It’s Snowing in Amman!

We had heard that every winter or two it snows in Amman.  It has certainly been cold enough, recently, to justify this concept, but not until this morning did the flakes come drifting down.  Living in the Middle East, one might assume that the dangers of the region would be the things to impact school planning, yet the only “emergency evacuation” we’ve heard anything about is for innocent snow. 

As I sit here typing, snowflakes are still melting on my head and shoulders and the sidewalk outside is just beginning to become white.  When the first period of class ended, the students rushed outside yelling to stand with the necks turned up and their mouths open, catching the nickel-size flakes that gently floated down.  Of course, after we shooed them back inside to their next classes a few of us teachers stayed lingering in the cold, also catching drifting flakes on ready tongues.  Alas, but we’ve yet to receive any urgent call from the meteorology department declaring the longed-for state of emergency which could send us all out to play.  But as long as the snow is falling, this is the hope that will remain tucked away somewhere in the hearts of many of Amman Baccalaureate School’s students and teachers…

 

Within an hour of first writing this post, school was indeed cancled for the day.  Here we are with the neighbor children playing in what is left of the downfall…

Is that the ice cream truck?

When we first heard the sound of a truck blaring a sing-songy tune driving through the residential streets, we both thought of the ice cream trucks of our childhood dreams.  Alas, the truck only brought bright and dimly colored green gas canisters piled in the back.  In our apartment, we fuel our stove with one of these canisters containing a mix of butane and propane.  Dispensing with the need for a direct gas line to the house, we just swap out the canister whenever it’s empty.  (We have a new green canister, slightly bigger than a five gallon bucket, with JOPetrol written on the side).  This is where the gas truck’s glorious parade through town comes in.

Even with all your windows shut, you can’t help but hear the Gas Truck Song.  This is your cue to run outside, flag down the truck, and trade your empty cylinder for a full one.  The song is distinct, and it is as loud as it is out of tune.  According to stories we’ve heard, a few years ago some residents had had enough of the noise.  The gas song was banned, and the trucks were told to announce their arrival with honking.  This might have worked in other parts of the world, but here, horns are used to announce everything. (See September’s post, “Beep! Beep!”)  Drivers honk to give right of way at an intersection, to take right of way at an intersection, to vent frustration, to say “Hi,” to encourage speeding, to reprimand the speeding of others, to influence the color of stop lights…  Lacking the song, the persistent honking of the gas truck didn’t attract any attention at all, and nobody could tell when to run out to exchange their empty cylinders.  Suffice it to say, the Gas Truck Song is back.

Now that temperatures have dipped below freezing, we see the gas truck more often. In Jordan, the boilers used for central heating are fueled by diesel. (Yes, there is a diesel truck, too.)  Since the time when Saddam Hussein gave Jordan heavily subsidized oil, the price of diesel has increased markedly.  We have heard that the 350 JD needed now to fill a family’s thousand-liter diesel tank could have filled the tanks of five families six years ago.  For many people here, central heating is no longer a viable financial option.  Instead, they huddle around space heaters connected to a gas cylinder. 

A few weeks ago, we stood on our roof and recorded the Gas Truck Song in all its glory. Yes, the song is short. Yes, it repeats.  In other neighborhoods, we’ve heard trucks that play a few bars from Fur Elise. Yes, we’re jealous.

As Salaamu Alaikum

In the US, many of us will shout out, in passing, “How are you?”, hardly even pausing for a nominal answer.  Here, greetings are an elaborate affair. Here’s a roughly translated sample greeting:

          Peace be upon you!
          May the peace return to you.
          Good morning!
          Yes, the morning is bright.
          How are you?
          Good, thank God.  And you?
          Good, thank God.
          How is the family?
          Good. And yours?
          Good, thank God.

For first-time meetings, the conversation usually continues like this:

          Where are you from?
          We live in Amman right now.
          [raises eyebrow] No, where are you from?
          Our heritage/citizenship is American.
          Oh, OK.  I have a cousin/brother/aunt/uncle/son/daughter in America.
          Where?
          He lives in L.A./Chicago/Cleveland/New York.
          Nice, we are from California and Ohio.
          How do you find Jordan?
          Jordan is beautiful.
          [smiles of approval]  Where do you live in Amman?
          We live in Jendaweel.

Amman’s neighborhoods vary widely and drastically in affluence. Just saying you live in Amman isn’t enough. People need to know where in Amman you live. Naming the specific part of west Amman where we live usually generates nods of approval.

          [Nod of approval.]  Are you here to study Arabic?
          No, we teach English.
          At which school?
          We teach at Amman Baccalaureate School.

Parents who can afford to send their children to private schools take pride in having people know the specific school.

          Ah. That’s a good school.  How much do you make?

We try to avoid this one. So far no one has understood why we are here as volunteers, and we lack the vocabulary to explain the projects we’re involved in.

          Is this your friend?
          No, this is my spouse.
          Oh, do you have children?
          No.
          Are you pregnant?
          No.
          Why not?

We hear the marriage/children questions from everyone.  The oddity of a couple who has been married nearly half a year, but is not yet pregnant seems to throw most people for a loop.  And no one seems shy about asking.

          How long will you stay in Jordan?
          One [motion to signify year.] [We never remember the word for “year.”]
          Insha’allah.  Insha’allah. [God willing.]  Your Arabic is very good.
          No, we just speak a little Arabic.

This is, to us, the most humorous part of the conversation. Because the questions we are asked when we first meet someone are very predictable, we can have a set of memorized responses ready. People are sometimes fooled into thinking we understand much more, and then launch into paragraphs of narratives, while we smile and nod. Overall, the Jordanians dole out generous positive reinforcement for any attempt at speaking the language. One person recently bragged that Arabic ranks only behind Chinese as the most difficult language to learn. (She didn’t mention who determines the rankings…)  Just as an example, we still have trouble pronouncing the “gagging A.”  The other day we asked where the bus to Amman was, and they didn’t understand the word “Amman.” It keeps us humble.

 

A very friendly Bedouin woman, with whom we had a similar conversation.

A Jordanian Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, for Americans, often conjures images of sumptuous turkey roasting in the oven, vibrant fall leaves, pumpkin pies cooling on warm counter tops, smiling pilgrims, family members embracing after long journeys, and horns of plenty. For most Jordanians, however, this well-loved third Thursday of November attracts about as much notice as the stray cats that, were they included in the census data, would be allocated half the seats in Parliament. For us, Thanksgiving this year was different on two accounts, because we are currently living in the Middle East, and because this is our first year hosting the meal on our own as a bona fide family of our own.

Tuesday and Wednesday saw us making last minute runs to the supermarket to grab the very last 30 oz can of canned pumpkin (and then being stopped by another Jordanian/American family who had been looking everywhere for it), stocking up on potatoes and authentic Ocean Spray cranberry sauce, and searching high and low for something to use as a pie pan. We had also wanted a dish of sweet corn, but were wary of serving anything produced locally, fearing that it would bear a closer resemblance to the field corn back home than to pictures on the label. Not surprisingly, the “California Garden” variety was a packaged in the United Arab Emirates, “American Choice” was from Saudi Arabia, and “Del Monte Genuine” came from the Philippines. Luckily, a few minutes of searching had us standing at the end of an aisle with half its cans flipped around displaying their nutritional data and holding two cans of genuine sweet corn, product of USA (from Indiana, we think, or one of the other squarish states in the middle).

Thanksgivings with our respective families are almost always large. The Miller family, this year, met with 84 of their closest relatives, and the Bates family hosted back-to-back Thanksgivings of 20 to30 people each. While we only had a total of 8 fed in our apartment, this year, we still think the ratio of 2 : 6 is quite respectable. We invited another new teacher from Amman Baccalaureate School, a Texan, and his family, and two of the other teachers from our building. We particularly had fun explaining to one of them, a Brit, the origins of the day.

“This is a day about being thankful for our blessings and remembering the help the Native Americans offered to the Pilgrims when they faced their first, harsh, New England winter.”

“So, it’s not just when you celebrate killing all the red Indians and taking their land? … Why were they called Pilgrims?”

“No. Hmm, I don’t know. Well, anyone want some more turkey… I mean chicken?”

Yes, we served chicken. But they were whole chickens, straight from the roadside rotisserie stand. For not having professional acting training, our trio of chickens made a pretty good show, lying on their backs, golden-roasted chests proudly extended, while limbs, wings, and neck(!) were tucked tight. Uncanny, their resemblance to turkeys. And so we sat down to share portions and stories, thankful for cranberry sauce, pie pans, friendship, and chicken. A great meal, but only the start of what we have to be thankful for about the life we are starting in our new home.

Honk Honk Black Sheep…

Imagine our surprise when we stepped off the city bus one evening and walked around the corner to find a Bedouin shepherd and his flock of sheep and goats coming down the side-street we use to walk home.

“Wait, look!  Where’s the camera?   He’s going to take them across!”

The shepherd brought his flock up to the edge of the four-lane road and waited for a small break in traffic.   A few spoken commands and a rap of his staff on the asphalt were all that was necessary to keep the animals from venturing out too far.  Not a single one of them took a step past the line their master was maintaining.   When he stepped out, they followed.  Lane by lane, they made their way across the road, stopping only briefly in the median to regroup before reaching the far side.   Cars, busses, trucks, and taxis waited patiently for the group to pass or squeezed by as they cleared each lane; just another daily occurrence for the people driving by.

We had heard that the local shepherds occasionally drive their sheep and goats across even the largest roads, and now we finally had the chance to witness it.   A man on the street corner told us that this only happens here, on the outskirts of Amman, and not in the city center where traffic is more dense.  (We think traffic is dense enough here in the suburbs where it still takes us several minutes to work up the nerve to dash across all four lanes).

Jordan is a country made up of a variety of peoples.  The ethnic Jordanians, descendents of the nomadic Bedouin, are actually a minority of the current population.  Jordan has had a history of opening its arms to refugees.   For over five decades, Palestinians have been resettling here, and have contributed greatly to the development of the country’s infrastructure.  The overwhelming majority of the people we interact with at the school, in our neighborhood, or on the street are either Palestinian or of Palestinian descent.   For the last few years, large groups of Iraqis have also taken refuge in Jordan.  So, in modern Jordan, the traditional Jordanian people no longer make up a bulk of the population.

While there is, as one might expect, some degree of friction between these various ethnic groups, the Bedouin and their descendents are still well cherished within the country. The Jordanian government is active in taking steps to ensure that the few remaining nomadic families are free to live their traditional lifestyle in a modern developing world.  Thus, everyone knows that when a few dozen sheep and goats want to cross the road, they have the legal right of way.  And so the taxis, busses, trucks, and cars patiently wait by while the traditional Jordanians go on their way.

A Friday Downtown

Living in an Arab country, our weekends consist of Friday (the weekly Muslim holy day) and Saturday instead of the typically western Saturday and Sunday.  We have decided that we like having Fridays off, as a preparation day for the Sabbath, but miss our Sunday’s too, and are ready to start campaigning to have all three days free.  Until that that time comes, we shall continue to enjoy our Fridays and work from Sun. – Thurs.
Last Friday, after cleaning our apartment, writing some cards, and looking for good DIY solar water heater plans, we took a few hours to head downtown.  Forever the careful planners, we had a plan; we would hop on a bus heading east, see where it goes, and read our lonely planet on the way.  Twenty minutes, two busses, and 0.70 JD ($1.00 USD) later we were at the western edge of Amman’s downtown.  An area densely filled with souqs (markets), shops, and plenty of local food and people, the downtown area is always a great place to explore. 

The men on the corner selling 1 JD pairs of used shoes, spare computer cables, dusty trinkets, and broken calculators are always a welcome contrast to the lattés and shopping malls of west Amman.  We had no specific goal other than to enjoy the culture.  One gentleman gave us an old computer fan that Matthew had picked up to look at.  Later, we came within inches of buying and old red accordion for 25 JD; if it weren’t for the fact that it would displace 25 pounds of clothing in our return luggage next summer, we would now be the proud owners of a mostly functional accordion. 
In what we called the “flea market” area, there were rows of men selling piles of shoes and clothing, including discarded Doc Marten shoes and Abercrombie sweaters.  Surely western Amman cannot discard enough imported name brand shoe wear to necessitate shop after shop like we saw here.  Walking around pretending to be secret agents, we developed a conspiracy theory where Jordan secretly intercepts containers of used western clothing and sells them through street vendors.  (The plot thickens…)

Finished wandering and perusing, we hopped back on the bus again, heading back to our apartment.  With each trip we take, we learn a bit more about the city and become a little more savvy in terms of transportation and local customs.   We like our new home.
 

People gather at the King Hussein mosque, in the heart of Amman’s downtown, for afternoon prayers and to listen to the weekly Friday sermon.

Ramadan Kareem!

A few weeks after we arrived in Jordan, the entire routine of daily life around us changed drastically. With the first sighting of the new moon, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began. During this month, most Muslims voluntarily keep a fast. (Those around us defined this as not eating, drinking, or smoking from the first hint of dawn until sunset.)

Changes in traffic were probably the first thing we noticed. Our school announced that we would have an abbreviated school day for the month, ending at 2pm instead of 3:30pm. Leaving the school at 2pm, though, we sometimes wondered whether our early dismissal was entirely wasted on the traffic jam on the way home. It seems that every business, corner store and factory decided to shut down at 2pm. After an hour or two, that entirely reversed when people went inside to sleep through the most difficult hours of the fast. We started going for a run timed to coincide with evening call to prayer that marked sunset. Most of the streets, then, would be absolutely deserted, as everyone was inside breaking their fast with dates and special fruit juices made only during Ramadan. (And, of course, finally lighting up after having been cigarette deprived all day.)

After the iftar (the evening meal, literally “break fast”), the streets would once again come alive. During Ramadan, families invite their relatives for extended, extravagant meals. Those relatives, of course, need to return the invitation, and on it goes. So, everyone stays up late visiting each other, going shopping for more food, or just enjoying the cool evenings. The mall nearby would be nearly dead at 4pm, but still going strong with all the shops open at 11:30pm. Ramadan must be the month of short nights. People would wake up to eat another big meal before the first morning call to prayer. This means getting up as early as 3am, to prepare a meal before the call rings out around 4:30 or so.

But it’s a month marked by giving, too. Some of Mary Ann’s second grade students made a poster urging their classmates to donate their toys to needy children. Just down the street from us, a special tent was set up. Any poor or hungry people could go there to eat the evening iftar. More affluent areas of town ran charity drives, donating food, goods, and money to others.

During Ramadan, we did our best to hide our water bottles and wait until we were back in our apartment before eating. (Or, we’d at least slip around the corner to take a quick swig of water or hurriedly eat a granola bar.) At times, with no school lunch and unable to eat in public, we felt like we were fasting too, and in at least one instance we were. This year, the Biblical holy day of the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 23:26-32, Acts 27:9, etc.) fell during the month of Ramadan, and so was a rare time when many Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike were fasting together.

More than once, we were invited into someone’s home during the day. Even though it would be late afternoon, when they would be most thirsty, they would still offer us food. We would protest that we didn’t want to torture them, but to no avail. Even though our hosts must have been starving, trays laden with glasses of coffee, tea, water, and plates full of baklava would soon appear. How’s that for self control?

 

Our Version of the Iftar

A Wake Up Call

We woke up at 4:40am this morning to the now-familiar a cappella melody that rolled gently through the half-open window. We still don’t understand all the implications and innuendos behind each word and tone, but it doesn’t take long to decipher the repeated “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is the greatest) that echoes throughout the Muslim call to prayer. It is not meant to be a performance, but this morning’s call to prayer was particularly melodic, and I enjoyed it, briefly, before falling back asleep. Wishing we could understand the words of the call to prayer, we resort to comparing the musical qualities of the voice that calls out at noon with the one at sunset, and so on.

We were somewhat familiar with the call to prayer from our travels through Sarajevo and Istanbul, among other places, but this was some time ago. On our jetlagged first morning in Jordan, we both sat bolt-upright when the call to prayer woke us. The second day, we rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. On the third day (we had shut our window the night before), we slept soundly through the night. Now, the first of the five daily calls to prayer only awakens us infrequently.

Initially, we assumed that whenever the call to prayer rings forth from the minaret, all activity stops – shop doors slam slut, conversations pause, every car pulls over, and people begin to bow towards Mecca. Not so, at least not in our part of Jordan. We were a little surprised when, for all apparent purposes, the hustle and bustle of the city continued as normal.

As we begin to get a few glimpses into the private lives of our hosts, we now see a range of reactions to the call to prayer. Instead of the abrupt urgency we had once imagined, we have seen those who wish to pray quietly excuse themselves or take a few moments pause behind closed doors to express themselves spiritually. Praying an hour or two later is common, and some bypass the tradition altogether. As a new friend recently told us, “You have to do what’s right for yourself.” When you read that more than 90% of the people living here are Muslim, you might expect more uniformity, but we’ve found that people have room for various interpretations of the accepted commands and traditions. In time, we hope to learn enough to appreciate the call to prayer for more than the simple melody we hear now.

Beep! Beep!!

Travel through Amman is a musically enriching experience. By this, we mean that we’ve seldom previously heard such prolific and varied use of that all-important instrument: the horn. Walking by a major road is a veritable symphony, where horns, large and small, long and short, blend to create a continuous stream of music.

The majority of our interactions with the Jordanian people have left us with the impression that they are fairly easy-going. They take the time to invite you in for tea, and love to sit and chat, but on the roadways it’s a whole different story.

People going to work, families on the way to the park for a picnic, minibuses taking their passengers to the other end of town—all of them trying to get somewhere. And they need to get there now. So, they pass on the left and the right (honk), use all the available lanes and create new ones (honk), and weave in and out of slower vehicles (honk honk)…

A honk might mean “Get out of my way!” or “I’m coming!” An explosive burst of seven horns in unison usually follows a traffic light’s switching to green, by about 4 milliseconds. The horn is blown when suddenly slowing, when speeding up, when a friend is sighted, when a friend might have been sighted 5 minutes ago, or when passing a car one has previously seen…

Minibuses honk when passing any walking pedestrians, just in case they have been waiting for precisely this bus and want to flag it down. Taxis honk at all pedestrians, just in case they have wearied of walking along the dusty, exhaust-ridden road. Even taxis with every available seat filled honk sympathetically at those walking by. Whenever we get the brilliant idea to make the 40-minute walk to the supermarket, instead of paying 75 cents for a taxi, our journey is sure to be accompanied by music as intricate as any by Rachmaninoff or Brahms.

Other cars will also often honk at pedestrians, probably saving several lives a day. When crossing any major road we feel like we’re taking our lives into our own hands. Facing an endless stream of cars from both directions, we’ve learned to watch the locals and run across whenever we spot the next little gap. How they feel confident enough to saunter nonchalantly across four lanes of traffic, speeding up just long enough to miss the next wave by a hairsbreadth, is beyond us.

Set against a background of staccato horn bursts, one also hears a melody of squealing tires. Yes, the squealing of tires is a learned art. The bus driver who takes us home from the school in the afternoons is a master. Much to the delight of the boys sitting in the back, he squeals the tires of our old diesel bus while slowly climbing the steep incline just outside the school gates. And then, there are also instances where the art of squealing is combined with the art of interpretive driving. The other morning, on the way to school, our bus was calmly making a left hand turn when a SUV performed a complete U-turn around our moving vehicle, with tires in full squeal the entire time.

We were initially quite amazed that so many of the drivers seemed to have perfected this audible art; you can seemingly drive for days without hearing a single half-hearted or tentative squeal. Then we discovered, on an evening walk, the cherished suburban roundabout where all new drivers practice. From the old minibus that barely squeaks around the curve to the lowered Subaru that drifts gracefully around the circle in full harmony, we feel grateful to be witnessing the development of this urban art form firsthand.

A minibus careens around the corner at Iraq Al Imir, one of our favorite villages near Amman.

“Welcome to Jordan!”

“Welcome to Jordan!”

Since we arrived in Amman a week and a half ago, this is probably the phrase we’ve heard most often. These were the words our principal used as a greeting when she met us at the airport. But “Welcome to Jordan” may also be shouted at us by kids playing football (soccer) on the street as we walk to find some chicken and chick peas for dinner. Taxi drivers welcome us; random men sitting around smoking on a street corner welcome us to their country when we ask for directions. Even the night watchman at the hotel down the street welcomed us with this phrase before he launched us into a ten minutes conversation (despite the fact that neither of us spoke more than a few words of the other’s language). Yesterday, our taxi pulled to the side of the street to ask for directions to a bus station in the suburbs. Arabic and gestures flew back and forth over our heads as the group of pedestrians instructed the taxi driver. As we pulled away, one shouted “Welcome to Jordan!” after us, even though we hadn’t been a part of the exchange at all.

“Welcome to Jordan!” must be the first English phrase anyone learns here. And the welcome extends beyond just those words. Those who know a little more English press us for our first impressions:

“Do you like Jordan?”

“Is Jordan beautiful?”

We always smile and nod. So far, we’ve stayed in the Amman area and have yet to explore the famous landmarks of Jordan. But even in the dusty, hot summer streets of Amman, Jordan is beautiful—because of its people. Sure, we get lots of stares, but not a single person we’ve approached in conversation has been rude. People smile at us and our mispronounced, tiny Arabic vocabulary. A taxi driver uses a few words of English, a long string of Arabic, and lots of gestures to tell us we must visit his hometown of Jerash. Others ask when we will go visit Aqaba (or the Dead Sea, or Petra, or the desert castles…). Thus far, wherever we have gone, we have felt welcome in Jordan.

A view of the eastern edge of downtown Amman.