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.
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