Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Halfway Through

            Well, it’s hard to believe another week’s gone by already. These posts always surprise me when they come, and yet in another way I feel as though I’ve been here forever. We’ve gotten so much done, all the days begin to blend together. Depending on who you ask, I’ve done anywhere from a semester to a year-and-a-half of Arabic in four weeks – and that’s how tired I feel. Despite having rested for most of last weekend, I still come into class just wanting to lie down and go to sleep.
            My Arabic has shown marked improvement, though. The nice thing about starting an intensive language course from scratch is that progress is very noticeable: four weeks ago, I couldn’t form a sentence in Arabic. Now I can have conversations and write short stories. They might not be very original conversations or stories, but they’re much better than nothing. We have our finals for the session* this week
            In order to practice my listening/speaking skills in Arabic, I’ve been going to a young adult group and worship service in Arabic in addition to the English-speaking church I attend. So far, I can understand the general direction of the sermon, and I’m getting to where I can pick out more words. Church services are nice for learning languages, because they’re ‘real life’, but they’re similar to a textbook conversation in that they have a specific vocabulary associated with them, and if you’re familiar with the ideas and texts in another language, it’s very helpful in guiding you through what’s going on at the moment. Churches are also a good place to find friends who aren’t also foreigners, and while I haven’t been overly successful so far, I’m hopeful.
            I do have one adventure from over the weekend to share. A large group of students went out to a café last week to watch the US-Germany game. After hanging out a while, my roommate and I headed home. It was around midnight. We made it back to our neighborhood – it’s a rather large neighborhood – but before we got to our street, my roommate told the driver to stop, and we got out. It wasn’t until after the taxi drove off that I discovered we had no idea where we were. We spent the next quarter of an hour walking along, searching for something that looked familiar, and getting more and more lost. Finally, we ended up talking to this grandfatherly storekeeper, who apparently had his grandsons over to help him. And thus it was that we ended up being escorted back to our street by a ragtag band of boys on bicycles, ranging from around 9 to 14 years old. They spoke some English, and they agreed to take a picture with us at the end of the trip – it was only about a fifteen- or twenty-minute walk, if you knew where you were going. So that ended well. But I haven’t been out that late since.
            I still don’t seem to have culture shock. The taxis are better now that we’ve learned to be more selective – or maybe they’re just not supposed to cheat people during Ramadan. I did have one driver try to convince me to pay 2 JD** when the meter clearly said .94 JD, but he didn’t make a problem when I insisted on giving him only 1 JD. I do miss some American food, but I could find it here if I wanted to go to the trouble of going and buying it. The food at our house is good, though. They grow their own fruit, I think I mentioned before, and they make a lot of different dishes. Especially during Ramadan, supper is a very big meal. VERY big. I have pictures. And of course, there are the stares, comments, and wolf-whistles – there’s more than one reason to dress conservatively here – but it’s not like that never happens in Boston. Overall, I think Jordan is still growing on me.
            I have been more irritable than usual lately, but I think that’s just lack of sleep showing. Only a few more days, two tests and a final project, and I’ll be able to rest. There’s only a three-day weekend in between sessions, but it’s three days without homework, which I’m very much looking forward to. When I post next, we’ll have started the next session already. Until then!

* a session is basically like a summer semester – some people are staying for one; some people are staying for two. Each session has its own midterm and final. I’m staying for two sessions; this is the end of the first one. After this we’ll move up a class and have new teachers and schedules.

** about 1.4 USD
Note: Also, thank you to Kendra for taking that picture of me! 












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