Salteeyah!

About a week ago most of the students went downtown after school to buy traditional Arab clothes for the Badia. We were joined by two of the SIT volunteers, Basheer and Muhannad, and Dema the homestay co-ordinator, and her friend Ramy.  I don’t really like traveling in a really large group, and this outing definitely constituted the conspicuous variety I strive to avoid.  We met at the Hussein Mosque and a group of about 15-20 of us waited around 10 minutes for the rest of the group to arrive.  We had to awkwardly move out of the way when a tanker truck carrying water had to pull up to the mosque.  The whole event was pretty funny though, because I saw a Jordanian youth lurking near the groups as if he were one of our Arab friends on the trip. I noticed his friends were trying to discretely take a picture on their phone of him standing near the large group of foreigners. 

We then split off by gender, which thankfully made our group into about 10.  Muhannad and Basheer brought us to a shop and orchestrated the bargaining. We were set up with the whole outfit for a bargain price of 30JD. The quality seems pretty good too. Afterwards we browsed around for a bit and then made our way to a coffee shop where we were all supposed to meet.  Naturally the girls took forever (they weren’t helped by the fact that there were around 18 of them probably) so the men meanwhile smoked hookah and chilled.

Blurry Shot of the Royal Film Commission

My host mom had been in the hospital for a few days.  She apparently slipped a disk and was having serious back issues and trouble standing up.  Fortunately she came home the other day and seems to be improving pretty quickly.

I had one of my first going out experiences in Amman last weekend.  On thursday we travelled as a group to the Royal Film Commission, which is basically in charge of helping movie production within Jordan.  There we saw a private screening of a new Jordanian film Transit Cities. The film won at the Dubai film festival, and has not been seen by any audience outside of festivals... so we were the first screening to non-critics. The director was present too to talk about the film and answer any questions.  It was a pretty good movie and definitely a unique opportunity. 

After the film a group of us went to a place called Books@cafe which is near a neighborhood off a popular destination, Rainbow Street.  It’s a pretty neat place and I had some fish & chips and beer which was a nice reminder of home.  The fish was probably better than the fish at Commons, but it was definitely not competition for New England seafood.  I had a couple of Amstels (5JD a pop) and shared some hookah, then joined a group that was headed to a Chinese restaurant.  The restaurant was pretty legit, and  I had a screwdriver with some grenadine they called it a “Jamaican” and an appetizer.  From there we tried to go to a bar on Rainbow street called La Calle but the place was at capacity, so instead we opted for a place called Murphy’s.  We stayed there for a bit and then when the group was headed back to Jeff’s, one of the students, friend’s place I decided to head for home.  It was fun to get out, but it was a pretty expensive night, and one I doubt I’ll be repeating too often.

After I got home that night I got a call from Tim, another student... only when I said hello I heard indiscernible arabic.  Right away I knew that he had left his phone in a cab. The guy from the cab company could speak a little bit of english so I tried to explain where I lived, but I could tell it wasn’t getting through.  They agreed to meet me at an intersection nearby, so I was about to head out the door when my host dad came to my room.  I told him what was going on and he drove me to the intersection.  We called the phone back after a few minutes and he spoke to the driver in arabic and found out that he was waiting at a circle, not at the intersection nearby.  I paid the cabby for the fare  he had racked up, and got the phone back.  It was really fortunate that my host dad came home in time, otherwise I would’ve been quite literally lost in translation.

There was another interesting taxi story too.  I carpooled back home with a couple other students.  After we dropped the last one off the driver, who seemed like a nice old guy, was like “you’ll have to pay me 5 because there were 3 orders.”  Which I quickly shot down saying “I’ll pay what the meter says like every other time.”  That issue seemed resolved, but then he stopped about 2 minutes from my neighborhood to pick up some random dude.  The guy said hi, but as soon as I was in walking distance and just before the meter hit 4 JD, I bailed to make sure I got a whole JD in change.

Last Saturday we went to the old capital of Jordan, Salt.  Basheer organized the trip for us, since he’s from Salt.  We went to a coffee shop first, with great arabic coffee, and then went to an archaeological museum.  We walked through town afterwards to a park where a bunch of old men were playing mankala, or “seven stones”.  It reminded me of chess games in New York.  There were a group of photojournalists there who were more eager to take pictures than the American tourists.  Muhannad explained to us that they were trying to document the traditional culture for history, in hopes that such traditions won’t die out with that generation.

Sarah just had to ruin my picture of the smiling kids. 

We also visited the shrine of Saint George.  The church was built at his request, and then an addition was added. People often go there to ask for miracles to be fulfilled. 

Salt was a great city, much less metropolitan than Amman, and had a nice calm pace about it. We visited another museum, specifically about Salt and Jordan’s history afterwards, and then made our way by bus to a handicrafts shop.  The shop is apparently like a state-sponsored co-op for poor women, who make handmade items like tea trays, soap, bags and dresses, and then sell them to help support themselves.  The co-op is apparently pretty big with the Queen, and it seemed like a great place. I bought a tea tray with a desert scene and a camel on it for my mom. After the shop we went to watch the sunset from a ridge where, had it been clearer, we would have been able to see into Palestine.  

The weekly demonstrations have continued on friday.  A couple of kids were downtown shopping last friday when a large demonstration occurred.  They snapped a couple of photos, and then hightailed it.  Apparently a fight broke out at the event, and it made international news. 

I’m pretty much decided on my ISP topic.  I talked to one of our guest lecturers after his talk and ran my idea by him.  He seems like a secular reformer, so we’ll be like minded.  He was interested in advising me and gave me his email. He’s currently in Egypt interviewing people who were in Tahrir Square and members of the military.  Seems like a pretty good match. 

I just came down with a case of food poisoning yesterday. I came down with a fever, headache and fatigue. I went with Ahmad, an administrative assistant, to see Dema’s father who’s a doctor.  He prescribed me Cipro and a pain killer.  I’m already feeling a lot better today, though I’m still making frequent trips to the restroom.  I was worried because on thursday we’re heading to our Badia homestays.  I’ll be feeling better by then for sure, but I just hope my stomach has settled down.  That homestay is going to be very intense, so I don’t need anything else complicating it.  Some of my dinner spilt on my keyboard, and I thought my macbook was finished. It’s working off and on, and hopefully it just needs to dry out. I had written a paper while at home today, and was just thankful to be able to email it to myself.  Here’s hoping it lasts the rest of the trip... fortunately I won’t be needing it in the desert. 

Verbal Noise and Revolutions

So I've come to find that verbal noise is actually cross-cultural.  I'm sure everyone has had a conversation with someone who constantly uses "like" or "umm" or "you know." Well in Arabic everyone says "yani" which literally translates to "i mean."  The best thing is when the academic director will be speaking in english and will still use yani.  "Shabbob (guys) we will go to either Syria yani if the government lets us, or Oman, inshallah (god willing... also frequently used)."

I saw my first camels on the way downtown the other day.  My driver was a 23 year old who loves Bill Cinton. We started talking and he said "Obama, shway (like so so, ok), Bush (makes thumbsdown motion), Clinton moomtaz" and then he pointed to a picture he had of the late King Hussein indicating how tight Clinton and Hussein were. Anyway, he asked if I wanted to go straight through the city, or take a highway around the outskirts where we could go faster. so I opted for the road not yet taken... literally.  We were driving incredibly fast, so I unfortunately didn't get to snap a picture, but we went by a tent with 2 or 3 camels tied outside of it along the highway.  I wonder how much of the year the people live there. The driver was cool though, and had me beep the horn once in traffic, which was actually on the shifter as opposed to in the middle of the steering wheel.

This weekend a bunch of students from the program headed downtown on friday and saturday to explore old East Amman.  On friday we hit up the area around the Hussein Mosque, and all of the little shops and souqs. There's a really cool shop with nice hookahs for around 20JD that I'll probably go back to at some point.  We grabbed some food in a place down a side street where the ceiling upstairs in the seated dining area was so slow that I had to keep my head cocked to the side. You know the place must be good though, because it was filled with native Jordanians.  Also the food there, like many places in Jordan, was very cheap. A shewarma sandwich here is usually less than a JD, which is awesome, and at one of the places near school with awesome falafel you can get two sandwiches for 1JD.

On friday after eating we went to a cool outdoor market.  I didn't buy anything but there are just tons of clothes that are all pretty cheap. It's like goodwill on steroids.

On saturday a large group went to the Roman Ampitheatre which is also in downtown. The place is really huge, and even the pictures don't really convey the size until you stand in it.  

We met these guys at the top.  We saw them looking over and saying "englisi, englisi."  A girl on the program, Biff (all the way to the left) mentioned "I think we're about to be approached."  They came over and explained that the guy in the keffiyah was a Saudi and he wanted a picture with us. 

My new fbook profile pic. 

The market area downtown. 

After grabbing some food post-ampitheater we went to this really sweet restaurant/cafe called Jafra in Westel Ballad (the downtown area.) See pictures above. I had sahleb which is a steamed milk, coconut, nuts, cinnamon beverage.  We had some really tasty (zaki) house arghillah.  This was the same place that during drop-off when we were asking for directions to the Arab League Cafe everyone directed us to. I guess it lived up to the hype. 

Our most recent lectures were pretty interesting.  We had one from a political scientist about the Jordanian political system which was particularly of note. He, like our first lecturer, said that what is happening in the Middle East hasn't been seen for almost 30 years and this was before Mubarak resigned. But he was still cautious, asking "will this be Berlin 1989 or Tehran 1979." Definitely a fair question. He gave us a history of the Jordanian political system, and an idea of how it is structured.   

He said Jordan officially has a tripartite system, with an executive branch (the Prime minister, appointed by the King), a legislative branch (elected house of representatives where laws initiated by the prime minister must begin, and a senate that is appointed by the King,) and a judicial branch which is tasked with adjudicating legal disputes, but does not exercise judicial review.  There is an ad hoc council on interpreting the constitution, but is mostly academic. Another interesting aspect of their system is that within the house of representatives, 20% of the seats are reserved for a women's quota, something that would probably never fly in the United States. 

Some of the interesting recent developments he pointed out was the dissolution of parliament in 2009, the formation of a new government (the King is the umbrella really for all political action, and his meant to be in charge of the country's direction, but be sort of above the politics, whereas the "government" means the prime minister, the cabinet, and parliament.)  A new election was passed in April 2010, but the lecturer pointed to confusion resulting from redistricting as a sign of the laws unprogressive nature. 

Recently, since King Abdullah fired the government, a new prime minister designate has been put in place (he needs to be confirmed by the legislature) and he has 90 days to change the election law. 

When Mubarak resigned much of Amman was excited. There were celebrations in front of the Egyptian embassy, and many Jordanians I have spoken to have expressed a sense of solidarity with the Egyptian people.

Someone was saying today that Glenn Beck said that "Jordan is next."  From what I can tell he, much to my surprise, has gotten even further from reality than before.  The city of Amman is made of almost three million people mostly just going about their daily lives.  Revolution, by no means, seems imminent.

The lecturer outlined some of the reasons why Jordan is particular.  For one, though Tunisia and Egypt were born out of provocative corruption in the face of extreme economic hardship (and Jordan certainly faces economic difficulties,) the populace distinguishes the Monarchy (the Hashemites actually trace their roots to the Prophet Muhammad)  significantly from the government. Though monarchal defaming is illegal, monarchal glorification is promoted, but voluntary, and most Jordanians seem pretty attached to their King, especially through his father, Hussein. Another factor tied into this is that corruption, which certainly exists here, is not nearly as provocative as Egypt, Tunisia, or police states like Syria and Libya. Which leads to yet another distinction, the situation in Jordan, though not a civil libertarian's paradise, is not a police state. The final and fourth thing the lecturer pointed to was the strong social connections that exist within Jordan, which provide a substantial safety net. The unrest in Jordan stems primarily from activists, interesting bedfellows of islamists, left-wing parties, and unions, who are calling for better standards of living, better salaries, and lower prices. 

The talk finished with the expectation that Jordan will make significant reforms to their election laws, and perhaps even amend the constitution to elect the prime minister. The professor thought that the country is not yet ready for this, however.  A strong advocate of meritocracy, he felt that the people would not elect a strong capable prime minister, and that parliament must be strengthened first. He points out that current reforms certainly are preemptive following Egypt, Tunisia, and now possibly Yemen and Algeria.  

We also went for a lecturer at the Higher Council for Youth, a government agency tasked with youth empowerment and implementation of what the president of the council, the speaker, termed "strategic culture."  Much of the talk was a broad statement of goals, and a list of difficulties facing youth that are fairly universal in the developed world.  The question and answers were interesting though, as was that idea of "strategic culture," particularly the religious aspect of the councils mission.  They seek to maintain the Islamic nature of the country of Jordan, while directing religious thought away from extremism.  This certainly provoked a re-realization of where I am, and how high the stakes can be for what many seemed to find to be a boring lecture. How effective the council is was unclear, but they seem bent on adapting Jordan's uniqueness for the 20th century.  There were Jordanian students there who asked questions during the Q/A and hung out with us after, which was pretty cool and was another opportunity to practice arabic. 

I have to start thinking about my potential ISP topics.  I was originally thinking of looking at an extension of Jordan's labor law in 2006 to protect migrant domestic workers, and try to evaluate its success.  But now I'm also thinking of researching opposition groups in Jordan that are calling for representative reforms to get an idea of their philosophical inspirations. Are they inspired by western political theory, or because they are out of power and popular.  My last two ideas were if there are any efforts to promote sustainable development through legislation and building regulations, and an analysis of any anti-poverty policies that exists, such as the EITC in the US. If you have any thoughts on the matter, feel free to let me know.  I'm leading towards the second given the current situation. 

I want to upload some videos on here. But they take forever so for now, there'll just be a select few on facebook!

Settling In

So I was reminded of something pretty funny today.  My dad sent me an email and mentioned that NBC was broadcasting from Amman.  When we had gotten off the flight a couple of people were saying they saw Tom Brokaw, and that an NBC crew had been on board. My dad's email seems to confirm the rumors.  One of the other kids on the program was saying that he overheard some of the crew talking in line for visas saying something like, "I can't believe we have to go Jordan"...and here were about 30 or 40 college students who all voluntarily chose to go there.  That felt pretty cool. 

I've had a few taxi rides now, and each time has been pretty interesting.  So far I've only had to wait a couple of minutes for a cab each time.  My host dad actually drove me down to the main road near my neighborhood on my first day and talked to the cabbie.  I like that they're kind of protective sometimes, it shows that they really do care and are actually treating me like part of the family.  It's been fun seeing the different routes each driver takes.  Sometimes they'll  talk to me and ask why I'm in Jordan, where I'm from, how much arabic I know.  One time when the driver didn't know much english he'd have me write out words on his phone in english so he could try to read them. I've had a couple of them offer me cigarettes, it's too bad I don't smoke.

 I have shared a couple of laughs so far though with them. When we hit a yellow light and the driver was pissed, we shared our disdain for getting stuck at lights, especially this time when there are like maybe 4 in all of Amman (they're big on traffic circles... and NO ONE observes lane markers).  My favorite thing so far was when David Cutler, another kid from Bates on the program, and I were catching a ride to a mall. We were stopped at an intersection, and the driver says something in Arabic to us, and gets out of the car in the middle of road, and goes to the trunk.  He came back with a black trash bag and reaches in and hands us a bunch of dates, and we all shared them.  Dave and I had NO idea what he was doing, makes a great story though. 

I don't know how the taxi sharing will go, since I live really far from most people.  It's unfortunate because we're given 5JD a day for transportation and I'm averaging 2.7- 3 a trip.  Maybe I'll be able to work out picking up other students on the way, but that might end up being more trouble than the extra JD a day. 

I'm really settling in well at my home. I had mansef, the national dish of Jordan made with rice yogurt and goat, and it was absolutely delicious. After my first day of class I came home, and my host family's neighbors/relatives across the hall invited me in.  I met their children and one of their cousins, Fawzi, Faras, and Fawzi... it's less confusing than you'd think.  We hung out for a while and played some soccer on PS2.  They all added me on skype and facebook, which will be cool when I end up going home and want to work on my arabic.  The kids are crazy as always, but I really enjoy being around them for a little bit after each day.  Bassam, the oldest, was looking over my homework (practicing writing a few words in fus'ha, the written language), and would read the words back to me.  

We took a tour of the city in the morning on the first day of class. We drove through downtown in East Amman, which is the less affluent and older part. We drove by a really small demonstration of like 10 people, which was still pretty interesting though. Then we went to the Amman citadel, which are Roman ruins with an incredible view of the city.  There's also a bronze age cave there.  I've got some pictures of it below as well as a pic of a two-man arab drum and bagpipe corps. They started playing yankee doodle dandy when we walked by... I wonder if it was coincidence...

Classes so far have been pretty fun.  Arabic is really enjoyable but really challenging.  I don't think I've ever meant phrases like "my brain is about to explode" as much as I have in that class. We do an hour and a half of spoken arabic, and then an hour and a half of written arabic.  Spoken is pretty easy because it's just memorization and developing new phonetics.  Written arabic, however, is much more taxing.  First of all, arabic is written right to left.  Second of all, there are these vowel markers that will be attached above or below a letter, which I'm beginning to get a grasp of, but it'll definitely take some getting used to.  I've heard that using your non-dominant hand to search the web or to write is a mental workout.

We had our first lecture today, which was pretty cool.  Each day we have thematic seminar we have a different lecturer on the topic.  Today was about the political history of Jordan, which we read about before the program started.  The Dr. was an interesting speaker and covered some interesting history until around the six day war, and then he seemed to become more pre-occupied with Israel and American foreign policy than with Jordan. But, I have to keep in mind that the conflict plays a major role in Jordan's history, and Jordan shares a very large border with Jordan and now the PA.  

The lecture provided a pretty good insight into the dominant perspectives in the region academically towards the US and its role in the Middle East.  I agreed with most of his opinions, minus some of his labeling Israel as an aggressor in practically every conflict from 1948 to present.  Despite my agreeing with him much of the time I tried to play devil's advocate.  I brought up the neoconservative ideology of the Bush Administration and how the members shared a view of the projection of American force and influence and the spreading of representative American-style government being beneficial for both the region in question as well as the United States.  I asked him if it was possible that, as some pundits and journalists have suggested, American influence in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Bush administration's insistence on elections in Palestine may have increased Arab political efficacy as was suggested in Lebanon a few years ago, and as evidenced now in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen.  He seemed to share my view that forcing someone to have democracy is inherently undemocratic, and that the current uprisings are less a result of election envy, but rather a popular opposition to corruption in the face of economic hardship and political repression.  

The lecturer, a professor of history and political thought at University of Jordan, did seem to think that Tunisia and Egypt mark a new face for the history of the Middle East and the Arab world.  When asked about what would probably happen in Jordan, he seemed to think that between the monarchy's popularity, King Abdullah's professed desire for reform and his demands to his new government, that there likely wouldn't be any violent revolution like that seen in North Africa. A lot of the students seemed to dislike his one-sidedness and critique of American policy in the region, but I'd say we definitely learned a decent amount from his talk, if only for his representation of popular Arab academic thought. 

At home

I moved in with my host family on thursday afternoon.  They live in an apartment on the northern edge of Amman in a neighborhood called Hay Ibn 'Awf, which is part of an even bigger area called Al Jubayha.  The area seems pretty nice, and their apartment has a very homey feel.

I don't actually live in their apartment.  There's like a miniature apartment on the roof of the building, which is 5 stories tall that I have my own key to. It's sparsely furnished but it's definitely cool to have my own space to keep all of my stuff, and my own bathroom (although it's too cold to take a shower in it yet so I take it downstairs.) There's a bed and a table and an old tv.  The only downside right now is that it's still cold and rainy, so there's a bit of a draft.  The room has a gas space heater, which I shut off at night for safety reasons, which makes the room pretty chilly by morning, but fortunately I have heavy blankets.  I have to steal other wireless networks, which I'm usually able to do, but I'll probably get a 3g usb drive from the Orange store so I can get some more reliable access.  I hear they're like 15 JD which is about $20. 

My host parents are 32 and 33, Sami and Reign.  They have three really cute kids, Bassam who's 10, Natalie (or NaNa) 3 I believe, and Zeit who's all of 1 and a half.  They're pretty crazy and when Sami brought up my breakfast on Friday he asked how I slept, and when I asked him back he talked about how much noise the kids make.  Apparently Bassam already likes me the best out of the students they've housed before because I smile a lot and laugh and I'll toss a little rubber basketball with him. 

When I got there on thursday afternoon we had arabic coffee and cake. Whenever I'm down in their living room they offer me cake or sweets and tea, and sometimes fruit, which is part of the "Jordanian Hospitality" they told us about in orientation. One thing they also warned us about was the Jordanian conception of privacy, and how if you wanted to be alone in your room they'd think something is wrong and keep checking on you.  Sami emphasized, however, on the ride from SIT to his house that I can take my privacy, primarily because of the kids. So it'll take a little while to get used to what their expectations are for my being part of the family, when I should be downstairs so I don't seem detached, but also when I can leave them their privacy too.  It's something I can discuss with some of the SIT staff for some advice.

I haven't had a single class of Arabic here yet, but I've already learned a few words from the family. One of Reign's relatives is a neighbor of ours so when she's over she greets me in arabic expecting the right response, and quizzes me on foods that I've asked the translations for.  Bassam also likes to ask me to open my dictionary to letters and he'll look for words he likes, then I'll read them. Reign says he likes to look up curse words...

If the weather's nice later I want to take a walk around my neighborhood.  I need to learn how to find my way to and from where I can catch a cab for class tomorrow.  That'll be a little nerve racking since I don't think I actually live close enough to anyone so that we can taxi together, at least not that I know of yet. Apparently we're near the Saudi embassy and a Safeway, so if i can find those I should be good.  It'll be funny to see how many people end up late because their cabs took them on really round about routes to run up the fares.  

I'm looking forward to starting classes, we were given the readings on thursday for the weekend, and I'm almost done with one.  It was surprisingly dense, but interesting still.  I didn't expect to be reading anything written by philosophers, but the article quotes Derrida, and Foucalt.  I think I'll be trying to complete the english readings over the weekends as much as possible, cause they're pretty lengthy, and I'm going to have arabic to do during the week as well.

Drop Offs

So the weather the first two days included, believe it or not, RAIN.  It was kind of interesting though because for everyone in Jordan it was incredibly cold, but for most of the students it was way warmer and a nice change.  Orientation was long but pretty interesting. I'm definitely still feeling the time difference,  by mid-afternoon I'm and by 8 I'm ready for bed.

The area the SIT office is in is called Abdoun, which our driver the first night described as "Jordanian Hollywood," and is incredibly wealthy.  The traffic in Abdoun is pretty interesting because intermingled with all of the Korean made taxis are Range Rovers and Mercedes, I even saw a Prius.  We have a really nice villa with a kitchen and a ibrary with an awesome view.

The main classroom.

The Venezuelan Embassy

View from the library.

The area the school is in is where many of the embassies are located, including the Venezuelan embassy which is right next door, and the British embassy right across the street.  Each embassy has a Jordanian soldier in a small booth with an MP5 submachine gun out front.  The British embassy is like a fortress, and even has a technical- a pickup truck with a 30 caliber machine gun mounted in the bed- parked out front.  I'd say we probably live on the safest block in Amman.


We ate dinner in a cool restaurant in the old downtown district of Amman the second night, and a couple of former students still living in Jordan, one of whom was on a Fullbright, joined us.  The food was incredibly good, at lunch I think I had the best falafel I've ever had, and at dinner we were served a variety of salads, hummus, chicken, and a lamb dish in a sauce that tasted like marinara.  A lute player was performing traditional music, and singing which was definitely interesting and gave a nice atmosphere.

During orientation the next day a variety of topics were covered, including the protests that have been going on, the situation in the neighboring countries, and the calls for the resignation of the-now former- prime minister.  When we covered a slide on secret police, the academic director, Dr. Raed had to have another member of the staff take over, which was confusing at first.  Later he told us that his brother had been part of a protest that had taken place recently, and that he had disappeared.  Fortunately later that day we found out that he was seen by his family, and would be released later that day.

Also later we got word that the Jordanian King, Abdullah II, had fired all of his cabinet and the Prime Minister, replacing them with officials who are supposed to seek "genuine political and economic reform." The staff, particularly the AD, were pretty excited about this.  It will be interesting to see if the protests continue.

Yesterday we had our first drop offs.  Essentially we were tasked with finding 3 places throughout Amman and gathering information about the place.  We got our assignments at SIT and set off in groups of 3 or 4 to hale cabs.  I was in a group of 3, with Jeff and Sarah, neither of whom knew any Arabic. We grabbed a cab a few buildings down and told the driver to take us to Downtown.  We had to find Souq al-Bashour, a market and describe what was sold there. The driver knew where it was and dropped us right in front.  It was really crazy just being out in public with all the hustle and bustle of the commercial district, but it was also relieving to experience the public first hand.

We checked out the market, which had all kinds of stuff, including razors, knives, cloth, beads, and walking sticks, which jeff bought (we all had to buy a gift for someone else while out.  I got a girl named Molly a movie about heavy metal in Baghdad, because we had been talking about the music scenes in the arab world and underground punk and metal) We walked around forever trying to find this place called the Arab League cafe.  We asked a bunch of people, who were all incredibly helpful, and would call over other people if they didn't know what we were talking about, but no one had really heard of it.  Most of the people we talked to tried to direct us to another cafe, cafe Jaffra.  I'll have to go back and try it, since everyone suggested it.

We asked a number of people about our third place, Kishk Abu-Ali.  Finally when we asked in a hotel they said it's a newspaper stand just around the corner.  The stand sells a number of books in Arabic, including stuff by westerners, including Che Guevara. There were also pictures of the King and Queen buying newspapers there.

We walked around after that for awhile.  It was great to just finally be out on our own in a small group and not be so conspicuous. Obviously we got looks, but we also got a lot of welcomes.  We grabbed some shawarma (awwwesome) and then spent maybe a good 20 minutes trying to nab a cab.  Finally we did and had it take us back to Abdoun.

I'll be meeting my host family in a couple of hours, which is great because I can't wait to unpack. They're christian (like most of the boys' families, except for Paul who has a big time Imam for one of the biggest mosques in Amman), I'll have three host siblings, all young, my parents are young as well.  I'll have my own room and bathroom, and they have wireless internet, but they don't speak much English apparently, which will be tough at first but is probably a good thing.  ...looks like I'll be learning Arabic very quickly.