Hi Folks,
Finally falling into a groove in Amman. I sleep in, I go out, and I feel pretty normal. I'm continuing to make great friends and have great inter-cultural conversations. On Thursday David, Muhammad, Maria, Shadha, and I went to a cafe called Doors. I found it pretty ironic because it is named after The Doors and has pictures of Jim Morrison everywhere, but it plays top 40 songs by Akon and such. I bet if I were to ask any person working at the cafe they would be hard pressed to name a single song by the doors. Apart from this, the experience was interesting and fun.
Shadha (as you may remember) is moving to Tennessee to be married in 2 months. She is Mariam's student and her English is poor. While we were ordering argila and drinks she whispered to David and I that she wanted us to take her to a bar this weekend, have a beer, and dance. This is HARAM for Muslims so David and I found it very funny. It seems that Shadha may have a bit of a crush on the two of us and it is unclear what her intentions are; however, we are not opposed to introducing her to Western culture and lifestyle. Multiple times now she has called me Jameel (beautiful) and told David and I that our long messy hair is pretty. I think that Shadha is going through a moral dilemma from the prospect of her new life in the states. Granted, I don’t know her well, but it is uncharacteristic of a (good) Muslim to ask to go dancing and drinking….We did not end up taking her out, maybe if she presses us harder we will. It is a strange situation because she asked us not to tell anyone else who was with us. I assume out of fear of looking bad in front of her Muslim acquaintances.
Mariam, on the other hand is a great girl, with very good values. She explained to David and I her 3 rules and wishes for her future husband and how she would never have a boyfriend that wasn't leading to husbandry (which is unfortunate because I find her adorable). She is taking David and I to Hashemite University this Thursday to hang out with all her sister’s friends there. We are both looking forward to this as a chance to make new Arab friends and spend more time with Mariam and Muhammad who are the coolest people ever. Shadha and Mariam define a duality of Muslim women that I am observing in Amman. Most girls wear the Hijab, but this really defines nothing about them. The hijab is cultural long before it is religious. You can find a Muslim girl wearing tight jeans that accentuate her curves, a tight shirt, and then a hijab on top. You can also find well dressed, but modest and respectable girls like Shadha and Huda that dress as conservative as their values.
This situation of two Muslim girls being so contradictory lead to a very interesting conversation with Muhammad (who is from a small African country I'd never heard of by Sudan and Somalia) about the contradictions of Arab society. David, Muhammad, and I hashed out for hours after the girls left what is cultural and what is religious in Arab societies, how they differ from country to country, and how this relates to being a sinner. At the end of the conversation all of us felt much closer and had a deep respect for one another although all our values differed we all saw each other as moral people. Muhammad explained that he has sinned in his life but he has not made the worst sins you can as a Muslim. Compared to David and I, Muhammad is a saint. David and I (coming from a much more liberal ideology) explained that even though we drink and partake in other activities considered to be sinful that we still have self-respect and believe that we are good people. From the whole conversation I perceived a motif of contradiction. I am sure I will use this word a hyperbolic amount of times in blogs to come because it is the over-arching theme of my experiences in Jordan. Muslim culture and modernity contradict, gender roles here contradict themselves, and people I meet constantly contradict themselves. Can a culturally Arab (and Muslim) society modernize? Muhammad seems to think that Jordan becomes less and less cultural and in relation moral, every 5 years and that the country is on a path to complete Westernization. I'm not sure how I feel about this quite yet. I will journal it personally and maybe come back to it by the end of my travels.
On Friday CIEE took a group of students who signed up and paid 20 JD for a biking trip "to the Dead Sea." I have to say it was pretty disappointing as we never even saw the Dead Sea. It was, however, nice to get some physical activity and see the Jordanian countryside. We passed many farmers and goat herders. At the end of the night we went to the tour group’s house and ate delicious beef and chicken Kebabs while drinking lemon mint smoothies (my new favorite drink). A young boy (about 3 or 4) provided entertainment as he literally speed between our legs on his mini bicycle (not tricycle!). So far, Arab hospitality has proven to far exceed anyone else in the world that I have met.
On Saturday CIEE took us on the Desert Castles trip, which was again a bit of a disappointment. Castles here as my friend David likes to put it "is a loose term." They were more like outposts, half of which were rebuilt and not very authentic. The best part, however, is that you can climb all over them, unlike in Western countries Jordan has very loose laws for historical sites. As you will see in some pictures I got to climb to the roof and snap some shots of friends down below. The country-side was barren as we speed along well-kept roads throughout East Jordan. At one point we stopped to snap a photo of the border to Iraq which we drove right by! Thank god there weren’t any Mujahedeen waiting for us…
Yesterday I went to a Café with Huda again. She is quickly becoming one of my best friends here. She told me that she has many colleagues and acquaintances but no best friends at University or in Jordan. She told me she has had trouble finding someone she can trust, but that she thinks I am a very honest person. She told me that she trusts me and that I am, right now, the friend she spends the most time with. We spent the time discussing love, my past relationships, and her one past relationship. We played games, and I told her I was going to buy her a chessboard and teach her how to play. Huda is a great friend because she always brings me a gift that she has put some thought in to. Yesterday she brought two small hard candies, one orange and one red, her favorite colors (which I remembered from our first coffee).
This weekend a new friend from CIEE and I decided to create a blog called “White Boys in Kafias” (the scarves worn in the Middle East (whose name I spelled terribly wrong)). I will post a link once it is up and running. We are meeting Tuesday night at a café downtown to build the sight. It should be pretty funny, because people like David and I (white boys) really struggle with pulling off the Kafia look.
Yesterday and today it rained a lot (yay!). However, this means everything is delayed 30 minutes. In Jordan people don’t know what to do in the rain. This is funny for me as a Vermonter. People literally throw 5 layers on, wear boots, a rain coat, and an umbrella. They run around like chickens with their heads cut off, and the taxis start freaking out. Traffic immediately stops in all directions and taxis decide not to pick anyone up. Although I like the cold weather now, I got to say I’m looking forward to a dryer climate where rain delays don’t exist. The only benefit is professors not showing up for class (like this morning).
That’s all for now.
Love,
Wylie of Arabia
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