تتكلم كويس

Recently, I’ve had more and more Jordanians say this to me: “You speak Arabic well.”  That’s usually followed with an attempt to discuss politics or religion.  Well, it’s one thing to “speak well” and it’s another to acquire enough vocabulary to hold such conversations.  But, I feel generally encouraged as I continue to learn.  My teachers have also said positive things, so I feel like I’ll have a good base for continuing to learn when I return in 2 weeks.

Conversation with Professor

My normal professor was “sick” today.  I think she partied too much this weekend. J  So, we joined another class at our level.  The professor mentioned that he had just gotten married and would be going to Egypt for the honeymoon.  Here’s the conversation in Arabic:

Me:      Why go to Egypt and not another place?

Prof:     Every other country is at war: Lebanon, Syria, etc.

Me:      Why not another place like Ethiopia?

Prof:     What do they have there?  Bananas?  I was talking with a friend of mine about why Ethiopia would invade Somalia and we agreed that it must be for the bananas. 

Me:      What do you know about Ethiopia or Somalia?  Do you have any idea of the history there?

Prof:     We get bananas from Somalia.  It’s a symbol, just like the Statue of Liberty for America.

I came close to walking out, and his normal students came to defend his wonderful love for the Jews and people of all races.  So, the class agreed that I was in the wrong and that somehow reducing East Africa to bananas is a reasonable thing to do.  I wonder what they would have said if someone had joked about the causes for the war between Israel and Lebanon or the political situation with Palestine.

Africans in Lebanon

Thousands of Lebanese are fleeing to Jordan and Syria because of the current crisis.  Ex-pats are also coming to Jordan, which is great for Jordan’s economy, especially with tourists coming from the Gulf States, but the crisis has taken a serious toll on African immigrants in Lebanon.  It struck me when a Westerner recently arrived here complaining about Amman and saying how much better Beirut was.  The less fortunate apparently have a different perspective.

Desert Castles, Azraq, Wildlife Preserve

Today we had our last mandatory Friday outing. We went East into the desert (toward Iraq) and seemed to stop at a new castle every 10 minutes. The sun felt a lot hotter than in Amman…and I think it must have been 100 degrees – a dry 100.

This castle was originally built by the Romans and then rebuilt by Arabs. That made it more interesting to explore and climb around. They like to make rocks jut out so that you can walk across them, which is cool but scary.

We also visited the oldest wildlife preserve in Jordan which was created to protect the Arabian Oryx. We saw the Oryx from far away, but we got really close to these blue-necked ostriches. They bit (not hard) our fingers thinking we were holding food. I got Nikolai to actually kiss one but that pic will come later.

The constant travelling, starting, and stopping has exhausted me. So, time for my siesta.

الطقس / الجو – The weather

“Wow, it must be hot there!” No, it’s not hot here. In fact, it’s great. The temperature is about the same as, say, Minnesota. That is, the number of degrees is the same (except shown in Celsius) but the humidity is zero. It’s also much cooler at night. In fact, last night I used a comforter. It’s been getting warmer gradually, but again, we only feel that at about 2 PM when we’re walking home from class.

My professor lived in Saudi Arabia for many years and says that it would get up to 55 C (130 degrees F). She recounts how she once lost the skin on the tips of her fingers when she grabbed her car door. She also said that she had seen polyester shirts melt. Actually, a lot of people come to Jordan from the Gulf during the summer. Normally, Jordanian women wear the hijab, but do not cover their faces…though there are quite a few who go uncovered and some rather scantily clad. As the summer has progressed, we’ve seen more women covered from head to toe in the black Abaya. Tourists from the gulf often have a lot of money to travel…and rumor has it taxi drivers prefer them over Jordanians, Americans and Europeans because the Gulf tourists will pay 3 to 5 times the actual cost of a trip. I guess our 20% doesn’t cut it in this case! I’ll just have to keep taking the bus.

East Africa

One of the professors for the more advanced classes and I chatted for a bit today. He told me that I had progressed well but that I would need to spend 2 years to learn Arabic well. I said in Arabic, “Actually, I already speak Amharic and read Hebrew, so it shouldn’t take that long.” He and his friend looked at me funny, so I was like, “You must know the Habesha if you are Muslim.” Sure enough, he composed himself and managed to recall the story of Muhammed sending some of his family to Ethiopia.
On that note, things are heating up in East Africa. BBCAfrica has posted a number of stories about the events over the past couple of months and here is some of the latest news – not good for the region.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article1193088.ece

1000 Camels

We’re back from Petra.  We actually visited Petra /betra/, Wadi Rum and Kerak.  Petra was by far the coolest part.  We walked for 8 hours straight, constantly re-applying sunblock and drinking water.  Most of the stuff there is from the Nabateans, but there’s also a Byzantine (I think) church there that was recently excavated and presented for viewing.  The church has lots of mosaics including this Camel-Giraffe.  I guess they had only heard of giraffes but had never seen them, so their best guess was a camel with spots.

My friend Piotrek told me that, when he was in the region, someone offered him 100 camels for his girlfriend, Asia.  Well, when my friends Mark, Margaret and I took donkeys up to see the ancient Nabatean monastery, my guide asked me how many camels I wanted in exchange for Margaret.  I said that it would probably take 1000 (roughly a million dollars).  You’d think he would laugh, but he quietly continued guiding us.  Perhaps that was why we thought our donkeys might take us off the edge later!  We originally bargained for them to take us up and down the thousand steps, but we gave him his money at the top and said “ma-selaama”.

Here’s the Indiana Jones gift shop.  Others capitalized on the movie theme and later added the Titanic theme shop.  Hmm…

Sinking in the waters of the Dead Sea…er…

Wadi Rum is basically desert.  That’s where they filmed Lawrence of Arabia as well as movies about Mars like “Red Planet” and “Mission to Mars”.  We slept in tents and had live music and catering.  Here’s a rock that I think was in the movies:

Love is Blind #2

My Standard Arabic teacher told us yesterday how in Saudi Arabia it’s possible that a couple may get married without the husband seeing the wife’s face until the morning after the wedding…in which he says “Ahlan wa sahalan” or “welcome!” I responded with the story of Jacob from the Bible and how Rachel and Leah’s father pulls a fast one on him. So, she asked me to bring my Arabic Bible in and I showed her the story from Jacob to Joseph. Apparently she owns the “injil” or New Testament but had never read the Hebrew Bible. So, I’m sure some interesting discussions will come out of that. She was quick to ask me if I trusted the English versions of the Bible, to which I responded that I generally read both testaments in their respective languages. 🙂  That seems to be a common argument against Christians, that we use a translation of the Bible.

On a side note, I’ve stayed healthy since I’ve been here, but I can’t say the same for most of the other people on the trip. Most have had intestinal issues, some parasites, and a variety of other conditions. That’s encouraging considering my experience in Ethiopia.

Indiana Jones

We’ll be traveling to Petra as well as sleeping in a Bedouin tent this weekend.  Petra happens to appear in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but I’m wondering about that invisible bridge…

Semitic Dictionaries

I mentioned how the word “journalist” was derived from “to misrepresent” in a previous post.  Semitic dictionaries are notoriously difficult to use because you have to find the root of the word in order to look it up.  That’s actually why I created my Amharic dictionary website and why I’m now working on an Arabic version.  That said, it has been very valuable for me to look up words in the Arabic dictionary (by Hans Wehr) as I learn them.  It’s especially helpful to see how a word is related to other words and to see how regular the grammar actually is.  It also offers cultural and historical information, like the idea that journalists misrepresent.

On a side note, I’ve learned the Amharic, Hebrew and Greek alphabets, but I’ve never bothered to learn the order of them.  Well, when I teach them, I usually cram the day before I teach and then am able to regurgitate the letters in order, but for the most part it is unnecessary to know the order…except when you’re looking in the dictionary.  So, I think I’ve looked up about 1000 words in the Wehr Arabic dictionary and I feel pretty comfortable with the order of the alphabet.  Though creating Arabic text messages with my phone is an entirely different skill!!