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.