Where did they go?

I sometimes go for days without seeing a single woman. If I didn’t leave my neighborhood, or visit other, more westernized parts of Amman, I might even forget that women exist here.

It’s not that I don’t see any women at all in my neighborhood. I guess I might see a few here and there, but if there are any who happen to be outside of their homes they’ll be pretty much covered from head to toe and you wont even notice them as being anything feminine at all. Also, I’m always surrounded by men. I live with three other guys and our apartment is kind of the hangout of our student neighborhood in Kharabsheh, so there are always six to eight males at our apartment, just hanging out.

Almost all of my daily interactions are with men. I really only ask men questions or enter into discussion on the street with men. The weirdest thing is that I wont even realize that women have disappeared from my daily life.

It has almost gotten to the point that when I see a Jordanian woman, not even in extremely western/liberal clothing, but perhaps maybe dressed a little more effeminately, I am so taken aback by her existence that I’m almost disoriented and I feel like I’m in a different place altogether. It doesn’t feel like the Jordan that I’ve become accustomed to living in lately and I experience culture shock almost every time.

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So it may almost seem fitting, given my lack of experiences with women, that when I started my Arabic classes at Qasid a few days ago I ended up being the only male in a class of seven people.

At the same time though, all of the women in my class are white Americans, so it doesn’t really take away from the shock of seeing that Arab women exist.

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About five days ago I had called the Jordan Times to inquire about writing opportunities there. I had been trying to look around for a way to keep my journalism skills alive during this whole Arabic education mess, so the Jordan Times seemed like a good place to inquire. A friend of mine had already spoken with them and was planning on starting an internship there soon, so I figured that I had a shot.

When I called them, I asked to speak with the editor, as I had been advised to do by a couple of people here. I was received by a secretary who said that I had to send an email with my resume attached to his email address. When I asked again if I might be able to speak to him, she gave me a sassy “no.”

I sent the email, but it bounced back, so I called again asking for her to repeat the address. “Actually,” she said. “Send it to this address,” and she proceeded to give me the generic email address for the entire newspaper. I was a little discouraged, but I sent the email anyway, not expecting to hear back and resolving to try again at calling the office in a few days.

Two days later I got a call from the Jordan Times. It was the same lady and she nicely explaining that the editor wanted to meet with me the next day. I happily agreed and, to make a long story short, I’ll be starting at the Jordan Times on Saturday (tomorrow).

Unfortunately, this is an unpaid internship gig (Fulbrighters aren’t supposed to have paying jobs and this editor was quick to tell me that he was aware of the rule) but I figure it’s a good chance to mix regularly with some Jordanians and get my journalism on while doing my Arabic, et al.

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Some of my friends have been asking me about how life has been like during Ramadan in a Muslim country. For those of you who don’t know, some majority-Muslim countries are famous for being really festive during Ramadan, most notably Pakistan and Egypt. Jordan has been really great during Ramadan as well. I’ve noticed a lot of cool perks for being in a majority-Muslim country, but by comparison to the others, Jordan is much more mellow and low-key. There aren’t crazy celebrations in the streets, or people running all over the place at sunset to hand out dates, or craziness all night long. The benefits here are subtle, but quite impressive when realized.

One of the biggest differences of being here during Ramadan is the holiday feeling. Islam is the dominant religion here, so everyone fasts and everything is geared toward Ramadan. While in the US the Christian and Jewish holiday seasons are what a lot of business is based on, here it’s Ramadan. Entire industries rely on Ramadan shopping and trends for success. The TV industry works all year round to create Ramadan specials that run every night on TV, broken up by loads of advertisements for foods, snacks, and other goods with special Ramadan offers or promotions.

While in the US businesses market their goods to be sold in high quantities during the December holidays, here it’s all about what businesses can package and market for the entire month of Ramadan. It’s why Saudi Arabia’s third most important export is dates and why plastic floor mats have been created and produced (used to cover the floors of mosques while visitors break their fasts over them before praying). It’s why new juices and deserts are launched and why telephone companies try to monopolize captive Ramadan audiences with emotional ads and special offers.

The next coolest perk is the atmosphere of unity. I mentioned that everyone fasts and because of that, everyone’s going through the same experiences. Grocery stores are packed in the late afternoon as everyone’s rushing to grab their last items for iftar. As you walk into the mosque during the sunset call to prayer, young boys are rushing to hand everyone dates and juice, milk or water. And when you go to the mosque for taraweeh at night, it’s always full to capacity.

The Quranic recitation here in the Middle East is also especially powerful and when you’re going through these extra nightly Ramadan prayers with everyone else in your community, it makes the experience even more powerful and special.

In the US it was different. People didn’t even know what fasting was or why I was fasting. Sometimes in the US you could easily forget that it was Ramadan if you weren’t surrounded by a strong Muslim community. Here, Ramadan is special for everyone and it’s quite a difference indeed.

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It’s a little weird that when we turn on the TV and there’s news out of Lebanon or Iraq, that the places and the people look just like they do here. That might seem obvious, but it’s still kind of crazy that I am in basically the same place. For example, some of the guys watched Three Kings and Syriana recently and when I would see the TV and see how things were being portrayed in these movies I realized how authentic they were and how similar the characters, situations, clothes and settings were to what I see every day.