Adapt, Accept, Adjust // Wadi Rum

Before jumping into my trip to the south of Jordan, I’d like to begin by reflecting on my continuing adaptation, acceptance, and adjustment to Amman and the overlapping Arab, Middle Eastern, and Muslim worlds wherein Jordan lies. I’ve been exposed to a lot in a short amount of time, and writing about the some of the adjustments (a couple at a time) makes the adaptation and acceptance process a bit easier.


My adjustment to living in Amman has been new and exciting, but also much more challenging then I initially expected. Everywhere we go, people stop and stare. Whether it’s walking through campus, waiting for the bus, making a purchase in a store, or minding your own business, there’s also someone looking you up and down, watching your every move as you go by. This behavior isn’t limited to one particular group of people, either—men, women, and children of all ages will look you up and down as you go by (though usually it’s only the men who have something additional to add: often it’s just “Welcome to Jordan!” followed by a stream of Arabic, though I’ve also heard whistles, murmurs of “very nice” and once, applause when I went running on campus). I used to wonder what it would be like to be wildly popular, but it’s almost amusing how people find us so interesting or attractive in the same four or five shirts and baggy pants when most of the local young women are very stylishly dressed—very covered, many wear jeans tighter then anything I personally own, and expensive brand-name clothing, complete with heels and a matching hijab. Who knew?


Many people also assume that since we are Americans, we are 1) loaded and 2) gullible. The concept of receiving change doesn’t seem to exist in much of Amman. Breaking a five and even a one JD bill here is a source of great exasperation to many taxi drivers and restaurant owners. People will tell you they just don’t have any change, which is hard to believe when you peek around the register and there’s a till full of coins and smaller bills.


However, I must emphasize that despite the no-change and staring incidents, there are so many good people in Jordan who are overwhelmingly friendly and generous. I’ve been offered samples at almost every bakery and coffee shop I’ve visited, and shopkeepers are often happy to give you a discount to thank you for coming. This is not to say that people have to give me free stuff, otherwise they're rubberneckers, but the fabled Arab hospitality is alive and well. My professor taught me how to make Turkish coffee, and I’ve been practicing with coffee from a local shop. I’m hoping to buy my own Turkish coffee set before I leave so I can make it at home in the States, and yes, I’ve bought some tea here as well  .


Now, the trip to South Jordan: Carla, a grad student who is traveling with our program but taking different classes at UJ, took the initiative to plan a trip to Wadi Rum and Aqaba this past weekend. Everyone in the Women’s Studies program, plus two of Carla’s friends from her fusha (classical Arabic) class ended up going together. This made the transportation portion of the trip difficult at times, but for the sights we saw, the hassles at bus depots and with taxi drivers made the delays worth it.


Wadi Rum is a desert in the south of Jordan, popularized through the history’s famous and somewhat romanticized T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) during the early 20th century and the later film “Lawrence of Arabia” with Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif. It is also one of the most beautiful and amazing natural sights I have ever seen. We had been on the road for a couple hours on Thursday when we rounded a bend and came upon Rum. The vast expanses red sands, towering natural rock formations, and clear blue skies were picture perfect—I only hope my amateur photography skills did the landscape some justice so you can see the beauty of the desert yourself!



We met our Bedouin hosts at the gate to the protected area of Wadi Rum, and took 4WD Jeeps for an afternoon/sunset tour of the desert to get to our campsite for the evening. The drivers brought us to several great stops in the desert where we took pictures and climbed formations that would be without a doubt off-limits in the U.S. We watched the sun set on a sand dune, bathing the desert in a light that turned the entire area shades of red, pink, and orange. We then went to our camp, which consisted of 4 or 5 large tents and a rough outhouse facility. We were served tea in the main tent where the Bedouin played music on tribal drums and instruments and danced. They invited us to join in—obviously taking a break from true Bedouin cultural norms, but fun nonetheless. Dinner was—in a word—overabundant. I can’t begin to name the different overflowing dishes we had, but everyone ate their fill and, once stuffed, was ready for bed.



Since it was a nice night, we were given the option to sleep outside under the stars. There was some flat rock near the tents, so we dragged our mattresses and blankets and hunkered down for the night. The desert at night is just as beautiful as during the day—there is no light from cities or other sources for miles, so the night sky is bright and beautiful, with thousands of stars. The moon wasn’t out when we went to sleep at about 10:30, but it woke me up during the night as a bright blurry orb directly overhead. I woke up at 5:25 am, and the sun was already rising. The desert at sunrise is (you guessed it!) gorgeous as well. We had a brief breakfast shortly after 6:00 am and then went in to Rum village for camel rides.


I can’t think of any activity that compares to riding a camel. We all had a shock the first time we mounted. You mount a camel while it is sitting—easy enough. However, it gets up two legs at a time, so you are lurched backwards and then forwards while rising several feet in the air! Getting off a camel, in my opinion, is much scarier---you lurch forward and feel like you’re about to fall off, and then you drop backwards as the camel lowers its back legs to the sitting position. The Bedouin laughed good-naturedly at our surprise as they took us around, although some of the littler children leading the camels (nothing makes you realize you’ve had a sheltered childhood until a 4 or 5-year old boy leads you on a camel) had trouble containing their giggles.


After the camels, we called for taxis to take us to Aqaba, Jordan’s only port city, which is about an hour away from Wadi Rum. I don’t mean to sound like a sap, but I kept turning around to get one last glimpse (and then one last-last glimpse) of the desert. It’s someplace that I think I’d like to explore more thoroughly one day, and I can’t wait to explore other parts of Jordan’s natural landscape.


I think I will update about Aqaba and other adaptations, etc. in the next post. Thanks for reading this far!

First Days in Jordan

I hope I’m not falling behind already! The first night I woke up at approximately 3:36 am when I heard the adhan (“call to prayer”) over the early morning traffic (Amman, or at least its traffic, never sleeps). We met as a group for breakfast at a nearby restaurant where we had a breakfast of the local staples (hummus, falafel, pita, foul, etc.) and tea. I should mention that the way Arabs drink tea is quite different from home: they brew it very strongly, add lots—and I mean lots—of sugar, and serve it in tiny glass cups.


After breakfast, we headed over to the university where we met the director of the Women’s Studies Center at the U of J. We took a bus to downtown Amman, where we walked around the busy shops and markets before heading to West Amman, where the wealthier Jordanians and ex-pats live. In Jordan, you can tell when you’re in a wealthy neighborhood by the number of embassies or consulates on the block, and soldiers guarding them.


That night, we met up with the one and only Mark Laichena, who has spent the past six weeks interning at an NGO in Amman. We took him to meet Nadia and ended up spending the night in what we’ll write off as a lively debate about the college admission process.


The next day, Sunday, was the first day of the Arabic work and school week. It was also the first day of summer school for the University of Jordan, so the campus was bustling with students registering for classes. The school also holds graduation over several days during the summer, for the separate schools of nursing, pharmacy, arts, etc., so there was graduation traffic as well, preparing for the evenings’ commencement. We were given a tour of the university by two women from the Women’s Studies apartment.


The University of Jordan is the most prestigious university in Jordan, and probably one of the most beautiful as well. It’s a closed campus, and all the roads inside are lined with trees that provide some welcome shade once things start to heat up. It’s funny because looking out our window of the hotel you can see nothing but green, but there’s probably more vegetation on campus then there is in the rest of Amman!
We met our professor for the dialect class at the Language Center, and then had a brief orientation to learn about the resources available to us on campus. We were then given the rest of the afternoon to explore the city on our own, preferably in smaller groups so we wouldn’t stand out as much.


Mark had offered to show us around downtown and where he lived, so we called him up and agreed to meet at the King Hussein Mosque, which is at the bottom of Jebel Amman (“jebel,” by the way, means “hill” or “mountain” in Arabic). We ambitiously decided to take a bus to the downtown—what better way to immerse your self in the city then by taking a bus into the thick of it all? The thing is, there is no system for buses in Jordan: they slow down, a guy jumps out and shouts the name of their destination, and you jump in. Fortunately, we were able to ask several people for help and made it to Jebel Amman with no problem.


We met Mark in front of the mosque, where we asked a man to take our picture. We then went to a juice station (named “Palestine Juice”) where our photographer and his friend came up to us. At first we thought they were asking for the time, but then we realized they were asking if we had the time to go back to their house. While most people are friendly and most invitations come from a good place, we declined. We then walked to the Roman amphitheatre, which unfortunately was closed for the evening, so we climbed up the hill to see the city in the sunset. We could see the ruins of the Citadel at the top of one of the hills, and children flying kites, many of which are decorated to look like the Palestinian flag. The Jordanian and Palestinian flags are very similar, and everywhere, along with pictures of Jordan’s royal family.


Mark took us to an art gallery that was featuring and exhibit to commemorate 60 years since the “Catastrophe,” (i.e. the creation of Israel) by Palestinian and Jordanian artists. Jordan is the only country in the Middle East that grants Palestinian refugees citizenship, and their presence is felt throughout the city. The exhibition was at the city hall, where we were fortunate enough to meet one of the artists who contributed to the show. His name is Mohammed Sabah and although he is a Palestinian-Jordanian, he currently lives in Virginia and is visiting Amman for the show! He was very warm and friendly, and showed us more of his work as well of pictures of his family and famous people he has met over the years (including Jordanian royalty and Yasser Arafat!). He invited us to meet his family and have dinner with them, and gave us his contact information. We’re going to try and take him up on his offer sometime this week.


After the exhibit, Mark took us to see his apartment. It was quite a trek—I’d prefer not to remember how many stairs we climbed to get to the place. It was definitely worth the climb though—Mark pretty far up, so you can look down on the downtown area, so from the roof you see a wall of buildings lit up all over the hills for the most breathtaking view of the city.


We walked back taking Rainbow Road, which takes you through a trendier part of Amman. We took a taxi back to our place and promptly crashed for the evening.
This turned out to be a much longer entry then I anticipated! I will post again about my first days of school (and hopefully some pictures if our internet behaves!) soon.

June 19-June 20, 2008: Departure

The trip to Jordan started with a delay: my 7:00 plane from RDU to Boston was running late and the check-in attendant provided little reassurance that I would make my connecting flight out of Boston on time. Fortunately, the plane arrived and we were on our way to Boston about a half-hour behind schedule. I caught a shuttle to the Northwest terminal at Logan international airport and was just in time for boarding at 9:55 to Amsterdam.


Apparently, there’s really no escaping the fact that the Archer siblings look ridiculously alike: on the overnight flight to Amsterdam, one of the flight attendants said that he had “definitely seen me before.” We figured out that he had most likely seen EVA on her way to Rwanda! At least he didn’t ask if I was her little sister…


Once in Amsterdam, I had a nice jog to the Royal Jordanian gate, which (of course) was located as far from my arrival gate as possible. Here, an Arab woman asked me if I was from North Africa (the Maghreb)—in Arabic! I was able to explain that I was traveling to Jordan as an American learning Arabic. Still, it was very encouraging to try out my Arabic—and being taken for an Arab makes me wonder how I’ll fit in Amman.


Our descent into the Middle East was striking as we passed over all sorts of rugged and desert terrain. I’ve posted one of the pictures I took on the plane of the landscape. Once we landed; I met up with Mary, a girl in my program. We got our visas and exchanged some dollars for dinars—sadly, the Jordanian dinar is worth more then the so-called almighty American dollar. We made our way through without any problem until we got to the baggage claim, when neither of us was able to find our luggage. Royal Jordanian Air took our information and said they would call the hotel we are staying at when the luggage comes in and deliver it to the hotel.


Despite the (temporary, I hope!) loss of luggage, I am still very excited to be in Amman. Driving to the hotel, we noticed many cars pulled off to the side of the highway and families set up chairs, light a fire, and share a meal. We asked our driver about this, and he explained that the families were eating together after evening prayer and enjoying the nighttime weather. We also spotted our first camel, some horses, and a donkey alongside the highway on this trip.


The Al-Amera hotel apartments are sparsely decorated, but the bedrooms, furnished with twin beds, are plenty big enough for our stay and we have a nice sitting area and small kitchen in our apartment for four. Another room of four girls in our program is right across the hall, and the three gentlemen in the program are down the hall in the opposite direction. I am rooming with Maria, a friend from Arabic 102this past spring.


Tomorrow we are having a general orientation of Amman and the University of Jordan. I’m looking forward to learning more about my new surroundings, and seeing more of this new country!

First Post: Hello and Welcome

Hello and welcome to my blog! Here I will chronicle my experiences studying abroad in Amman, Jordan and traveling in Syria and Egypt during summer 2008. Enjoy!

Isabella