‘Such an ajaneb’

Arabic lesson #2:

Ajaneb – foreigner; Anas is constantly telling me that I am ‘such an ajaneb’

This first week has flown by in a smear of Arabic, argeeleh, long drives to the refugee camps, and so, so much good food and tea and coffee. Nina arrived on Sunday and we spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in two different Palestinian refugee camps. The first, Gaza Camp, is in Jeresh, a 45-minute drive from Amman. Gaza Camp is home to Gazan refugees, mostly from 1948 and 1967, and they experience life very differently than other Palestinian refugees (similar to how Palestinians in the West Bank live much differently to Palestinians in Gaza today). The other camp we visited was Irbid Camp, in Irbid, which is about an hour and a half from Amman. This camp was far more developed, and much larger than Gaza Camp, and so it was very interesting for us to compare the two. Over the three days we spoke to about 15 different people ranging in age from 13 to 52. We spoke with both men and women, employed and unemployed, and those who finished school and those who’d dropped out. We were asking questions about education and unemployment, family, issues in the camp, and then finally proposed our research question – about setting up training courses on business for 16-24 year olds in the camp. We got a lot of good information from our interviews, and I’m really excited to begin to write up our report. We also met with a Jordanian NGO, and are hoping to meet with a couple more before we leave.

Never have I been to a country where I have to think about the clothing I’m wearing, and if its appropriate, so much before, which has made this a very interesting cultural experience for me (especially because it’s 90+ degrees out every day). Skirts must be past your knees, preferably to the ground, only long pants or capris, and no tank tops or sleeveless shirts, unless I really want to look like an ajaneb. Visiting the camps I was especially conscious of being dressed well, since those communities are more conservative and less familiar with ajaneb than the Jordanians in Amman. Needless to say, sweating is unavoidable, and showers are more than necessary at the end of every day.

I have become fascinated with women’s clothing here, particularly the headscarves. There are as many different ways to wear a headscarf as there are to wear one’s hair; there are different styles and colors of scarves, different materials, and many different ways to wrap it around your head (which I’m also planning on learning before I leave). Jordan is so different from any place I’ve visited thus far, but I see such beauty in all these small elements of its culture, headscarves included. Another is the call to prayer, which is heard five times per day, no matter where you are. There is something so majestically, hauntingly beautiful about call to prayer, and the vibrant, vocal reminder it gives me every time I hear it that I am visiting a Muslim country. I’m also enjoying picking up some Arabic, which I think is so lovely, both written and spoken.

The architecture here is also very unique. Everything is so geometric; most buildings are made up of sharp edges – rectangles, squares, and triangles – which contrast with the rounded domes from the mosques that pop up here and there. As I noted before, most buildings are some sort of beige, but there are murals everywhere! Since Amman is made up of hills, hidden staircases litter the city, and most have murals decorating the walls, or the actual stairs themselves.

Since Friday is the Muslim holy day, weeks go from Sunday-Thursday, and the weekends are kind of flipped (Friday=Sunday), which has been a strange thing to get used to. But hey, TGIF – it’s Thursday!

Tea and coffee is very big here, and there are a few different types of each. For coffee there is both Jordanian coffee, and Turkish coffee. Both are very bitter (I always ask for sugar), and Turkish Coffee is very dark and thick; you can almost taste the grounds and when you finish your cup (the size of a ‘short’ at Starbucks), there is a coating of grounds at the bottom that you do not drink. Jordanian coffee is thinner, I actually thought it was a very bitter tea the first time I had it, but also so good. They drink typical black tea here, many different ways (black, sugar, milk, etc), but when it’s been made for me by Bedouins, or in the camps, it is very sweet and has some sort of spice to it. Nina tells me they boil the water with the sugar, and this spice, and then add the tea bags after to get this unique taste, which I am absolutely in love with.

The people here are incredibly nice and hospitable. Almost half of the people we interviewed made us tea or coffee, or bought us drinks; one even invited us for lunch and we had this delicious, communal Lebanese dish of chicken and rice. And those were just the people living in refugee camps, with very little extra to give. One odd aspect of Jordan is the congregation of men (Shebab), which I notice very frequently, especially at night. There have been a few times I’ve found myself the only girl (or me + Nina), in a café or room. Not all men will shake a woman’s hand either, at times while interviewing people a man would enter the room and shake the hands of all the men in the room, and then put his hand to his chest and nod at Nina and I. While I understand the reason why, it is a new thing to get used to.

Generally, I would like to state, for all family members worried about me, I feel many times safer here in Jordan than I did living in South Africa. I have yet to experience any catcalling, which I was warned about. And though I have been stared at, mostly in the camps, I assume it’s due to my pale skin and uncovered head more than anything else. In South Africa I couldn’t leave my purse in the car while parking it, it had to be in the trunk; I wouldn’t leave my phone on a table at a restaurant/café/bar, and often I was nervous walking alone. None of that is the case here. Everyone doesn’t live behind walls. Women are very much respected, which I can see not only in the way I am treated, but in the way others are treated as well. Already this has been such an eye-opening experience for me; I am so glad I chose to travel to a country that contrasts so much with all my previous travel. But, of course, this is the exact reason I love being abroad so much, and why I love the world.

This weekend I’m taking a tour of Petra, spending the night in a Bedouin Camp in Wadi Rum, and heading to Aqaba on the Red Sea for the day. The first goal is to not get sunburned (should be 100+ both days, since these towns are much further south than Amman), the second is to take lots of amazing photos, and the third is to practice my Arabic with the Bedouins at the camp ☺