Observations of Ramadan

This is how shwarma meet is cooked, it is shaved off in small
chunks and then put in a pita with french fries, sauces,
 tomatoes, and all sorts of other delicious things.

Ramadan, the holy month in Islam where every devout muslim will refrain from water, food, cigarettes and getting angry at people from the first prayer call in the morning (about 3:30 AM) until the last prayer call at night (about 7:30 PM).  In a country composed almost entirely of Muslims this means that there are some huge changes.  First of all, work hours change or cease all-together.  All of the restuarants and coffee shops are closed for most if not all of the day and only open after the evening prayer call and iftar (it literally means breakfast and is the meal that is eaten right after the last prayer call of the day).  Secondly anyone who eats, drinks or smokes in public can be fined according to law by the Police so there's no use in using the excuse that you were a dumb foreigner.    Work hours are shortened and there are way more people in town as all the people come home for the Holy Month.  So in addition to everyone being hungry and thirsty in intense heat, there are more people, things are closed and traffic is horrible.  Overall it is quite different to be in a country where EVERYTHING changes because of a religious observance.  Coming from the secular western culture into a country of mostly homogenous religion is quite a wonderful experience.  Overall, I have spent a lot of time indoors because I don't want to travel around, get thirsty and not be able to drink anything, working on last reports and preparing for my weekend in Aqaba Scuba Diving.  However, last night I did have an interesting experience that I will tell you about here:

This is a lamb or lahma shwarma and is one of my favorite foods

  Yesterday at about 7:00 PM I decided that I was extremely hungry (I'm only eating about one meal a day now so that was about time to eat) and wanted to have a shwarma from my favorite place just a kilometer away. So I got dressed, walked up there, and bought two large shwarmas, a mountain dew and a donut for desert (not as good as American Donuts but still adequate).  Of course since the final prayer call hadn't sounded yet I couldn't eat in public so I had to walk back to my house with my food and my growling stomach.  Interestingly enough, people were headed everywhere and every food place I saw was packed with people trying to get food for their iftar or the first meal they eat after their fast.  Anyway, on my walk back home I passed a Pizza Hut/Popeye's restaurant conglomeration that had outside dining that was packed.  As I walked by I noticed that everyone was sitting there with piles of food from the buffets and drinks poised with straws up and caps off, simply waiting.  Can you picture over a hundred people and an eating establishment poised and ready to eat and simply waiting for the go-ahead?  It was quite surreal.  So, since I didn't have anywhere pressing to go I decided that I would stick around and see what happened when it was time to eat as I would only have to wait about 15 minutes.  I was really excited and wondered if they would play the Ahdan (Call to prayer) over the intercom or if someone would come out and tell them and also what would happen after it was ok to eat, would they devour their food in a hungry binge or calmly begin eating like nothing had happend.  Well at 7:42 and employee of the restaurant came out and kindly informed everyone that the prayer call had gone on and that it was now okay to begin eating.  It was a little anti-climatic but it was a cool experience and one that I will definitely not forget.  I have to say though, if you ever come to the Middle East I would not recommend visiting during Ramadan, it makes things a lot more difficult for foreigners traveling!

A Jordanian Wedding

Woot, Fireworks and men dancing while holding hands,
it must be an Arab wedding!

Ever Since I have arrived in Jordan I have wanted to see a Jordanian wedding. When a month or two ago, my facilitator stated that this was wedding season and we would hear a lot of fireworks, I had no idea how true that statement would be. Up until this past week, all I knew about weddings in Jordan could be summed up in a few words, loud, long, and expensive. Every night we hear fireworks going off late into the night and processions of cars with people hanging out of them, yelling, and honking their horns non-stop. It seems like that’s simply what you do at a wedding, and I thought I wouldn’t know anything more about it until a friend at work invited us to his nephew’s wedding party.

Arab Wedding Cake, not sweet at all!

First of all, calling it a wedding is misleading and any Arab will correct you when you say that. There is no religious ceremony for an Arab wedding, at least from what I understand, and the day before the festivities start the families and the groom (I’m not completely sure if the bride goes) go to the local courthouse and sign the wedding license making the couple officially married. After that, the partying ensues. Traditional weddings, the only one that I’ve seen, used to last a week but with dwindling money most families shorten it to two or three days. The first day is a party in a huge tent on a rented piece of clear property for only the groom’s family. The men and women are separated and for the first 3 hours or so the groom meets all of his guests (many of whom he may barely know) and loud music plays incessantly. This is the time of the party where shabab are dancing constantly, old men are talking about how things have changed with the years, drinks and snacks are sold, and basically the groom doesn’t get to have much fun. The party we went to was called very small because it only had 200 male guests and was only two full days long. Anyway, there are a lot of traditions to be involved in and the normal antics of the groom’s friends, lifting him on their shoulders, dancing with him, and generally having a lot of fun being completely sober. A few interesting traditions I saw involved the music. Specific songs require you to do certain actions. For instance, when the older/traditional music began we were told we had to stand up in the front of the the gathering with all the men, shoulder to shoulder, and sway side to side while clapping.

Henna and that wonderful Parasol!

This was where we all had to stand next to each other and clap.
The old my next to me is wearing a shamech traditionally denoting
someone of palestinian descent (It's white & black not red).

 When another song started, it signaled that henna had been delivered from the women of the groom’s family. A few elaborately dressed little girls brought over two heaping plates of henna which was then applied in designs and letters on the groom’s hands so, “They will look beautiful to the bride,” as a few arab men told me. The whole time the music is playing loudly and the men are joking around and playing with a garishly decorated parasol that the little girls brought with them. Apparently, by having the parasol placed over you, or dancing with the person holding it, it signals that you will be married soon (much like the throwing of flowers at American weddings). Also at this time, the mother of the groom came to the party to see the henna placed on the groom’s hands. I was told it is how she shows her approval of the wedding and if she doesn’t show up, the shabab at the wedding will start to chant trying to get her to arrive. Anyway, it was quite an adventure, and like always, I got to hold hands with lots of random Arab men and dance the night away, it seems to be a theme in my life.
After this aspect of the wedding was over, we were taken with the close family friends and family up to the house at about 11 o’clock (at this point we had been here for about two and a half hours). With the smaller group of about forty men we went to the grooms new home and ate mansaf which was amazing. It is probably the only time that man cook in this country but it was fantastic. There were probably a dozen seperate plates of mansaf with about 5 kilos of lamb meet on each. The men from the groom's family were the servers as all of the men devoured the mansaf and enjoyed themselves. After a very short time, less than 15 minutes, all of the non-family members were miraculously done (except for us) which we thought was extremely interesting. We found out, after everyone else left, that the family had not eaten and that everyone left so that they could eat. One the men had had their fill, the food would be delivered to the women in the family and finally to the bride's family. Nothing is put to waste here ever!

Mansaf partay ...woot!

Overall, the wedding was amazing and quite an experience. It was loud and long like most Jordanian parties but at the same time wonderful and eye-opening. It is awesome to see cultures who put such a high price on weddings and feel that they are so important, but I hope that they put that same type of emphasis on the marriage which is what actually matters.

Arab Neighbors

We have the nicest neighbors in the entire world.  They are called the Atmehs and have 4 sons living at home and two daughters who are off and married.  Being a neighbor in Jordan is much different than being a neighbor in the United States.  In the United States you likely know your neighbors name and maybe where they work.  Sometimes you have a good relationship with them, but rarely do you consider them your good friends and you usually only speak with them when you need them.  In America we prefer to pick our friends and stick to them, rather than being forced into relationships involved the location where we live.  Also, if you don’t see or have a meaningful conversation with your neighbor for a week, a month, or even longer it is no problem and we think nothing of it.  This relationship is completely different in Jordan.
In Jordan, relationships are everything.  With the Atmehs it started the day we all first moved into the apartment and immediately invited us over for food, shia (tea), and watching movies.  For the first few weeks we would go to their home 2-4 times a week and spend hours there.  I learned a lot about the culture, the Arabic language and just having fun.  Unfortunately this utopia could not last and soon their 16 year-old son Mahmoud was coming to our home every day.  He would barely be in the door and he would whisper in our ear, “Laptop” and “Internet.”  While on the internet he would watch videos on YouTube (very expensive when you’re paying for all data) and other things, and if we went out he would beg the person incessantly to buy him food and other things.  He was like any other 16 year-old slightly annoying and full of himself, but was also unaware of how many social lines he was crossing by constantly touching things that weren’t his.  He was a good kid, it was just ridiculous to have him come over everyday right when we would return from work and were very tired.  Eventually things came to a head and one of the interns kicked Mahmoud out of the apartment because he wasn’t listening and then we didn’t see the Atmehs very much after that even though they have helped us with everything including food, water problems, and good company.
  This week, however, I determined to go over to their home and ensure they knew I didn’t hate their family.  Austin came with me and we had a wonderful time talking to them.  They of course asked where we had been for so long and why we hadn’t seen them and then immediately asked us to have lunch with them the next day of chicken and potatoes.  Of course we agreed and the next day we had an amazing meal with them and a great conversation.  Like always, they told us that we were their sons and that we were welcome anytime.  On Friday, the holy day and all that, I was laying in my room when I heard the doorbell ring twice.  Usually this meant that Mahmoud was at the door and so I ignored it for a second but thought better of it and went to go check.  It was the Atmehs, but it wasn’t Ahmed.  It was their 24 year-old daughter, Ameera, from the United Arab Emirates.  She asked if she could use my computer and Internet to check her plane ticket, which I said ok too, and then they invited me in the home.
  Of course, once I was in the home I was there for a few hours and I really knew that I was accepted into the family for a number of reasons.  First of all, they allowed me to sit in the kitchen and talk to the mother and Ameera.   Secondly Ameera was in her pajamas and the mother was not in a hijab.  Thirdly I talked to them about personal subjects such as why they do or do not wear the hijab, marriage, tensions between religions and other things such as that.  It was amazing to be in such a familiar atmosphere and to once again experience a new cultural experience, this time what it is like to be part of an Arab family and experience the familiarity that is there.  Of course, they had to invite me for dinner so I hate an amazing meal (with both women, again something that is not allowed unless you are a member of the family) of meat and rice rolled up and cooked in grape leaves.  It was amazing and I joked with the mother that when I return next year she would have to teach my wife how to make some wonderful Jordanian dishes.
  Overall, it is an amazingly different experience to have Arab neighbors.  It is completely different than in America and at times can be extremely tiring.  However, it is also amazingly enjoyable at the same time because of the new experiences I have, the glorious home-cooked meals, and nice people who although we speak very little of the same language, I know care about me and would help me in any circumstance.

Friday... a day of Rest?

I just think it's cool to see the name in Arabic Script

Again, I'm a bit behind but that is simply because my life is so dang cool/awesome here that it's hard to write about all of it.

Friday.  The day of the mosque or the day when most Muslims go to mosque at Noon for Friday Prayer.  It is also the day when most political demonstrations occur in Amman but unfortunately I haven't seen any of these yet.  For me, as an American Christian, it is odd to think of going to church on any other day than Sunday but when in Rome we must do as the Romans do.  Going to church is very interesting in Jordan since the Church I attend, the LDS or Mormon church, is not officially recognized in Jordan.  Since we are not officially recognized as a church, any Jordanian Members must be especially careful or they be followed by the Jordanian Secret Police.  However, the church group here is quite small and I enjoy it greatly.  We have services in both English and Arabic and although I don't understand much of what is being said, I always attend the Arabic classes and will begin attending the Arabic Sacrament Meetings soon.  This week in Sunday School I was able to differentiate between the words the Arabs were speaking and got the general picture that we were talking about modern day prophets.  You may laugh, but anyone who has studied a language and then spoken with a native speaker knows just how dang hard it is.  Anyway, church was fun and I got to talk to some of the Ex-patriot members who are currently working at the Embassy.  They said we can get a tour of the embassy and maybe even meet some of the personel.  SO AWESOME!

Ahmed and Aussie strolling down Sharia Medina

  After Church we headed back home where I promptly took a Sunday nap and ate some food in preparation for meeting up with Mr. Ahmed from the previous day.  Because of a miscommunication in time we ended up meeting Ahmed about 45 minutes late but like the typical Arab he wasn't angry at all. We walked around the Roman Ruins downtown for a few minutes and he then informed us that he had to leave to go see a friend, handed us 5 Dinars and told us to go get a drink and wait for him to return in an hour.  It being my Sunday, and eating Pizza on Sunday being a tradition in my home, we found a little restaurant that we like to frequent and I ordered a pizza that looked oh so delicious.  I then, however, found out how Jordanians make their pizza; WITHOUT SAUCE!  Instead they gave me a ketchup packet (I personally think it is somewhat of an abomination to eat pizza with ketchup) so what I ended up eating was basically a glorified grilled cheese sandwich.  By the time we finished eating it was close to 7 so we headed back to our meeting spot with Ahmed and waited.  Then we waited, and waited and waited some more until about 9:00 o'clock we finally decided that the "Insha a'allah period" had ended and we were gonna head home (I'll right about Insha a'allah later).  Of course, right as we were getting Ahmed calls and asks us where we are and what we want to do for the rest of the evening.   We told him that it was late and so we went home and he asked if he could visit us at our apartment.  Being concerned with safety we told him no and then told him we would see him next week.

Desert with Ahmed

  However, as I began to think about it I realized that we may have offended him greatly and I didn't want to burn any bridges with a potential wonderful Arab friend.  We figured that we could see him again tonight and we asked him to meet us at the Kentucky Fried Chicken that is close to our apartment.  There he insisted on buying us a second dinner and we had a great time talking and joking with him a lot.  He then told us that he wanted to go on a walk to get some desert so we proceeded to walk to the local desert store.  On the way Ahmed would stop every few meters and tell us a different story or ask us a different question such that the walk that should have taken about 15 minutes ended up taking about an hour.  Also as we were walking he told us that he wanted to take us to get a massage in Aqaba so we can feel how nice Arabic massages are and then demonstrated to us an Arabic massage on the side of the busy road.  Something you have to know about Arab men is they are extremely touchy with their friends.  It is quite routine to see two grown men walking down the road hand in hand or arm in arm.  It is casual and there is nothing to it, just like how they love to touch your head or side a lot.  Or how you must kiss each other on the cheeks when greeting one another and how many times you kiss is how important the other person is to you.  Well, Ahmed did that with us and I got photographic evidence for which I am so happy!
  Overall, today was amazing and filled with adventure as well as a lot of speaking in Arabic with Ahmed.  It was so much fun and just another wonderful day in my journey to Jordan.

Fun Fact:  If you ever want to find an Egyptian in Jordan, look at the ones doing the dirty work like construction, cleaning, or garbage pick up.  Many times they are in orange jump suits with "sanitation" written on the back.  Egyptians do the menial jobs that Jordanians feel are below them and are treated much like the Hispanic population in America.  Very interesting!

The Best day so far!

Thursday was seriously the best day I have had in Amman yet, and exactly what I hoped would happen when I came here.  Let me tell you about it so you realize just how awesome my life is right now!

  Thursday started off as a pretty boring day for me since I didn't have work and all I was doing was translating a survey from Arabic to English that we have to analyze and report upon soon.  I woke up late and did some of the Arabic translation as well as quite a bit of the reading I have to do for my International Development class.  At 4:00 PM we had a dinner planned with all of the interns so around 3:00 I jumped into the shower and guess what?  IT WAS WARM!!!  It was amazing, I had turned on the water heater about two hours before and I got a perfectly warm shower that was the perfect length and I didn't run out of water.  It was glorious and I knew right then that it was going to be a glorious day.

L To R: Brady, Austin, Jennae, Katie, Jensen, Me, Ben

  At around 4:00 o'clock when my last roommate got back from work we jumped in a taxi and asked him to take us to the Armenian Church near the city center.  Unfortunately he had absolutely no idea where he was going and took us a round about way to charge us more money.  In addition, he stopped in the middle of the drive at a coffee shop, without asking, and bought some coffee as well as a pepsi for one of the passengers.  It was a nice gesture but a little unexpected.  2.50 Dinar later we finally got out of the cab, called our facilitator and then got another taxi to take us to the right location.  We met our facilitator, Annie, on the road and then hiked up some massive hills to her home which was simply beautiful and in a nice quite part of Eastern Amman.  There we set to the project of making traditional Middle Eastern Food (Annie is half-palestinian and used to eat this stuff with her grandma all the time) consisting of stuffed Zuchinni and meat in Grape Leaves.  It was an awesome experience and once we were finished with that we ate the most delicious food ever out on the veranda over looking Amman and listening to the prayer call echo around the city from all the different mosques.  It was breathtaking and exactly what I imagined when I thought of coming to the Middle East.

The Breathtaking view from the Veranda

After dinner we ventured down to the city center where we were supposed to meet up with one of our new Arabic friends, Yahya, and have some drinks or something.  As we were waiting for him at the mosque a random man came up to us, welcomed us to Jordan and began talking to us excitedly.  He then told us he wanted to take us out for drinks but we told him we were waiting for a friend so he made us commit to seeing him the next day to which we agreed.  He then kept talking and said that he wanted us to come with him tonight, as well as our friends, and have some drinks so he could be hospitable.  When Yahya got there he introduced us to his friend Anis (haha, I laughed pretty hard when I first heard it to) and we all went to go get some drinks.  Ahmed led us to this dingy little cafe about the street called Rasheed that was full of Arabic men smoking hookah, drinking, laughing and playing a combination of chess, checkers, and cards.  We walked out to the veranda and there we talked for about 3 hours simply having fun, joking around and trying to get through our language differences so that we would be able to understand one another and have a good time.  At about 11 I convinced our hosts that we should move inside and they should teach us an Arabic card game which I thought would be extremely interesting.  We moved inside, cleared off a quite disgusting table and wafted the hookah smoke out the window and then.... they taught us Spades.  Oh well, it was still really fun to play cards with them and to get to know all of them better.  Just so you know, the guy that we had just met that day, Ahmed, paid for all of our drinks and stayed with us until midnight.  He then told us that we had to meet him the next day in the square and we would have some more fun with him.  It was amazing, but that is Arab hospitality.
  On a side note about Arab hospitality, they are extremely competitive.  They always need to look the most hospitable and are extremely protective, even paternal when it comes to their guest.  Although we have taken a taxi many times to Wisit Il-ballad, Yahya insisted on waiting with us to get the taxi, telling the taxi driver where to go and ensuring he turned on his meter just for us.  It was very interesting and an amazing night.  Like I said earlier, this exactly what I hoped would happen when I came to Jordan and it has been amazing!

Fun in the Hookah Bar
L to R: Austin, Ahmed, Yahya, Anis, Me

I'm two days behind on my blogs and it has been absolutely amazing, but hopefully I will be able to get them taken care of in the next few days insha'allah!  Again, I love to hear from you all and have a wonderful day.

اليوم الاول "The First Day"

A sign that caught my attention in the Amman Airport

Today was awesome, long, and tiring.  Last night I arrived in Jordan along with two other interns for the program that I randomly met in the Frankfurt airport.  We got into Jordan about 2:00 PM and then spent an hour going through customs and getting our Visas.  After that we were picked up by Annie and one of her neighbos, an Iraqi named Omar.  They picked us up in an old Toyota van and drove us through the semi-deserted streets of Amman blaring Arabic music and driving like maniacs while we talked about the program and I looked out the window and saw amazing mosques and other buildings.  We got into the apartment and I decided I would take a shower before going to bed.  I went into the bathroom and found out, unfortunately, that our apartment has no warm water! This is horrible for someone who loves warm showers as much as I do so I quickly soaped up and then gently splashed the water on myself as I tried to not to scream from shock.  As I got out of the shower I had to dry myself off with my used t-shirt because I had negated to buy a replacement towel in America before arriving.  As I prepared to slip into bed I heard the call to prayer for the first time at almost exactly 4:00 AM.  It was beautiful and something that I was very much looking forward to.

  In the morning we all woke up and dressed in our best to go and meet our internship director for the first time at 9:30 AM. Her name is Rasha and through talking to her I decided that I would spend my internship with the Jordanian Ministry of Social Development not in the office like I originally thought but out in the community where I can improve my Arabic and hopefully make some more friends.  After we left the ministry we went down town where I saw my first Roman ruins just sitting there in the middle of the city.  I also got wonder in and out of little shops selling everything you can imagine and have my first taste of authentic swarma which filled me up and cost me less than 70 cents. It was amazing.  I also found the second foulest bathroom I have ever been in and had to pay to use it!  This sure it isn’t America.  However, everywhere we went I was enthralled by the Arabic signs and the Arabic people.  I know I am going to love this summer.

  After meeting up with our facilitator we returned to our apartment where we spoke Omar the Iraqi for a good 2 hours.  He taught us a lot of Jordanian and helped us learn concepts and work on pronunciation.  At BYU we learn Fusha or formal Arabic, as wall as Egyptian or Amaaya Arabic, neither of which is spoken here.  So, everytime we would ask him a question with words from Amaaya he would say, “No.  That is Egyptian, it is False!”  It was a great conversation we had with him and it really helped me to appreciate Arabic and the learning I will get to do while her.  Finally after unpacking I and two other interns went exploring for a bit and went to the grocery store which was an interesting experience in and of itself.  I did run into a really nice grocer who taught me some new words and said my Arabic was good which by definition means it is horrible but it still felt good. 

Wisit Il-Balad: Downtown Amman

  Overall, I love Amman already and I haven’t even been here for 24 hours let alone a day where I’m not dead tired the whole time.  The people are amazingly nice and willing to help, the language is beautiful, prices are cheap for the most part and I am going to have many wonderful adventures.  Also, I think at the end of all of these I am going to include a fun fact about Jordan.

Fun Fact 1:  Jordanian Driving is a mixture of a little bit of crazy, a dash of danger, and a whole lot of Horn.