June 19-29

I haven't updated this blog in a while. The main reason is that there isn't much to blog about in terms of what I'm doing here. It's more classes, finding more places in the city, eating more food, but it's not too different than before. So instead I'll have one post cover the last ten days.

There was an excursion to a place called Wadi Mujib. It's a river that flows into the Dead Sea (if I'm not mistaken). Basically we hiked up the river, in the river. Not on the side of the river, right in the river. Which turned out to be AWESOME. At points we had to climb rapids and small waterfalls, which was more fun than it deserves to be. I unfortunately don't have pictures because that would've destroy my phone.

Afterwards we went to the Dead Sea. Everyone hung out at the pool because the Dead Sea burned after the cuts and bruises we got from Wadi Mujib. The salt in the Dead Sea already is pretty unpleasant if you accidentally get some in your mouth, and burns your eyes or nose. If you have cuts, it's very unpleasant.

In Amman, the Wasat al-Balad is the central marketplace like area, literally meaning "middle of the country [city]". During Ramadan, the place literally lights up with lanterns, crescent decorations, lights, buildings, and shops everywhere. Everywhere you go there's shops or food. There are lights that read "الله" or "محمد". There's lots of religious parenphilia being sold too. It's great. It's also right next to the Roman Amphitheater and the جبل عمان / Citadel of Amman.

Lately I've been listening to a lot of Arabic music, falling roughly into two groups: pop/classic Arabic songs with simpler lyrics and lots of repetition, which I listen to to practice my Arabic listening. Also Arabic rap. The rap I listen to is too fast and complex for me to understand, at least more than a few words. But it's interesting finding and listening to it. When you think about it it makes sense to see rap catching on in the Arab World, and in in the Arab community in North America. Rap originated in the United States to express discontent amongst the Black community on issues like corruption, racism, police, poverty, the challenges that the Black community faces. Eventually rap became the popular music and a medium for pretty much any topic. But in the Arab World, rap is used to express issues in the Arab World, challenges like racism, poverty, corruption, government, war.

If you look at a song like "Fuck the Police" by the classic rap group NWA and look at the lyrics, a lot of those lyrics could easily apply to Palestinians.

"Cause the police always got something stupid to say
They put out my picture with silence
Cause my identity by itself causes violence"

"Fuck the police coming straight from the underground
A young nigga got it bad cause I'm brown
And not the other color so police think
they have the authority to kill a minority"

Replace the police with the IDF/Zionists and replace Black Americans with Palestinians or Arabs and it sounds like something Arab rappers would and do say. There's a refrain in a song "Sho Eli Saar" by Shadia Mansour that goes"

"I'm from the,
Middle East we,
Get no peace,
no justice and Fuck the police"

And in North America Arabs face issues with racism and Islamophobia and systemic discrimination. These rappers empathize with the discrimination and challenges to the original rappers in the 80s and 90s in Black communities in America.

One big difference is that rap in Jordan at least isn't popular the way it is in America. Almost all the rap I've heard in Arabic is very serious with very meaningful and intense content. A lot of it is about Palestine. Most of the rappers I've found who live in Jordan are Palestinian or rap about Palestinian issues. The Arab-American and Arab-Canadian rap scenes are pretty similar.

One interesting thing about Arab-American rap is how they reference Arabic phrases or use Arabic in their raps. Not everyone does this but one notable example is The Narcicyst's track "Hamdulillah (Gaza Remix)" which was actually featured on Fast and Furious 7's soundtrack (although it's not credited as such) during a scene when the characters are in Dubai. I haven't actually seen Furious 7, but that's what I'm told.

There's one line I like a lot in that song:

3aleikum as-salaam,
Arab jarab when there's harab man
3aleikum al-haraam

- 3aleikum as-salaam عليكم السلام is the reverse of a common Arabic and Islamic greeting. 3aleikum = on you (all), as-salaam = peace, so "on you, peace". Normally the greeting is "as-salaamu 3aleikum".
- Arab عرب is just that, Arabs.
- I actually don't know what "jarab" means. جرب؟
- Harab/harb حرب is war
- 3aleikum al-haraam عليكم الحرام is like the previous line, but as-salaam (peace) is swapped for al-haraam (shame). So this means "on you, shame" or "shame on you".

So this line means:

On you all, peace (greeting)
Arab Jarab when there's war man
On you all shame (but I think something like "you're bringing shame on us Arabs" gets the idea across better)

So the line incorporates Arabic phrases and words seamlessly in his mostly English rap. Also he switches as-salaamu 3aleikum for 3aleikum as-salaam, so he rhymes as-salaam السلام with al-haraam الحرام, which I think is a pretty clever rhyme. Plus Arab, jarab, and harab all sound and are spelled the same except for the first consonant (عرب، جرب، حرب), which is a nice internal rhyme.

Also another line I like,

"God please while we're on the subject,
Please cut the strings off our political puppets."

Bashar al-Assad, you got served. Although I don't think that's news.

Cultural notes:
- Similarly to how many Christian households in America feature Bible verses framed/displayed, many Islamic households do the same with calligraphy or Surahs (chapters) from the Qur'an. There's one part that I've noticed time to time again here, which is Surat an-Nas (the people). An-Nas is interesting because it's 1) It's the last Surah and 2) It's one of the few chapters that's framed as a prayer in the word of a Muslim as instructed by God, rather than God speaking to Muslims. It begins with a command, "say/speak [the following]" and then the rest of the Surah is from the perspective of a Muslim. This passage is in a lot of houses and apartments that I've seen, and I've seen it sold frequently in the Wasat al-Balad and other stores with home furnishings.