Insha'allah, and other Jordanian musings
-Insha'allah is the applies to everything-all the time-any time-in almost any context phrase in Jordan (and I imagine in other Arabic-speaking countries as well). Literally it means "God willing", and things along those lines. You can imagine that someone would say it after something like, I'm going to travel to Europe this summer, insha'allah, and other big events like that. But no, everyone says it after EVERYTHING. Anytime you ask someone to do anything, their response is followed with a hopeful "Insha'allah!". Yesterday, I took my first cab ride alone from work back to my apartment, and when I got in and told him to go to Talak Niveen (the area I live in), you can imagine that I was not that comforted when he responded "Insha'allah!". Once a person says Insha'allah, that situation is no longer in control and they are no longer responsible for it. I have noticed this a lot at my job, when my boss asks people to do things and they respond, insha'allah, and then it never gets done. But it wasn't their fault....they left it in God's hands!
-I don't speak more than 5 words of Arabic, but I have found that it is pretty easy to understand what people are saying. Arabic speakers use their hands a lot while talking, and their voice inflections seem to reflect very strongly what ever they are saying. For example, the other day my friend was speaking to a police officer on the street (we were waiting for the Independence Day parade, which is another story in and of itself) and without understand a word of what they were ACTUALLY saying, I understood that the police officer asked her where we all were from, if we were Jordanian, and what were doing there. It was pretty cool.
-The Independence Day parade: could be called "The Day of Standing Around Doing Nothing While Guns Were Being Pointed At Us". We had heard from a friend that there would be a big parade at 3pm in between 3rd and 4th circles, with the whole royal family! We weren't about to miss an opportunity to see the royal family, so we even got there early at 2:30. Nothing. We walked the entire distance from 3rd to 4th circle (extremely slowly) because the police officers told us that it wasn't okay to stand it one place on the sidewalk, but it WAS okay just to keep walking (as if he was telling us, at least pretend you have a purpose!). The odd thing was, the streets were all blocked off and there were policemen and military officials everywhere, so something was obviously going to happen. We even saw some families with their kids holding photos of King Abdullah.
After getting a tip from someone that the parade was actually going to start at 5, we went into a coffee shop and then headed back. By this time, there were even more scary men in uniforms with guns and kids holding pics of the King like he was their favorite movie star or action hero. But still nothing. Pretty soon it was 6pm, and there was nothing in sight. At one point, we heard a drum and saw people marching far off in the distance, but then the disappeared and we never saw them again. Any anytime ANYTHING to break the monotony would happen (for example, when a car would drive by) the entire crowd of people would move, only to be disappointed by nothing again...Finally it hit 7pm and we realized, this parade ain't gonna happen. As soon as we started walking away, the entire crowd followed our lead and decided, "this is lame!". Way to go, Jordan!
-Amman is very different than I expected it to be. It's incredibly westernized, with big tall buildings, more KFC's than I think there are in the US (and almost every other fast-food chain), and fancy stores. There is a "old city" area, the bedel, but it's pretty small. Almost all the vehicles on the roads are private cars, or taxis- there are very few buses. It's pretty clean, not crowded, and there aren't any beggars on the streets. All in all, it's kind of a boring city. There are a lot of Westerners here because Amman is the gateway to many other very famous sights in the Middle East, like Damascus, Jerusalem, Petra, Aqaba, etc. But there isn't all that much to do in Amman, and there isn't nearly the history of some other places I've been to like Delhi or Istanbul. But overall, its a very friendly and pretty city.
My favorite areas are the balad, which is the old part of the city, and Jabal Amman, which is also an older area near the balad. Here the streets are much narrower, there's more people, and more things to do. Hopefully, I'll be moving here soon- right now I live by the university which is at the compete opposite end of the city from where I work and from where everyone else lives.
-The weather is WONDERFUL! Every day is sunny with not a cloud in the sky. It does get hot at mid-day, probably about 90, but there's no humidity and there's usually a nice breeze. Also, 90 degrees is nothing compared to the 115-super humid weather I felt it India!
-The call to prayer rings through the whole city five times a day, and you can hear it no matter where you are. In fact, my bedroom window in right next to the neighborhood mosque, and the call to prayer has woken me up every morning without fail at about 3:50am. It's actually really beautiful, and it doesn't bother me at all. But I just found out a few days ago that the call to prayer is actually recorded and it played at every mosque in the city! Apparently, when each mosque used to do its own call, they would compete with each other as to who could be the loudest and the result was deafening. Their solution was to standardize the whole thing. I would have like to hear the competitions. Well, at least the guy has a good voice!
-My guess is that about 60% of the women wear hijab in Amman, and 40% don't. A pretty small percentage of those that do wear an abaya, and an even smaller percentage wear full abaya and niqaab. But it seems that the headscarf is more a fashion accessory than anything else. Most of them are accompanied with elaborate sequins and colors, very very tight jeans, a shirt that pulls just a liiiitle too tight around the chest, and a cigarette in one hand. I even saw one scarf-wearing girl today wearing a skirt that almost went to her knees. I'm not saying this is bad or good, it's just a very interesting part of Jordanian society that I want to explore a little more.
-I don't speak more than 5 words of Arabic, but I have found that it is pretty easy to understand what people are saying. Arabic speakers use their hands a lot while talking, and their voice inflections seem to reflect very strongly what ever they are saying. For example, the other day my friend was speaking to a police officer on the street (we were waiting for the Independence Day parade, which is another story in and of itself) and without understand a word of what they were ACTUALLY saying, I understood that the police officer asked her where we all were from, if we were Jordanian, and what were doing there. It was pretty cool.
-The Independence Day parade: could be called "The Day of Standing Around Doing Nothing While Guns Were Being Pointed At Us". We had heard from a friend that there would be a big parade at 3pm in between 3rd and 4th circles, with the whole royal family! We weren't about to miss an opportunity to see the royal family, so we even got there early at 2:30. Nothing. We walked the entire distance from 3rd to 4th circle (extremely slowly) because the police officers told us that it wasn't okay to stand it one place on the sidewalk, but it WAS okay just to keep walking (as if he was telling us, at least pretend you have a purpose!). The odd thing was, the streets were all blocked off and there were policemen and military officials everywhere, so something was obviously going to happen. We even saw some families with their kids holding photos of King Abdullah.
After getting a tip from someone that the parade was actually going to start at 5, we went into a coffee shop and then headed back. By this time, there were even more scary men in uniforms with guns and kids holding pics of the King like he was their favorite movie star or action hero. But still nothing. Pretty soon it was 6pm, and there was nothing in sight. At one point, we heard a drum and saw people marching far off in the distance, but then the disappeared and we never saw them again. Any anytime ANYTHING to break the monotony would happen (for example, when a car would drive by) the entire crowd of people would move, only to be disappointed by nothing again...Finally it hit 7pm and we realized, this parade ain't gonna happen. As soon as we started walking away, the entire crowd followed our lead and decided, "this is lame!". Way to go, Jordan!
-Amman is very different than I expected it to be. It's incredibly westernized, with big tall buildings, more KFC's than I think there are in the US (and almost every other fast-food chain), and fancy stores. There is a "old city" area, the bedel, but it's pretty small. Almost all the vehicles on the roads are private cars, or taxis- there are very few buses. It's pretty clean, not crowded, and there aren't any beggars on the streets. All in all, it's kind of a boring city. There are a lot of Westerners here because Amman is the gateway to many other very famous sights in the Middle East, like Damascus, Jerusalem, Petra, Aqaba, etc. But there isn't all that much to do in Amman, and there isn't nearly the history of some other places I've been to like Delhi or Istanbul. But overall, its a very friendly and pretty city.
My favorite areas are the balad, which is the old part of the city, and Jabal Amman, which is also an older area near the balad. Here the streets are much narrower, there's more people, and more things to do. Hopefully, I'll be moving here soon- right now I live by the university which is at the compete opposite end of the city from where I work and from where everyone else lives.
-The weather is WONDERFUL! Every day is sunny with not a cloud in the sky. It does get hot at mid-day, probably about 90, but there's no humidity and there's usually a nice breeze. Also, 90 degrees is nothing compared to the 115-super humid weather I felt it India!
-The call to prayer rings through the whole city five times a day, and you can hear it no matter where you are. In fact, my bedroom window in right next to the neighborhood mosque, and the call to prayer has woken me up every morning without fail at about 3:50am. It's actually really beautiful, and it doesn't bother me at all. But I just found out a few days ago that the call to prayer is actually recorded and it played at every mosque in the city! Apparently, when each mosque used to do its own call, they would compete with each other as to who could be the loudest and the result was deafening. Their solution was to standardize the whole thing. I would have like to hear the competitions. Well, at least the guy has a good voice!
-My guess is that about 60% of the women wear hijab in Amman, and 40% don't. A pretty small percentage of those that do wear an abaya, and an even smaller percentage wear full abaya and niqaab. But it seems that the headscarf is more a fashion accessory than anything else. Most of them are accompanied with elaborate sequins and colors, very very tight jeans, a shirt that pulls just a liiiitle too tight around the chest, and a cigarette in one hand. I even saw one scarf-wearing girl today wearing a skirt that almost went to her knees. I'm not saying this is bad or good, it's just a very interesting part of Jordanian society that I want to explore a little more.
posted by Laura at
7:59 AM
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