Ahlan wasahlan

I was able to write a lot this time as I pretty much have nothing to do at this point. I hope these details aren’t extremely boring, but I think I’ll be happy to look back on them later.

So I don’t even remember what I was dreaming about, but after rushing through multiple airports and flights, I was definitely having the most comfortable and pleasant sleeping/dreaming experience that I’ve had in a long time when I was suddenly startled awake by the sound of a flight attendant preparing us for landing, which prompted me to look out the window and realize that I was about to be in a very very VERY different place. Suddenly I realized where I was and what was going on. This wasn’t New York, Seattle, or Europe, places I where I had existed on my own before. Nope. That place outside of that window, that enormously dark and sparsely lit desert landscape, that’s where I was going. I was going to be alone, I knew almost no one there. I didn’t even really know the language! It all hit me in those few seconds, as if someone was splashing me awake with a cold bucket of water. BOOM! Ahlan wasahlan! Welcome to Jordan!

I leaned back onto my seat, took a deep breath and from that point forward the fun would begin.

*

I collected my bags and found a man in the airport reception hall with a Fulbright sign. His name was Abo Yazan and he was a driver that the Fulbright commission hires for all of their pickups. We talked the whole way from the airport to Amman (which is 45 km). We would see cars parked along the side of the airport road. People had pulled over and set up chairs and small fires. Some of them had hookahs (I assumed there was alcohol as well). Abo Yazan was pointing out how safe Jordan was to allow for these people to drive out in the middle of nowhere, pull over and hang out until sunrise. Apparently it was a popular activity and a lot of people frequently decided to enjoy the good evening weather, especially on this Thursday night/Friday morning (the weekend here is Friday and Saturday, read: Muslims don’t care about Sunday).

On our way into the city, Abo Yazan gave me a rundown of some of the geography. He also pointed our some landmarks that would make it easy to get around, and he showed me a shopping area that was nearby my hotel. He also pointed out some students that were walking around at this hour. He said that he knew them all, since he had also picked them up from the airport for their programs (he mentioned the name of it, but I can’t recall it at the moment).

I checked into my hotel and the receptionist told me that breakfast was from 6:30 until 12:30. I thought that it sounded odd, but was too tired to question him, so I went upstairs, took a shower, called my parents and fell asleep.

*

I didn’t open my eyes again until I heard a knock at the door at about 10:30 a.m. It was housekeeping trying to clean my room and I asked them to come back. Since I was already awake, I figured why not just get dressed and hit up this long breakfast before taking a walk around town.

Unfortunately breakfast had ended at 10:30 a.m. Cool. Now what? I asked the receptionist where I could get some food, knowing that Friday was a holiday in the Middle East and that most stores are closed for a good portion of the day, if not the whole day. Of course he insisted that, “No no, of course, it is easy to find anything here,” after which I began to notice a trend among Jordanians of insisting that things are much easier than they really are.

I walked out the door of the hotel at 11:30 a.m. and headed toward that shopping area that Abo Yazan had pointed out. Of course, it being close to midday on a Friday, I was pretty much the only fool even outdoors to endure the heat and to look for an open place to eat at. But of course, there were only a few places open (a Burger King, a Turkish place and a hookah place) and there was next to no one on the street or in each restaurant. And when I say no one, I mean no one. I really did feel like the only person walking around town. I mean, I knew that stores closed for the noon prayer, especially on a Friday, but come on people! What is going on here?

I was pretty set on not going to the Burger King and thought that I might find some shewarma in the Turkish place (which seemed to have pictures of shewarma on the windows). So I walked in and noticed that there was no menu and there was just a guy behind the counter making falafel sandwiches. I tried to ask in Arabic for a shewarma, but failed miserably and resorted to English instead. The guy said “no English.” I then struggled to ask for a shewarma and he said in Arabic “Falafels only.” Since I had already embarrassed myself with my Arabic, and since I’m not allowed to eat fried food right now (long story). I walked out of the restaurant, discouraged, and headed to the Burger King.

I walked into the enormous Burger King (which had really nice TVs hanging from the ceiling playing Arabic music videos). The place was completely empty. Not a soul there, except for the 8 or so employees behind the counter. Again, I tried to speak in Arabic and ordered a “King Chicken Fillet.” That seemed to go over well, so I thought I’d go the extra mile and ask for a bottle of water. Unfortunately, I realized halfway into the sentence that I didn’t know how to say “bottle” in Arabic. He had no idea what I was saying (in college I learned how to speak Foussha, or formal/classical Arabic. No one really speaks it except the news and the Quran. I know huh? COOL! Anyway, most people speak their local dialects or ‘amiyyah, meaning colloquial). So I tried to signal as if I was talking about a bottle. I even made the screwing motion, like screwing a cap onto a bottle. No dice. He called the manager, who apparently spoke some English, but not really. That didn’t work out either. I settled on just the sandwich.

I sat there eating the sandwich alone in this huge Burger King. I felt pretty ridiculous. There was really absolutely no one out on the streets or anywhere. I looked up from time to time to find the staff staring at me, the weird American who only ordered a sandwich and nothing else.

When I finished I walked back to the hotel to inquire about where I could attend a mosque for the noon prayer, as I knew it was approaching. I almost thought another person had no idea what I was talking about, because he looked back at me with a puzzled look, but it turned out that he just wasn’t Muslim and he asked the doorman, who smiled as if to say “cool, he’s on my team,” then explained where to go.

It wasn’t far to the mosque and on my way there I decided to be Arab and walk through a construction site rather than going around the block. Other Arabs followed, so I assumed it was the normal shortcut and didn’t feel like a total jerk. The mosque was undergoing some expansion construction, but it was still cool. Prayer in Jordan, as it is in most of the Muslim world, feels like a powerfully different and communal performance when compared to the same act in the US. At the end of the opening chapter of each portion of the prayer, the entire male portion of the congregation will typically pronounce an “Ameen,” which, in Jordan, is a thunderous, reverberating and definitely noteworthy “Ameen.” This only drives me to further conclude that Muslims in the Subcontinent are lame, since they merely whisper or murmur their Ameens, which is really kind of lame. Plus, you feel like a complete douchebag screaming out Ameen all by your lonesome whenever you go there. Weirdos…

Anyway, back to Jordan. Since I figured that things would be closed for most of the day and that people wouldn’t really be out, I asked about a good shopping area to check out, where I could run into people and walk around. I was told of a place and that I should go around 5 p.m., so I decided to head to my room and wait out the heat by watching Al Jazeera and taking a nap.

Al Jazeera, I must say, is probably the coolest thing that I have seen in a long time. It is definitely the most distinguishable of all of the TV networks in the Middle East and I can easily imagine it to be a great source of pride for all Arabs. It’s intro graphics and theme music are unrivaled and portray the image of an edgy, serious and totally legit network. Honestly, I know that I’ve only been here one day and that I’ve never really considered working in broadcast journalism, but Al Jazeera is badass and for sure one-ups all American broadcast news with it’s courageous editorial decisions. Although some of the reporting quality and stories are a little lacking when compared to the US, I would for sure consider trying to work there.

When my wake-up call came at 4:30 I was having trouble staying awake. The nap may have been a bad idea. I struggle through the next hour trying to get myself ready to head out of the hotel. I decided to walk around looking for a power adapter, seeing as I had somehow bought the wrong one before leaving from LA. The weather was much more bearable now and I was no longer the only person on the streets, although it wasn’t too happening in the area right near my hotel.

When I made my way back to the receptionist desk, they told me to go to a different place than where the previous employee had suggested, but I agreed and hopped in a taxi on my way to Meca Mall.

On my way to the mall, I had had enough. I figured that this Arabic speaking thing had to work and that it was going to work this time. I decided to start by prefacing each conversation with a questions in foussha: “Do you speak foussha?”

I asked the taxi driver and he said yes. We then talked the whole way to the mall and I made conversation that I didn’t even know that I could make. We talked about him and how his family was from Palestine, we talked about Jordan, how I had just arrived, what I had done, which mosque I went to for prayer, how I liked everything, etc. Although at one point in the conversation he started asking me about “bitra” and I had no Idea what he was talking about. I told him so and he kept saying “bitra, bitra…” I told him sorry and that I didn’t understand. A minute later, after sitting there and thinking about it, I realized that “bitra” was “Petra.” I had a laugh over that one, then we continued talking.

I still felt limited, of course, but I definitely had some renewed confidence. It seemed to be to a normal conversation that I might have had in English, which made me happy inside. I wasn’t as incapable as I had previously thought!

I walked out of the cab feeling great and headed toward the mall entrance. As I walked in, only one thing crossed my mind “Daaamn! Meca Mall is poppin!!!” Not only was the mall enormous and full of people, there were all kinds of people there and, as many people had told me before, I began to witness that Jordan is a pretty liberal place, at in comparison with the rest of the Middle East.

Most of my observations were coming from the way people dressed and acted. Maybe this happened to be a more upscale and westernized mall, but at least in this place everyone basically looked and dressed as if they had been plucked right out of LA. Of course there were some niqaabis and plenty of hijaabis, who ranged from conservatively dressed to liberal, of course, as well as plenty of girls wearing basically whatever they wanted. I saw a lot of tank tops and a few skirts and everything seemed to be basically the same fashion as in the US, at least at this mall.

The guys were pretty liberal too, a lot of them were wearing shorts and t-shirts and there was a lot of western style. Of course there were also the kafiyyahs and gulfers, who were sipping on their starbucks while turning prayer beads in their hands.

Also shocking about this mall were the stores. I didn’t expect to see so many familiar names, including one of my favorites: Quicksilver? Yeah, who woulda thunk it? There was a Forever 21 there (yes, it was huge). There was a Mango store (had to throw that in there for my trendy mom) an Aldo store, a United Colors of Benneton, Adidas, and these are only the ones that I can remember.

I walked into a movie/music store to check out what they had. It seemed like a pretty liberal selection, although modest from what I saw. I can’t remember any specific titles that I was shocked to see, besides “Dick,” which I think was an American political comedy, but I’m not sure.

Also on display, of course was Paradise Now. I also checked out the Arabic children’s section, since I was thinking of maybe watching some of the kids cartoons to maybe help me learn more. I didn’t get to look around too much though because all of sudden the music in the store shut off and I was a little confused as to why. I thought I heard the call to prayer, so I walked out of the store and yes, I was right. The call to prayer plays on the mall’s PA system and when it does, the stores shut off their music.

I left looking for a place to pray and tried to ask around. Everyone in this mall, however, spoke in English and I wasn’t really able to attempt any Arabic in the mall as most of the people would notice me mumbling to myself in English when searching for a word and would jump to an English response. Thus, many of the remaining mall conversations, about cell phone details and food, were quickly transformed into English from which I was unable to turn the other speaker back to Arabic each time.

I made my way to the in-mall prayer area, cleaned myself in an adjacent bathroom and prayed. I noticed a lot of women crowded outside the prayer area, but none inside of it as there were men filling the whole thing. I thought they were maybe waiting to pray after the men, but I started to realize that they were only waiting for the men whom they were with to finish praying and then would leave with them (also there were no women at the mosque for Friday prayers, a common occurance in the US and throughout the Muslim world as women aren’t required to attend Friday prayers and also as no mosques really prepare for them to do so).

The mall was really nice, with escalators and moving walkways everywhere. It looked like everything was granite (I think that’s the stone, it’s like marble, but it’s gray?) Yeah, all of the walls, floors, pillars, all granite. I asked around about phones some more as I was trying to get a feel for prices and models available before our orientation begins (apparently we’re going to get a discounted offer, but I doubt it’ll be anything special at all).

I also finally got around to eating dinner and I made some conversation with the cashier, who explained how to say bottle.

In the taxi on the way back from the mall, I went for more conversation and was pleasantly met with great success. I still feel like my Arabic sucks, but I understood everything he was saying and was able to communicate pretty well. We talked for a long time and about a variety of topics. He told me my foussha was pretty good, but I shrugged off the compliment as more of an exclamation of surprise that I could communicate at all, rather than a genuine impression of my Arabic skill, which really has a long way to go.

I made it back to the hotel feeling confident in my Arabic again, then went to a market to buy some water and promptly forgot how to say bottle.