"That's no ice cream truck."

First of all, thanks for the comments and encouragement on the previous post and for your patience in waiting for this next post.

First, the highlights:
1) Abdoun, Amman = swanky, “Westernized” residential district
2) Lost luggage…might arrive today, insha’allah
3) Jet-lagggggg
4) Gallons of hummus
5) Learning how to make Arab/Turkish coffee
6) Being dropped off today to explore Amman with other SIT students

After a couple near-misses with some connecting flights spanning about 30 hours of traveling, lost luggage, and about four hours of sleep for the past three days, I’m finally settled in Amman. The SIT building is located in a villa in Abdoun, a residential district in West Amman dotted with embassies, villas and bordered by commercial districts. Starting Sunday, I’ll be in class from 9 to 12 studying Arabic, with a generous lunch break, followed by afternoon thematic seminar classes. Thursday I move in with my homestay family, which from what I learned from Dema, the homestay coordinator, is a well-to-do Muslim, Palestinian couple whose only daughter is married and living elsewhere with her husband and grandchildren; no children, animals or cigarettes, alhamdulilah.

And now for the lengthy part which you may not care to read:
The pair of minaret windows like two unblinking, luminescent green eyes cast an ethereal glow over the mosque dome a few blocks away. All day long, the call to prayer all across the city has captivated me, drawn me into this dialogue between Islam and myself. I’m completely engrossed in its mystique (a statement which unashamedly reeks of Orientalism). But the sense of sorrow in the call to prayer, that prolonged wail which echoes across the city, draws me deeper and deeper into thought with each call. Upon hearing the start of the prayer, I resumed my perch on the hotel balcony air-conditioning unit and gazed at the apartment complex south across the empty lot between us. Through the dark, I could see four of its five floors illuminated through windows: on the ground floor, nothing stirred at the call, but on the first floor, guests in dress hijab and suits milled about on a patio evening party. One figure in flowing, cream hijab passed between the kitchen window and the party serving the guests, uninterrupted by the call to prayer. Directly above the hostess was the equally luminescent green paint of living room walls bedecked with a large plasma screen television which added to the eerie glow emanating from the window. Slowly a dark figure in a chadri-like veil rose with the television providing a dramatic backlight. As she alternately rose and knelt, the living room was transformed from the chic minimalist living space dominated by the rapid-fire of the television to a mystical prayer chamber. Upon conclusion of her ritual, the figure jerked away the veil, placing it on the back of a sofa, revealing a cropped, tossled hair-style and short sleeve, form-fitting shirt. As a man, presumably her husband, rejoined her from another room, the couple casually seated themselves in front of the television, a gesture more modern than the audacious dinner party below. How to reconcile all these conflicting images? How fluid-like they collectively slip in and out of these identities, as past and present existed in one moment showcased for me in the illuminated windows of an Amman apartment complex.
I wouldn’t call any of my experiences thus far culture shock, as much as I am told by SIT that’s what I’m feeling. As much as one can group all the mixed reactions to interacting with any culture as a shocking sense of otherness, I’m feeling a greater sense of dislocation among some of my classmates. I didn’t become upset about the waiter with greasy fingers man-handling my pita bread in the restaurant this evening (some of you know how much this and other forms of human contact might bother me), the lack of toilet paper in public restrooms, or even my lost luggage en route to Beirut, apparently. While wearing the same clothes for three or four consecutive days is discomforting in this weather, the situation did not upset me as much as some statements made by other program participants, like “once you’ve been in Jordan a few weeks it gets old…you know, you’ve seen everything by then (followed by a list of tourist attractions)” and inquiries and plotting about how to go clubbing despite potentially strict homestay situations. These attitudes from other students are more of a shock to me than being surrounded by a language and people I have yet to understand. Please understand, I write this not in a spirit of meanness to criticize my generally friendly, talented and well-traveled peers, but to reaffirm my desire to learn on a much deeper level than this seemingly superficial sight-seeing and language acquisition as a trophies on my world travels shelf. I’m quite happy to learn about Jordanians on their terms: I won’t ruffle my feathers at garrulous, flirting taxi drivers or road-side whistlers and the consequent need for conservative dress; refraining from eating or drinking in public during Ramadan; the invasion of my privacy by incessantly questioning, ever curious Bedouin; or strict homestay situations and less independence than many would prefer. (On a lighter note, there’s this local bird which wolf-whistles like some of the taxi drivers. I need to find a bird guide to Jordanian birds.)
Already I’ve encountered the discourse of tribalism (around which I’m planning my Independent Study Project, subject to change), though only in the positive light cast by State-sponsored tourism and instructors proud of their heritage and the benefits genealogical nationalism supposedly provides. Most restaurants display some hodge-podge of “traditional” signs of hospitality, like antiquated coffee pots and swords, and a portrait of King Abdullah II, sometimes in Desert Army garb. Bedouin tourist kitsch is everywhere. But with so many opportunities for study, who knows what my focus will be.

To end on a light note, what we thought were ice cream trucks traveling about the city playing entertainer-like tunes are actually petroleum trucks selling gasoline road-side. Not tasty.