Sabah Ilheer!

My first morning in Amman.

I don't need an alarm clock as I awoke bright and early to the call to prayer being broadcast through the city. I'm here on my laptop using the internet at the Farah Hotel. It's a nice place with hot water and a huge bed and a pretty good view of the neighborhood. I will include some pictures when I have a better internet connection. It's really pretty here, a bit chilly so I'm glad the place had hot water as I've heard that can be quite the luxury.

My flight seemed much longer than it probably was given the fact that I was traveling east and experienced such a time change but no complaints. I flew through Chicago where I got my first taste of Arab hospitality and culture. I helped a sweet old woman named Nadia with her bag and to show her thanks and gratitude she insisted I take some snacks and eat with her. She ended up being from Beirut and rattled on and on about her family there in the States and how wonderful it was that she could visit them. She showed me pictures of her son the professor and her grandson the policeman and all her other grandchildren who did other things but apparently my Arabic is not good enough to know words other than professor and policeman... I guess I still have a long way to go. She and her husband were two of the nicest people I had met and it was a pleasure getting to know them on my layover in Chicago. When we went through the gate check I was a little disturbed when they were pulled aside by the gate agent and searched on the spot in a "less than gentle" fashion. I know TSA is only doing it's job and I don't fault them for keeping us safe, but an 80 year old woman? Seriously? I'm kind of conflicted about how to feel about that one as I can see both sides but in the moment I have to admit I was a little embarrassed of my culture. Nadia took things in stride and smiled despite the fact that she thought it ridiculous as well.
On the flight over to London, I sat next to a man named Abdul who was originally from Damascus Syria and now was a small business owner in Ft. Worth. He was traveling to see his extended family and his daughter who he sent to go to school in Syria for the last few years of high school so she would stay safe from the American boys and learn about her heritage. I mentioned the incident with Nadia and he just nodded saying that was pretty common. He said he was fine getting searched himself because he looks Arab as he understands that "there are people out there who do bad things" but that common sense must be used rather than an automatic bias toward anyone in a head wrap.
I learned a lot about Arabs moving to the states from Abdul, he finally explained why they all own convenience stores (he owns a large number of them around the DFW area). It turns out that when you move to the states you can work for friends of your family in their convenience stores and learn the business, and over time you can become a partner with the original owner and eventually even take over your first store in an owner financed sort of arrangement. He said that getting a loan as a foreigner was very difficult and as such many immigrants relied on the private loans that are given from within the Arab community. Given that and the fact that the convenience store industry is largely relationship based according to Abdul it makes sense that it would remain fairly homogeneous. Thus we have our stereotypical convenience store owner...

When I got to Amman I was greeted by Bader Al Madi and his cousin. Bader had received his doctorate in sociology from BYU so he has been my main contact in getting set up over here. They were fantastic hosts taking me around town a bit, and helping me settle in to the Farah here. Before retiring for the evening they took me over to a fantastic place to eat where we had by far some of the best food I've had in a long time. I didn't know falafel, and hummus tasted that good till I ate it here. We then went and got some dessert which I forget the name of but it was this combination of cheesy syrupy caramelized goodness that I can't even begin to describe. Total cost for the evening for all three of us was around 10JD which is about 14 bucks for all three of us to eat. I'm supposed to go walk around town with Bader's cousin for a bit before going out to my site later this afternoon so I'm looking forward to helping him with his English so he can help me with my Arabic, seems like a fair trade.

There is Arabic pop music everywhere, the sights and smells are fantastic. It's great to be here.