First day in Amman

So far, Jordan is more or less as I expected it to be. Of course, I’ve only been here one day, so I’m sure there are plenty of surprises in store. In some ways it is similar to Cairo (where I spent 6 weeks in an intensive Arabic program 4 years ago), especially the style of building and the craziness of the drivers. There are streetlights, however, which I only ever saw one of in Cairo, and they seem to be obeyed, for the most part. I went out today with several other students in my program, a couple of whom had already been in the city for several days, and walked around for a while. The frequency of English on signs surprised me a little bit: every street sign and most shop signs were in both Arabic and English. Most of the people on the streets were men, which I did expect from the guide books as well as my experiences in Egypt, but we were a large enough group that no one tried to talk to us, although most starred. I also saw a few tourists, something that I don’t remember noticing in Cairo except at such sights as the Pyramids. It’s also clearly a smaller city, and significantly newer. Most of the buildings look the same, boxes and rectangles built from a whitish stone that I don’t recognize. One aspect of the city that I wasn’t expecting was the fact that it seems to have been built on the slopes of a very small mountain range. It makes it somewhat difficult to judge how big the city is because the hills almost definitely obscure parts of the city that I haven’t seen yet. Another thing that surprised me a bit was the weather. I knew that winter was the rainy season, so I expected downpours but I didn’t realize how windy it would be. The temperature probably never went below 50 F, but the wind chill, combined with the rain, brought it down quite a bit. I have enough layers that it didn’t bother me too much, but several of the other students were not happy. However, the Jordanians are happy because apparently this rain, which has been going on for several days now, off and on, has broken a 5-year drought.

The rest of the students in the program are arriving today and I’m pretty sure we’re going to completely fill up the hotel. I was astonished to find out that there are roughly 100 Americans in this program for the spring semester alone. I didn’t think Jordan was that popular a study abroad destination. The people that I’ve met so far seem to be interesting, usually majoring in some form or combination of international relations, political science and anthropology. I haven’t met any Islamic studies students, but there must be some. Our orientation starts tomorrow, and we begin by going to the Dead Sea for the day. It will probably be the best first day of orientation I’ve ever had for anything, although I’m looking forward to being done with orientation so I can start settling into the city. Our Arabic classes start almost immediately, but the other classes begin with the University of Jordan’s semester, which should be the first week of February. I’ll be living in an apartment (not a dorm) with 1, 2, or 3 other students. There was a homestay option, but having experienced a homestay in an Arab country before, I decided that I wanted more independence this time around. My experience in Egypt was positive, and it certainly helped my Arabic that my family spoke very little English, thereby forcing me to speak Arabic. It also gave me insights into the culture that I wouldn’t have otherwise witnessed. However, I couldn’t leave the house without a parent or sibling with me, and since my oldest host sister was only 16 and I didn’t have any host brothers, her activities were restricted, and therefore mine were too. I spent many hours most days in front of their television watching soap operas or music videos in Arabic, with the very occasional American movie from the American movie channel thrown in. Some of the other students who had older host brothers had a lot more freedom, but it’s a gamble what kind of family you’ll get. Being on my own will also hopefully force me to make connections with Jordanians on my own, rather than relying on a host family.