Starting to map it out

Always say hello and goodbye to store owners. No wearing shorts. Don’t look at random girls in the eye, especially not on the street. Close cab doors gently or risk being yelled at, or worse, getting the oft-used and universal Arab signal for anger and impatience and pretty much anything else (an upturned hand with the thumb touching the other four fingers). Never decline the tea or coffee when offered, ever. When meeting or being introduced to a group of people shake every person’s hand in the group, no matter how big or small. When meeting kids, kiss them on the cheek. Guys kissing each other on the cheek are normal, even if they kiss each other three times on the same cheek (it’s kind of like a handshake variation). Guys with interlocked arms are also normal. It’s not weird if everyone calls you habibi.

***

I’ve found it! I’ve found the King Taco/53rd&6th of Amman, Jordan!!

Those of you who know my eating tendencies know that I’ve had this habit of becoming addicted to food from dumpy, unatttractive and seemingly average eateries, such as a street cart on the corner of 53rd Street and 6th Ave in Manhattan, or a taco chain anchored in East L.A, called King Taco. While some people might label these joints as low-class, mediocre health-hazards, I’ve been one of the many to enjoy their unique and almost mechanically consistent blend of ingredients that regularly produce sparkles of satisfaction on my taste buds

My first discovery of such a place in Jordan happened as kind of an afterthought and began with a mission to buy cheap movies.

We were in the “balad,” an abbreviation of “wasatt-al-balad” or simply, “downtown,” shopping for DVDs, when Albert (the Korean-American Shia Muslim—yeah, he’s probably the only one in the world) mentioned that he had heard of this popular shawerma place nearby at the second circle. Since we had planned to buy some movies (not the most legal kind) and then head to a friend’s apartment at the first circle to watch “The devil wears prada” (hey, we were going for the company, ok?!) we thought that we might be able to pull off a visit to the shawerma place before the movie, so we started heading up the hill toward the first circle in the hopes of catching a cab to this Shawerma place.

Just to give you an idea of how this city works, Amman is a city built on rolling hills of rock, which makes it so that everything is either at the top of a hill or at the bottom of a hill. This can make it a rather difficult place to be a pedestrian on a hot summer day.

It’s also really densely developed and every building seems to be made of this tan-colored stone, so that when you look out over the city, you get this spectacular view of a sea of rolling tan-colored buildings in various shapes and sizes.

A lot of the geography and directions work with landmarks (street names are almost nonexistent here). Some of the most commonly used landmarks are roundabouts, or circles, many of which are located along one thoroughfare and so are numbered from one to eight (the first circle being the closest to downtown).

The downtown area, by the way, might not fit your typical perception of a “downtown.” It’s basically an old and densely developed bazaar squeezed in between a few hills. This makes it so that when you look around you get the impression that you’re in the middle of a rising see of small shops and restaurants, which sell a range of items from jewelry, clothing, shoes, movies and electronics, to falafels, Arab deserts, shawerma, etc. It’s pretty extensive and can turn into a maze of shops, people and lights, especially at night.

Anyway, we were heading to “Cafeteria Reem” and when we got there, I immediately felt the similarities to my New York and L.A. addictions: This apparent shawerma hot-spot was nothing more than a red shack located on the edge of the second circle. The store-front couldn’t have been wider than 10 feet across and there was a red steel railing separating the cooking area behind it, from the jostling crowd of customers on the sidewalk. It was a simple shawerma stand, with a cashier that took your order from a limited menu, which included only regular shawerma, double shawerma, ½ kilo of shawerma, 1 kilo of shawerma and a plate of shawerma.

First we realized that the huge crowd of people was mostly waiting for their orders to be made, so we pushed our way through to the cashier and ordered. When we got our receipt, we saw that our number was 11 and that number 30-something had just been called. We freaked out until we realized that for some reason they had decided to reset the numbers after number 49, not 99. Relieved, we stood there with the crowd of men (there weren’t any women in sight) watching the assembly line of workers assembling the sandwiches. One was efficiently slicing meat off of the largest, most tender and juicy rotating shawerma bit that I’ve ever seen. The others were opening pieces of bread, spreading tahini sauce on it, throwing in the meat and the grilled tomatoes and onions, then wrapping each sandwich.

Some people had ordered bags of 20 or more sandwiches. We had only bought one each. When we got our order and dug-in, our reactions were unanimous. It was definitely the most tender, tasty and balanced shawerma sandwich that we had all had. Ever. If there’s a place that’ll top this in Amman, I’m not leaving.

***

Sitting in my room at 4:30 in the afternoon, I suddenly heard the sound of a fog-horn in three bursts and thought of one thing: USC football practice?

***

Before I left for Jordan I had met a man from Amman named Saed. Saed’s wife, Amani, had worked in my dad’s office in the past and was now living in Amman and Saed had told me to call him once I arrived in Jordan. Unfortunately I lost his phone number in the process of transitioning from USC to Santa Monica to Jordan, and wasn’t able to get it until earlier this week. When I finally spoke with Saed, he insisted on meeting up.

What I didn’t know was that he would be coming to meet me at my apartment and called me that evening asking for directions to my place. I told him that I was near Sports City, but when he called me from there, I had no other way of explaining how to get to my apartment then by using the landmarks along the route that I usually take on foot (we don’t really have street names here… yeah…).

“Do you know the Aliyah restaurant next to sports city? And do you know the Al-Arz hotel? OK, turn there,” I said. He seemed to have an idea of where I was talking about, so I went on. “You’ll go past some shops and then you’ll see a park on your left. After the park, make a left, then an immediate right. Go straight for a while until you get to the top of a hill, where you’ll see an empty lot and a pharmacy on your left. Make a left there and go to the bottom of that hill and then halfway up the next hill.”

Yeah, that’s how I have to describe directions to my place. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work and Saed seemed to have gotten lost somewhere around the park. He ended up getting out of the car and asking someone how to get to Hay Al-Kharabsheh, then was back on his way and eventually found me, standing in the middle of a dark street and frantically waving to him.

When Saed was still on his way to my apartment, I kind of freaked out. I changed clothes, to be a little more presentable, especially in case he wanted to go somewhere and I started nervously cleaning. Faheem (the Malaysian who kind of resembles the Chinese guy from Ocean’s Eleven) helped out by sweeping most of the dust into a hidden corner of the room and clearing out some of the mess from our living room.

I brought Saed up to the apartment, nervously remarking that it wasn’t much, but that I was happy. He came in and seemed satisfied, meeting each of the five people in the apartment at the time (and shaking all of their hands, of course). He took a quick look around the living room, then came and checked out my room and the kitchen. I suddenly felt really comfortable, like Saed was trying to look out for me and making sure that the apartment had everything that I needed and that I wasn’t staying at a bad place. He said that he thought things were good and he was happy that I had some American roommates so that I wasn’t too lonely.

Then he said “let’s go,” and told me that he was going to take me to his house. I followed him out the door and we were on our way. On the ride there, Saed was pointing out some places in my neighborhood that might be useful for me in case I needed, meet, groceries, etc. He was also showing me landmarks on the way to his home, which was close to the University of Jordan.

Saed in Amani lived in a really nice, new building and when he opened the door to his home, his two young kids—Bassam, 4, and Razan, 3—were bouncing around the living room, screaming and causing chaos. I met Amani and they showed me into the living room, where I would sit with them talking for the next three hours.

They were really nice people and asked me a lot about what I had done in Amman so far and what I would be doing throughout the course of my stay. They gave me a lot of advice and told me about places that I should go and things that I should do. It was really great to have some Jordanian friends to consult about a variety of things and they were very welcoming and stressed that they were happy to be around to help me.

At one point, I told them that I wished I had a TV or a radio to be able to listen to more Arabic and Arabic music.

“Oh, most phones have radio on them,” Amani said, asking to see my phone and insisting that it most likely had the feature.

“Uh, haha, no, I don’t think mine does, it’s a pretty simple phone,” I said, knowing that my phone was a little embarrassing by Jordanian standards. But they both insisted that it probably had radio, eventually pressuring me into showing them my dinky Nokia.

“Oh,” Amani said, unimpressed, then proceeded to show me her’s and Saed’s phones, which were both better than any phones that I had seen so far. They plugged in headphones and showed me the radio feature, encouraging me to listen to the crystal clear sounds of current Arab pop hits. I was impressed and envious.

They then started telling me that I had to get a TV in my apartment, to help with language, and said that it was especially important during Ramadan, when most families spend hours watching Ramadan TV specials, which are basically the big TV events of the year (entire lineups are planned and produced throughout the year, just to be aired for the enormous Ramadan audiences). They told me the whole process would be pretty cheap, and I resolved to get a TV with satellite service the next day.

We continued talking for the rest of the evening and I really enjoying their company and their excitement at introducing me to new Jordanian things. They had, of course, offered me tea, which I only felt comfortable declining because Amani was pretty western, having lived in the US and being a US citizen herself. She was satisfied in substituting the tea with juice. They also had me try some sandwiches with different types of Arab cheeses, which were delicious. Amani said that American cheeses were pretty lame by comparison and said that she had struggled to find anything good during her time in the states. I had to agree with her because the cheeses she had offered were fantastic.

When I was on my way out Amani told me about some TV shows that I should try to watch once I got my TV and said she’d call me when she finds out which serials are best ones of the season.

***

Amman is a dusty place. It’s so dusty that if I leave my laptop open and near a window, when I come back to it a new layer of dust will have settled onto my keyboard.

***

The next day I found myself at the Carrefour again and a lot of the other guys had come also, to do some pre-Ramadan shopping. I was planning on mostly just checking out prices on TVs and satellite set-ups, especially since I had only called the Qasid housing person that morning to ask for permission to set things up and he had yet to give me the OK.

When I was inspecting TVs, I settled on a cool 21-inch flat-front model that was only 79 JD (the cheapest TV available was 75 JD, so I was pretty content with the price). Then I started looking into satellite receivers and services. I asked a few Carrefour salesmen, who were naming all sorts of insane prices for the receivers and access cards. They also said that they didn’t sell dishes and that I would have to call another place for that to get installed. Things seemed to be adding up to almost 200 JD for just the receiver, access card and satellite installation, so I walked away from that section of the store and called Amani.

I told her that I was a little confused about the items that they were asking me to pay for and I didn’t know what I really needed an what I didn’t. She told me she’d call someone and call me back. A few minutes later my phone rang and Amani told me not to worry, “Just go home,” she said, explaining that she had made a call to a friend and that all I needed was a TV, the rest of the system (the satellite receiver, access card and dish) would all be installed today and it would cost me a total of 60 JD. And that’s it. No monthly fee for service or anything. I was pretty surprised. Apparently Saed’s uncle used to be in the satellite business and so Amani just asked them to install the same thing for me that she had in her own house.

I ended up calling the Qasid housing guy and getting permission for the installation, then I headed home with the TV. I was a little surprised that Amani said that the installation would happen that night, especially being the night before the first fast of Ramadan. Also, Arabs are notorious for moving slowing on things like installation or internet activation (most of my Fulbright friends haven’t gotten internet hooked up at their apartments yet and are being told not to expect the installation until after Ramadan). But somehow, some way, Amani and Saed got someone to show up at my apartment and I had the TV and satellite up and running that night.

I called Amani and Saed and thanked them profusely. It was great to have the TV and we were now enjoying Al Jazeera and all kinds of other Arabic channels, including music and sports (that night, we watched two Euro 2008 soccer qualifying matches on Al Jazeera sports channels).

My roommates were surprised that everything got finished that quickly and cheaply and so was I. I guess sometimes it comes down to connections, especially here in the Arab world, and I was glad to have some Jordanian friends who seemed happy to help me out.