Hey Everyone,
Now that I'm done with my research, I have time to think about the strangeness that is my life in Jordan. Here are a few of those observations:
1) Jordanian TV.
Aside from the obsession with Arab's got Talent, Jordanians watch some weird things. Both at my house and in my favorite Shabab hangout, people love watching WWE. Yes, the weird acting/wrestling/awkwardly buff men fake beating the crap out of each other. The one where they show a scene about a guy pushing another down in the locker room and then...OH MY GOD...they're fighting each other in the ring. But it's not really fighting. One guy will knock the other down, and then wait for him to get up and attack him. It's almost as if the whole thing is staged...but Jordanians love it.
They show a lot of American movies, but they are often edited. In Mean Girls, they left out significant parts of the house party scene (the whole thing about Karen Smith kissing her cousin isn't nearly as funny when cousin marriage is completely common). My brother and I bonded over twilight the other night. Yes folks, I watched twilight. Yes folks, I actually found it entertaining (while I wasn't busy laughing my ass off)
2) Watching Jordanians freak out about the cold
Right now, it's cold. My midwest friends say it's cold too, so it's not just my wimpy California cold. Our family has a space heater which is just a gas tank on wheels with a small fire in the front with metal to spread the warmth. My family fights over it as they wheel it around. I can't blame them, but I don't want to engage in the fight.
3) Having Brothers
I grew up in a small family with only a sister. In Jordan, i have a 10 and 15-year-old brother. Watching them beat the crap out of each other is hysterical, especially as I notice what people mean when they say "I can tell you're the baby child." When the younger brother (Rashed) wants something, he tears up and runs away to baba until he gets what he wants. When Ahmad (his older brother) hits him too hard, he fakes injury, but when he and I are playing and he falls onto his ass really hard, he is totally fine. Emma, I'm sorry--youngest children are the worst. Since I started letting my brothers use my iPad, this got significantly worse, because whenever one of them is using it, the other one OBVIOUSLY has to has it, and then fights break out, and then I feel bad.
My sister also really enjoys using me and my need for privacy as a means of kicking Rashed out of our room. I'm happy to help out when I can.
4) More Adventures from Taxis
I've met a surprising number of taxi drivers that lived in America (and speak fluent english) before their visas expired and they had to return to Jordan. One of them asked me if he could be my boyfriend (I should mention he was at least 50 years old), and then he wouldn't let me leave until I called his cell phone so he could have my number. He also pulled over at one point so I could move to the front seat of the taxi. It was quite awkward when I said no. It was creepy except for that it wasn't creepy, but it was REALLY creepy.
5) The Call to Prayer
I was at the Roman citadel on a hill overlooking downtown Amman with an American friend who is Jordanian/Palestinian, and as soon as the call to prayer rang out. He freaked out with excitement. Within a few minutes, over ten mosques were blasting the call to prayer, and all of them were overlapping. As a good Jew, I davened mincha with Alla Hu Akbar in the background, and it was one of the cooler spiritual experiences I've had here.
A different experience with the call to prayer happened after getting home from the plane in Morocco. I got to the building at about 4 AM, and of course the door was locked. I sat outside in the pitch black freezing cold for about two hours, and one of the things I saw was the lights turn on in various apartments as the call to prayer woke people up. It was cool to see the city start to wake up, leave their houses to go to Mosque, but I wish one of those people would have been in my building...
I'm going to miss it a lot when I leave, but many of my friends who wake up at 5 AM every day because of it will miss it less.
That's it for now,
Becca
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