A Mensef Story

This past Saturday, Heather and I were invited to Zerka for a traditional mensef iftar with a friend's family. After our longer-than-average first parents' meeting at the school, the guys picked us up in Jabal Amman, we hopped in the backseat like good little Jordanian girls, and we headed for Zerka, about a twenty minute drive outside of Amman if the traffic is good.

The traffic was not good. It took us maybe an hour. But it gave us plently of time to enjoy the scenery and sounds of Amman, such as the bumper to bumper cars, the honking of drivers crazed on road rage doubled by fasting all day, and masses of people snarling at each other as they rush around getting ready for iftar. Ah! The best time of day!

Zerka used to sit around a river, which made it the more popular city to live in. But once the river dried up, its citizens began fleeing to the slightly cooler Amman, and now the city is mostly industrial. When talking to people from Amman, they all betray the slightest bit of incredulity that there is anything to see in Zerka. They also mumble that it's slightly more dangerous than Amman, possibly because its the hometown of the notorious Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The people from Zerka retort that the Ammanians are just jealous. They didn't say what they were jealous of...

Regardless, we finally made it to the slightly grittier Zerka and pulled up at our friend's house. We met his mom, our fabulous chef for the evening, his two brothers, his brother's wife, his sister and her children. Once in the house, we settled into the living room, where our two friends laid a plastic sheet on the floor (got to put something to keep the rice out of the carpet), then set various plates of vegetables and drinks on it. Then we sat down to wait for sunset, my friend with a cigarette ready in hand.

Ding! At 7:01 p.m., we heard the call to prayer. We were four in the living room: our two friends, Heather and me. The guys said a quick "start of the iftar" prayer? chant? blessing? I'm not sure, but they said it; it was pretty; we started the feast.

Our friend poured a heavy yogurt sauce over the rice. Now, when eating mensef, the men usually use their hands. Women usually eat with spoons, but it is acceptable to eat with their hands as well. Heather and I immediately squished our fingers to the knuckle into the rice. We're classy like that. Heather, who has eaten traditional mensef before, began showing her prowess at rolling the rice into balls, then transferring the sticky bites into her mouth. Before too long, she was having a rice rolling contest with our friend. I was not so talented. Fortunately, my many years of eating Indian food with my hands came in handy, so I did not completely embarrass myself.

After washing up after the mensef, we retreated to the balcony, where we sat around and made our friend translate everything everyone said (our friend's family does not speak English. We do not speak Arabic. That makes for interesting conversations). Then we got the dessert.

Remember those pancakes Heather and I saw in early Ramadan? Getayaf. Well, tonight we got to find out what they are SUPPOSED to taste like. They were filled with a cream that tasted like chantille, topped with nuts and dipped in a sugar sauce. Delightful, and the perfect way to head straight into a sugar rush.

We ended the evening by smoking argile (shisha, hookah to you Americans) on the porch and then heading home. Ah. My first mensef. My fond memories of this night will last as long as the bits of rice stuck under my fingernails.

Bombs and Bodies. Just another routine day at school

I have now survived one week and one day of classes at the Ahliyyah School for Girls. It’s been a lot of fun so far. My girls are mostly all very eager to learn and highly inquisitive. They have minor talking problems, as in they can’t shut up, but what fifth grade girl doesn’t? My main teacher, Leen, in addition to being a super awesome person is a fantastic instructor, and I am learning lots from her.

On the first day of class, I introduced myself, and we played some getting-to-know-you games, just like in the U.S. And as Americans, we usually like to start off the school year on a happy, fun-filled notes. I expected my first lesson in Jordan to be the same. That was before I saw the first lesson in the girls’ fiction books.

Nuclear Disaster! the title reads. The caption? “Ann Burden is sixteen. Following a nuclear explosion, she believes she is the last person alive on earth.” The story came equipped with a delightful picture of an explosion leveling a city. Cheery.

NOT ONLY did we read the excerpt from Ann’s fictional account on the first day of school (which included lines such as “Bodies. Just dead bodies,” “I went into a couple of houses, the Johnsons’, the Peters’ – they were all in there, all dead.”), but we also showed them pictures of an atomic bomb explosion and some dead bodies, which I thought was perhaps a little graphic for 10 year olds. They seemed to take it well.

Before discussing death and destruction on the first day of class, we also talked about nuclear weapons in terms of politics and power struggles. Huh. It turns out fifth graders in Jordan actually know something about current events AND politics, unlike many American college students I know.

Fortunately Unit 2 looks a little more cheerful. We get to read some Tolkien! Score. (P.S. They spelled Tolkien's name wrong in the textbook.) Of course it is the scene where the hobbits are lost and scared in the eerie forest...

Welcome back to school, kids!

One Month Assessment and Observations

As I have now been in Jordan for exactly one month and two days, I think it's time to update people on the strange / different things I've noticed here in Jordan.

First of all, let's discuss clothing / appearances.

1) Obviously, as this is a Muslim country, women wear a lot of headscarves here. I would say, depending on what part of town you are in, that in the more conservative areas about 95 percent of the women wear the headscarves and in the less conservative areas about 50 percent of the women wear headscarves. This took a couple days to get used to, mostly because you have to get used to sometimes being the only woman in the vicinity NOT wearing a headscarf.

2) While walking around the city, it is not uncommon to see men dressed in the typical Saudi Arabian garb - a white robe-looking garment and a red and white checkered headscarf secured around their heads with a black band. I am seeing this less and less now that many people from the gulf have headed back home after their summer vacations, but as I said, it's still not uncommon.

3) Every once and a while, especially in conservative neighborhoods, you will see women dressed in the full burqa, which covers them from head to toe. Again, burqa sightings have decreased as visitors from the gulf have gone home, but you still see them fairly often.

4) Choice of dress here seems completely up to the wearer and/or the wearer's family. I've seen a girl in a halter top walking right next to a girl in a headscarf and long dress with long sleeves. As they say in Jordan, a'adi, it's normal!

Consumer complaints - stuff I can't find in Jordan

1) It is almost impossible to find a decent selection of hair products at the majority of the shops here in Jordan, though they do have a rather extensive display in Cosmo. You can get all the shampoo you want, but if you want a decently priced AND generous quantity of conditioner, you might want to switch countries. The same goes for hair spray and mousse.

2) Despite the fact that most women here wear make-up, headscarf or no, the make-up selection here is extremely limited as well. Supposedly one mall in the shopping district has an extensive collection of make-up, but I haven't made it out there to see yet.

3) While packing for my trip here, I was sure I could find some more conservative shirts, etc when I got here. And I have found several nice, long, non-revealing tops. However, the majority of the clothing at the shopping centers here is exactly what you would find in the U.S. Some of the dresses and halter tops I found displayed in the City Mall looked too scandalous for me to wear in the U.S. even. When I asked Melissa about this, she said that the girls here either layered these seductive seams over their long-sleeved shirts or they bought them to wear when they go abroad.

Other random things:

1) Children do not seem to have a bedtime here. We see them with their parents out at all hours of the night. When parents have an outing to go to at night, they do not put the kids to bed first, then go out. Nope, they just take the kids right along with them.

2) When riding in cars or in taxis, unless you know the person very well and you are just two or three people, women always ride in the backseat. Always. This involves, at least for me, some interesting leg positions, as people with long legs do not always fit comfortably behind someone whose seat is all the way back.

3) I've mentioned this before, but just about everyone smokes here. And they are allowed to smoke almost everywhere. No one thinks anything of this, nor is it common to ask permission before lighting up. I've been asked if I minded the smoke a total of once in the entire month I've been here. You get used to smelling like an ashtray.

4) The American movies they show on television here (by the way, satellite tv is free. Score.) are extremely strange. All of them have actors and actresses I know very well, but I have never heard of the majority of the actual films. Also, they all portray Americans doing very strange things. If these movies are the closest some Jordanians have ever gotten to Americans, no wonder they stare at us!

5) Our landlady travels with an entourage. I have never seen her without her mother, for one, and usually with three or four kids, too. They all come into our apartment together to talk to us and pretty much take over the dining room table. It's good to be loved!

In another month, I'll probably have a whole new list of strange and unusual sightings of cultural happenings here in Jordan. Can't wait for my two month anniversary!

Welcome to Jordan! How can I make your stay more complicated?

Last Sunday, I went to the maktab a'shurta, or police station (actually police office, but they got the idea) to get my visa renewed. With my usual impeccable timing, I arrived at 1:10 p.m., ten minutes after they closed for Ramadan. The harassed civilian I commandeered to help me talk to the unpleasant guard at the gate translated the guard's curt responses as "Welcome to Jordan. The station is open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday through Thursday. You are too late, you ignorant foreigner, you." Actually I made that last bit up.

Regardless, I was now faced with a problem. My visa was expiring on Friday. I was working from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. every day that week. So the soonest I could get back to the police station was today, a week later and three days past my expiration date. The harassed citizen told me it would be one dinar for every day I went over my visa. Three dinars. No big deal, right? HAHA!

This morning, I cheerfully rolled out of bed and was on the road toward the police station by 11 a.m. (well, 11:30 at the latest. Promise) I arrived, sweaty and exhausted after my hike uphill to the police station, held out my passport like a shield in front of me and was ushered by some stern-looking officers into a back room. I waved my passport at the official behind the desk and said "new visa." He waved me into a chair and took my passport. After looking at my visa for a minute, he said I had to go to an address he wrote on a piece of paper, then come back to the police station. "But what do I do at the address," I asked. He looked confused. He gestured to the women in the desk next to him to take me to another part of the building. "You are welcome in Jordan," he called as I left the room.

The woman took me into another official-looking office, where the officer there said I was over my expiration date and had therefore begun to rot. I needed to go to the Department of Something or Rather to pay my three dinars because the station could not possibly do it. Then I had to come back to the station to get my renewed visa. "We close at one," he reminded me with a smile. He had one of his guards take me down to get me a taxi. "Welcome to Jordan!" he said cheerfully as I exited his office trying to quell my urge to bean him and his officers with my purse for making me run around so much.

I got in my taxi and we drove to the Department of Whatever. It was now noon. I asked some more unpleasant guards where exactly the department was, and they pointed me to a building with roughly a million people standing around waiting. Joy. The guard stationed there reluctantly helped me find the correct form to fill out, then pointed me toward booth 2. "Welcome in Jordan," he mumbled grumpily. I stood in line at booth two, handed my paper to the attendant there, was discussed hurriedly behind the counter, then was pointed to the cashier's booth. I handed my paper to the women there and was asked to sit down. After a couple minutes, I heard her call, "American!" Although this isn't my usual name, I responded and paid my three dinars. "Welcome to Jordan," she said in lieu of a goodbye.

Rushing out of the building at about 12:30 p.m., I summoned the first taxi I saw and headed back to the original police station. I headed straight into the back room and got them to stamp my passport in no time. I walked out of the police station at ten minutes to one with my head held high.

“You are welcome in Jordan,” the guard called out as I wandered back by his kiosk.

One Month Anniversary

Today, September 4, marks the one month anniversary of the day I came to Jordan. How time flies!

I'm sorry, I was looking for the staff meeting?

First of all, I would like to say that I love my school. The Ahliyyah School for Girls is a great place to work. The girls are fabulous and eager, and my fellow teachers are all supportive and cooperative.

That being said, the meetings we have are sometimes… not exactly what we Americans expect, to say the least.

A couple days before school started, we were all called over to the Bishop’s School, the boy’s school that partners us, for a meeting with the general director. The buses picked us up at 10 a.m. and carted us over.

I had been up for a while. I was tired. I was hungry. I was not in the mood for a staff meeting in Arabic hastily translated into English by the person next to me. So I was this side of cranky already.

The director started out in a typical meeting style – welcoming us, thanking people, introductions all around, extra. Then she powered up the Powerpoint, and we got to work. Note: I was only receiving about half of the information presented because of the translation, but she seemed to be talking about the usual teacher values, commitments and strategies. Then she started showing the movies.

We went through three or four 5-10 minute long movie clips that seemingly barely illustrated the point she was trying to make. At this point, I was ready to eat my own arm off. And we had gotten to 11 a.m.

We got through the movie clips and finished the talking portion of the meeting. Great! Time for lunch, right? Um, no. Thus began a forty-five minute long session of inspiring poetry readings in Arabic, songs in both Arabic and English and piano playing for our entertainment. And entertaining it would have been except for the fact that I was now chewing on a plastic bottle in hungry desperation and dreaming of bashing the piano with a baseball bat, then heading home to take a nap.

They even sang some Elvis. After this, American staff meetings are going to seem all kinds of tame.

Shameless Plug

Check out my roommate Nadia's blog post called Rice and Chicken. She relates a conversation she and I had about varieties of food within cultures. I guess it all depends on what your background is!