Welcome to Jordan

So my time in Jordan has come and now it is about to go.  I fly out the early morning of the 23^rd of December.  After three planes later I should be in Phoenix that same day just later on that evening.  So even though I am across the world, with all the time changes I will be going with I won’t lose a single day.  I have learned a lot about the Middle East and in specifically the country of Jordan.  Plus my Arabic language has definitely improved since the beginning of the semester.  It has been a neat experience to come to a different culture and live in a different place than America for a longer period of time.  There are something’s that I will miss and others that will be easy to forget.  One thing that is going to be missed is the chaotic driving.  Sure it does seem like a dangerous mess but in reality it is pretty neat to not have complete order on the roadways.  In America there are lanes that cars need to stay in while here there is no need to paint lines because they would never be followed.  Even though it is the most dangerous thing in Jordan it is neat to see how chaos can actually be a relief instead of everyone driving the same.  Another thing I will miss that is particular to the Middle East is the call to prayer.  For those who do not know this occurs five times a day and when this happens, Muslims set some time aside to pray.  This call to prayer is done in Arabic (classical Arabic that is harder to understand because only used in old religious texts), but it does not seem like someone is talking but instead it is a melodic speech.  It is neat to hear each time it happens.  Plus connected to this is one of the radio stations that a lot of the taxis have playing is the Qur’an.  This radio station does read the Qur’an every day, but also during the call to prayer it does play this too.  Both of these are done in a rhythmic tone that is real neat to hear, and I will not be able to hear that in the United States.  Another thing that will be missed is the Arab hospitality.  Even though I have been here for some months now and I am leaving in a couple days I will still be welcomed to Jordan (hence the title of this post) in the next couple of days.  Plus with this hospitality come food and other items being bought even if I am a stranger to that person.  Overall the generous people will be missed because in America this hospitality is not the same.  Some items that I will not miss from Jordan and the Middle East is the constant noise of horns going off.  This does relate to the chaotic traffic which I did like earlier, but the constant use of the horn is quite annoying.  Another thing that won’t be missed is no independence.  This has to do with the host family knowing where I am constantly and not having to check in with someone all the time.  In America freedom and independence is assumed after a certain age but here in the Middle East does not happen completely.  Plus the ability to cook and eat when I want to eat instead of waiting for another person to cook the food.

These have been some things that I will miss and not miss from the Middle East and specifically Jordan.  There are more from both sections but I don’t want to make an exhaustive list.  Another thing that I will miss from this semester is the friends that I have befriended.  These friends do study in America too, but are located all over the United States.  I will keep in contact with some of these people because of the friendships we have built in this short amount of time, but there will be others that I will lose touch with eventually.  Overall my fellow students that I have met have been real neat to get to know them.  This semester did have its ups and downs but I could always count on some friends to be there if need be.

So my next post will be from the United States إن شاء الله  I will most likely put some more pictures from Jordan and most likely do a little bit of a summary.  Hopefully everyone enjoys there holidays and have a good next year.  Will write later after the holidays when I have time إن شاء الله. 

After the Arab Spring

Before coming to the Middle East I was asked multiple questions that were related to safety within the region.  A very common one was in regards to aren't you afraid of getting caught up in a protest or a revolution?  At this time people did have in their minds the current events that had been happening in Egypt and Tunisia.  It is very true that the Middle East and Arabs have been having more protests and revolutions this year.  It is commonly known as the Arab Spring and even now in December it is still unclear of what the future holds for these particular places.  Tunisia has successfully held there first free elections where they elected an individual who is a part of an Islamic party.  This new leader in Tunisia hopes to instill ideas of " Islamist and pro-democracy, modern, open and consensual" (article from the Guardian).  Than there is Egypt who has started the process of elections after some violent clashes happened in Tehrar Square.  These clashes were in regards to the military trying to put off the elections for a greater period of time, and obviously the people did not agree with this concept.  After the death of Gadhaffi, Libya is ending its bloody revolution and they will eventually seek new fair leaders.  Plus currently in Syria the "revolution" gets bloodier each and every day.  Eventually President Assad will be forcefully removed, but most likely not until after many more deaths.

Than there is Jordan that has been peaceful.  Jordan's neigboors always seem to be in some kind of revolution or call for change but Jordan is not.  While here I have heard about some protests and demonstrations that have happened.  This is mainly because the study abroad program sends mass texts to everyone letting us know what is going on and to avoid the area.  On the campus itself I did witness one protest but it was in regards to the university government elections.  Even though Jordan has remained peacefull it is very interesting to be living in this region during this time period.  Back home I study Criminal Justice and Criminology and so I don't get much exposure to these international topics.  While here though my classes did have me looking into these topics, and so in the future for many years to come the Middle East will be a hot topic. 

Two of my Arabic finals were today and the rest of this week I have two more parts to the Arabic finals.  Area studies classes will be wrapping up this week and I simply have one presentation in one of these classes.  It seems to be getting colder and colder each day so when I make it back home to Arizona it will be a relief.  Will write later when I have time.  إن شاء الله     

Independence

Independence.  Here in the Middle East and more specifically in Jordan, young people don’t have independence.  This is seen by the fact that children from ages eighteen to forty are still living at home.  Not only are they living at home, but also if they are male than they never cook or do that much household chores.  This concept is a cultural concept that has been followed throughout the years.  When I tell people that I don’t live at home with my parents and not even in the same town, they do think this is quite strange.  For someone here to gain independence and move away from home they need to get married.  Sometimes when that happens they still live in a bottom floor of the same house or same building structure.  This has to do with how important the family is to Middle Easterners.  Plus for a girl it is harder for her to gain independence because once the sun does go down that means that girls should be home and should not have any business outside the house.  So even though it is not against the law to be out at night the social customs do prohibit girls from being out to much longer after the sun goes down.      

            This past weekend I went to Aqaba and was able to scuba dive a couple more times.  It was just neat to get out of the cold of Amman and go down to Aqaba where it is significantly warmer.  Diving this time I did see lots of fishes, a giant eel (as fat as my leg and long too), pufferfish puffed up, scorpion fish, a big octopus trying to hide in its home, anemone fishes, and many more.  Overall it was a real good trip. 

            This week is the last week of teaching for Arabic classes and starting on Sunday we start Arabic finals.  Those finish up on Thursday after taking the post proficiency test (which figures out how much we learned this whole semester).  Than the week after that I have my two area studies finals.  So this weekend I will most likely stay in Amman or only take a half day a trip somewhere because I will be studying.  Mumkin the last weekend before area studies finals I will take one last trip.  Not exactly sure on that trip for sure or if I will even be going at all.  I will write latter when I have time.  إن شاء الله

      

Some Pictures

 Painting in Ajloun

 Sunset at Dead Sea

 Inside one of the Mosques

 People heading to pray at one of the mosques we visited

 One of the Shrines

 1 km away from Israel

 Mosque with minaret

 Mosque

 Minbar in one of the mosques.  This is where the Imam preaches from during Friday services.

 Red Sea

 small scorpion fish out in the open

 Can you find the parrotfish?

 Assortment of fishes

 Assortment of fishes

Class Trip

Marhabba.  Keif hik?  Classes are starting to wind down.  This last friday I went on a field trip for my Islam in the Modern Context class.  We started out in a town named Salt, about a thirty minute drive from university with no traffic.  There we visited two different mosques that also did have shrines for prophets. At the first mosque the shrine was of Joshua.  After Salt we proceeded to go into the Jordan valley.  The Jordan Valley is where a lot of the crops, citrus, and green areas of Jordan is located.  The scenery was very neat and it was a good change from the city.  Plus down in the valley the weather is warmer and so it was not cold.  We ended up visiting five different mosques and shrines for the whole day.  The five shrines were of individuals that are important to Islam, but at the same time some of these characters can be found in the bible (such as Joshua).  Each mosque had a different feel and different decorations than each of the previous mosques, but overall there were some similarities.  Plus because we were in the Jordan Valley we were driving parallel with the Israeli border.  In fact at one of the mosques we were only one kilometer from the Jordan River which is the natural border between Israel and Jordan.  We ended up about an hour and a half away from Amman in the Northern direction.  Again really close to the Syrian border. 

Would like to discuss a social issue that is really common throughout the Middle East.  This issue is the segregation of the sexes.  This segregation happens in just about every aspect of life.  An example is on campus guys are hanging out with guys, while girls are hanging out with girls.  It is not that common to see a mixed group of people talking together.  Plus in the cafeteria it is the same thing.  In the U.S. this is not typically the case, but here in the Middle East it is the norm.  This somewhat has to do with the religious aspect of the Middle East, but more importantly it is a cultural reason.  A funny example of this occuring is on the mini-busses that a lot of people take to school.  So guys sit with guys and girls with girls when possible.  Because these are smaller busses it does not always work out like that and so when someone gets off or on there is always a shuffle of the people who are not sitting by the same sexed individual.  One of my American friends here, she has nicknamed this the "Segregated Sex Shuffle."  So this segregation is extremely common in every day life, but for us Americans we don't always follow it.  I guess this just makes it easier to point out the foreigners, as if that wasn't easy to begin. 

So next week is the last week of actual material in our classes and than the week after that we start finals.  I am done with all papers and now just need to do one presenation.  This weekend there is a group of us going back down to Aqaba.  While there will get to do some more diving and to get out of the cold weather in Ammman.  Will write latter when I have time.  إن شاء الله          

طقس

The weather here in Jordan has changed significantly since we started this semester.  A good part about being from Arizona and coming to Jordan is the fact that the weather is pretty similar.  So when my host family was saying it was starting to get cold it was starting to get cold for me too.  Plus this last week it has rained a lot.  For Amman that is a surprise and even Jordanians are not used to rain.  For the next week the high temperature is going to around 14 degrees celsius (around 57 degrees fahrenheit ) while the low temperature is around 4 degrees celsius (around 39 degrees fahrenheit).  So these temperatures are a little bit cooler than what I am used to in Arizona.  Plus the houses here don't have central heating.  They do have space heaters that my family is usually huddled around at night while watching television.  Plus after I came back from vacation in each room there has been carpets/rugs that have been laid out on the floor.  Every room is all tile and so this makes it colder, but with the carpets/rugs it does help somewhat.  The cold weather is just starting and later on in December there is a small possibility of having my first snow day that cancels school.  Here in Jordan barely any snow cancels everything because the fact that people are afraid to go out in the snow.    

By the way Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.  Here the study abroad program is putting together a turkey dinner for us.  In fact I would rather be having pollo asado, refried beans, tortillas, and fresh salsa for Thanksgiving dinner, but turkey will have to do.  Then tomorrow I have a field trip with one of my classes and we are going to be visiting some mosques located in the Jordan valley.  I need to finish my last paper for one of my area studies class this weekend before it is due on Monday.  Well I should start doing research for my paper.  Will write later.  إن شاء الله  

Northern Jordan

So this past weekend I spent exploring some more of Jordan.  On Friday I took a bus up North to a town by the name of Irbid and then from Irbid hired a taxi to drive from Irbid to Um Qays and back.  My destination was Um Qays because this is a big mountain that happens to be on the border of Israel and Syria.  So the view from this mountain on a clear day one can even see as far as the Lebanon Mountains; however, when I was there it was cloudy so I simply saw Israel, Syria, the Sea of Galilee and the Golan Heights.  These views were pretty awesome and plus on top of this mountain it was a bigger Roman establishment so there were more Roman ruins throughout.  Plus these ruins were different than the other ruins I have seen in Jordan because the fact that these ones were darker colored.  Not exactly sure why but it could be because that far up North the terrain is more green and alive than some of the other places.  That is just one guess and am not sure how true. 

            On Saturday I woke up early and showed up to the University in order to go back to fix up the school in Aljoun.  Once we get up to the school we were split up into three different groups who each were given a classroom.  In this classroom we were given the task to paint the walls, but not just in plain white.  We were given multiple colors and told to draw stuff on the walls.  So in the classroom I worked on we put the Arabic alphabet going one way and then the English alphabet going the other way.  Plus we did the same thing with numbers (at least up to ten).  Plus some other items such as a sun, music notes, and a fish were put throughout.  It was pretty neat looking when we were done with the classroom.  After working for a couple hours we went and had lunch at a local family’s house.  Like always the food in Aljoun is really good and does have some more seasoning than the food in Amman.  For our cultural activity we ended up getting to go to the Dead Sea.  This was my second time there but it was the first time that I have been in the Dead Sea.  It is real interesting because the fact that you can’t sink at all.  There is so much salt that it does take a lot of force to get completely submerged and when that happens it is not fun because the salt gets in the eyes and mouth.  Plus at the Dead Sea you put mud all over yourself and let it dry and then proceed to get in the water in order to wash off the mud.  This mud basically is a natural lotion for the skin and does make the skin a lot softer.  It was definitely a neat experience to be able to swim in the Dead Sea at the lowest point on Earth. 

            Now it is Monday and so it is the second day of the school week.  I am done with Arabic classes for today, but this week is going to be a little busy.  I have two presentations today for my area studies classes and I need to get working on my second area studies paper.  Plus on Thursday it is Thanksgiving which is not really a holiday in Jordan, but the study abroad program is putting together a Thanksgiving dinner that we will be eating on Thursday at the restaurant on campus.  I will write later when I have time.  إن شاء الله