During my first week in a distant country with an unfamiliar language, foreign customs, and strange people, I found it very important focus on my successes, no matter how trivial seemed.
The official language of Jordan is Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), but in the streets, the people almost always speak in Shaami dialect, or the Levantine “colloquial flavor” of Arabic. However, I found colloquial Arabic to be much more than a different “flavor” on MSA: during the first week it sounded like a whole different language. Despite having taken two semesters of classes on MSA and Shaami dialect, I was unable to understand many of the Arabs that I met simply because I underestimated their accents and speed. With Spanish and English, people’s talking speed seems to vary by age and gender, but for Arabic, everyone I met spoke very quickly. This, combined with the culture shock, provided significant language blocks.
However, despite these challenges, I still managed to get what I needed. After picking me up from Queen Alia Airport, a few members of Qasid’s “delivery team” were kind enough to take me to get shawarma, since I was starving from my flight across europe. Walking into a small, packed, deli-type store full of shouting Arabic men made me realize very quickly that this was no American food venue. How would I get the attention of the cooks? After picking out a few items, I paid and the cashier, who hurriedly scribbled a few (illegible) Arabic words on a slip of paper and pushed it towards me. WIth instructions from my new friend from Qasid, I shouted the word “ma’alam” (معلم) at the cooks above the din of the surrounding hubbub and was granted enough time to hand the paper over and receive my heated food. It didn’t hurt that I was also several inches taller than almost every Arab in the store. However, this was a mixed blessing, as it made me stand out even more than my Western appearance. Nevertheless, with this first success, I stayed full through the night.
My second challenge came the next morning when I woke up bright and early from jet lag. Although I had secured food the night before, I had not drank anything since my flight from Paris and was absolutely parched in such an arid country. With vocab help from Valeria, I descended to the lobby and asked the man at the front desk where I could find some drinking water. He pointed down the street and told me there was a Safeway within waking distance. I thanked him, and even without my sorely-missed-contacts I was able to find and navigate through Safeway. After snagging a pack of six-huge bottled waters, I downed two of them right when I got back to my room! Never has water tasted so good.
Despite these challenges, I feel myself observing the culture around me. In class, we learned that Jordanian culture was much more laid back. Rather than finding something to keep them occupied, Arabs seize this opportunity to lead a relaxed life and and take their time. While I certainly experienced this when attempting to retrieve my long-lost luggage, I also saw it in the morning after getting back from Safeway. Sitting in the lobby of my hotel (which doubled as a health club), I watched people come and go. Where in America on a Tuesday morning many men would be driving to work and starting their day off, here in the Middle East there were many men sitting around in chairs in the lobby smoking and reading the newspaper, chatting, and greeting their friends and acquaintances that entered. I’m actually not sure whether/when they ended up going to work, but it was still a big shock to see such a laid-back approach to a weekday morning.
I’m excited to see what new experiences will open my eyes in the future in this amazing country.
A midnight view of Queen Alia Airport