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.