We have friends!

So this past week… was marvelous.

Before I begin… I must mention that while I write the majority of what I do here… I am refraining from writing everything. And by everything I don’t mean leaving out, “For breakfast today I ate bread.” Due to the nature of Jordan (aka gossip spreads like wildfire and who knows who might be reading this) I feel obligated to keep a few things private. Nothing too important I guess but just thought I should say that at times I strategically leave a few details out.

Onto my marvelous school week…

Sunday. The first day of school with all 18,000 students. I have to say, it was pretty exciting returning when there were actually people there. I was worried about how easy or difficult it would be to meet friends here but luckily it seems like a large majority of people want to talk to us. Hanan and Selowa left to find a mailbox and came back with two friends. Tesneem and Doaa. They are incredibly nice and we actually met up with them again for lunch today. Tesneem, like a lot of people here unfortunately for us, prefers to speak in English even if we talk to her in Arabic. That way, she says, she can improve here English at the same time that we are improving our Arabic. While that isn’t ideal for me, she does speak in Arabic half the time still and corrects the way I speak or my pronunciations – both of which I can’t get enough help in. Doaa, which means a specific prayer to God, is incredibly sweet too. Although I think it took me about 20 times to pronounce her name right. In fact I think she might have just lied and said I pronounced to right to make me stop trying. About 30 minutes after we met them we exchanged all of our information. It is hilarious to me that everyone exchanges phone numbers immediately, even if you don’t know them very well at all. Not just that either – they call you. Then if you don’t answer they ask why you didn’t answer last time they called. Wayyyy more forward than people would ever act in the US.

After eating lunch with the girls, Hanan, Selowa, Reem and I went over to the stage to try and see if we could dance Debka with the team again, ideally three days a week like they do if possible! So we went into the theater and they were practicing. We talked to a lot of them again – they all are super nice and welcoming. Then we sat for a while because they have to practice a performance for the king on the 6th of February. In an ideal world I would try out for the team, make it, then dance and make friends and speak Arabic. However, I have run into some problems. Number one, I don’t know how to say “Are there tryouts?” and I’m not even sure that they have tryouts or if I can tryout. Other problems include that we have been going there as a group (all 12 of us) more than once so they may think we are just there to hang out. Which I am too… except I also love to dance and really want to be involved at the university. Nearing the end we were up on stage and I attempted to ask the leader of the group if we (a few of us) could be on the team. She said yes… but with the language sometimes causing some misinterpretation I am not sure if that is true. We danced for a little but then we had to all go home on the bus together. Hopefully I can – if not though, I want to try to get involved with art or something else on campus. I’ll have to see what happens.

While the girls were off meeting other girls, the guys met other guys around the engineering area. One guy in particular, Hassam, invited them to go to “City Mol” (aka a mall) later during the night. I felt too overwhelmed with work so I didn’t go but later when they all came back he hung out in the girls apartment for a bit and later we hung out in the boys apartment. I enjoyed hanging out with him too because he spoke pretty clearly and was fun to hang out with. The next day in class when we were going around and saying what we did yesterday, we asked Munther if it was acceptable that he was in the girls apartment. Essentially he said no it wasn’t. Muhammad, our other teacher from the university, said that if we had lived in Zarqa under the supervision of the university, girls would not be allowed in the boys apartment and vice versa. So different here. So technically we are okay to go into the boys apartment now that we are in Amman and not under any supervision, but Muhammad said we should be careful when students from Hashemite are visiting because if it gets back to the university that we walk into each other’s apartments then we might get a bad reputation on campus. And they say that bad reputations spread like wild fire in the Middle East. Needless to say I think we will follow the gender-separation rules if anyone from the university visits. And if we want to hang out all together, we just have to go up to the lobby or another public area.

Monday. Friend fail. Apparently most people just have class on STT? (aka the MWF of Jordan) We tried to walk around asking useless questions to make friends but no luck.

Luckily, the day improved as it went on. At night our whole class went to see Amreeka at the City Mall movie theatre. I had only heard of the film once before we went to see it but Khalid watched it before and said 75% was in Arabic and it was worth going to see. The film is called Amreeka because that is the way “America” is pronounced in Arabic. The basic plot of the film is a woman (Muna) and her son (Fadi) living in the occupied territory of Palestine receive visas in the mail to go to America 20 years after the mother applied for them. Upon weighing her options, she decides that it would be best for her to move to America, both for the education opportunities for her son, and to escape the difficulties she faces living in an occupied territory every day. Everything seems fine when she first arrives in America and moves in with her sister and her family in Chicago, but she soon realizes that the grass is not greener on the other side. The film is set in 2003 right as America is invading Iraq. Muna’s sister’s husband is a doctor, but since he is Arab almost all of his patients are leaving him due to the intensified racism against Arabs following 9/11.

One part of the film that hit me more than others was Fadi’s (her son) experience in American high schools. To begin, his name is Fadi, which pronounced in Arabic is almost pronounced “fa-thee” but his teacher immediately pronounces it as “Fatty.” This paired with the fact that his clothes aren’t in style and he is picked on because he is new and Arab (especially by one boy whose brother is in Iraq) makes for a pretty bad situation. This just made me think about how hard it must be to move from another country to America for anyone young. You already are arriving without any friends, but to top it off you dress differently, eat different food, might have a strong accent and don’t understand the protocol of teenagers in America. Rough. It makes it so much easier to understand why students like that might isolate themselves or act irrationally if persecuted enough. While living now in Jordan isn’t exactly like that, I do stick out quite a bit at school. Okay so I stick out a lot, we all do. Just funny how I have known people in America who moved from another country and now I am the one who moved abroad i.e. my living situation is mukkloub (note: if you remember this word from my last post and remember what it means you win 20 points) and I am the one sticking out and living in another country where the culture and language is so different.

On a lighter note, one of the funnier jokes in the movie refers to the difference in names again. Muna ends up getting a job at White Castle and works with a boy who is a high school drop out with blue hair and a few piercings. When she asks him his name, he says Matt. She then starts to laugh and doesn’t believe him at first. She is laughing because the word mat in Arabic means “dead.” So she proceeds to tell him his name means “dead” and says, “So… you are Dead!” Hahaha. Something similar but not quite the same has happened here with our Arabic names. One of the boys, Ata, chose the name in America not knowing whether or not it was popular here. Now when he introduces himself pretty much everyone laughs because his name is incredibly old, like having the name “Mildred” now in the US for example.

Tuesday. WE FINALLY MET OUR LANGUAGE PARTNERS!!! So exciting! We actually gathered up with a bunch of them even before our official first meeting at two. They are so great! There are 6 girls and 6 guys and it is great to talk to people who understand that we want them to speak in Arabic. Not only that but they are also so excited (or least it seems this way) to meet us and hang out with us! In the beginning I spoke a bit with Abeer and Hiam who are both ADORABLE. Then I got to talking to Amel (meaning hope in Arabic) and spoke to her for almost the entire hour. It is amazing how much you can learn from a native Jordanian in an hour. She studies Arabic literature and told me about how she is also learning sign language and wants to teach deaf students in the future. She taught me to say things like “whatever,” “what’s wrong,” and “what’s up?” Then she yelled at me for saying “eyowa” too often. It means “yes” in Arabic so I pretty much had been saying it every 10 seconds when people talk to me so they know I am understanding them. Apparently this is bizarre though so she told me it was better to say “aa” or “nam” if I wanted to agree with someone or show that I understand. It is a little difficult to understand her at sometimes, especially because she speaks only maybe 10 words in English and can’t translate anything for me. But overall I am surprised at well I can speak to her! She also taught me how to say a few things in sign language – why not? Haha. Not sure if it is the same sign language as there is in the US but if not then now I know some Arabic sign language! And also she taught me how Arabs use the numbers we use in America as Arabic letters when typing transliterated texts in English script. So cool. To even make things better she paints too so hopefully she can show me the ropes in the art rooms and I can start doing a little art again if there is time.

Here is a picture of a group of us together: (from the left back) Maghlid, Yacoub, Majdi, me, Leyla, Sarah, Anis (bottom row) Abrahim, Selowa, Abeer, Hanan. Also note the portraits of the current and previous king in the background.

Also as a note so you all can form a mental picture before I upload more pictures – all of the girls but one wear a hijab (head scarf) of the language partners. Here it is almost always true that if you are Muslim you wear a hijab and girls without a hijab are Christian. I won’t write too much about Wednesday but essentially we met with all of our language partners again and I got a chance to talk to Amel some more (my official language partner now) as well as some of the other girls and the guys. I am pretty lucky in general to have Amel now because I can understand her. Some of the other guys and girls speak around approximately 38493874 words per minute in Arabic making it difficult to understand, I would say. But insha’allah (hopefully) in the future I will be able to understand everyone – no matter how fast they speak!

Quick culture lesson! Here the boys kiss other boys to greet them and the girls kiss other girls. It is in the form of three kisses on the cheek – one on the right cheek, then the left, then another on the left. This may sound easy but when you actually do it it isn’t just kiss, kiss, kiss. It is more of a kiss, kiss, (Pause! Wait for at least 2 seconds…) aaaaaand kiss.

As for my general skills in the language I am feeling pretty okay. Of course I have a ton still to learn, but I am trying to write down every word I learn and look over it later and I think it is working for the most part. At the very least I think I am on track. I may never be liked Yacoub (must have an incredible photographic memory, either that or he is a robot) who never forgets a word he learns… but I will succeed!

Book wise I finished “The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo.” SO GOOD. I definitely recommend it. I am sad that I don’t have access to the second book which is already out in hardback. I borrowed “Life of Pi” from Selowa to read next. I started reading about 50 pages and while the book is really good and I can tell I will love it I am slightly avoiding it now to focus on devoting all my time to Arabic-related things. Especially because the book is India related (which I love) but I am trying to not compare the two countries quite so much anymore. Plus, I found a good replacement! I am now reading “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde (wait for it) ...in Arabic! Munther said I shouldn’t get a book with the Arabic on one side and English on the other side but it has been incredibly rewarding I think. I don’t waste time looking up words since the translation is on the other side and it also helps me to see how the syntax of words is shaped differently in Arabic. Not to mention I really like the book so far.

So I just realized this post is 4 pages long in Word. Congrats to you who made it to the end without skimming most of it! You are my real friends - بمزا (just kidding)!

انشالله سأكتب مرة أخرى قريبا