Hi! I’m
sorry for the lack of organization in this blog post; I have more work than I
was anticipating. Something exciting and unexpected has happened since my last
blog post – I’ve moved up a level! As someone who’s never studied Arabic
before, I started out in Arabic 101, but I had already memorized the alphabet
and some vocab as groundwork, and the grammar is really similar to Hebrew, so I
talked to a few of the administrators, and they ended up moving me up to the
second-level class. It’s harder, and the homework takes longer, but I’m
learning a lot more.
It’s been
an interesting time so far. I’ve settled into my host family’s home and begun
to get into a routine. Class times are set, but social occasions and outings
are up in the air, and exercise is a small problem. Most of us, after trying to
navigate to gyms and learning their prices, have decided to just work out in
the house. Cardio is hard, because jogging out of doors isn’t really done, but
we’ve decided it’s not worth a gym membership just for that, even though most
of us are in ROTC and have to worry about physical fitness tests when we get
back.
Yesterday
we went on a tour of Amman; I have pictures of the citadel looking over the
city and the amphitheater. By the way, the name Amman comes from the Ammonites;
remember them? The tour was great; they showed us the sites and showed us
around the city, so we would know where we were and if the taxi drivers were
ripping us off or whatnot. I took lots of pictures; the views were great, and
museums and ruins are some of my favorite things.
After the tour,
another girl and I headed back to our host homes, which were fairly close to
the building we study at. That was an adventure. Jordanian taxi drivers don’t
know addresses; you have to either be able to direct them or know landmarks.
This makes it difficult when your home is an apartment building surrounded by
other, nearly identical apartment buildings. Long story short, we ended up
losing the map and my address, asking about six people for help, and finally
finding a mother who was willing to walk me to my address after talking to my
host mother (in Arabic) to find out where it is. After that, my friend came
home with me, and then my host mother’s daughter, who was visiting and speaks English,
talked to her host mother until they figured out how to get her home.
I was
afraid my host mother would be mad, but the first thing she said to me after
the usual hello-how-are-you was “Hungry?”. I had my own private feast laid out,
and the rest of the evening was nice. If you don’t know, I’m not the most
adventurous when it comes to trying new foods. However, I didn’t want to offend
anyone, and I’m going to be here for two months, so I decided to do my best to
learn to like the food. It seems to be working – after a few times having
something, the food grows on me. I’ve gained a whole new level of insight into
the phrase “acquired taste”.
My roommate
and I are getting along nominally; we’re both moving to the next level (she’s
taken a year of Arabic already), so we’ll be in the same class. We have very
different study habits, though, so we’ll see how that goes. My new teachers are
very nice, I like the kids in the class, and hopefully I’ll have time to do the
work needed. Today we studied some vocab and a lot of grammar, but the grammar
is really similar to Hebrew, so I pick it up ridiculously fast. My teachers say
I will have to work hard but should do very well. I don’t feel confident going
home by myself, though, so I usually tag along with my roommate, who’s an
extrovert and always going places.
Jordan in
general is pretty nice, especially now that I’m kind of used to the food.
Shorts are absolutely unacceptable, unless you’re in a single-gender gym or gym
section, but T-shirts are fine, as long as they’re not too tight or too short
or etc. The city, because it’s undergone such rapid expansion with refugee
influxes and etc., is laid out in no logical order whatsoever, and takes quite
a bit of doing to get to know. However, the white stone buildings and palm
trees are pretty, and the temperature is warm, dry, and breezy – I’ve heard it
compared to California, actually.
They say
culture shock usually sets in about a quarter of the way through your time in a
country, which for me is in about a week-and-a-half. We’ll see what happens. So
far I’m not experiencing as much Jordanian culture as I’d like in the first
place; most of my time is spent surrounded by English speakers. Perhaps when I
can get around on my own a little better, I’ll be able to go out and explore a
little more, maybe with a couple of friends. But for now, I’m still settling
in.
PS - Yes, we did climb all the way to the top of that amphitheater. And the last picture is of a cold strawberry juice - those things are awesome!
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