Diglossia

Living and learning the language of an Arabic-speaking country is probably a different situation than a lot of other languages because it's what's known as a "diglossia". In Sociolinguistics, a Diglossia is when a society uses two languages in its ordinary functions. There's a Low (prestige) language and a High language. The Low language is usually used for informal situations like speaking at home or with friends, while the High language is usually used for writing, education, official communication, stuff like that. In Arabic, the official Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Fusha (الفصحى) is the High and the various Arabic dialects or 3ammiyyah (العامية) is the Low.

In the modern Arab World, Fusha is the language of all writing, official media, news broadcasts, politics, stuff like that. It's basically a slightly simplified version of Classical/Qur'anic Arabic with new words and expressions for modern life. The grammar and vocabulary for the most part is identical, and Arabs call both MSA and Classical Arabic Fusha.

3ammiyyah refers to the dialects that people speak to each other with. In the Maghreb they call it Darija instead. 3ammiyyah is different from country to country and town to town. When people talk to each other and on less official media like dramas or talk shows they use 3ammiyyah. Here in Jordan they use Jordanian Arabic/3ammiyyeh urduniyyeh, which is quite similar to Lebanese, Palestinian, and Syrian Arabic.

Some people have compared this situation with Late Medieval Europe and into the Early Renaissance. Then, Latin was the language of the Church, and all theological and scientific knowledge. Dialects across the former Roman Empire like Old French, Old Spanish, etc. were considered vernaculars and less prestigious than Latin, but no one actually spoke Latin in their daily life except for monks and giant nerds. Later, French, Spanish, Italian, etc. gained legitimacy and are now considered their own languages. Some people say Arabic is like that. Fusha is like Latin, highly prestigious and official but no one actually speaks it day to day. The various dialects are different enough to be their own languages. But we still call the entire diglossia one language: Arabic.

So as a student living here in Jordan, I learn Fusha in class, just like how I learned Fusha back home. But when I go into the city, I'm surrounded by people speaking 3ammiyyah. Unlike Arabs I speak Fusha better than 3ammiyyah and feel more comfortable speaking Fusha. Also I find it harder listening to 3ammiyyah than the Fusha that I'm used to when people are speaking back to me. So the diglossia adds another layer of challenges when learning Arabic. 

But when I do speak with Arabs and use Fusha, I sound excessively formal or antiquated, like a guy on the Streets of Boston speaking King James Bible English. It puts a slight barrier between me and the other speaker, on top of the language barrier that's already there. It's harder to have a natural conversation with Mr. KJB English than with Mr. 21st Century English. 

One time when having a conversation with a taxi driver, I couldn't understand the question he was asking after he repeated it a couple times. And knowing that I was a student taking Arabic classes he asked "should I say it in Fusha?" Knowing that honestly Fusha was easier for me.

It's made me more aware of the connotations that certain Fusha or 3ammiyyah words have when talking to people. Saying "kaifa al-Haluk" instead of "keefak" for "how are you" for example, connotes more formality than is appropriate for a cab ride. So when speaking to people outside my class I try to use as much 3ammiyyah words as I can and conjugate verbs in an 3ammiyyah way. But because Fusha's just easier for me I end up speaking this inconsistent sorta-3ammiyyah sorta-Fusha mix. And when I return to class or my language partner I have to remember to switch 3ammiyyah words back with Fusha words.

Obviously every language has formal and informal registers. But Arabic takes it to a slightly greater level, with 3ammiyyah having notable differences in grammar and differences in pronunciation. A sentence like "I want to go down to Rainbow Street" would be:

Fusha: "ureedu an adhhaba ila ash-shaari3 Rainbow" أريد أن أذهب ألى الشارع رينبو

3ammiyyah: "biddi ruh 3ash-shaari3 Rainbow" بدي اروح عالشارع رينبو
A bit more different example would be like "what do you want me to say", which would be:
Fusha: "madha tureedu an aquula?" مادا تريد أن اقول؟
3ammiyyah: "shu biddak eHki?" شو بدك احكي؟

Also some sounds shift from Fusha to 3ammiyyah. For example, many grammatically feminine words have an "aah" ending in Fusha that becomes an "eh" in 3ammiyyah", or maybe an "é" depending on where exactly you're from. Also some consonants change, like the ق/q sounds like "g" as in great, or ظ/DH sounds like "z" or ث/th sounds like "t". So a word like qahwah/قهوة in Fusha sounds like "gahweh" in 3ammiyyeh.

So when I enter a cab or walk into a shop I think to myself "remember to switch out the Fusha words, add the b- prefix to verbs, don't use Fusha particles/modals, take out the vowels, don't speak so clearly, merge your consonants, etc.". When I go back to class I think "remember, stop saying "بس" and "كتير" and "شكله", conjugate words in Fusha, put the particles/modals back, pronounce all the vowels, remember the case endings, etc."

I suppose it's kind of like the difference between Black English and Standard American English. There's grammatical features, like different tenses and syntax, that don't exist in SAE that are in BE and vice versa. Also BE has different sounds and phonology than SAE. They're still considered varieties of the same language, but BE has much less prestige. Of course, people speak SAE in their day-to-day lives and it's not a perfect analogy.

So it's another layer of challenge when learning Arabic, but it's also kind of a cool phenomena that doesn't really have a parallel in non-diglossic areas like back home in the States.

30 June

This morning we went to the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center, or KASOTC for short, which was about half an hour north of Amman.

Basically King Abdullah II noticed this unused quarry and decided to create a spec ops training center. With enough money thrown at it, it became one of the best training centers in the Middle East, and maybe the world? Many countries send special operations forces and specialized police teams to train here and compete in the annual Warrior competition.

KASOTC has a lot of very high tech simulations for missions. For example, they have a giant commercial airline plane to practice hostage situations. Inside the plane they have dummies, cameras, speakers, sound effects, smoke, smells, etc. to make it as realistic as possible.

Another facility was their village to practice urban warfare missions. As we drove through the village, we heard gunshots, planes flying overhead, smelled gunpowder, and saw an explosion from a gas station 20 feet away from our bus. It was awesome. About as hooah as my summer has got so far.

Another facility was a building used for training raids and building searches. The interior is customizable so rooms and hallways can be modified however they need. The rooms are designed for different challenges operators will face in their careers. It also was awesome.

AT KASOTC we saw a lot of US Army guys, which was a strangely familiar site here in Amman. In the past two months of summer since I finished school it's been easy to forget that I'm a cadet and do military training back during the school year.

KASOTC was definitely one of our cooler excursions.

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.

19 June

I spent today listening to Arabic music. Here's some highlights.

- Lm3allem by Saad Lamjarred, a Moroccan pop singer, although he doesn't sound very Moroccan in this song. If an Arab made "Gangnam Style", it'd look something like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fwf45pIAtM

- Ghorbah by Torabyeh. Torabyeh's a Palestinian rap group in Amman. They have a very angry, anti-Israel tone, but I like their beats. They gained some notoriety when Netanhayu's Likud party in Israel used this song without their permission in a political anti-Left ad, associating Torabyeh with ISIS. Fortunately, copyright law won and Likud took down the ad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zGnGeiMun8

- لازم نتغير (We have to change) by Shadia Mansour ft. Omar Offendum, "First Lady of Arabic Hip Hop", British-Palestinian rapper. Her raps ooze with Palestinian identity and pride. When she raps, she seems to emphasize the uniquely Arabic sounds in her words.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LcLqP-GOj0

- Hamdulilah by The Narcicyst ft. Shadia Mansour. Not Arabic (except for words here and there and the chorus) but still Arab. The Narcicyst is an Iraqi-Canadian rapper who raps about Arab subjects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hawvyznuFiU

- Amman by Emsallam Hdaib. I honestly have no clue what Emsallam raps about, because they're way too fast for me to understand. It doesn't stop him from being my favorite Jordanian rapper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDmaDUC-1E0

- Zangbila by A-Wa. A-Wa's an interesting group. A-Wa is a group of three sisters who grew up in rural Southern Israel of Yemeni descent. They sing Yemeni folk songs in a modern musical context. Their hit "Habib Galbi" was the first time an Arabic song by Mizrahi Jews made the top of the charts in Israel. But I've posted here a live performance of a different song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EgYZjqjWaQ&feature=youtu.be&list=UU8kduMT0mmjqS5pb_sBF9yA

- A3tini naya wa ghani by Feirouz. The impression I get is that Feirouz is like the Frank Sinatra of the Arab World. She sang scores of classic songs that resonate with Arabs today, and she has a lyrical, mellow, melodic voice. She's celebrated as an icon of Lebanon, and a huge influence in modern Arabic music as a whole.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsmqDSj7uDQ

18 June

The second day enjoying our first (and maybe only) truly free weekend. Visited Abdoun Circle and Taj Mall. For dinner the group met up at Waffle House as a farewell dinner for Kevin, one of our TAs, who is leaving us cadets for the Real Army. Best of luck 2LT Briskin!

I had a conversation with a taxi driver today who, when asked where he was from, responded القدس/Jerusalem. When I asked more about it, it turns out he lives and lived in Amman but his family is from Jerusalem. I'm not saying he's not from Jerusalem, but it's interesting because there's such a strong Palestinian identity coming from people who spent most of their lives in Jordan. Even in other countries like Britain, people from Palestine or who identity as Palestinian seem to have a strong national identity. Someone like Shadia Mansour, a Palestinian rapper who grew up in Britain, is bursting with Palestinian pride. But obviously this is a very small sample size.

Also he talked about how life in Amman is more expensive than any other Arab capital. According to him, although the cost of living in a place like Dubai or Riyadh might be more expensive, people earn much more money to pay that cost. In Amman, living is expensive, and earnings are low.

Protip: If you don't have an ironing board, a nylon rug on a wooden bed frame will kinda work.

6-17 June: Midterms, Ramadan, Southern Excursion, and a New Apartment

I haven't updated this blog in a while. Part of the reason is laziness, and part of is it the lack of WiFi. I'll try to cover everything in a long blog post here.

Part 1: Amman

The last few days in Amman, around June 6-8, in classes were finishing up the term for the Northeastern students and preparing for the midterms for PGO students. We took the final/midterms. Afterwards we packed up our things in our apartments. The NEU people were leaving Jordan after the excursion so they didn't need to be in the apartments anymore. PGO was moving to a new apartment, one closer to Qasid, after the excursion.

Part 2: Ramadan

By now I've been living here for almost two weeks during Ramadan. Although half of that time was during our excursion, I've spent about a week, maybe 9 or 10 days, in Ramadan in Amman.

As you can imagine, everything involved with food is closed down during the day, except for McDonalds. Even in McDonalds, you can't eat food inside of it. You have to order food and take it with you to your home, where you eat it in private. Throughout the day, eating and drinking in public can get you fined. In Qasid, there's a room set aside for non-Muslims to eat and drink.

Iftar, the breaking of the fast that occurs after sunset, is an interesting time to see the city. Before Iftar, everyone hurries to get home or to get to a restaurant to eat Iftar with friends and family. And right at Iftar, before the Maghreb prayer announces the end of the fast, the streets clear out. There's almost a tension that blankets the whole city. If you're in a restaurant, everyone is sitting at their table with their food, but no one is eating. Well, except for that table of Asian tourists. They're happily digging in. But everyone else is sitting patiently (or anxiously) waiting for the Maghreb prayer.

Then the prayer sounds, and everyone everywhere starts eating. The streets are empty for the next hour or so. And Iftar's very communal. In Islam, Ramadan is a time for spirituality and religion. Many good deeds are earned during this time. And, if you invite someone to your Iftar, you earn the good deeds of all your guests. Even in Mukhtar Mall, large groups of people are all eating together in the food court. Also, taking a taxi at this time is awesome because all the taxi drivers drive really fast on Amman's deserted highways. ma3 as-salaameh traffic!

At night, the city comes alive. Many streets and businesses downtown have decorations, including lanterns, set up everywhere. People are charitable during this time. In Abdoun I ran into a guy giving out water and snacks to random taxis and people. People are celebrating Ramadan. I've seen temporary amusement parks and rides set up for Ramadan. People are active until the early hours of the morning.

We had a short lecture on Ramadan after classes one day from our guide Nidal, and one interesting point he made was that spending during Ramadan actually increases by 140%. Although people aren't buying nearly as much food and water during the day, and people are less productive, people end up spending a lot during the night, and spend a lot on groceries for Iftar.

Many Islamic sources talk about the number of good/bad deeds people have earned through their actions. Ramadan is a time when people earn lots of good deeds, and is also a time for people to settle their beefs with others. They say that if you and another muslim have a beef or aren't talking to each other, then Ramadan is the time to resolve that. If, by the end of Ramadan, you and that other Muslim haven't settled your dispute, then the entire month was wasted for both of you.

There are cases in which your fast may be broken. If a muslim is traveling more than 83 km in a day, they may break their fast that day. Or if they're on their period, or injured, sick, doctor's note, etc.

Living as a non-muslim during this time's been interesting. I've noticed at home sort of a spiritual/communal joy or excitement in my muslim friends back home, and it's always been interesting to me that the month of fasting and discipline is the month that's most celebrated. But it's been really cool to be here, where that spiritual excitement and focus on community pervades the entire city. Throughout the city I've seen signs and advertisements and billboards that say زكاتك/كم رحمة, or your charity is gracious. People greet each other with "Ramadan mubarak!" There's special desserts that are only eaten during Ramadan. It's also amazing to see the entire city united in this act of fasting. When you look at other Ammanis, whether they're taxi drivers, teachers, beggars, office workers, etc. They're fasting with you and celebrating Ramadan with you.

Part 3: The Southern Excursion

I took a lot of pictures on the excursion. But there's so many that I won't upload them. It's a pain to upload pictures on Blogspot.

Day one: we left Amman in the morning. After a few hours of driving, we reached Karak castle. Like Ajloun, it was a Crusader-era castle. It had a number of features for the benefit of defenders of the castle. Some rooms have entrances that were only 4 feet tall, so you'd have to bend down or squat to enter the room. If you weren't paying attention you might hit your head on the top of of the entrance. This was to slow down invaders entering the room. Pretty clever. We ate at a buffet near the castle.

After Karak, we went to a place called Dana. Dana is a valley in the West of Jordan, not too far from Israel. It's a large nature preserve in Jordan. Ecologically, it's unique because of the different ecosystems that exist at different altitudes of the valley. Plus, it's gorgeous, and features the only grass I've walked on in this whole country.

I've realized how weird grass is. It's like plants, but it's everywhere. Like you walk all over it cause it's freaking everywhere. Like how is a blade of grass the whole plant? How does it reproduce? Like what's going on? It's weird. And there's like a million of them! What's up with that? We grow the stuff freaking everywhere too. If you look at American suburban lawns, it's so unnatural. Like not only do we plant probably millions of these little green blades of grass, we also cut them down when they get too big. And the best lawns are just grass, like no weeds or stuff. It's just weird. They're not even like little trees or shrubs or anything. It's just like mold on the ground or something. Or pieces of paper sticking out of dirt.

That day we stayed in a lovely little hotel in the Dana valley. It's not one large building, but rather a number of small buildings spread out. The "main" building, or the closest thing to one, had a lovely lounge-like room for drinking tea and relaxing, and a doumbek. Those things are cool. We also hiked down a winding path down the valley for some sights.

The next morning, we ate an early breakfast then went by bus to the top of the valley. We hiked for a few hours, guided by a local man, Ahmed Abu Yahya. Judging by the fact that he wore a Jordanian Army uniform, he seemed to be a veteran of the Jordan Army, who was born and raised in Dana. He now lives in Dana and works to preserve the local environment. Despite him being an elderly man, he was like a mountain goat by the way he navigated and moved around the valley. The whole valley was an ancient river judging by the rock formations.

After Dana, we took another bus ride to the town of Wadi Musa, right outside the ancient city of Petra. We spent the afternoon in our hotel, the Amra International Hotel, where not a single staff member looked like a native Jordanian.

The next morning we went to Petra. Petra is an enormous archaeological complex. It has a lot of different parts and sites spread out across miles. We spent 5 hours there, but I easily could've spent a whole day exploring. Some people spend a whole week. Petra is famous for being an ancient, well-preserved city that was basically carved out of the rocky cliffs. The buildings are protected by the cliffs from erosion by wind and rain. And being carved out of the side of cliffs, the building material's pretty durable. The entrance is actually a narrow river valley, known as Al-Siq, that provided a natural defensive chokepoint for the city. There's a lot of different sites, including the Treasury, which is probably the most famous and most photographed site in Petra. If you've seen a picture of Petra, it's probably of the Treasury. Other sites included the Monastery, temples for Roman gods, a sacrificial altar at the top of a half hour hike up a cliff, and countless souvenir tents, who normally sell souvenirs for 2JD but will give YOU one for 1JD. Still, there were many sites we didn't get the chance to see, such as the Tomb of the Prophet Harun (Aaron, the brother or cousin of Moses). Basically every direction you looked from any location in Petra was a perfect picture. Petra's perhaps the most photogenic thing I've ever seen.

Interestingly, Petra was quite a multicultural city. It was a center of commerce, which made it rich (attested by the art that's still present to this day, such as camels carved out of the walls of Al-Siq) but also meant that many people from foreign cultures visited and lived in Petra. Some buildings had carvings of Isis, an ancient Egyptian goddess. Other places had carvings of Gods from Greece, from all over the Levant, and even a replica of the Kaaba (when it was a pagan site) from Mecca, hundreds of miles away in Arabia.

After Petra, we took yet another bus ride to Wadi Rum. Along the way, our bus broke down, thankfully at a beautiful scenic point. We waited for an hour along a highway that overlooked a beautiful scene with a view of the Wadi Rum area.

Afterwards we got to Wadi Rum, specifically at a campsite in Wadi Rum for tourists like us apparently. We loaded onto the top of jeeps and were driven across the desert. And the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. It was like being in the American West. The landscape was mostly covered in a fine red sand, with mountains and rock formations dotting the landscape. We saw some domesticated camels, as well as some wild camels. At night, we also ate dinner that was cooked underground. A Bedouin tradition around here is to start a fire underground where chicken, potatoes, vegetables, etc. is cooked slowly. Needless to say it was very good food. Interestingly, there was another group with us, a Christian Korean group that stayed in the same camp.

The next morning we had a camel ride across Wadi Rum. I realized that before coming to Wadi Rum, I'm not sure if I've ever seen a camel in real life. A camel is an animal that's so weird and ungraceful looking that it's actually kind of beautiful.

Later that morning we arrived in Aqaba. It's a VERY touristy town, and is basically the only coastline Jordan gets. The entire city seems to be dominated by 1) tourism and 2) shipping. In our hotel, there were many people working who clearly weren't native Jordanians. The people running gift shops and whatnot were largely Russian. Overall, it was a fun time, but I probably wouldn't return to Aqaba. That afternoon, we had a boat ride and snorkeled. We stopped at one point in the Gulf of Aqaba to see a shipwreck. King Abdullah II, the current king, purposely had ships and tanks wrecked in the Gulf to form coral reefs.

The next morning, we returned to Amman. The four-hour bus ride crossed most of the N-S length of the country, of which probably a half hour to an hour was just navigating Amman traffic. It's another reminder of how small this country is, and how close together places are in the Middle East. I mean, four hours from Detroit will only get you to Chicago. Driving from Detroit to Boston, maybe a 1/4 of the width of the country, takes 13-16 hours. A lot happens in the Middle East in a comparatively small area. Layers and layers of history and demographics are stacked on top of each other in a precarious Tower of Babel, especially here in the Levant.

Part 4: Amman (Again)

The NEU crowd all went home a few days ago. The PGO people moved into a new apartment closer to Qasid. It's a pretty nice place. We've gotten back into a daily rhythm, and actually have weekends off.

Part 5: Culture/language notes

- Some banks are specifically labelled "Islamic banks". In Islam, charging interest is frowned upon, maybe Haraam, I'm not sure. So in these Islamic banks they have different financial mechanisms of doing business. Many of them seem to be run from companies in UAE.
- Taxi drivers sometimes smoke while transporting you around. They always offer you a cigarette as well. One thing I do like about America is that smoking is understood to be done outside, and smokers should avoid exposing others to second hand smoke.
- There's pharmacies EVERYWHERE. There might be two or three in a block. Why do Jordanians need so many pharmacies?
- During this time I think I saw a streetlight for the first time. People just kind of negotiate the roads with each other most of the time, like people walking in a crowded street.
- Arabic doesn't have a "p" sound, so when they speak English, they often use a "b" sound instead ex. barty, boint, broblem, bebsi, etc. But they know how to make a "p" sound, it's just part of the Arabic accent I guess.

While I've been here, I've been asked countless times about my ethnicity. Taxi drivers, business owners, kids on the street, random people, have all asked me if I'm Japanese or Chinese. Japanese is surprisingly the most common by far. Chinese is second. I've gotten Philipino a handful of times. I've never heard Korean yet (maybe on a related note, everyone back home thinks I look Chinese). And every time they do, I respond that I'm American, or I'm from America. Although they're all "oh okay" I know inside they're thinking "why is this Japanese/Chinese guy saying he's from America?" Sometimes they press on asking if my family's J/C/P or if I'm really American. Sometimes people are quite blatant about it. One guy selling shirts said something like "ching chong" while I walked by. A kid walked up to me asking "YOU MADE IN CHINA?!" It's a big jarring to be constantly asked if I'm something that I'm not, and it's a constant reminder that I don't blend in at all here.

What I realized though is that the same thing happens in America, it's just that people are less open and blatant about it. If it was even more common/acceptable to ask "where are you from" to non-white people, America would basically be the same as Jordan in that regard. In a place like Boston, not so much. Lots of people are used to Asian-Americans, and some can tell apart those from Asia from Asian-Americans. I mean we even have a kick-ass Chinatown. But in other parts of America, even around Metro Detroit which is pretty racially diverse, it's assumed I'm foreign until proven otherwise. People instantly assume I was born in China/Japan/sometimes Korea until I say I'm an American, born and raised here in Metro Detroit. It's just a fact of life here. Although the question "so where are you (really) from" has sparked some great conversations about race and Asian American identity, sometimes it'd be nice to just be accepted as another American guy.

But in the end, my little papercut is nothing near what, say, Muslim Americans (especially Hijabis) or Black Americans deal with day to day. They have much bigger problems with race and acceptance than what I'll ever have to deal with.

Also, since coming here, I've been told of an Arabic-speaking comedian Wonho Chung. He was born to a Korean father and a Vietnamese mother in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and grew up here in Amman. Although he self-identities as an Arab, people around him, including his friends, don't consider him Arab, and he does have some bits about that. Interestingly, he speaks five languages (Arabic, English, Korean, Vietnamese, and French(?)) and happens to be one of the best Arabic comedians.

5 June

Same stuff, different day. Today is actually the last day here before Ramadan (or at least the predicted beginning of Ramadan). Our classes had a group lunch with the teachers at Qasid. Tomorrow is the final exam for the Northeastern students, and the midterm for the Project GO students.

Rant: Why Arabic is Easy

Okay, learning Arabic isn't an easy thing to do, but I truly think it's easier than other supposedly easier languages, like French, or Spanish, or German.

There's a lot I really like about learning Arabic, but one thing I dislike is the stigma that Arabic is a ridiculously hard language to learn. Even some organizations propagate this idea, like the Defense Language Institute which ranks Arabic with Chinese, Japanese, and Korean in difficulty for English speakers (even harder than Amharic?) which I frankly find hard to believe. I don't believe Arabic is the easiest language to learn, or the easiest for English speakers. But I think this commonly-held idea of "Arabic is so hard I'm never gonna learn Arabic oh god this is insane how does anyone speak this language" is unhelpful and demotivating. So here's a rant, to be taken with a grain of salt.

(This isn't one of my homework blog posts for INTL4494.)

Writing System

Arabic looks like a bunch and dots and squiggles at first, and takes a while to get used to. Once you do, however, the writing system turns out to be extremely well suited to the language. After all, it was literally designed to record the spoken language with great fidelity. For one, there's almost a one-to-one correspondence of sound and letter. For example, the sound "z" = ز, every time, and ز only sounds like "z".

There are a few exceptions, but they all have grammatical significance. For example, the sun letters. Many Arabic words start with "ال/al", which means "the" and makes the word definite ex. "البيت/al-beit", the house, or "الكرسي/al-kursi", the chair. Sometimes ال is pronounced differently.
الشمس/ash-shams "the sun", instead of al-shams
السيارة/as-siyaarah "the car", instead of al-siyaarah
Even though the ل is pronounced differently, it's still useful to write ل every time, because then every word with that prefix looks the same. الشمس، السيارة، الزيارة، الرئيس، الصف. The ل is pronounced differently in each of those words, but at a glance you can see they are all definite nouns with "the" at the front.

Gender is present in Arabic, and one letter consistently marks the female gender, ة. Being at the end of a word makes the word feminine. It gives a final "a" sound to words.
مهندس = male engineer "mohandis". مهندسة = female engineer "mohandisa"
طالب = male student "Taalib" طالبة = female student "Taaliba"
كلب = dog (masculine) "kelb" قطة = cat (feminine) "qiTTa"
The final "a" can be ambiguous. After all words like سوريا/suuria end with an "a". But the ة at the end almost always guarantees a female gendered word (except for rare exceptions), and adjectives can be made female to suit nouns.
مهندسة صغيرة/mohandisA saghiirA = young female engineer
قطة كبيرة/qittA kabiirA = large cat

Grammatical Points

You might of heard that French has 15 different tenses for nuances in time. How many does Arabic have? Two. Past/perfect, and present/imperfect. That's it. Nuances in time are determined by context. For example, if I say أكتب صفحةً على مدونتي غداً it literally means "I am writing a post on my blog tomorrow". But obviously it's clear that it means that in the future, tomorrow, I'll do it, not literally this second. When French creates a "near future" vs. "far future" tense, for example, Arabic just uses context. There is a future prefix to verbs, -س which marks any present tense verb in the future, but not an entire set of conjugations. It's just the same prefix, for every verb in the language. Every verb.

In addition, Arabic conjugations are extremely regular. Take any verb, slap نا at the end of it, and it means "we did (whatever the verb is)".
درسنا - we studied
خرجنا - we left
تعلمنا - we learned
انقطعنا - we were cut off
استمتعنا - we enjoyed
استخدمنا - we employed/used
This suffix works for every single verb in the language. Every single verb. Place a ي at the beginning and a ون at the end and you get "they are doing (verb)".
يدرسون - they are studying
يصحون - they are waking up
يتبادلون - they are exchanging something
ينقطعون - they are being cut off
يستمعون - they are listening
يستخدمون - they are using/employing
Every. Single. Verb.
Sometimes you have to tweak the base of the verb, the letters that make up the verb itself. But there are only six patterns for these bases: sound verbs, hamzated verbs, doubled verbs, assimilated verbs, hollow verbs, and defective verbs. Once you learn how to use these six patterns, you're golden. Every verb in the language falls into one of these categories, and they're like 90% the same anyway.

Also, pronouns are pretty easy. In Arabic, there's pronouns as a subject of a sentence, pronouns as an object of a sentence, and pronouns to mark possession. For example, we is naHnu or sometimes iHna. نحن جوعان جدا/naHnu ju3aan jeddan = we are very hungry. To say "our ____" just stick نا/na at the end of a noun.
كتابنا/kitaabna = our book. To say that something is being done to us, just stick نا/na at the end of a verb.
ساعدتنا/saa3adtana = you helped us. To say "to us" or "on us" or "(any preposition) us), place نا/na at the end of it.
إلينا/ileina = to us. Easy, right? Almost all the object pronouns are the same as the possessive/preposition pronouns, which sound a lot like the subject pronouns.
هو/huwwa = he, هُ/hu = him/his
هي/hiyya = she, ها/ha = hers/her
هم/hom = they, هم/hom = them, their

Plus some conjugations sound like their pronouns.
نا/na = our/us, درسنا/darasNA = we studied
انتم/anTUM = you (plural), درستم/daraTUM = you (plural) studied
أنا/Ana = I, أدرس/Adrus = I study

Also, it's easy to tell which part of speech many words fall into. If a word ends in ة, it's an adjective or noun, or what Arabic grammars call an اسم/ism, "name". If it ends in a اً, it's an adverb, or the object of a verb (which some grammars call an adverb in a sense). If it starts with ال, it's a definite ism (note, different from أل). The rules I listed here have no exceptions (that I'm aware of).

Lastly, irregularities exist in Arabic like any language that isn't Esperanto. Even the semi-created Fusha is still a natural, widely-used language for a very long period of time. However, many irregularities exist, not because of simply natural evolution, but because they are purposefully created to make the language sound good. As it was explained to me by Saudi student at my university, the Arabs who codified Arabic wanted to make the Arabic language as beautiful as possible, and when the rules of the language led to a result that didn't sound good, they made an exception.

Also, many of the irregularities deal with a subject called i3rab, or الإعراب, a subject I am neither qualified nor interested in explaining. Even most Fusha ignores i3rab, which is reserved for the highest, most formal register of Arabic (if I understand correctly). If you ignore i3rab, you also ignore much of the irregularities that seemingly don't have much explanation besides "it sounds better this way".

Also frankly, a lot of weird irregularities are in words people no longer use from Qur'anic and classical Arabic. It's a tree falling in a forest kind of deal. If a word is highly irregular but no one uses it, does anyone care?

Roots and Wazn

This is the real reason why Arabic grammar, in my opinion, is not that bad. Get ready for a long and esoteric explanation (if you're bothering to read this anyway).

The root of any almost native Arabic word (so not loanwords from English, Spanish, Turkish, etc.) is a three letter combination. There are rare words with four letter combinations, but they're rare. This combination has a meaning, and every derived word will have a related meaning.
Ex. ك - ت - ب : writing (k - t - b)
كَتَبَ/kataba = he wrote, يكتبون/yaktubuun = they are writing, كاتب/kaatib = writer, كتّب/kattaba = he caused to write, كتاب/kitaab = book مكتب/maktab = office, مكتبة/maktaba = library, أكتَبَ/aktaba = he dictated, and the examples are endless.
See anything in common? k-t-b in that order. These letter combinations are called roots. Any Arabic word with that root will have some meaning that has to do with writing.

So this means that words with related meaning look and sound like each other. Look at the english equivalents of those words. "Writer" "wrote" and "writing" sound similar. But what about "library" or "office" or "dictate"? Or "bookstore", "correspond", "document", "registered (written/recorded somewhere)", or "book", other words derived from k-t-b in Arabic? In English, all these words sound and spell completely differently, with no clear phonological, morphological, or lexical connection. You can't know these words are related in meaning until you actually know all of these words.

Now roots are one part that make an Arabic word, what's the other part? Well every Arabic word with roots also has a certain pattern with a certain grammatical meaning. These patterns are called wazn, and they're presented using three letters, ف-ع-ل/f-3-l as a filler, in which a root can be replaced to form a meaningful word. Here's some examples.
فَعَلَ = fa3ala, he/it did (root)
- قرأ = qara'a, he read
- ذكر = dhakara, he mentioned
- خرج = xaraja, he left/exited
يفعلون = yaf3aluun, they do (root)
- يقرؤون = yaqra'uun, they read
- يذكرون = yadhkaruun, they mention
- يخرجون = yaxrujuun, they exit/leave
Now this seems pretty normal. But wait, there's more! There's the active participle, the doer of an action, and the passive participle, the thing/person the action is being done on.
فاعل = faa3il, the doer of (root), the one who does ___
- كاتب = kaatib, writer (the one who writes)
- لائب = laa'ib, player (the one who plays)
- عالم d= 3aalim, scholar (one who knows/learns)
مفعول = maf3uul, the receiver of an action
- مكتوب = maktuub, written/document (thing that writing is done on)
- محبوب = maHbuub, loved/loved one (person that loving is done on)

But wait, there's more! There's wazn for certain lexical meanings to.
فَعْلان = fa3laan, a human feeling. تعبان/ta3baan = tired, حرّان/Harraan = hot, جوعان/jaw3aan = hungry, عطشان/d,3aTshaan = thirsty
مَفْعَل = maf3al, a location to do something. مطبخ/maTbax = kitchen, مكتب/maktab = office, مكان/makaan = place (location to exist), مدخل/madxal = entrance
فَعيل = fa3iil, a tangible description and a very common wazn. كبير/kabiir = big/old, طويل/Tawiil = tall/long, كثنر/kathiir = many/numerous, لذيذ/ladhiidh = delicious, قديم/qadiim = old
And there are plenty of these patterns any Arabic student will pick up.

But wait, there's more! There's wazn to create verbs with specialized meanings based on a root.
فَعَلَ/fa3ala is the basic meaning of the verb
فَعَّلَ/fa33ala is a verb that causes the fa3ala meaning. darrasa = teach (cause to study), xarraja = graduate someone (cause to leave), kattaba = cause to write
فاعَلَ/faa3ala is a verb that is like the fa3ala verb but involving someone or something else. shaahada = watch (something/someone), kaataba = correspond (write with someone else), 3aamala = deal with/treat (act upon someone/something)
تَفَعَّلَ/tafa33ala is a verb where the fa33ala verb is caused upon the subject.
- تعلّم/ta3allama = learn (teaching/3allama is done upon subject)
- تغيّر/taghayyara = be changed/altered (changing/ghayyara is being done upon the subject)
- تذكّر/tadhakkara = remember (reminding/dhakkara is being done upon the subject)
And there's many more of these verb wazn. Ten of them to be exact. And there's more in very obscure and classical Arabic, but hardly anyone uses them anymore. And some of them have specialized and specific meanings. If you want to see a nice explanation of each verb wazn, click here.

Now there's ten forms, or wazn of a root, that can create ten verbs of related but similar meanings, numbered 1-10 (simplest/most common to longest/most abstract/least common). And each of those forms can be conjugated for grammatical context like who did it, and each form has faa3il, maf3uul, verbal noun, present, and past wazn. That's a lot of conjugations and a lot of possible verbs derived from one root. BUT, this is still a lot easier than European languages like French or English, because in those languages all these words would be completely unrelated. Whereas say 250 possible verbs and conjugations are formed form the same root in Arabic, French would have 10 or 15, maybe 20 different roots and origins for the corresponding words. Also in Arabic, these patterns are VERY regular with very few exceptions (except for wazn 1, which still only has 5 patterns of verb "irregularities").

Now hearing that there's ten forms to know sounds daunting at first, but there's really small differences between many wazn. For example, the faa3il for the forms. Take a look.

Wazn II: فعّل/fa33ala = مفعّل/mufa33il
Wazn III: فاعل/faa3ala = مفاعل/mufaa3il
Wazn V: تفعّل/tafa33ala = متفعّل/mutafa33il
Wazn VI: تفاعل/tafaa3ala = متفاعل/mutafaa3il
Wazn VIII: إفتعل/ifta3ala = مفتعل/mufta3il
Wazn X: إستفعل/istaf3ala = مستفعل/mustaf3il

Basically it's just sticking مُ/mu- to the beginning of the verb and changing the last vowels. See the patterns? This isn't all ten, and I is honestly different and less predictable, but II-X are related in logical and regular ways. I don't know about you, but it's honestly beautiful in my opinion. And what about the maf3uul?

Wazn II: فعّل/fa33ala = مفعّل/mufa33al
Wazn III: فاعل/faa3ala = مفاعل/mufaa3al
Wazn V: تفعّل/tafa33ala = متفعّل/mutafa33al
Wazn VI: تفاعل/tafaa3ala = متفاعل/mutafaa3al
Wazn VIII: إفتعل/ifta3ala = مفتعل/mufta3al
Wazn X: إستفعل/istaf3ala = مستفعل/mustaf3al

Exactly the same, except for the last vowel. Which makes sense, as they're very related in meaning.

One big advantage of this system is that you can pinpoint which sounds in Arabic have what kind of meaning. Some sounds/letters are only used in roots, like ق، ر، or ذ. If you hear or see these sounds, you know they must be root letters, and are meaningful. Think about it. Many Arabic letters are meaningful just by their inclusion in a word, and the literal sound itself is attached to a set number of possible roots and possible meanings. Does the "th" sound tell you anything about a word in English? Or the "zh/j/ge" sound in French? The closest thing I can think of is the "ph" glyph/sound, which tells you that a word is of Greek origin. Other sounds/letters like ت، س، or م are commonly used in wazn, and could have lexical or grammatical or wazn meaning.

Another big advantage of this system is that you can have precision with your meanings. غيّر/ghayyara is to change or alter something else, to instigate cause or change. تغيّر/taghayyara is to have change or alteration done upon you/the subject. However, both would be translated as just "change" in normal English.

Here's one reason why that's so useful. If you see a pattern you recognize, you KNOW it's grammatical context. Any word that fits فعلان is an adjective. Any word that fits تفعّل is a verb in past tense, conjugated for the third-person, singular, masculine. Any word that fits الإستفعال is a noun with a verbal meaning, based on the 10th form/verb wazn.

So what does this mean? Since roots = meaning, similarly-looking words will have similar meanings. And since patterns = grammatical context, words with the same pattern will have the same context.

So let's say you see a word you don't know, يتعلّمون. If I'm familiar with my wazn, I know it fits the pattern يتفعّلون, which means roughly "they are having (root meaning) caused upon them". I see the root letters are ع - ل - م which have a meaning of "knowing, knowledge, learned". So this word means something like "they are having knowing/knowledge caused upon them", or "they are learning".

Oftentimes the meaning is more symbolic or metaphorical. But armed with a knowledge of roots and wazn, you can figure out the meaning of any word "about 70% of the time" according to my Arabic instructor here.

Place this test to say English. Let's say you don't know the word "bruise". How do you figure out how to guess the meaning of this word? The only way to guess the meanings of words is to know words that look/sound similar. Know any words related to "bruise", besides maybe "bruised"?

Although lexical roots obviously exist in English, they're not as widely applied. So there's no way, until you actually know the words, to know that "correspond" is related to "write", the way َكاتَب is obviously related to كَتَبَ.

So in summary of roots and wazn,

Knowing a set of very consistent and regular patterns, along with knowing three-consonant roots that make up nearly every word in the language, will allow you to understand, if not the exact meaning of a word, then at least the grammatical context and function of nearly any word in the language.

Arabic is a language of regular patterns and derivable meanings. Learning wazn and roots is a shortcut to learning hundreds of words and understanding how they fit grammatically.

Lastly it means you can make sentences like "يعلّم المعلّم كان عالم أعلام العالم متعلّموناً/yu3allim al-mu3allim kana 3aalim a3laam al-3aalam muta3allimuunan." The teacher who was a scholar of the flags of the world teaches students. This is a contrived example, but it's entirely possible.

Why Arabic is Hard

There's some reasons I think Arabic is harder than other languages, although probably different from many others.

Pronunciation: There's some hard consonants for English speakers in Arabic.
1) "Emphatic" or "dark" consonants: there are four of these, ص، ض، ط، ظ, and they're a specialty of Semitic languages. It's where you take a sound, like ss, and say it differently so it has a "darker" or "heavier" quality, which also affects the vowels around it. It's a very weird thing at first, although in my opinion the easiest of the "hard" sounds.
2) Not-that-bad-but-still-foreign consonants: sounds like خ (kh/x, like in Hebrew or German or Scottish English), ق (q, like a k or g at the back of your throat).
3) the 3ein, ع: the unique sound of Arabic. It's a difficult sound to learn how to make, and even harder to explain. The best I can do is that it's like constricting your throat without actually closing it. It takes lots of practice and feedback from Arabic speakers. If you don't get it, you will always have an accent. You know what the best part is? It's a very common sound, one of the most common, so if you're learning Arabic, get used to it. In casual romanization of Arabic, it's usually represented with the number 3 because they kind of look similar.
4) Ones-I-still-have-trouble-with consonants: These are ر (it's sometimes a rolled/trilled "r" which I suck at) غ (like a "French 'R'" except not really at all) and ح (a "heavier" H, produced similarly to ع but without voicing, also a very common letter).
As mentioned before, consonants are what carry lexical meaning in Arabic, and pronouncing a س s instead of a ض s means a different root and possibly a completely different meaning, or a nonword. Also, doubled consonants and long/short vowels are new concepts to me as a native English speaker. Many verb wazn are quite similar in very logical and beautiful patterns, but it also means laziness with pronunciation can mean using the wrong wazn. Since roots carry lexical meaning, oftentimes it's the vowel qualities and the doubling of consonants that distinguishes words. Ex. saying faa3ala is quite similar to fa33ala, with one having an "aa" and the other having an "33". It's something to get used to.

Vocabulary: Arabic has been described as an "ocean of words". It's picked up words from dozens of languages from the Atlantic coast of North Africa and Spain to the mountains of Iraq to the islands of Yemen. It's an absolutely vast language with dozens of influences, millions of spread out speakers, hundreds of dialects, a millennia and a half of development and propagation, and the richness of the many Bedouin tribes who prize their language and poetry so highly. There's a lot of vocabulary, and as an English speaker, you come in knowing very little of it. French, you're way ahead of the game. English is literally about 30% French words. Spanish is comparable. But Arabic? You'll have loanwords, but anything you'll see on a regular basis has entirely different and foreign etymology, and you'll have to build your vocabulary from scratch.

Materials: There's tons of materials on Written/Literary/Standard Arabic or Fusha. But Fusha isn't spoken day to day. There's dozens of dialects (although five main groups, including Levantine which I'm learning now in Jordan). These dialects differ significantly from Fusha and from each other, and there's lots and lots of debate about their statuses as dialects or languages, and whether or not they should be standardized or taught. All the popular media, songs, radio, TV, is in dialect.

So here's the issue: want to write or read Fusha? There's TONS of material. Want to listen/speak Fusha? Good luck finding a conversation partner. And listening, you'll be stuck with the news or Disney's "Frozen" dubbed in Fusha (instead of Egyptian Arabic like the rest of their dubs). Want to speak/understand dialect? Great, there's tons of media! But there's no written material for dialect. Also most teaching material is entirely or predominantly focused on Fusha, and either don't acknowledge dialect or insist it's not important to focus on.

Culture: This mostly applies to Amman and Jordan, as I've never been anywhere else in the Arab World and can't make generalizations about it, but Jordanians typically have much better English than I speak Arabic. And I obviously look like a foreigner here. So, even when I try to start interactions with cab drivers/shop owners/whoever in Arabic, they respond in English. That's not great for practicing Arabic if they speak English.

Anyway, if you actually read this whole thing, I'd actually be really curious to hear your thoughts. Email me or leave a comment on this blog. Or since you probably came here from my Facebook page, message me your thoughts. Shukran!

/rant

4 June

Classes in the morning, and no classes in the afternoon!

Instead of afternoon lectures, I headed straight to Shawarma Al Reem, the best shawarma I've ever had. This time I have a picture:

Afterwards I spent a few hours in the Abdul Hameed Shoman library between 2nd Circle and 1st Circle. It's a lovely library.

Somehow I managed to have not gone to the famous Rainbow Street until today. I made sure to correct that.

Every building is better with murals

The famous Shaari3 al-Rainbow

A little space commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Great Arab Revolt

"Lift your head...You are Jordanian", a slogan by the government

A snarky sweatshirt

Halloumi sandwich for dinner. Halloumi is a type of soft cheese, and halloumi sandwiches are typically have olive oil and zaatar spice blend.

3 June

Today was a long day of grappling the issue of refugees in Jordan.

Our first stop was right outside the Zaatari refugee camp, near the Syrian border. Our guide today was a woman, Dima, who worked with Syrian refugees in Jordan. We didn't go inside the camp, it was heavily guarded, but we could see the camp, and its vast expanse of white tents. What we did see was a wall painted with a mural. Close up on the mural there were sentences painted by refugee children.

A view of the refugee camp on the horizon. It's really not a great picture, but it shows that the surrounding area is sparse baadia. There's trash lying around, and there were refugee children wandering around, begging for money. They walked around and through are group, asking individuals for money. What struck me was how dirty they were, with dozens of flies around them. They can't shower on a regular basis. Even the access to water is limited for the refugees in and around the camp.

Half of the mural. It reads "mustaqbalnaa beina aidiina", "our future is within our hands". Sitting by the mural is one of the children mentioned before.

The accompanying picture to the phrase.

Just some of the many things written on the wall. "Damascus (Ash-Sham) is our Damascus", "I hope to become a doctor", "I want to become a hero", "I am a pilot/flyer", "I have a nation and I will return to it". There also were many drawings of people, families, homes, and tanks.

However, this hopefulness expressed here is a stark contrast to the despair that we found when speaking to some refugees. More on that later.

Lunch, biryani and chicken. Biryani seems to be popular here

Afterwards we went to a farm, where the owner has allowed 150 refugees to live and work on the farm. The refugees also have access to water and electricity. This is especially significant because Syrian refugees are legally not allowed to work in Jordan. Any work they do has to be informal arrangements. Apparently, international organizations like the UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) has given some support, or at least some oversight, on the operation, especially judging by the UNHCR branded tents. We were told not to take pictures unless explicitly given permission here, and I ended up not taking very many pictures.

A small boy driving a station wagon with packages of food gifts for the refugees

One of my first views of the camp. It's mostly tents.

We first went up a tower on the farm with a great view of not only the farm, but a Syrian village. The owner of the farm told us about the farm, about his experience, and, in typical Arab fashion, shared with us some of the delicious apricots grown there. Afterwards, we went to the area where the refugees lived, which looks a lot like the above picture. We were led to a family to discuss with them, and entered their tent. It was a very modest living space, and quite dark, with the only light source at the time being the opening. We dropped off some gifts for the families, including toys for the children, and were led to a community center, which was basically the mother of all tents (that I've seen at least). It was a very large tent that covered a lot of ground, and featured different rooms for different purposes. We came into a room that, on one have, had dozens of children sitting and talking. Many adults were also in the room. Basically it was really crowded but also full of life. Also about 500 degrees Kelvin.

We spent time with the children, playing games with soccer balls that we brought for them, and face painting. And at these times, they seemed like normal children. They laughed and played and occasionally fought like kids do on any playground, yet these kids have endured hardship and loss that I can't even imagine. One reason we saw the Zaatari camp, and the children wandering outside, is to be able to compare the situations of different Syrian refugees in Jordan, even ones that aren't very far apart from each other. The children outside Zaatari were very dirty and unkempt, surrounded by flies and begging for money. The children at the farm had enough food, water, constant electricity, and looked clean and healthy. As a result of different proposed solutions to the Syrian refugee crisis in Jordan, refugees have ended up in very diverse situations, each with different merits and problems. Not only are there the two we saw today, there are those in the "7-Star" Emirati camp, the Azraq camp meant to address the problems of Zaatari, urban refugees in Amman and other cities, etc. 

A group of us was gathered, along with a translator, to go talk to a group of men amongst the refugee families on the farm, all from Aleppo. They had varied jobs, including taxi drivers, construction workers, a sheikh, and office workers. Most of them fled Aleppo in 2013, and decided to head to Jordan instead of nearby Turkey. They knew that if they went to Jordan, they would be accepted and treated better than with the Turks. Many of the men actually had an opportunity to be sent to the United States, and they all turned it down. In the US, they would have no safety net, with no connections, little language skills, and would be alienated and feared. They chose to stay in Jordan. 

Our translator also emphasized this point. Before the past century, the Levant was united as an Ottoman province, the Bilaad Ash-Sham, country of Damascus. The Jordan-Syrian border didn't exist, and the people in the region all had a shared Levantine/Shaami identity and culture. Our Jordanian translator said that Jordanians want to treat Syrian refugees well, the way they'd want to be treated if Jordan descended into civil war, and 100,000s of Jordanians fled to Syria. The refugees knew this, and that's why they crossed war zones and endured violence to reach Jordan. One man said the ordeal was indescribable. 

Many of them have had communication with friends and family in Syria. However, access is spotty. Some weeks, they are able to communicate. Some weeks, they can't. They also follow the news in Syria. They know that Aleppo is destroyed, and don't have much hope to return anytime soon. Even if they do return, they know it won't be the home they left. When we asked about their hopes for their children's future, they said bluntly that their children didn't have a future. 

Interestingly, they did have much to say about politics, and the role of the United States. They've seen the power of the US in the Middle East to achieve its goals when it wants to, like in Iraq. They ask why the US isn't doing anything in Syria to stop the fighting. Many Americans, including myself, can come up with various reasons why we wouldn't want to intervene. But the men had an ability to cut through the crap. The US has the raw power to stop the fighting, or at least alleviate much of the suffering. But we aren't. And the refugees are justifiably frustrated at their situation. 

When we asked them what they'd like Americans to know, they said that the US and Iran are allies. In the Middle East they act like allies. Also, the US created Daesh/ISIS. Although it's hard for Americans to see how Iran and the US are allies, they say, ask anyone in the Middle East and they will agree (our translator agreed). What the men wanted us to do, or us Americans to do, is to get our politics and our government to do something that helps the Syrian people, rather than cause more violence in the Middle East and work with Iran. They didn't want money or charity from us. All they wanted from us was for us to listen to them, take them seriously, and tell others.

Afterwards, we said our goodbyes to the refugees, and took the bus home.

2 June

The day started with a lecture on the historical context of Jordan and it's neighbors.

A few interesting points came out of the lecture. It gave me more context about the relationship of Palestinians, particularly those from the West Bank, and Jordanians. What I didn't know before was that during the Arab-Israeli War in 1948, Transjordan conquered and annexed the West Bank. Being on both sides of the Jordan River, the West Bank and East Bank, Transjordan renamed itself Jordan, and claimed sovereignty over the West Bank as a full part of Jordan. However, only two other countries recognized this annexation, and West Bankers never accepted Jordanian sovereignty. In the Six-Day War, Israel occupied the West Bank, which still lasts today, and Jordan later, in the 80's, relinquished its claim to sovereignty over the area. Even today, there exists a distinction between West Bankers and East Bankers in Jordan, as well as some animosity on the actions of Jordan that didn't exactly help the Palestinians.

As it's been made very clear to me, Jordan's done quite well considering the enormous amount of refugees that have arrived from neighboring countries. The country has about 9 million people within its borders, about 6 million of which are Jordanian citizens. Approximately 30% of its population are non-citizen refugees. To put that in perspective, imagine if the United States had 140 million refugees. How do you plan for that kind of situation? The lion's share of refugees arrived from Syria, with others from Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Libya, Egypt, and temporary workers, many undocumented, from South Asia. The fact that Jordan hasn't collapsed under the enormous economic burden, or closed off its borders to more refugees like the Gulf states (which haven't even accepted any refugees) is a miracle.

In addition, the lecture touched upon the Arab Spring, and recent history around Jordan. Syria, Egypt and Iraq have all descended into chaos within recent years. Lebanon has experienced (if I remember correctly) multiple civil wars, and still has violent unrest to this day. What made Jordan resilient to the Arab Spring, and why has Jordan remained the only monarchy in the Levant? Well, the theory presented by our program leader, Dr. Denis Sullivan, was that it was the Jordanians, who saw the outcome of the Arab Spring in Egypt and Syria, and decided to value the stability and order of the monarchy over achieving their demands. After all, on the whole, the monarchy isn't exactly running the country to the ground. There's a generally positive vibe I'm feeling about the monarchy from the Jordanians I've met.

Afterwards, we headed towards Umm Qais. Umm Qais is home to even more Roman ruins, but was was really striking was the view that we had of Israel, Israel occupied territory in Syria, non-occupied Syria, the Sea of Galilee, and even Lebanon. In one view, we could see the Sea around which Jesus Christ preached, and look to the East and see ISIS-controlled territory. Sights like Umm Qais, the apricot farm, and Mount Nebo give me a sense of the small scale and the dense complexity of the region, especially compared to what I'm used to in the US. Countries, factions, ideologies, religions, nations are all competing in such a small space that's been fought over for millennia. Every inch of this land has a very long memory, and there's not THAT much of it.

No clue why but I found this so amusing

1 June

Aaaaaaaaand it's June, marking the halfway point of the Dialogue program. Normal day of classes.

In the evening, a group of us went to Mat3am Hashem, a famous falafel restaurant in downtown Amman and supposedly the best falafel in town, although I personally found the .5JD falafel sandwiches across the street from Qasid better. Interestingly, I ran into my friend, Malak, from high school! Small world.

That night we also visited a café for shisha. As it was explained to me by a Jordanian, shisha flavor selections are entirely based on trends. Currently double apple and lemon mint are extremely popular, and are about all you can find. In a couple years, a new flavor will sweep the shisha bowls of Jordan and become just as ubiquitous.

31 May

Last day of May! Normal day at Qasid, with a lecture on women in Jordanian society, focusing on the role of Islam in societal view of women by Dr. Adab Al-Saud, a former female parliament member, and a future parliament member Insha'Allah.

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.

29 May

Same stuff, different day.

Culture/Languages Notes:

• The Arabic Language can be very flowery with greetings and expressions. For example, saying hello. Most of the time I hear a simple "marHaba", which can be responded with "marHaba", "marHabtein" (literally two "marHaba"), "maraaHib (many "marHaba"), or "ahlein", depending on what kind of person you are. Muslims often greet each other with "As-salaamu 3aleikum" (peace be upon you), which is responded with "wa 3aleikum us-salaam" (and upon you, peace). However you CAN respond "wa 3aleikum us-salaam wa raHmatullahi wa barakaatuh" (and upon you, peace and mercy of God and His blessings) if you're so inclined.
• Another example is saying good morning. The simple and common way is "SabaaH al-xeir" (good morning) which is responded with "SabaaH an-nuur" (bright morning). You could say "SabaaH al-wurd" ([have a] morning of flowers), or perhaps "SabaaH al-xeiraat wal-leiraat" ([have a] morning of goodness and money). If you're particularly religious you can say "SabbaHakum Allah bil-xeir" (God has brightened you with goodness) and respond with "Allah yuSabbiHuka bi-anwar in-nabbi" (God brightens you with the lights of the Prophet).
• Also there's expressions in many different situations. When someone goes to sleep or wakes up there's specific expressions and responses. When people spoke of eating or are eating, or when someone is sick or tired, there's expressions ("you're sick? salaamtak"\"Allah yasalmak"). When entering a home, preparing to leave a home, actually leaving a home, when traveling and returning from travel, when someone just got a haircut or showered, etc.
• Building floors/levels are counted differently here. Here, the floor in which you enter is either the 1st floor or the Ground Floor, and the floor above is either the 2nd floor or the 1st floor.
• Water conservation is an issue when living in Jordan. After all, this country is the 3rd most water scarce in the world, and the refugees haven't exactly helped. As a result, each apartment and building has a water ration allocated each week (although I forgot our ration, we haven't had problems yet). But it means that whenever showering, or washing clothes, or doing dishes, we have to be conscious about how much water we use and for what purposes.

My attempt at making Tabbouleh (without bulghur). I put far too much lemon juice, and that overpowered the taste of literally everything else. Next time: less lemon juice, less parsley, more tomatoes and cucumber.

28 May

Today our group went on an excursion to the Dead Sea and Mount Nebo. We left in the morning at 10:30 to first head to Mount Nebo, which is apparently the spot upon which Moses gazed upon the Promised Land before dying. On the way, we passed through the town of Madaba. Madaba is a center of the Christian community in Jordan. Along with the usual masjids, there were more churches than usual, and the area in general has a lot of churches.

Our bus dropped us off near the top of Mount Nebo, at an incredibly scenic lookout. The area contains religious significance, meriting visits from figures like Pope John Paul II. After all, this region is around the River Jordan of Biblical fame, in which John the Baptist performed his baptisms (If I'm not mistaken), from which the Kingdom of Jordan is named, and which defines the border between the West Bank and Jordan (after all, it used to be called Transjordan, across the River Jordan). From the site, we could see Amman in the distant background towards the northeast, the river valley that's home to much of Jordan's agriculture, Jericho, the Dead Sea, and distant mountains in Israel. Also Jerusalem was only about 45 km away. What a view.

Afterwards, we lunched in a resort next to the Dead Sea. The lunch was a buffet that featured probably the only fish I've seen since arriving in this country. We then went to the beach of the Dead Sea.

It's common knowledge that the Dead Sea is so salty that one can float in it. Some of us thought it'd be a neat gimmick that'd be old in ten minutes. But it's actually a surprisingly weird sensation when you're actually sitting there, floating without any effort. It's difficult to swim because the water will force your legs and arms to rise to the top of the water. Because of all of the salt, the water also burns your eyes and nose if any water gets in them. If any gets in your mouth, it's like dumping a pinch of salt right on your tongue. It's no bueno. The site also had Dead Sea mud for slathering on your body. Why? Who knows. We spent about two hours fascinated by very salty water.

I spoke to our guide about the lives of Christians in Jordan. The Christians and Muslims in Jordan apparently live very harmoniously. Both groups are Arabs, and Jordanian, with a very long shared history as Arabs and as the inhabitants of the area. As our guide explained it, the people in this region were here a very long time. At first they were Jewish. Later, some of them converted to Christianity. Later, some converted to Islam. However, it's still the same people in the same place, who have a sense of belonging to the same community.

He continued to explain that the leadership in local churches receive their authority from the Patriarch in Jerusalem. The government plays no role in the affairs or leadership of churches in Jordan. In masjids, however, imams have to be approved by the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. This is to prevent imams with unsubstantiated or extreme views from negatively influencing other citizens, and to ensure that the imam is qualified to fulfill the role. Although the government and the King supports Islam (the Hashemite dynasty claims to be descended from the Prophet Muhammad), only inheritance law and another type of law (I forgot) are based on the Qur'an. The rest of the laws are from non-religious sources.

The Ministry also determines the religious curriculum for Jordanian students, who learn about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in school. This is done, as it was explained to me, in a manner to foster understanding across faiths, and is one of the reasons why Jordan is relatively free of extremist and fundamentalist thought compared to many of its neighbors. The country produces very few fighters for ISIS, for example. And while nearby Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq have succumbed to sectarian violence, now or in the past, Jordan has been free of such incidents. So while Jordan is not a secular country, it seems to promote a moderated outlook on religion.

Culture/Language notes:

• The further we get from Amman, the less English there is on signs and streets. And that's simply to be expected, most of the target audience for English signs and advertising is in Amman, where literally half the country and probably almost all of it's foreign nationals live.
• Although the modern state Jordan is a very new one, the name "Jordan" has connotations and history that stretch back to Old Testament times. When speaking historically, usually Jordan refers to the Biblical River Jordan and the surrounding area in modern day Israel and Jordan.

A mural in Madaba

More murals in Madaba

A plaque that commemorates the visit of Pope John Paul II

One view from Mt. Nebo

A panoramic view. Amman can barely be seen in the distance

Not really sure how this picture happened

It's hard to read, but this map from the museum puts the region in context. Mount Nebo is to the center-right. Madaba can be seen to the East, Amman to the North, and Jericho to the West. The river is the River Jordan that feeds into the Dead Sea. Further West of Jericho is Jerusalem. And Mount Nebo overlooks all of it.

More maps and context

Another panorama from a different view, although this one has a little too much sand brick and not enough Jordan river valley. The turquoise sliver on the far left is the Dead Sea. The green is around the city of Jericho and the River Jordan. The mountains that are the backdrop to the whole scene are in the West Bank.

Less pano but more valley