Shoo yani "friend requests?"

I am sitting in the living room, typing on my laptop as my host mom has what I think is a fairly traditional evening guest: one of her best friends, who brought her 3 young kids and their nanny. The evening started around 8:30 with a cigarette, then a cup of Arabic coffee. Then we moved on to tea, and now an enormous plate of fruit has appeared and my mama is cutting it up with a knife. By the end, the living room was full of people shouting 3 different conversations with each other and I didn’t understand a word.

The TV is blasting at full volume (actually, we just turned it off, the first time I’ve seen that happen). Most houses watch one of the 3 incredibly popular Turkish soap operas, but we prefer Al Jazeera - my family is definitely of the educated elite. When I’ve go to someone else’s house on one of these visits, they’re all with the TV blasting. Awkward silences aren’t awkward because everyone just turns to the TV. I am not at the point where I can understand anything in Arabic if there are distractions, though, so I’m not a fan.

Tomorrow at 8 am I leave to go to the Badia, the rural area of Jordan where all the Bedouin live. That’s right, I’m going to spend a week with some Bedouins! I’ve already bought my dishdash, the long, embroidered, figure-hiding dress that people apparently wear, and a microfiber hijab. Hijab, by the way, means ‘cover.’ It’s a certain kind of hair cover. Another is called an Ishaar, which is from the same word for stop sign. I probably don’t understand the full cultural depth and meaning of those two words, but I can still laugh.

I’m a little nervous, since my teachers at SIT told me to bring a lot of Arabic homework. Apparently girls don’t get to leave the house much. I really need to spend a week practicing Arabic, though, so it should be a much-needed break. I am also excited to catch up on my reading, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Appropriate for a week with the Bedou.

I’m going to miss my host family. My sister is maybe the most dedicated student I’ve ever met: she studies from 6:30 am to 9 every night. Sometimes she sleeps in the afternoon so she can wake up at 2am and study until the morning, when the house isn’t blasting Al Jazeera or Star Academy, Arabia’s American Idol. I have to tell her that America is the same way, and that it’ll all pay off in the end. She wants to be an engineer – women get into much harder sciences here in the Middle East than they do in America,, and they cover their hair while they do it.

I am almost getting to the point where I can have intense political conversations with my host father, with the assistance of my Arabic dictionary and my host-brother. He still throws in Russian words, completely convinced they’re English, though. My host father is also great: he explained to me my first night that he used to drink SO MUCH vodka when he was in Russia – all the time! Then he went on Hajj, and that was the end of the drinking. Apparently he used to drink alog with someone who’s now an important minister, but I definitely couldn’t figure out which one.

I am also going out with young people occasionally, when I don’t stay home and work. (Wallah so much work!). Last night we bought our dishdashes, and I’m proud to say I did an admirable job bargaining for once. Then we went to a wildly popular and cheap falafel place called Hashem, and then for dessert kinafe, and then to smoke at the Palestinian Heritage Resturaunt Jafra. Jafra is super-elite – one of the rarer places where you feel comfortable leaning over your guy friends and shouting swear words (I know a whole new dialect of swearing now!).

A few nights ago Saa’ed, my host-brother, took me and a few friends to a great internet café, which is essentially an argila café with edible French fries and really fast internet. Also, I was the only foreigner in the place. The owner came up to me and spoke in eloquent FusHa after I told him I didn’t speak English, and told me to read Nazar Kobani, one of the most famous and renowned modern Arab poets. Coincidentially, I did, that night, for extra-credit actually – he’s surprisingly risqué. I know a much wider variety of things that could be shouted at me on the street in Egypt. Oh, and it was an excellent poem. My teacher told me I couldn’t bring his poems to the badia because the Bedou are conservative and we don’t want them to think the wrong thing.

For some reason, the kids in my program love going to Books@Cafe. It’s a coffee shop/bookstore in the wealthiest section of Amman that is just like KramerBooks in Dupont Circle in DC, with a little less character and perhaps a few more gay guys. I’ve been once and will avoid it until the patio opens, because it’s supposed to have an amazing view. When I told my family I was going, they warned me to watch out – the police actually occasionally break it up because of all “the gays.” Come on, gentlemen, I know when you hold hands on the street it isn’t just cultural tradition. Thus far, I have felt fairly successful about not spending all my time in completely West places. My Arabic is definitely improving because of it.

***
So my host-mom is on Facebook, which meant I got to enjoy Arabish conversation early one morning this week. She was confused about something:

“Taht profile pictures, endi five yani friend requests? Ana fi group ism flix- Shoo flix?”
Or, “Under profile pictures, I have 5 (what does it mean?) “friend requests?” I am in a group named Flix – what is Flix??”

It went on like that. Masha’allah, Facebook.


This American Idol spin-off we’re watching, Star Academy, is also enjoyable: they sing songs, they’re all gorgeous, everyone roots for the star from their own country. Most of the cast is rich enough that they speak AUC-style Arabish. One girl was speaking Frarabish – French, Arabic, and English! It’s the most high-production American Idol meets Real World show I can imagine. There is a huge cast of backup dancers, flashing lights, lavish storylines, and fireworks.

***
Actually, it kind of reminds me of the wedding I went to last week.

I don’t have pictures, because the men and women’s parties are separate so some of the women take off their veils. You’ll have to live with my description.

The hall was huge, round tables covered in gold with a dance floor in the middle. Before the bride and groom entered, we got lots of video on the enormous projection screens of the party out front: dancing in front of the limo, ulululing, everything. Then the room went dark, spotlights flashed in front of the double doors, and the 99 names of Allah began being sung as the suspense built.

Finally, we got through all 99 names and the music switched from reverent to danceable. The doors swung open to reveal the bride and groom in all their glory, as, I kid you not, 8-foot-tall fireworks shot off behind them. For like 3 minutes. It was amazing. They proceeded in, sat down, ring and gift ceremony, blah blah. Finally, there was tons of dancing – I was adopted by the bride’s sister, who took me around the room and tried, as usual, to teach me how to dance (why does this happen at every wedding I go to?). The room, by the way, was full of more kids than I’ve ever seen in my life. The women’s party gets all the small children. Multiply 1.5 kids under 8 x 100 women, and you get a lot of diaper bags.

Then it was cake time. Everyone sat back down, sort of, and the caterers wheeled in a cake that must have been 9 feet tall. 10 layers of ascending size, arranged in a spiral. They lit sparklers on each layer, and when that went out, the bridal couple cut each level with a sword. Then we ate the cake, and a group of 11 year old girls absconded with me to ask if I had a boyfriend and what my name was. Their English was only slightly worse than my Arabic. I speak 11 year old Arabic. On a good day.

So that’s a summary of Jordanian family social life. There were 3 weddings we attended that night; tonight, my baba went to another. A lot of people get married here – or everyone is invited to the weddings. I am lucky to have such a social family, apparently some people in the program don’t.


Politically, thus far, it’s been eye-opening but not shocking. People don’t talk about politics as much as you’d expect, or perhaps not to me. I also haven’t learned how to tactfully ask yet. There is a sense of exhaustion and hopelessness after Gaza, a feeling I imagine is the same in Israel. One of the hardest things for me is what to say when someone tells me they’re from Palestine. Arabic has traditional responses for nearly everything you say to each other, but I don’t know what the one for ‘I’m from Gaza.’

I’m in an Arabic class that’s about a year behind my Arabic level, which is kind of frustrating, but I do get in fun arguments, er, debates with my teacher, who says crazy things to incense me. We also get to learn vocabulary like ‘handgun’ ‘rifle’ ‘machine gun’ and ‘uranium enrichment’ for when we read AlJazeera (ok, and just for fun). Right now Shaalit and cease-fire are the big words in the AlJazeera headlines. The discussion is good for my Arabic speaking and to learn to tread more lightly around people with vested political feelings in the things I study. (And now I know how you say "Hamas was asking for it" in Arabic.)

It is occasionally awkward watching Al Jazeera with my family, since I can only figure out the general subject the news report is on and none of the specifics. Especially when they agree vehemently with whatever turbaned figure is on the screen.

But like I said, it’s a good lesson in learning to keep my mouth shut until the appropriate moment. God knows I need it!