El'Urdun

Kids play soccer in a parking lot across the street from my apartment. They take over every evening. Some wearing sandals, rolled up jeans, stylish button down shirts, occasionally two different shoes, gelled hair, cigarettes, big time swag. Nine or ten up through fifteen years old, these kids play hard. No such thing as a pass. It’s all about how badly you shake the person playing defense, make them take a seat, literally. Rollover to a pull back tipped up for three juggles before smoothly lofting the pumped but tattered ball over your shoulders, head trap down to another rollover or two before cracking a shot past the keeper – ‘Ahhh gola gola!!’ slew of amiyya’ curses, big grin, high five, then it's back to the pavement. These kids dance with the ball – all of them. The older guys who have been out here for years have it down, putting it through legs and spinning around opponents easily. The younger ones try just as hard, laughing all the while.

I head out there with two roommates and a few other American students who live close by. As soon as we get there the games start. Some kids literally jump when we show up – immediately the jousting and making fun begins. We’re split into teams, exchange a few greetings, and go to work. They LOVE playing around us – we petty Americans who think working hard and making nice passes means something out there. No way. If you don’t have some skills you’ll be in net or sitting on the curb.

The parking lot, covered with loose rock and dirt, sends us sliding all over the place. So much fun playing with these kids, throwing around some Arabic, putting together beautiful one touch plays that end with a cross to header game winning goal. This is what they do. No Playstation or big screen TV’s, these kids ball hard, day in and day out.

Two or three American girls come out and play with us. They aren’t pushovers, quick to throw their body around and go in for a tackle. Some locals react positively, embracing the American women playing rough with them, forcing the girls to run in circles after the ball. Others are more conservative and will put up their hands and back away as soon as a girl comes charging in. I wonder if these kids have ever played soccer with a girl, let alone a young woman.

Always nice to recover after a few hours of streetball with fresh mint tea or delicious coffee. The trick when brewing coffee is to not pour settled coffee from the pot into the glass. Add the coffee and sugar into water just before boiling, and as soon as the rich dark juice begins to bubble up and over the edge of the metal pot tip the pot slightly toward your glass, simply guiding the spill. Taste is in the bubbly, thick, milky top layer, which is lost if you just pour from the pot. Be generous with the coffee, and the sugar. The grounds at the bottom of each glass are a welcome surprise.

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Beautiful sunsets here in Amman. The city of hills, as the sun heads to bed the sky brightens up for one last stand, neon green minarets pepper the horizon. Evening call to prayer, more soothing each time, rings out from several nearby mosques, always within a moment or two of each other. Cool breeze on our fourth floor balcony, perfect vantage point to watch the traffic lighten. Like the sky Jordanians come to life in the early night hours. Celebratory gunshots and fireworks ring out for hours each night – sometimes frighteningly close. I sit on my neighbors balcony and listen to stories from his years in Iraq, where he was born and raised, became a doctor, and only left after the death threats to his friends and family became too much too handle. He will never go back, ever. We live beside three young doctors, two from Iraq and one from Gaza. Our political discussions are gut-wrenchingly tense, but always productive and friendly in the end.

Nate and I keep ourselves on as tight a budget as possible. I often make a pot of rice, beans, veggies, and an uncomfortable amount of chili powder that will carry me through five or six meals. Occasional splurge for local hal’wiyat – deserts – at a nearby bakery, or a mansaf up near the University of Jordan. The drought here is no joke and we do our best to dry wash our dishes, shower every few days, and use little more than a dribble of water to brush our teeth.

My roommate and classmate Colin and I talk politics day and night. As conservative as they come, Colin and I beat each other up about torture, the morality of war, US domestic policy, the wonderful conflicts raging throughout the Middle easy, health care, what to do about drug dealers, and whether or not we should strangle China before she openly squashes our economy (as I write this Colin is claiming what I listen to isn’t music…and so it goes). For the first two weeks we not only slept in the same room, but we woke up together, ate breakfast together, walked to Qasid together, sat in class together, walked home together, spent evenings reading and working together, then replayed steps 1 through 734 every day. I recently enrolled in Tajweed, which meets every morning at eight. While Colin and I still have class together at ten, I’ve replaced our time together with 530am runs, lone breakfasts of left over rice and beans, fresh coffee, and a pleasant walk to Qasid with Nate – soft spoken, tall and lanky, distractingly kind and sincere, heavy southern accent. Our conversations lean more toward emotions and where we are spiritually, as he shies away from politics, and shares my unfortunate sense of wanting to be home.

Tajweed lessons teach me to recite the Qu’ran. Like reading Torah there is a particular trope for chanting the Qu’ran. That is what we hear five times a day with the call to prayer. Unfamiliar but exotic and deep, Tajweed lessons change the way I hear the Adhan. Now I understand why certain notes are held, why some burrow up in the nose and others burst out of the throat. Learning to recite the Qu’ran is a thrilling challenge. My reading skills are par but my singing skills are in the gutter. Half an hour a day I sit two and a half feet from a renowned singer trying to eek out decently melodic notes, often failing miserably. At least my voice doesn’t crack. I don’t have my own Qu’ran yet but I will soon, and it will be a treasure I pass on to my grandchildren.

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Class is intense and enjoyable. Four hours a day, two professors, mostly if not strictly Arabic, homework every night. My class of nine is coming to speak and understand more confidently, we joke and ridicule in Arabic, we put together presentations and skits on short notice. I’ve warmed up to both professors, Ibrahim and Bana’an. He is short, loud, hysterical, overly energetic, and pulls vocab out of us. She is conservative, talks much faster, more critical and stern, but easing up to us every day. Just yesterday she administered an exam and came around with sweets half-way through saying ‘Kayef al’imtihaan, kayef al’imtihaan!? Ay su’ell? Jordan, Brit, Colin – ainda su’ell? How is it? How are you guys doing? Jordan, any questions? Brit? Here, have some candy, don’t hate me,’ as she passed out ginger sweets produced in Palestine, wrapped in Southeast Asia, and sold throughout the Middle easy.

Yesterday in class we were doing an exercise with new vocab words – one of us would define the word without using the word itself, the rest of the class would guess. My word was Fow’qa, towel. I meant to say ‘After I take a bath, I use a…!,’ the verb (to bathe oneself) being istahamma. Instead I mixed up the verb with ustoosheda and said ‘After I become a martyr I use a…!’ Classmates didn’t understand and were silent, Bana’an looked at me dumbfounded and expressionless. I quickly realized nobody had any idea what I said so I began frantically scrubbing my chest and arms, making an imaginary shower above my head, saying ‘You know, become a martyr! After I become a martyr I use a !!’ Ban’an said ‘I understand, ya Jordan, ana afham, where did you learn that word?!’

I realized what I was saying and replied, in perfect English ‘Oh. Shit. I am so sorry, professor, ya ustath. I didn’t mean that at all.’ Ban’an began to smile as I told the class what I had said – they roared with laughter as I smiled and turned redder than a baby butt spanked by a conservative Russian immigrant straight off the boat. Pretty funny moment, but I was silent for the rest of class. Of all things to say, go figure.

I’ve never been in an intense academic environment like Qasid. Little support from the administration and teachers so the students buckle down together, tutor and support one another. PhD candidates, wildly smart Ivy League button-down-shirters, academics, professionals. Out there melting pot of excited, motivated, lost individuals desperate to learn Arabic.

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I miss home big time. Miss the brothers and the family, comforts of an easy life, my routine, close friends, being somewhere familiar. I’ve tried to convince myself that I’m not homesick, but just have a really good situation at home that I’m reluctant to leave, and if I’ve left it, I sort of want to go back. But that’s not being homesick damnit! I finally gave in to myself, home would be sweet right now. Jed is growing up too quickly, I don’t see enough of mom, must get more of Jesse’s unbearability while I can, too seldom do I stay up late talking with dad. Alas, home soon, where I’ll see little has changed, same old goodness as always.

Thoughts that keep me up at night bounce between academics and Phi Psi this fall. Not so different when broken down – I play with my role as a Community Advisor for sophomores and one of the pledge educators for potential Phi Psi brothers. As a CA I need to balance friendship and openness with residents alongside my role as a rule maker and enforcer. With Phi Psi, I wonder how I can command the respect of new brothers without screaming or barking at them. How can I ensure the pledge process is intense, with the pledges respecting and quietly fearing me, without turning into some abusive frat animal? Radomir was a monster in the gym, screaming and often beating us with his bamboo stick. Yet outside the gym he rarely spoke above a whisper, was compassionate kind and smiling, and would do anything to help anyone. How can I become a hero like Radomir?



Healthy, safe, and filthy with high spirits and a hunger for more Arabic, Middle easiness, and experience.

Lots of love,

SF