In the streets of Madaba

I got to see and experience a little more of the culture today. I went out into the city by myself for the first time and managed to buy a few things that I needed. Luckily, the numbers are still the same in Arabic as they are in English, so even though I couldn’t say a word to the lady at the cash register, we worked it out.

I have started to enjoy the calls to prayer that come from the Mosque close by. They are long, melodic songs played in a minor key and it is loud enough to hear anywhere you may be in the city. Mark, one of the Australian teachers that has been here for about 6 months, said that if you go to the bell tower at the top of the Catholic church, you can hear all the calls to prayer from all the Mosques echoing together throughout the entire city. I definitely want to check that out, to listen to the music as well as see the city from above.

Speaking of which, there are so many churches everywhere. Every few blocks, there is another one. Most of them are very small, and there are a few different denominations, so I’m not sure which is which, beyond identifying it as a Catholic versus non-Catholic church.

All of the buildings, whether they be churches, stores or homes, are made of the same tan color cement. I still get lost incredibly quickly outside, because all the buildings look the same and there are so many tightly packed streets that form a complicated maze.

I went to dinner with a few of the teachers at this pizza restaurant that was quite nice. They were playing live music on this fat, distorted guitar-like instrument as we walked in and there were a few people smoking hookahs. I did not know what those were before arriving here, but they are quite common. And they have the weirdest variety of scents coming out from them. One of the teachers was smoking one last night and it smelled like tobacco, strawberries and coffee. She was very nice and offered to let me try it. I don’t mind the smell of cigarettes so much, but those things make me pretty nauseous.

At the restaurant we each ordered a dish and then we all shared everything. Hummus in the Middle East is quite different than American hummus. It is much more creamy and light here, and the flavor isn’t quite as strong. It wasn’t spicy at all, and the kind we got had big chunks of grilled beef in it and it was good. The best part of that dish was definitely the bread though. It was really thick pita bread, roasted with all these spices on it. Very soft on the inside and a little crunchy on the outside. Delicious. The pizza we got was really good, again on pita-like bread, not as thick and the sauce and cheese were more Italian style than American. I ordered an Arabic milkshake. That was the flavor listed: Arabic, coming after vanilla, strawberry and chocolate. It turned out to be a very runny and thin vanilla shake with diced pistachios. The pistachios were very salty and I’m guessing had some oregano on them and so it was kind of weird to have with ice cream, but very good.

I also learned that all the honking in the evening isn’t necessarily for traffic. Apparently, this is one of the “wedding seasons”, or more accurately, one of the times of year where it isn’t forbidden to get married, and so if a couple was recently married, they have big processions through town and all the cars following them honk their horns the whole way through.

On the way back from dinner, we passed this joint where tons of men were smoking and playing cards. I commented that there weren’t any women there. Mark said that no woman would be allowed at any such place and also that none of the guys should go there either. He said there are two big gangs here in town that hate each other and that was the meeting place of one of them. He said that a few months ago fighting between the two gangs erupted and it was so bad that the local law enforcement came in and bombed the city with tear gas to stop the fighting. They had to put the school in lock down, locking all the students and teachers in. Crazy. 

Starting to settle in.

Some people have told me I need to post the backstory of my decision to come to Jordan. I will do so more in-depth in a later post, but ultra-short version: I graduated from BYU in Linguistics and was ready for an adventure. The opportunity to teach English here in Jordan fell into my lap through a coworker that taught here a few years ago. It is a Cambridge English program, taught at the Greek Orthodox church from September - May.

Today was my first real day. I slept surprisingly well, even with the time difference. I had stayed up all night the day before I left and I think that was actually the best thing I could have done to get a head start on the jetlag. A few other teachers have been here a few days and are still having a really hard time, but I feel pretty well adjusted already.

My living situation is quite nice. There are a few buildings that comprise the Greek Orthodox campus: the Pilgrim’s hotel, run by some very nice women who provide us with breakfast and lunch every day, two buildings of bedrooms and bathrooms for the English teachers, the chapel and the school. The chapel was originally built in the 6^th century, or somewhere around that time, and still has some of the original pillars. In 1902, it was rebuilt, including the mosaic of Jerusalem that covers a big portion of the floor on the main level. I was able to go inside today and it is a very holy place. It isn’t very big, but there are beautiful paintings and tons of mosaics all over the walls. Tourists have to buy tickets before they can come inside, but as a teacher here, I can go in whenever. I was told that they just finished a few big celebrations and rituals for some of the virgins, but they should be having some regular services soon. I would love to attend if I can.

I haven’t seen very much of the school, just some of the offices where the teachers met today to receive books that we will be teaching out of for the first few weeks. I was a little nervous about teaching, but after seeing some of the confusion and chaos of the organization today, I feel just fine. Besides the books that I was given as a general guideline, it seems I have complete freedom to teach however I want. I would like to start making plans, but since I don’t know how many students I will have, their ages, or levels of English, I don’t think there is much I can do to prepare. The most repeated bit of advice I have received is to be very strict and rigorous when class first starts. The other teachers have told me that the students will walk all over me if I let them, and I will need to lay down the law from the very beginning. 

There is another Hilary here, from the USA, and I think we will get along very well. She brought Insanity (the workout videos) since we can’t go out running, and invited me to do it with her. Yay! I’m super excited about it. She just finished her second Master’s degree from Oxford. Her thesis was something about the influence of Western philosophy and religion on Middle Eastern society. She came here to learn some Arabic in preparation for her doctorate degree on the beginnings of Christianity in the Middle East. Holy cow!

There are a few teachers from Australia, one from Greece, and a few from the USA. Almost all of them, even if they have studied Arabic, don’t actually speak very much. We are all excited about learning it though. There are a few different options for me to study and take classes, depending on how much time and money I want to dedicate to it. I’ve been trying to learn the script and some basic grammar principles by myself and I most definitely need someone that can answer my questions.

In the evening, we went for a small walk around the city and I loved seeing everything. There were cars and people everywhere. All the streets were lined with small shops and businesses and I imagine the upper floors are where they live. The shops are right up against the streets, which are very narrow. Many of the streets can only fit one car going one way. There is a huge variety of shops, some clothing, many restaurants, drugstores, and lots of churches too. There was one big mosque that we passed, and I am assuming that the calls to prayer come from there. It was so fun to see everything. I’m not going out by myself any time soon, I would get lost very quickly, but I can’t wait to see more of the city.

It turns out that I won’t be teaching here in Madaba. I was assigned to teach classes in Fuhais, which is about an hour away. Classes for me don’t start until Friday, so I have another day to settle in. I feel less overwhelmed and crazy today. I think this was a good decision! I have decided to stay for sure until the end of the year, and then I will evaluate if I will stay longer or come home. Good plan, yeah?

More pictures coming soon!

Arrival

Besides an initial scare at the Salt Lake Airport when I thought perhaps I hadn’t actually bought a ticket, I arrived in Jordan safely and easily. My flight from Utah left at 11:15 in the morning on Monday, and I arrived in Madaba, Jordan at around 7:00 pm on Tuesday. Long journey!

On my first leg to Chicago, a big group of missionaries were on my flight, headed to Finland. One of them sat next to me and bless his heart, he tried so hard to talk to me and get to know me. I’m afraid I didn’t really help him out much, I was already so tired that I really didn’t feel like talking, but he was very kind. All of the missionaries were so excited and nervous and were doing their best to talk to every person that came close. I’m sure I must have been a lot like that when I was going to Argentina.

My second leg, the minute that I walked on the plane I already felt like I was in another country. All of the instructions were written and spoken in Arabic, sometimes with English underneath. All of the crew spoke Arabic unless you talked to them in English first. I sat next to a middle aged man and he did not seem interested in talking to me. He looked like he was from the Middle East though, so I mustered up the courage to ask him if he was from Jordan. He told me that he was from Iraq and he was on his way back there after visiting his son’s family in California. I asked what he did in Iraq and he warmed up to me pretty quickly, telling me all about his position as a professor at some prestigious university (I can’t remember which one) and about his family. I’m not sure what it is about older men, but I am able to become friends more quickly with them than with any other group. We talked about the differences in education between Iraq and the United States, he told me all about his family (even showing me way too many pictures of his grandson) and from then on, he shared all his snacks and jokes with me. Sometimes I struggled to understand his English, but it was a lot of fun. At the end of the flight, he told me I was welcome to visit that University at any time and he would give me great tours around campus and the city, I just had to ask for Eduard, since he was the only one there by that name. I probably won’t take him up on his offer any time soon, but I would have loved to. He said that all the Americans are always astonished at how beautiful it is there. So now Iraq is on my list of places to see!

After 12 hours flying from Chicago, we finally arrived in Amman. Wahoo! I couldn’t help but grin as I walked through the airport. I was in a new country, one completely different and foreign than anything I had experienced before! It was incredibly fast and easy to exchange money, buy a visa and get my stuff. I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to find my way around, but all the signs had English on them. How handy! After I got my luggage, I went out to find my ride and there he was, front and center holding my name printed on a page. I went up to him and said hello, he nodded at me, took my bags and started walking. So I followed behind him. He didn’t ever look at me, or say a word. I guess he didn’t speak English. We got to the car, he put my stuff in the trunk and got in the driver’s seat. I got in the back because I had been told that as a woman I shouldn’t sit in the front, or something like that, so I hope I did the right thing by sitting in the back. And I really enjoyed it that way because then I was able to look out the window to my heart’s content without worrying about anything else.

I got my first look at the city! Jordan is a cool place. The airport is kind of removed it seemed like from most of the city in Amman, and at first we passed a lot of fields. I call them fields because I don’t know what the right word is for empty land that doesn’t have any grass or crops, just sand, but still fenced off. And there were bunches of sheep! With their shepherds! Almost every flock (herd?) of sheep had the shepherd out there with them. I wonder what they eat since they were almost always just in empty fields of dust.

I also could not figure out the traffic patterns. There were lines on the road, and arrows, but some of the time my driver was on the left side, some of the time he was on the right. Once he followed the direction of the arrows and another time he was going against them. Pretty amazing that no accidents happened.

When we got to Madaba, there were so many cars and people outside. There weren’t any traffic lights, just cars playing chicken it seemed like, to see who got to go first or wait. At one point, we passed this van full of young guys. One of them saw me and started pointing at me and shouting to the other guys in the car. The entire van of guys then started staring at me, some of them waving, some of them laughing, some just staring. I wanted to laugh and wave back, but I didn’t know if that would be considered appropriate. I feel like I need some more experience and hopefully someone that speaks English and can explain things to me before I make some mistakes. In the US, I always thought guys doing stuff like that was hilarious/dumb. I never really understood when people would get offended or angry at it. But I’m going to wait and see before I react. Although when we passed through a security gate at one point, the driver paid the guy at the gate and I smiled and waved before thinking about it. He just stared back at me with a slightly confused expression. Oops?

We got to the school, I gave the driver 20 JD and he said “OK, bye”. Maybe he did speak English after all…

I was shown to my room by a very helpful teenage boy, whose English was pretty good. I love it! Very comfy and nice, even comes with a TV! The city is pretty noisy, lots of traffic passing through, lots of people out on the streets, so I think it will take some time to get used to while trying to sleep. The school and church are fenced off. I met some other teachers briefly as well as some of the school and hotel staff, but I don’t remember any names. Too many people and I’m too tired.

But I’m here and I’m so excited about it! Although I did have some fleeting feelings of being overwhelmed and doubting my sanity. What the heck did I get myself into?? Why on earth would I leave a really great life behind to live here? I will struggle with those questions and feelings tomorrow though. So tired! So much to do before classes start on Thursday! And hopefully a lot of fun to be had as well!

My bedroom.

The bathroom. The shower gets everything wet. As of yet, no hot water :(

The view from my balcony. Lots of noisy cars.

The hotel is on the left, the Greek Orthodox chapel is on the right. There's a famous, beautiful mosaic on the floor of the chapel.