30 May

I think today was a good day.

If I haven't mentioned it before (to everyone reading this who isn't on the trip), at Qasid we have language partners after Arabic class, two days a week (Monday and Wednesday) while Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday we have lectures about politics, society, culture, etc. With today's language partner, we talked about culture with food in Jordan.

First we saw a video about mansaf, kind of like a communal dish/style of eating with yogurt, rice, lamb, and other minor ingredients. The video showed mansaf being made.
Jordanian cuisine has a unique kind of yogurt called jameet, which is actually like a hard, crumbly solid. Preparation involved adding liquid to jameet chunks to soften it up for use in the mansaf. I'm just guessing that the hard, solid jameet lasts a long time without refrigeration, useful for bedouin life.
In addition, the head of the lamb is used for the meat, then the skull is actually presented on top of a bed of rice, surrounded by smaller chunks of lamb. It's quite an effect to see the lamb's teeth, eye sockets, etc. right on top of the rice. From what I understood of my language partner's, Wesam's, explanation in Arabic, mansaf with the lamb's head is a way of honoring a guest kind of by going all out and presenting this lamb's head. I mean if I was a guest at a home, and my host went through the trouble of preparing this lamb's head along with all the other lamb meat and food for me, as a guest, that'd be pretty cool. I'd feel honored.
Mansaf is very traditional cuisine in Jordan, and is mainly eaten in homes or in events/large groups. In the video, it showed people eating mansaf with their hands. They would take a handful of rice with dates, almonds, lamb, etc. and eat it that way. However, in restaurants, people typically eat other kinds of dishes with utensils.

In addition, we went to the nearby Mukhtar Mall while discussing Jordanian culture. After spending time in an Arabic-speaking environment, I can definitely notice that my extemporaneous speaking has improved in some areas. There are well-worn topics and ideas that I can navigate with confidence.
Being in this environment, however, also makes me aware about the challenges of comprehending spoken Arabic. I liked our language partner session because it felt more like a conversation, where we talked about food, and I was asking questions, responding to what we were watching, making comments, being more interactive than just question. answer. question. answer. Like most of my Arabic conversations and interactions in the past. There's definitely huge gaps in my understanding when talking with Wesam, but I understand enough to interact.
Only a couple hours later getting into a taxi, aside from directing the taxi driver where I needed to go and paying for the fare, I found understanding him very difficult, even compared to other cab drivers. The way that cab driver spoke, the vocabulary he used, how fast he talked, the hand gestures he makes, the things he talks about, are all different and unfamiliar to me, compared to Wesam or my instructors. I'm convinced that listening comprehension is the hardest part of learning a language, and part of the unique challenge is adjusting to many different speakers with different ways of speaking. Your writing and speaking come from one person, one source, one set of vocabulary, idioms, mannerisms, preferences, style. You know exactly what you want to express. But listening means learning and adjusting to the idiolect, the unique combination of vocabulary, voice, pronunciation, accent, mannerisms, style, that make up the way every person speaks, for everyone you encounter in Arabic. Even reading has a bit more formality and uniformity.

For dinner, I went to a famous shawarma joint near Second Circle. In Amman, there are 8 traffic circles that serve as landmarks for navigation. Any cab driver will know "1st circle" or "Sports City circle". I went to Shawerma Al-Reem, and it is probably the best shawarma I've ever had. Absolutely fantastic.