Family Life and a Trip to the Top

     Jordanians watch television. CIEE talked about it in the home stay orientations, but I was not prepared for the devotion of my host family, and the entire country to the consumption of programs, movies, sports, and soaps from the Middle East, but when available, the United States. My family owns more that 200 movies. They have seen almost everything. Avatar, Up, It's Complicated, they've seen them all. Now as their guest I had the opportunity to join them. Luckily, my studies will allow me to escape, but in the first days with them I saw more American TV than in the last six months.

    My host family, like all the others that I have heard about is utterly devoted to ensuring that I want for nothing. The first night was a swift meeting and reconciliation of the expectations. I share a house, though not a family with another CIEE student, Darci Dwyer. She's a level below me in Arabic, but our experience complements well and we are able to help each other out. Tim Bettis, my roommate from the Manara Hotel is a few blocks away; we plan to share taxis on the way to the University.

    I live primarily with three elderly people: Munah, Rajai, and Samira. The apartment upstairs is currently being rented by a Lebanese family, but I will move into it on the 15th and vacate Rajai's room where I currently sleep on a small, saggy, but warm bed. The third floor is home to Munah's son Marwan and his family. They have three children: a teenage daughter, Dianh 16; a 13 year old son Odeh, and a 10 year old spark of a daughter named Leen.

    The entire family speaks some English. The kids have a remarkable grasp of it, though Odeh is a little hesitant. Most of the adults have either studied in or visited the States. The ability to communicate is a blessing, but I hope and expect that as I get better with Arabic, both sides will speak less English.

    Darci and I are both vegans. We had been told that the families Twal (loosely translates to tall) were aware of and were willing and able to accommodate this dietary rarity. Our first dinner, a pleasant fare with the now familiar pita, hummus, and vegetables in abundance, was the first time the Twals learned exactly what vegan is. Margaret, an earlier student in residence had apparently been a vegetarian, but the people around the table began to murmur anxiously as we explained that we don't eat meat, fish, or chicken; eggs, milk, yogurt, or cheese; and that I don't eat sweets and don't drink coffee, tea, or soft drinks.

    Over the next few days we reconciled as they became accustomed to empty our plates of foul (fava bean paste), hummus, and salad that we were not starving. Darci and I, in turn, figured out what to take from the briefings and what to learn from observation. Warnings about flushing toilet paper were not warranted, people touched food with their left "dirty" hands. Everyone wore slippers or socks, but didn't seem too concerned when a heel pointed in their direction.

    Friday, our first full day together was spent at home, or getting tours of the neighborhood with the family. We live close to the massive King Abdullah Mosque, the National Fine Arts Gallery, and two Christian churches whose bells compete with the call to prayer to puncture sleep and gather the faithful. We visited the Friday Souk (marketplace), a ragtag mash of clothing, electronics, trinkets, and produce all crushed into a square a two minutes walk from our home.

    Saturday, Darci got a text recruiting fellow CIEE students to meet up at the Ministry of Culture, some five miles away. We wanted to get some exercise and set out, despite the apparent concern of our families, to get a sense of the city. Amman is not pedestrian friendly. Like most aspects of life here, traffic works within a set of loosely defined and laxly obeyed defined rules and a more important set of social expectations and norms. Pedestrians, are near the bottom of the totem pole, bikes are non-existant, mopeds are a suprising rarity, and personal cars are simultaneously a luxury and a prolific presense in all corners of the city.

    Two hours later we reached the ministry only to receive a text alerting us that the rendevous point had shifted six or seven miles in the opposite direction, past our starting point, and well out of reach by foot. Hungry, we searched for my first restaurant meal but came up empty and caught a taxi through the congested maze towards the ancient citidel and historic downtown of Amman.

    We ate outside the Citadel at a place with roasting chickens outside and a sandwich bar inside. We clumsily worked our way upstairs to the dining area and fumbled our way through a menu before being presented with falafels, hummus, pita, and a plate of hot peppers. A filling, and much appreciated meal that came to about JD2 for the both of us.

    The sky was Grey and hazy as we climbed the stairs to the Citadel, a wind had come up, but there was only a little chill in the polluted air that swept past. We walked through streets of poor children, a first prolonged encounter with the millions of impoverished residents of Amman. The gates of the Citadel were open and we strode through the limestone ruins looking out on the city, small scenes and wide vistas showing the breadth and vivid scale of life in Amman.

    Darci called Scott, the guy that had prompted this expedition and we met outside a grand mausoleum before walking towards the exit. At this point we were accosted by the first of a trail of children that wanted their picture taken, and some money for their troubles if they could manage it. I spent the next half an our repeatedly bending down to snap and then show the shots to my eager audience. Their enthusiasm was both inspiring and at times disconcerting. By the end of it I was hoping only to escape without provoking a fight amongst the children or a harsh reproach from an adult.

    As we returned to street level, I made the first of my navigational errors and set us off walking, what should have been the reasonable distance to home but turned out to be the distant outskirts of the city. In our hours long trek, we passed the royal court and got thoroughly worn out. When we discovered our mistake it was a good fifteen minute cab ride to home, a journey not aided by the fact that I misremembered the name of our mosque and took us by King Hussein Mosque before finally setting foot near home. Exhausted, we thoroughly enjoyed dinner and got to bed early for the first day of classes on Sunday.

Dead Tired at the Salty Sea

    6:50 AM, breakfast, fill my plate with olives, hummus, pita, and a bowl of my first foul, a rich and satisfying mix of crushed fava beans, tomato, oil, and garlic. As startled peers poured warm milk over corn flakes and haltingly picked at eggs and sausage I went back for seconds, fearing the hours long wait before lunch. The typical meal schedule of Jordan is an early breakfast, lunch between 1:00 and 2:00, with dinner rarely arriving before 7:00.

    Our first day was to be a remarkable one. To the surprise of everyone, we were told the night before to be ready for our departure to the Dead Sea by 7:30. After a busy breakfast and an interminable wait on the bus, we were off by 8:00. I sat with Tim and across from Ashley, a new friend from Georgetown who had studied Arabic through her junior year and dreamed of a career chasing loose nukes with the FBI.

    Jordan is a muddled city, the product of continual innovation, little sustained planning, three million people, and maybe a million more temporary Palestinian and Iraqi refugees that are longer so temporary. It is both concentrated and sprawling. Formed in the bowl of seven great hills but now draping the sides of twenty. On the first of the coming days’ tour busses we wound our way south towards an outlook above the lowest point on Earth.

    The beige buildings of Amman gave way gradually to parched, scrubby hills, and then the green valleys of Jordan’s small Eden. This country of some six million inhabitants, more than half nestled in Amman alone, is blessed with only a tiny spread of arable land, a mere twenty percent of its arid expanses. The valley of the River Jordan is an emerald, overflowing with produce of all kinds: cucumbers, bananas, strawberries.

    Our ears popped as the road sunk below sea level and the scene opened on the waters of the Dead Sea. Our first day in Jordan, and our visit to one of its great beach resorts would paradoxically come on one of the coldest days of the year, a day of clouds and cool breezes, with temperatures in the 50s. The Dead Sea is warmer than Amman, but our initial destination, peering out on the gray scene at the distant Israeli (or Palestinian) shore was chilly.

    We began our first orientation lecture in the conference hall of a five star resort, an energizing mix of engagement and passion presented by the leader of CIEE Jordan, Alison Hodgkins. We broke for a tea, coffee, and fruit break, and got the chance to explore the resort’s museum and the overlook before returning to a rousing reminder that we are now here, and are no longer in America, with all that entails.

    Hungry, and dragging from the jet lag, we returned to the busses for a brief ride to the Dead Sea Spas Resort and a feast. Lunch completed by 3:00 we were invited to try the water before our return to Amman. While I and some remained on shore, a few bold souls frolicked in the buoyant body and draped themselves in its legendary mud. I struck up a conversation with a collection of Egyptian laborers and helped them as they cleared the beach and swept away the flotsam of tourism and construction.

    A return, a dinner, and a night, this time wrapped in my long underwear and socks brought my first day to a close. Snuggled within the hospitality of an entire country and the remarkable staff of CIEE, the long journey had begun and the first steps drew to a close.

A Landing and A Night

I awoke as we passed over the Bosporus. Disoriented after a day of airports and planes, I vaguely realized that it was now the 25^th, the day for my arrival in Jordan. Unable and not wanting to sleep anymore, I watched what I thought would be my last American movie for four months; I hoped that Up would fit into the final hour and a half before landing, a final touch of American culture before plunging into Amman, Arabic, and the world of Islam.

I landed to discover that my plane had born a clutch of CIEE students, all anxious as we stared around the arrival area to see no sign of the promised CIEE greeter. We clustered before customs and passport control. Within minutes I emerged into the terminal of Queen Rania Airport to find Ahmed, one of CIEE’s program coordinators with a smile and a cell phone ready to call home.

We poured into the waiting vans; our luggage stuffed into the trunk and took off towards our hotel. Lights and homes, billboards in English and Arabic, and cars from every corner of the world flashed past as we talked of pasts and hopes, our colleges and the longing of some for the comfort of Starbucks. Exhausted, not knowing what to expect, I chatted about my classes and listened to my seatmate brag of her connections to NGOs while the girl in front plotted escapades in Syria and Lebanon.

The Manara Hotel, surrounded by famous restaurants, major banks, and towering hotels waited with open doors. A hasty greeting from the CIEE staff before a brief dinner in the hotel restaurant, then a cell phone, a room, and a climb upstairs to room 230 and Tim Bettis, my new roommate. Limestone, the foundation, walls, and color of Amman is wonderful with heat, it absorbs everything, releasing it in the cool of the night. But with nothing to heat it, it merely drains the life from you as you collapse in bed and bury yourself under the short blankets that fail to cover both feet and shoulders.

I’ve heard that the mind is unable to find peaceful sleep amid strange surroundings. As I tossed and turned, awoke and dozed, I found myself, panicked, practicing and rehearsing my now pitiful-seeming Arabic in my mind.

Tomorrow I Fly

I've had a fabulous and lengthy winter break. I drove back to Beloit, WI from the University of Redlands in California with my brother, Jake and my father, Dan. We arrived in time for my 21st birthday. Since then I've read and listened to dozens of books, seen some great movies, shoveled the driveway, and played quite a few games of Monopoly. I didn't practice my Arabic as much as I would have liked to, but I have kept it in my head. I'll have plenty of time to practice in the coming weeks. I've almost completed my packing and will depart from Chicago through London to Amman tomorrow evening. My time in Jordan begins on the evening of the 25th.