'll be able to log here. internet is not very consistent or convenient to procure.



breakfast

jordan: last thoughts

8-21-13

in an airport in algiers, waiting for my transit flight to casablanca. can’t believe i’m not in jordan anymore. the sun was rising when i left for the airport at 6 am, and it was so beautiful to see the peachy hue of the morning splashed across the sky. jordan is a gorgeous place. it’s got some really great sites. jordan is pretty conservative, most women dawn some sort of head/body covering. it’ll be interesting to compare the degrees of conservation in jordan with those in morocco, it’s been 5 years since i’ve been so i can’t really recall my impressions from last trip. amman is also very modern. It’s interesting because it’s a city in country so very seeped in history. petra is like seattleites going to Vancouver bc, a fun place to go, no big deal. except that it is. and the dead sea! wow! amman is actually a very cool city with different subcultures – on the one hand it is religiously conservative, but it doesn’t mean everyone observes to the same degree (e.g. the wearing of the hijab, for example). It has a raging art scene and indie music scene. you can always find something to do, see, get involved in. overall, i think it is a great place to study arabic. it’s safe and the local dialect is close enough to the modern standard arabic (used in formal contexts – media, the quran, ect.), which i have studied for the last 2 years that it’s not too hard to pick up. although i was reminded of being a foreigner all the time – constantly getting “welcomed to jordan,” had comments related to my race and cat calls directed at me on the streets, being overcharged for taxi rides --, even though all i wanted was to feel completely apart of the culture (that includes being treated like i belong in the culture), i made jordanian friends that make me feel i have roots in amman now. not everyone i met was the greatest person, but the quality people that i did meet made my stay that much worthwhile. learned lots about the culture – jordanian (perhaps arab, as well) values, local foods, some slang, how to walk on the streets, how to catch a cab without getting ripped off, best times to catch cab, how to take the bus, ect. ect.

it’s one thing to stay in the middle east for 2 weeks like i had in 2008, and going with an itinerary: 1 week homestay then tour the country with other moroccan girls your age. it was set up in way that cultural exchange and friendships could occur fluidly. in jordan, i had to work for it more. in jordan, i was forced to carve out an existence for myself, a routine. you had to adjust your mindset for the 2 months, for the long stay, and to remind yourself how blessed of an opportunity it is, that if you don’t make the most of the moment, you’ll regret it when it’s gone. i don’t know that i always did that and those were the hardest times for me. i think i did an okay job with that. made some friends, plugged myself into church, formed friendships with people in my class, volunteered. it’s funny, i feel like i formed more lasting bonds with the jordanians that i met than my pre-dominately american classmates.

studying abroad is hard because while you want to do well in your classes, you also want to feel like you’re abroad. coffee shops got expensive after a while, so i would often study and do homework in my room and there was this great disconnect from the rest of jordan. this internal battle. at the one hand, i wanted to study enough arabic to see great progress later, but at the same time, i don’t just want to be reading about the language, i want to go out and use the language. i think abroad experiences for girls are different than guys because as girls, we are more limited in when and where we go out. i would’ve gone to parks and explored the city on my own more, expect that it is not very safe and everytime i am out on my own, i have this unstead feeling that prevents me from really enjoying the country. so there’s that factor as well. and qasid institute, the language institute that i was taking arabic 4 hours a day from. honestly, if i were to do it again, i don’t know if i would choose qasid. it was hard not to feel closed off from the rest of the world. maybe an on-campus study abroad would offer a more ideal experience. don’t get me wrong, the instructors are so personal, engaging, and invested in their students success; the staff is fantastic and everything is so well organized (you definitely feel like the support that everyone wants from their host site); there was enough rigor in the curriculum to challenge you, but i just felt like, again, i often found myself in my room. but if I were a student at jordan university, the libraries would be that much more accessible, and i would be able to compare my experiences as a university student in the states with my experiences as a university student, at a university, in the middle east. but enough with the “what if’s,” this has honestly been a really great experience. not always easy but i think i definitely experienced growth from the troubles i faced.

In closing, i’d just like to discuss my thoughts on the language. the great education at qasid coupled with the immersion experience of being in amman was really good for my language, growth, i think. there are phrases you hear from people all the time, it makes it easier to remember them. also, i was always forced to think and use the language. because my class is so small, we were speaking all the time. also, i was constantly thinking of ways to word things, use certain grammatical terms, in a way that i would be able to communicate with the people around me (e.g. friends, taxi drivers, store clerks). i wanted to be understood and i had the basic tools to do that. it was a lot of work to have your mind always fired up like that, but it was pretty neat in terms of the language maturity i gained from it, i think. because i was already active in thinking about how i would say certain things, my brain was already turned on and ready for comprehension. i think I still have this problem, but noticeably before, language comprehension would scare me. i hated OPI’s and would get really stressed about it because a slew of arabic would come at me and i would just blank out. now, i have learned to be afraid of it. maybe because i’m already thinking of the language, it’s not something that catches me off guard. but also, arabic isn’t something that i’m afraid of anymore. i’m making baby steps but i feel like it’s a language that i slowly, slowly able to call my own. there was definitely a point where i was so sick of arabic, there was just so much of it going on it in my life, i was done. i think that often occurred when i got frustrated with the level of difficulty. so more to come of that in the future, i’m sure. my happiest achievement is the confidence i have gained with my language use. even if i’m unsure of a word or how to say anything, i am more concerned with reaching people, communicating with them, than looking good. often, i make a fool of myself, but i learn from my mistakes. and i think the greatest catalyst to my growth in confidence is the sense of achievement i gained whenever someone understood me, whenever i felt like, “man, this fucking language? i know it! i just said something in it! and people got it!” as i head into the next 10 days in morocco, i hope to continue to exercise my language as much as i did and needed to in jordan. i’m excited to compare and contrast things i observe about the language, people, culture. and i’ll finally be free of my studies, so i’m excited to just vacation, have fun, relax. enjoy.

al-waha (oasis) restaurant

8-17-13

our harass (guard), also works at al-waha restaurant as a chef. we had been talking about visiting him at his restaurant for weeks now and finally got around to it. it’s a huge place. our harass was saying that during ramadan, the place would extend to the space in the back and seat hundreds of people for iftar. the place is pretty nice; the atmosphere is good. we were enclosed in this huge bedouin tent (goat/sheep wool?). the air was really fresh. we sat in a corner; a great place for people watching. we got fatoush salad (like an arabic salad but with dried bread pieces), waha kabab (?), rice & veggies, hummus & pine nuts. the waha kabab was amazing – the chicken has this great smokey flavor. rice was really good, also. it was also coco’s last dinner, so it was kind of like giving her an early send off. there was live music – some guy on electric keys and a singer. at one point, people got up to dance. the cutest thing was seeing these mid-aged guys in kuffiyehs and (what’s the white dress thing muslim men wear?), linked armed in arm and dancing in front of the stage. it seems pretty common to dance with your prayer beads – to swing them around like a cowboy lasso. saw that again tonight. we stayed a good while – until our harass got off his shift – so that we could all taxi back to the apartment complex together. by then, we were extremely tired and so, so happy to go home.

JC:HEM

today was my last time volunteering with JC:HEM. JC:HEM International offers refugees who had had limited access to postsecondary education courses university-level courses. JC:HEM classes can apply towards a diploma in liberal studies or one of the community service learning tracks. the former is more focused on enhancing vocational education and skills, though classes taken towards the diploma in liberal studies can help a student have a competitive edge among other employees due skills JC:HEM aims to instill in its students. i heard about the organization through ads that had been posted around my language institute. the amman branch has a school in the district of ashrafieh at a roman catholic school (I believe?). i’ve gone to help out at the school 3 times, each for 2 to 2.5 hours. i have pretty much been a writing tutor. the days that i have gone in to the school have served as writing labs, where students are given an opportunity to work on their weekly assignments. there are maybe around 10 students in the class, but only around 4-5 show up at the writing lab each week (i can’t really vouch for the other days of the week). the class that i worked with was taking a class on leadership theory. they were taught out of a corny sounding book called the leadership theory. the chapters are about 30-40 pages long. not an easy read, but the students in this class have a pretty good command of the english language. not only are they required to read a chapter (sometimes 2) a week, they are also required to submit a discussion post online and write an essay (usually 4-5 pages). pretty intensive & lots of writing. they are really impressive. the students in my class come from jordan, palestine, somolia, and iraq. i have had a really good time volunteering with jc:hem. it’s just too bad that my time with them was so short. it would have been nice to form deeper friendships with the students and learn their stories. one of the girls that i sorta got to know has pretty excellent english comprehension, is into k-pop and asian culture, from somolia, and works at a henna shop. she always has really great outfits too. for a time, she didn’t have internet/computer access at home and so would arrive to class early in order to use the lab. her dedication was inspiring. however, she’s lost motivation lately because she lost 2 of her essays due to computer troubles and feels too behind to be able to catch up. but i disgress. i feel like this is definitely an institution that i would come back and volunteer at if i were ever to be back in amman. the students are so respectful and nice. often, i’m usually only helping 1 student but to be able to provide that kind of 1-on-1 support always makes me feel so good and accomplished. the bus rides back can be fun, as well, talking to students from other classes. i tell them that i’m here study arabic and they can understand my troubles when i tell them that the grammar is hard, for grammar is hard for arabs, as well. so many rules for case endings, for one… today, i gleaned a little bit of insight into one of the students that i was helping and it was cool to see the ways that she involves herself in her community. the essay required students to build a leadership profile. in this essay the student talked about her experiences as a volunteer for jordan’s winter elections and being a member of an initiative that helped clean up trash and raise awareness about the importance of neighborhood tidiness in one of the districts in amman. she was also saying that when arabs think of leadership and leaders, they immediately think of political leaders and most believe that only political leaders display leadership. she believes that leadership is for everyone. that the prophet muhammad was a leader and that he led leaders. strong women everywhere inspire me and i thought it was great that there were things outside of being a housewife and tending to children that concerned her. it’s empowering.



writing lab



in front of the school.



nearby. you can see the students crowded out front.

lunch at khaleel's

8-16-13

i went to petra with khaleel (taxi driver friend) and coco during our eid holiday this past weekend. (will post about this later!) on the trip, khaleel talked about his dad wanting to have us over for tea/lunch. on friday, he had us over. his mom, dad, and twin sisters were there initially. after arabic coffee and juice in the sitting room, we were served lunch from a huge plate of maqluba (rice, pine nuts, roasted eggplant, onions, potatoes). BEST maqluba i have ever had! additionally, there was fried chicken, yogurt, & arabic salad (tomato, cucumber, parsley, olive oil, lemon juice). we kept eating and they kept serving. while we were eating, a family friend and her daughter came over to the house. this friend used to be a neighbor of khaleel’s family but she and her family moved to salt. she works as a cartographer at a hospital in amman. after lunch, we were served tea, turkish coffee, and cola. in addition to the drinks before lunch and the 2 glasses of juice i had during lunch, this amounted to 8 cups of drinks! the family was so very hospitable. oh, and while we were in the sitting room after lunch, an aunt came by and joined us, as well. we woud’ve stayed longer, but i had to rush home to study for my final the next day. it was nice to meet khaleel and his family. they seem to be very good people and he seems to be close to his parents. his dad was saying that he called khaleel 2-3 times every day. after lunch, i was talking to the family friend about the state of jordan and its problems. she was saying that their great healthcare is all that they have going for them. everything is expensive but the people have no money. gas prices and electricity have gone up. soon, the price of bread is going to go up. she said that people have concerns but don’t voice them because there is fear. people see syria, egypt, libya and they decide to live with their fear instead of sacrificing the safety that jordan possesses during the tumult of the arab spring. khaleel agreed to take in leila! so my goodbye to him will happen tomorrow evening.

until next time church of the nazarene...

8-18-13

last service of this trip at church of the nazarene philadelphia. (warning: the next couple of posts are going to be about last times and goodbyes). i had attended 2 services before this one after my initial post about this church. last week, i had met maha, she was raised catholic but felt that what she experienced during mass had been just ritualistic movements and no really substance. she has been attending church of the nazarene for 2 years now. she says she feels like, “these are the real christians.” the church may be small but there is definitely a lot of passion and love. at this last service, we were joined by a church from mafraq, a city on the border of syria. the church of nazarene supplied an electric keyboard and the mafraq church brought a drum and oud. i wasn’t a huge fan of the instrumentals, but it was/has been interesting observing (at all church services), the types of music that are sung. for one, i am familiar with none of them, except for when we sang “how great thou are,” in arabic. in the states, there is such a thing as contemporary christian music. these are the sorts of songs that i am used to hearing on christian radio, at church, ect. maybe there is such a thing as “contemporary christian music” here but it doesn’t sound anything like the music at home. i guess it’s taken song getting used to. it’s interesting to see the different sorts of melodies different cultures compose for worship. after attending this last church service, i can say (though i can’t really say how much) that my arabic has improved. before, i had only been able to pick out single words from the sermon but at this service, i found myself being able to understanding phrases (i may have been able to do this before, but i feel like the quantity of phrases i can understand now has increased). this made me so happy. it’s usually hard to gage your own progress, but when you are able to witness it, you feel pretty good. i’m thinking of attending arabic church services when i return home – i think my attendance at church of nazarene was a good decision – socially, spiritually, and in terms of my arabic studies. while i have been able to understand phrases, i could still not get the gist of the message, so after the service, i asked maha about it. here’s what i got from her… you can know as much about the bible as you want, you can attend church, pray every day, give money, but if you don’t apply what you know about the bible to be true to your life, it doesn’t mean much. don’t live as two people – the person you are at church and the person you are the rest of the time. maha and i exchanged contact info, so i hope to keep in touch with her. oh, at the end of the sermon, the pastors’ wives went around and handed out gifts to the ladies of our congregation and the congregation from mafraq. men didn’t get anything… the gesture was super cute, though. later, a woman asked if she could trade with me because she already had red nail polish at home but not blue. mind you, this woman was married and had kids. lol, i thought it was cute of her to want to trade.



my little beauty pack, complete with lipstick, lip gloss, nail polish, and a jesus loves you this i know sticker.

goodbye church. until next time.

2nd-to-last full day

went to café graffiti to say bye to my friend madison. we had met at a party earlier this summer and had hung out over the course of my stay in amman. remember that impromptu iftar in front of jordan university? she was there. we talked over tea and coffee at the café. we talked about religion quite a bit…relationships… traveling. she’s traveled through south east asia, so if i ever get around to that bucket list item, I’ll definitely be asking her for tips and things to do.





I don’t know if you can tell from this picture, but on the wall behind the dude, there’s a little girl with a pen strapped to her back like a weapon. i’ve been seeing this icon all over amman and a friend of mine from class had been saying that it had significance, though when we were talking about this, he could not remember exactly what the significance was. i looked into this and found out that it is a logo for project pen, which is a space for writers to publish their work online. it’s based in amman, and project pen designed this logo out of their belief that “writing is a personal battle.”

more info about them here:
website
facebook

here’s a clearer image of project pen’s catchy icon:



later tonight, played a 2 hour game of soccer with my friend hamdan from wild jordan café and 6 of his friends. it was so much fun but pretty rough on me physically. 20 min in, i didn’t think i could do the whole hours. i am extremely out of shape. and i’m a terrible shot. haha, should practice more when i get home. i pulled through, though, and it felt so good afterwards. we played at the best time of day – right before sunset. not sure what the score ended up being; i think by the end of it, though, most people were pretty tired and were just messing around (i.e. goalie ran way out of the goalie box and suddenly became a forward). the guys were really nice though. we played at an elementary-high school. apparently, it’s a thing here for schools to charge a fee for people to come and rent their soccer space for so and so hours.

picked up on some useful things to say when playing soccer, as well...

• يالا go! = go! go!
• حارس = goalie
• اِرجع = back!
• اُخرج = return!

tonight is also my last evening with my feline companion. will miss this cutie pie.

flatmate send off

today was one of my flatmate’s, coco’s, last day. remember that bucket list that coco and i had made at the beginning of the trip? lemon mint juice was the last item on our list (well, unless you count “learn arabic,” and it’s still a bit questionable whether we are able to cross that item off). i’d been really excited to make it and i also figured it would be a good way to send coco off. i really want to grow herbs in my backyard now! so i can make this yummy number all the time. additionally, we had a cute lunch of garlic & spinach cous cous and tomato, onions, cucumber salad, which coco and her friend juliet prepared.



to make:
• 6 lemons
• shit-ton of sugar
• shit-ton of mint
• shit-ton of water

squeeze the lemons. (this was hard work!) add lemon juice, sugar (add into boiling water), mint leaves, and water (include the boiling water used to melt the sugar into your measurements) into blender. refrigerate and serve chilled.



oh ye bucket list.



now that laura has gone back to edinburgh and coco is on her way to doha, it’s just me & zara until wednesday.

today is wednesday

had trouble sleeping yesterday, so was pretty tired today. 5 hours of class. ended up napping later. avocado & eggs for lunch. avocados here are a lot different than in the states – smaller, more rubbery avocado meat… i got lucky with one of my avocados. while it still wasn’t the same as californa avocados, it had ripen enough to just enough softness and was fairly un-rubbery. later in the evening, visited a friend of mine @ wild jordan café. it was fairly busy tonight, but we still got to talk every once in a while when he got a break. brought study material to make use of my time when i wasn’t talking to him. it’s been so much hotter these last couple of days. at the beginning of my trips, the terrace of wild jordan actually got kind of chilly at night. high was 97 degrees F today. i was at the café from 7:30-10. at 10, the weather still hovered at 84 degrees. my roommate and i had met hamdan, this friend of mine who’s employed at wild jordan, at the beginning of this trip. it’s interesting to converse with him the café again at the end of my stay and have him tell me that he sees improvement in my arabic. that makes me happy. i definitely feel like i’ve gained confidence in my arabic speaking. it really helps to be in an environment where you’re always having an opportunity to practice new phrases you’ve learned/fix errors you’ve made in the past. i’ve been itching to do something active – soccer, running, hiking, whatever. might be playing soccer on monday with hamdan and friend. excited.



hit up mukhtar mall’s carefour market after wild jordan. bought some long life milk. i'm so new to uht processing but apparently this stuff is good for cooking, since it's already at room temp? also...apparently it's long life only applies to shelf life. once opened, the magic show ends and it becomes like pasteurized milk again and must be used within a week or so.



late-night baking sesh. first time making biscuits. tomorrow is the last day of class and we are having a hefla (party) during the last hour. this will be my contribution.

amman by foot...

what an interesting day it has been. planned to study at wild jordan café on rainbow street with a friend from class. we planned to meet in front of the mall. i got there before he arrived and was sitting on the front steps of the mall. while i was waiting, an elderly woman and her hired help approached my spot, so i got up to let her sit. i headed over to the other side of the entrance where there were more steps. a guy that had been sitting across from me gestured next to him to indicate that i was welcome to sit next to him. i preferred next to and sat nearby. he tried talking to me, “where you are from? china?” and when i did not respond: “hello? hello?” then later, “do you smoke?” and held out a cig to me. eventually, my friend showed up around 2:15 PM and we headed to the streets to try and hail a cab. and boy did we try. 15 minutes passed, 20 minutes passed. still no cab. we walked a ways to see if we would have better luck farther down the street. no dice. decided to return to the mall and catch a bus that would get us somewhere where we could try again to catch a cab. had an interesting encounter on the bus. a ways into the ride, i feel a tap on my shoulder. i turn around and there are two women, maybe 50 years of age, wearing hijabs and dressed fairly conservatively. the one closest to the aisle, the one that had tapped me, says to me, motioning to the seat next to her across the aisle and right behind me, “please come here. i want to tell you something.” when I asked her what it was, she continued to ask me to sit in the seat next to her and that she needed to tell me something. when i asked why I needed to move to the chair next to her in order for her to tell me, she said, “i just want to give me you this.” with that, she proceeded to produce two little coin purses and handed to them me. i was pretty shocked. it was so strange, i wasn’t sure how to respond. one of the first thoughts that ran through my head was, “is there something dangerous inside? is there a bomb in there?” when i asked her the reason for these purses, she said, “i just like you, that’s all.” and with that, it got awkward, so i turned around to talk to me friend and play it cool until we got off the bus. (note: the tag on the front of the red & white bag says: “please always know that I love you more than anything else in the world.”).



so off the bus…and things continued to be ridiculous. we had cabs stop that wanted 3-5 JD for a less than 2 JD trip to rainbow street. we turned them all away in frustration. eventually, we had made it from our starting point of sports city to the abdali. it had been an hour of walking. 2.5 miles. in 91 degrees fahrenheit weather. textbooks, laptop, and all. in adbali, we spotted king abdullah mosque and i said as a joke to my friend, “maybe we should just study in there.” to me surprise, he said, “why don’t we just take a look?” i was all for it and so we entered through the unlocked gates and slipped inside one of the open doors. my friend went in pretty quickly after slipping off his shoes but i was hesitant because i didn’t have anything to cover my head. i lingered outside until my friend came out and said, “come on in. everyone is asleep.” they were indeed. The 4 or 5 men that were inside were spread out on the edges of the mosque, taking a nap and finding relief from the heat. my friend quickly found the water and the communal tin cup, to which he loudly whispered, “mercy!” for awhile, I continued to worry about how my presence would be perceived by the people in the mosque. i even asked a guy in the mosque if it was okay that i wasn’t covered and he said it was fine. it was actually quite relaxing inside. the floor was carpeted and the blue and yellow patterning that decorated the inside of the dome was gorgeous. the lighting offered a softened to atmosphere. i felt at peace. and was really considering staying in the mosque for the rest of the day.



unfortunately, my phone rang. i stepped outside to answer it, not bothering to put on my shoes. as i stepped outside, a guard that had not been there before looked at me and was trying to get my attention. i moved away to try and find a quiet place to talk on the phone but the guard was coming towards me and getting frantic. finally, i gave up trying to split my attention between the caller and the guard and the guy comes up to me and says, “prohibited! you are not covered! this is very bad.” I was quite flustered and wasn’t sure what to do. he motioned for me to leave and i said that i needed to grab my shoes. in response to this, he said, “quickly!” quick i was. then i tell him, “but my stuff is still inside.” and he tells me to go around to the other entrance of the mosque and get something to cover my head and come back. i figured that there would be some place that i could borrow a piece of cloth for the sake of this ritual. i find myself at the front of the main gate of the mosque, speaking to a guard that said the entrance fee is 2 JD. i was kind of pissed off at this point and also annoyed that they were charging people to enter a place of worship and trying to make commodity off of it. on second thought, they may be charging, so that people like me don’t just barge in and breaking every rule in the book. still, is an entrance fee really necessary? it’s not a lot but still annoyed me. anyways, i’m trying to explain to the guard that my bag is still inside the mosque and all i wanted to do was grab it and leave. i didn’t want to pay any sort of entrance fee. any peace i had left from being inside the mosque was gone. in the midst of all this, said shows up with our stuff. thank god. a quick thank you, and we leave. we walk maybe 2 more miles and finally, finally… rainbow street!!!



eventually, wild jordan. it’s 4:45 at this point. i begin studying but eventually pass out from exhaustion. after a nice and refreshing nap, i begin work around 6 PM. stunning view of amman from the wild jordan library...



not the way i anticipated the day to go, but it was great nonetheless. after wild jordan, we grab a quick bite to eat at al-quds falafel before cabbing home. all in all, i spent 1.5 JD on the day. not bad. still can’t believe i trudged across amman for 2.5 hours. back home by 8:20.

old view

my roomate coco was invited to a jordanian family's house for eid (holiday after ramadan) last night and they served her tons of coffee. she returned home with enough energy to take over the world. she was up for going out, so we did. we were all also pretty curious to see what jordan was like in the evenings during the eid holiday. we hopped on over to rainbow street. there was terrible traffic getting there, but we made it. went to old view cafe and restaurant, which is this restaurant that boasts a quiet and gorgeous view of amman. it was nice relaxing, soaking in the beautiful nightscape, and eating hummus and manaeesh (i think that's what it's called). the waiter described it as "arabic pizza".

old view during the day time.



this gem of a place is 3-stories. upon emerging from the top flight of stairs, this is what you see.



grubbin...

meet leila

our newest roommate. heard her purring outside one of my roommate's bedroom window. when we opened the window, she did not hesitate to come inside. after feeding her tuna, cheese, and stir fried noodles, i would say that she considers us her friends. she's so playful and is unlike the other stray cats in that she doesn't seem to be afraid of people. she's still quite small and probably not yet full grown. she spent the night with me and didn't cause any trouble but peed all over our couch today. we'll probably have to keep her outside and carefully supervise her whenever she's inside. either way, she really brought joy and excitement last night.

culture

finished my last day of classes for the week and am now on a eid al-fitr break that will extend through sunday. this past week was a review week. each day, students taught/reviewed the chapters that we had covered this past quarter. today, the student teaching the class lead a pictionary-charades activity to practice and review vocabulary from chapter 10. there were only 4 of us in class today. with one of the students at the front of the room leading the class, we were 3 students and one teacher. so my teacher, osama, and a girl in my class formed a team and i was paired with one student. the game is like this: there were a stack of slips of paper at the front of the room, each with vocabulary words and either “act” or “draw” written on them. a piece of paper is pulled from the pile and members from both team race to get their team member to guess the word before the other team. there were some interesting cultural differences that emerged whenever instructor osama was at the front of the room. it’s cool to think that depending on what culture you grew up in, the images that come to mind for certain concepts may differ from person to person. while it may seem like common sense, it's something that we so easily forget. it's easy to become ethnocentric, even in simple, everyday concepts. it's nice to be reminded of the richness and diversity in thinking and understand that culture brings and to appreciate the differences.

word: battle



note the straight sword versus the curved, single-edged saif.

word: emergency



in addition to my modern standard arabic, i am also taking a colloquial jordanian class, which meets for an hour two times a week. a couple weeks ago, we had a lesson on the family unit and learned the terms for family members as used in the jordanian dialect. in teaching us these words, our instructor drew a picture of her family on the board. it is interesting to note the hijabs on all the women in the picture, except for the little girls. the family picture looked something like this:

arabic calligraphy

google led me to saleh nasab, a syrian calligrapher currently based in jordan. i shot him an email a couple days ago and he informed me that he was holding a calligraphy workshop at the apartment of one of his students today. i had originally planned on visiting madaba and mt. nebo with some classmates today, but we decided to postpone our plans due to al-qaeda attack threats in the middle east. in response to word of these threats, many american embassies across the u.s., including the one in amman, will be closed on sunday (first day of the work week), and may continue to stay closed depending on how things play out in the days to come. this lesson is the first of a series of 6 that will be held each saturday at 11 am. for 15 JD we received 3 hours with mr. nasab and our very own arabic calligraphy starter kit (reed pens, ink, paper, handouts).



mr. nasab is a cute, stout man with receding hair. first, he showed us examples of different types of arabic calligraphy: freestyle, geometric, ottoman, iranian, ect… arabic calligraphy is found on the face of islamic architecture such as mosques, minarets.

i found the geometric pattern to be especially interesting. the b & w image below is an example of geometric arabic calligraphy. the black spells out “mohammed” and the white spells out “allah.”



then, he proceeded to show us how to prepare the ink and reed pen. in his words, “this is old technology and old technology is the best technology.” the ink is prepared by stuffing a little glass jar with a wad of string. this is to prevent spillage. then ink is poured in. the reed is prepared using an x-acto knife. you place the stick of reed on a makta. the one mr. nasab was using was made out of camel bone. this is to hold the reed stable as you fashion a pen out of it. after carving a out dip in the reed with the reed, you are left with a pointed end with which you write with. you can cut back the pen as you wish. finally, cut a vertical slit into the pointed end of the reed. i’m not really sure what this procedure was for but it’s important. after this, he wrote all our names on the writing pads he had given us, as well as all the characters of the arabic alphabet. he makes arabic calligraphy look so easy.



mr. nasab writing my name in arabic:



thereafter, we referenced his perfectly, beautifully written arabic characters to practice writing our own. it’s not easy! the reed also makes this really obnoxious noise, if you apply enough pressure, which ended up growing on me. i’m not sure that my hold or brush strokes were correct. nonetheless, i had fun. i look forward to improving my calligraphy and being exposed to other styles with saleh in two weeks (my last saturday in jordan). can’t make it to the next week because i’m planning on going to petra.

more information about saleh nasab and his work here: http://salehnasab.wordpress.com/