One of the most heartbreaking things for me so far has been seeing all of the feral cats in Jordan. There aren't really dogs here- I've heard one or two barking, but mostly it's just lots and lots of street cats. There's an empty lot across from my apartment building where the dumpsters are located that is a hotspot for kitties, so I see a lot of them going through. It's been really hard to resist the urge to adopt all of them and bring them into the apartment, but that would be rather irresponsible of me, and I'm sure my roommates wouldn't be too keen on ten new members of the family. Since I can't magically give them all homes, I decided to leave water out for them so that they have a clean source of water. I initially bought a small plastic bowl to leave water out in, but that vanished mysteriously in the night, so I'm going to start collecting large bottles and cutting off the bottoms to use as bowls. Hopefully nobody will scavenge those up.
Classes started yesterday, and I placed into Intermediate II! Initially I thought that I would (hopefully) place into Intermediate I, seeing as I've taken a year of Arabic and should be starting first semester of second year. But second semester of Intermediate here lines up better with the Arabic program back home, so it's actually really great that I placed into there. Now if only I could convince the second year professor back at UW to keep a spot open for me when I return. That would be helpful. It's not very comforting to hear "You can take the placement test when you get back, but the class is full so I doubt you'll be able to get a spot"... but it's not really an option to not continue through, so I'll just put up a huge fuss if they don't let me back in.
So far class has been wonderful- right now we're just reviewing (which is very necessary given my summer off) but Ustaadha Ibtisam talks to us pretty much exclusively in Arabic, so I'm forced to really pay attention and figure out what is being said. I haven't had my area studies classes yet- those are later this afternoon- but I expect those to both be really interesting. If not, I have another week for the add/drop period to decide. I also have my first colloquial class tomorrow, which will be crazy. Since it's not really a written language, it'll probably be difficult to take notes in that class. But golly, I will try!
City Tour
Saturday, September 6, 2014
For our last day (huzzah!) of orientation activities, we took what they called an "alternative" tour around Amman- basically, the kind of tour that nobody else does. We visited the richest parts of town- and also the poorest parts, the Palestinian refugee camps. Our guide warned us not to be terribly obvious about taking pictures, if we were going to take any, and we were told to keep all the windows closed in case anybody decided to throw something.
Parading through Baqa'a (one of the camps) in a tour bus was perverse. It felt wrong. Like they were some exhibition for us to gawk at, something that needed to be enclosed and separated from the rest of the world. The plight of others should not be a tourist stop for the wealthy. But they are, and it's wrong. I've been struggling a lot with the orientation activities that set us up like this- as foreigners, Westerners, tourists, there to objectify and appropriate the local culture- and I'm glad that orientation week is over. Refugee studies, or forced migration studies, whatever you want to call it, is my focus. And there is nothing to be gained from gawking at refugees from a tour bus while the tour guide warns us about the dangers of coming to the camps. Building dialogue and relationships, connecting through our own humanity- that is what I want to do.
We also drove through the richest parts of Amman, which were decorated with expansive mansions much like the ones you'd see in my hometown. Honestly, my first impulse was to be repulsed by the excess of it all compared to the poverty we had just seen- but compared to the United States, it was nothing unusual. Perhaps even subdued in comparison.
We stopped at the Abu Darwish mosque, a beautiful black and white checkered on the top of Jabal Ashfiyyah. I love the intricacies of the architecture here, especially on mosques. It's very easy to get lost in a sea of limestone, as buildings are required by law to have a limestone exterior, but if you take the time to examine the detailing, every building is quite unique- the doors are especially eye catching. We finished the tour by stopping at the Citadel and then walking down to the Roman Theater before trekking through Downtown to a restaurant where we ate lunch. There's not much to say about the Citadel or the amphitheater, the pictures all speak for themselves (check out the photoblog!). Definitely a must see if you come to visit Amman.
Parading through Baqa'a (one of the camps) in a tour bus was perverse. It felt wrong. Like they were some exhibition for us to gawk at, something that needed to be enclosed and separated from the rest of the world. The plight of others should not be a tourist stop for the wealthy. But they are, and it's wrong. I've been struggling a lot with the orientation activities that set us up like this- as foreigners, Westerners, tourists, there to objectify and appropriate the local culture- and I'm glad that orientation week is over. Refugee studies, or forced migration studies, whatever you want to call it, is my focus. And there is nothing to be gained from gawking at refugees from a tour bus while the tour guide warns us about the dangers of coming to the camps. Building dialogue and relationships, connecting through our own humanity- that is what I want to do.
We also drove through the richest parts of Amman, which were decorated with expansive mansions much like the ones you'd see in my hometown. Honestly, my first impulse was to be repulsed by the excess of it all compared to the poverty we had just seen- but compared to the United States, it was nothing unusual. Perhaps even subdued in comparison.
Survival Colloquial Jordanian/3 Hour Exam of Death and Despair
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Yesterday commenced with a two hour crash course on عامية (amiya), or colloquial, Arabic to help us out a bit with the whole not knowing how to speak Jordanian thing. I don't know why I was surprised, but like learning fusHa, pretty much every two minutes Ustaadh Muhammed gave us a piece of new information that was crazy overwhelming. For example: In Jordanian, the letter ق is not pronounced as such. Instead of its original sound, it is pronounced similar to an alif or a hard jim. So basically an entirely different noise, completely changing how many of the words I know are pronounced. Lovely. We moved on to learning entirely new subject pronouns (although some of them, like أنا, stay the same) and all of the new question words. There was a lot of new vocabulary, the most helpful being taxi related- although it would have been more helpful to have learned that two days ago so we could have employed words like عداد (meter) in that morning in order to get to campus.
There was then a completely useless 2 hour "intercultural reflection" in which we read some useless article, had some useless discussion, and did some useless exercises. The point of it was to try to make us more conscious of how we engaged with the community here during our program.. which was a confusing message to me, seeing as they then sent us on a ridiculous scavenger hunt that sent very conspicuous groups of students scurrying all around the neighborhood to complete the "challenges", running into shops without buying things and just generally being very overwhelmingly touristy. I was not a fan. My group humored the exercise for a while- which I'm actually thankful for, because we found a little copy and print center with this wonderful guy who was so sweet and nice despite not speaking any English. Thea and I engaged in rudimentary conversation with him- which, seeing as al-Kitaab doesn't see it fit to teach us any useful vocabulary, made it difficult- and he offered to print something, FOR FREE, for us. Honestly, the people here are so wonderful and hospitable. Like one of the girls on the program said, they should place the term Minnesota nice with Jordanian nice. Everyone (mostly) is very welcoming and friendly, and honestly, coming off of spending forever in Seattle where it's a miracle if someone says hello to you, it is quite refreshing.
The day rounded up with a horrible shopping excursion that lasted far too long and was marred by a terrible taxi driver (That's a whole 'nother post that will be happening. Dear lord.) that dumped me at home around 8. The point of the trip was to get food, so that at least happened, but I was exhausted and kind of in favor for crawling into bed and hiding from the world. Unfortunately this thing called the placement exam was tomorrow (aka today, aka the 3 hour exam of death and despair aforementioned in the title) and I thought I should study for it. Or at least freshen up on Arabic, or something. After dinner Thea and I "studied" together, which ended up to be staring blankly at my books, which then turned into just talking when Derek popped in. So instead of studying we ended up chatting until pretty late, which was fun- its really great to have a bunch of students in these apartments, it's kind of like a dorm except the housing is a million times nicer. The downside was that I had wanted to crawl into bed and hide from the world at 8, so I was definitely all hands on deck for turning in by the time it ticked past twelve. Luckily, we were all of the same mind.
So yeah. This morning was the 3 Hour Exam of Death and Despair, followed by a 10 minute Oral Proficiency Interview, and it was pretty much the worst exam I have ever encountered. I thought my Arabic finals last year were overwhelming (especially that damn second quarter one, goodness) but those were a cakewalk compared to this behemoth. It started with 5 reading passages- the first one was, joy of all joys, Maha! So it started off well. I could rattle off Maha's life story in my sleep. Things devolved quickly after that, progressing from very doable to holy shit I don't recognize any of these words. So that was exciting. The exam is meant to be a placement test for everyone from 1 semester to 3 years of Arabic, so you aren't meant to be able to answer all or even most of the questions depending on your level, but it was still super overwhelming to have a run of 15 questions that you couldn't even understand, let alone answer. Listening was no better, grammar was marginally okay, vocabulary was just a crap shoot, and the second composition- translating a letter into Arabic- was nightmare inducing. Oh, plus the whole this is a three hour exam that you actually don't even finish in three hours thing.
They gave us an hour break for lunch before our OPIs, so I grabbed lunch with a bunch of people, lamented about my current state of brain mush, and then made my way back to campus. They gave us our class schedules before the OPIs, in case we needed to switch anything around.. which I did. They had given me both of my top choices, which unfortunately were scheduled for the same days and times, and therefore impossible to concurrently take. I had signed up for them as my first and second choices, as one of them was a seminar with only 13 spots, thinking that they'd place me into whichever one had room left and then fill the next class slot with one of my other choices. Nope. So I had to make the heartbreaking decision to drop the seminar in favor of something else and I'm still not really over it yet.
I was the last of my group to do my OPI, given the schedule finagling I had to do, but it actually went really well. The blank staring was definitely kept to a minimum, the only thing I didn't really have the vocabulary to talk about was what my dad did- al-Kitaab may have had some eclectic vocabulary words but astronomer wasn't one of them- and I managed to make the professor interviewing me laugh once. In a good way. I hope.
And now I am collapsed on the couch. I've been here for an hour. I'll likely be here for at least a few more. Then maybe, just maybe, I'll think about doing something other than being slowly absorbed by couch cushions.
Shmeisani
Monday, September 1, 2014
I fully expected to stay in the hotel throughout the entire week for Orientation, but they kicked us out today and moved us into our apartments. I’m writing this now from my new living room (thanks to the new roomies who had the wifi set up already) and let me tell you, this place is a palace. Definitely nicer than a lot of student housing I’ve seen in the US. I unfortunately got the “bad” room, as I was the last to move in, but it’s still nothing to complain about size wise. There are three, yes that’s right THREE balconies attached to my apartment- one accessible from the living room, one from the kitchen, and one from another bedroom.
This morning was spent doing various Orientation activities, which involved a lot of sitting in conference rooms listening to powerpoint presentations. It also involved a whirlwind bus tour of the PSUT campus and the CIEE study center, which was not terribly helpful in showing us anything because we were “terribly behind schedule” and thus hurried between buildings rather quickly. I did get to see the library on campus, which is a fair amount smaller than beloved Suzzallo- all of the books fit in one room, and the reference section is comprised of a half-filled bookcase behind the Circulation desk, which is manned by one librarian. I’m going to miss the extraordinary resources I’m used to having at UW, but I think I will manage to become fast friends with this new library.
We shuffled around doing Orientation for the entire morning, then began moving around 4:30. My apartment building is located in the Shmeisani neighborhood in Amman, which is a 15-20 minute drive from campus. I think almost the entire building is comprised of students from my program and one other CIEE program, which is definitely nice. I’ve met just about everyone in the building already- and those of us from the LC program are going to gather outside tomorrow morning to figure out a way to get to campus. For the first week or two we will probably take taxis; hopefully after that we will figure out the buses well enough to find ones that will take us to campus. The good thing about taxis is that they will bring us all the way to the PSUT campus, which is about a 20 minute walk from the main gate of the University of Jordan. Buses will typically drop you off at the main gate, so that extra twenty minutes might be painful to budget in time-wise.
It was the first meal we were on our own for, so in typical Skye tradition it comprised of pasta. Originally I was hoping to gather all of us from the LC program together to go out to dinner, but I wasn’t quite sure which rooms the other students were in so it was rather hit-and-miss finding them. In the end Derek (shout out to my new Seattlite homie) and Jeiel (apartment across from mine) and Kai and Andrew (apartment upstairs) joined me on the dinner expedition. We weren’t quite sure where anything was but ended up finding a small row of family stores- there was a café, a small market, a pharmacy, and a dry cleaner- and ended up buying some pasta and spaghetti sauce from the market, along with some peas and green beans to round out the meal. There were definitely some strange looks garnered from our wandering through the streets- it isn’t very typical that one female will be out with four males- but other than that the trip was relatively unscathed.
I learned that Derek and I were the only ones with any prior Arabic knowledge, which became interesting and a little hilarious when the store owner attempted to ask the guys where they were from. Cue lots of helpless and bewildered looks in my direction. I swooped in with my obviously superior Arabic knowledge to save the day (not really, it was a one word answer: Amrikiyya). Each of us bought a few things, mindful that we are no longer being fed marvelous banquets, and we headed back to the apartments- promptly getting momentarily lost when we turned up the wrong street. I think I can say that we were pretty talented to get lost on such a short excursion, seeing as we only walked a few blocks away.
We had dinner, cooked by yours truly, watched some Arabic music videos of their version of MTV, which happened to be one of the two working channels on the television, and had a long and winding conversation about politics and current events and capitalism. It is really refreshing to be around like-minded people who are all focused on the same studies as I am and don’t get intimidated when heavy handed subjects or highly contentious politics are brought up.
This morning was spent doing various Orientation activities, which involved a lot of sitting in conference rooms listening to powerpoint presentations. It also involved a whirlwind bus tour of the PSUT campus and the CIEE study center, which was not terribly helpful in showing us anything because we were “terribly behind schedule” and thus hurried between buildings rather quickly. I did get to see the library on campus, which is a fair amount smaller than beloved Suzzallo- all of the books fit in one room, and the reference section is comprised of a half-filled bookcase behind the Circulation desk, which is manned by one librarian. I’m going to miss the extraordinary resources I’m used to having at UW, but I think I will manage to become fast friends with this new library.
We shuffled around doing Orientation for the entire morning, then began moving around 4:30. My apartment building is located in the Shmeisani neighborhood in Amman, which is a 15-20 minute drive from campus. I think almost the entire building is comprised of students from my program and one other CIEE program, which is definitely nice. I’ve met just about everyone in the building already- and those of us from the LC program are going to gather outside tomorrow morning to figure out a way to get to campus. For the first week or two we will probably take taxis; hopefully after that we will figure out the buses well enough to find ones that will take us to campus. The good thing about taxis is that they will bring us all the way to the PSUT campus, which is about a 20 minute walk from the main gate of the University of Jordan. Buses will typically drop you off at the main gate, so that extra twenty minutes might be painful to budget in time-wise.
It was the first meal we were on our own for, so in typical Skye tradition it comprised of pasta. Originally I was hoping to gather all of us from the LC program together to go out to dinner, but I wasn’t quite sure which rooms the other students were in so it was rather hit-and-miss finding them. In the end Derek (shout out to my new Seattlite homie) and Jeiel (apartment across from mine) and Kai and Andrew (apartment upstairs) joined me on the dinner expedition. We weren’t quite sure where anything was but ended up finding a small row of family stores- there was a café, a small market, a pharmacy, and a dry cleaner- and ended up buying some pasta and spaghetti sauce from the market, along with some peas and green beans to round out the meal. There were definitely some strange looks garnered from our wandering through the streets- it isn’t very typical that one female will be out with four males- but other than that the trip was relatively unscathed.
I learned that Derek and I were the only ones with any prior Arabic knowledge, which became interesting and a little hilarious when the store owner attempted to ask the guys where they were from. Cue lots of helpless and bewildered looks in my direction. I swooped in with my obviously superior Arabic knowledge to save the day (not really, it was a one word answer: Amrikiyya). Each of us bought a few things, mindful that we are no longer being fed marvelous banquets, and we headed back to the apartments- promptly getting momentarily lost when we turned up the wrong street. I think I can say that we were pretty talented to get lost on such a short excursion, seeing as we only walked a few blocks away.
We had dinner, cooked by yours truly, watched some Arabic music videos of their version of MTV, which happened to be one of the two working channels on the television, and had a long and winding conversation about politics and current events and capitalism. It is really refreshing to be around like-minded people who are all focused on the same studies as I am and don’t get intimidated when heavy handed subjects or highly contentious politics are brought up.
Arriving in Amman
Sunday, August 31, 2014
After an exhausting travel itinerary including three flights, two 9 hour layovers, and a whole lot of waiting, I arrived in Amman early this morning- 2am, to be precise. One of the program staff, Ahmed, was waiting for us in the baggage claim of Queen Alia. About 15 of us came in at roughly the same time. I don't know about you, but at 2am after two days of traveling and sleeping in airports I am not 100% on my game, so I'm not sure if I can say that we were immediately a festive group of like-minded students. But I caught some names and faces and I'm sure in the whirlwind that will be this week (we move into our homes tomorrow? what??) will be more conducive to actually getting to know everyone.
Arriving at the airport- which is lovely, by the way, if not practically deserted that early in the morning- and making it through to the other side of customs seemed like an inhuman feat for someone like me on their last dregs of energy. I waited in line to exchange my US dollars into Jordanian dinars, then waited in line to purchase an entry visa, then waited some more for baggage, then waited for customs. No mishaps, other than a perplexed visa issuer who had not heard of the university I'll be taking classes with and spent a bit of time asking me if I was sure that was in Jordan.
We all congregated in the lobby by baggage claim, and the program staff gave us a phone to call home on. It was about 4pm in California, as opposed to the wee morning hours here in Jordan, so my mom was considerably more awake than I was. After all of us had arrived (or so I thought) and made our calls, we straggled out to the vans that would take us to the Landmark Hotel, where we're staying until we move into our permanent residences. I'm not sure it takes a whole lot to impress me when I'm that exhausted, at that point by staying standing I was impressing myself, but I have to say that the men managed to pack all of our luggage into three vans- the luggage of 15 people! with a little room to spare.
There was some confusion and pointing as everyone piled into the vans, and then suddenly Sarah- one of the students I had met in the money exchange line- and I were the only two not tucked away into a van. We were directed towards the final empty van and climbed in, only to find ourselves completely abandoned in the parking lot- the other vans left, and then men had gone back inside the airport for a straggling student who never showed. We waited for ten, twenty minutes before giving up on that lone student (sorry!) and finally debarking for the hotel.
Alternating between stunned silence and inane small talk, the drive from the airport to the hotel- only about 20 minutes, seemed a lifetime. I made remarks on the palm trees, Ahmed pointed out a newly opened up Ikea, and our driver swooped down the empty highway lit up with a stream of lights. That road was better lit than any I've ever seen, in the US or otherwise! We pulled into the hotel a bit past 4am to a big welcoming committee of the other students waiting for us- and their baggage. At tourists spots like hotels in Jordan, they pass bags and people through metal detectors before letting them inside. I knew this, had read this in my preparations, but was still vaguely surprised to see it happen.
We waited in the lobby for what seemed like hours- probably closer to 20-30 minutes- for our room assignments and passports (they have to make a scan of them, apparently, which seems to take forever). At that point I was pretty much dead on my feet despite it only being early evening back on the West Coast. I was paired with Talia, a girl I had met and chatted with at the gate in Frankfurt, who kindly waited with me instead of going up to the room without me while I was waiting for my passport to be returned. Once my passport was returned to me we promptly went up to the room and dove into bed, even though breakfast was only a few hours away at that point.
Arriving at the airport- which is lovely, by the way, if not practically deserted that early in the morning- and making it through to the other side of customs seemed like an inhuman feat for someone like me on their last dregs of energy. I waited in line to exchange my US dollars into Jordanian dinars, then waited in line to purchase an entry visa, then waited some more for baggage, then waited for customs. No mishaps, other than a perplexed visa issuer who had not heard of the university I'll be taking classes with and spent a bit of time asking me if I was sure that was in Jordan.
We all congregated in the lobby by baggage claim, and the program staff gave us a phone to call home on. It was about 4pm in California, as opposed to the wee morning hours here in Jordan, so my mom was considerably more awake than I was. After all of us had arrived (or so I thought) and made our calls, we straggled out to the vans that would take us to the Landmark Hotel, where we're staying until we move into our permanent residences. I'm not sure it takes a whole lot to impress me when I'm that exhausted, at that point by staying standing I was impressing myself, but I have to say that the men managed to pack all of our luggage into three vans- the luggage of 15 people! with a little room to spare.
Alternating between stunned silence and inane small talk, the drive from the airport to the hotel- only about 20 minutes, seemed a lifetime. I made remarks on the palm trees, Ahmed pointed out a newly opened up Ikea, and our driver swooped down the empty highway lit up with a stream of lights. That road was better lit than any I've ever seen, in the US or otherwise! We pulled into the hotel a bit past 4am to a big welcoming committee of the other students waiting for us- and their baggage. At tourists spots like hotels in Jordan, they pass bags and people through metal detectors before letting them inside. I knew this, had read this in my preparations, but was still vaguely surprised to see it happen.
We waited in the lobby for what seemed like hours- probably closer to 20-30 minutes- for our room assignments and passports (they have to make a scan of them, apparently, which seems to take forever). At that point I was pretty much dead on my feet despite it only being early evening back on the West Coast. I was paired with Talia, a girl I had met and chatted with at the gate in Frankfurt, who kindly waited with me instead of going up to the room without me while I was waiting for my passport to be returned. Once my passport was returned to me we promptly went up to the room and dove into bed, even though breakfast was only a few hours away at that point.
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