The Adventurous Illiterates

Last night we went to the Italian girls’ home for dinner. There are six of them studying at the Language Center, and they invited us over for a meal. They brought out heaping bowls of penne in a homemade sauce, and as I wiped my bowl clean, my stomach burgeoning, I thought of my dad, and was about to ask, “So, do spaghetti starters really exist in Italy?”
And that was when they brought out the second course.

It has been quite a week. Classes continue to be grueling, and we even began learning about clauses. We have learned the “continuing past” (as in “he didn’t arrive”), how to pluralize (though there are enough exceptions to the rule that having a rule seems silly), how to use “but,” and five different ways of negating something (each has its own use, either with nouns or in different tenses). Meanwhile, we are still stuttering about, trying to read without vowels, and still trying to perfect the throaty ayin and the rolled rah.

We did make it to Amman this weekend, though. We spent a lot of time walking in, well, the wrong direction. And Jordanians give directions a lot like their neighbors to the west.
“Yes, yes, just go straight.”
Everyone spoke English, making it very hard to practice, but we got to try Jordanian and Egyptian fu’uls (apparently we’ve been using the wrong bean. Oops). We saw, from a distance, the Roman Theater at the center of town. We walked through the wealthier part of the city and saw all the wealthier expats eating American food on a balcony overlooking the city. Unlike in downtown, the streets there were clean and sparse, whereas in downtown the streets had heavy traffic (when we tried to get a bus, multiple passed too full to take on even half of the waiting passengers) and it was easy to walk into people if you weren't paying attention. The city, too, seemed to be laid out in sections -- DVD stores were here, gold stores here, dress shops there.
In the end, we decided we are very happy that we chose Irbid over Amman. We came home exhausted and cuddled in front of a movie to unwind.

Thursday was quite an adventure, as well. We decided to go for a walk, but as we made our way through campus, we heard distinct groups shouting and cheering. At first we suspected that something was wrong. Approaching one of the groups, though, we saw a horde of men carrying a guy in a suit and singing. We asked some spectators what was happening, and, in Arabeezi (Spanglish, here), they informed us that the student government had just been elected, and the person hoisted in the air was the new President of his “Faculty.” The whole school had erupted in celebration, and the boys we had asked lead us around to view many of the different schools celebrating (we noted that all of the Presidents were male). Needless to say, our walk never made it to downtown.
We did spend over an hour chatting with the boys, though. And as two of them grilled me on why I let Daphna go around with her head uncovered (he was the first to pin me into "admitting" that I was Christian -- it didn't feel like a comfortable time to go the whole way), Daph and I marveled at how seriously student government is taken here. I don't remember who a single student government officer was during my many years in college, and I barely remember voting, let alone anything approaching these campus-wide celebrations.

Well, unfortunately, we had best away. Homework and chores are calling. At least, though, we get spaghetti again tonight.
Some things never change.

Arabic phrase of the day:
Nahnu la nooridu anna nephalu wajibna. We don't want to do our homework.