I say "tomato," You say "bindoora" (بندورة)

Cultural Differences and Surprising Tidbits about Jordan:

If a truck is driving slowly through the neighborhood and playing infernally annoying music, in the United States it’s the ice-cream truck, but in Amman it’s the gas truck.

In Jordan, toilet paper is not flushed.  That was a surprise.

I’m going to make a generalization and say that most of the women in Amman were wearing some form of the veil.  There are lots of different ways to wear it.  Some girls wore heels, a cute but highly modest outfit, and a colorful scarf over an ENORMOUS pile of hair. (It could not have all been real.  Is there a Middle Eastern Bump-It?)  At the University of Jordan a lot of girls sported this full-length trench coat dress type thing over their other clothes in addition to a hijab.  Other women wore the niqab, either not covering or covering their eyes and sometimes with gloves and stockings so they were completely covered.

The call to prayer is broadcast over loudspeakers from every mosque in the city five times a day.  Each mosque’s call is different from the others.  I’m a pretty deep sleeper, but after the call to prayer on my first morning I was fully awake.

There are police everywhere in Amman.  Some wear the old-fashioned helmets with little spikes on top and yellow and black striped vests.  They look like bees.

I look like an Arab.  This is widely confirmed by 1) people speaking to me in Arabic, 2) people giving me confused looks and asking where I’m from after hearing me speak Arabic, 3) a gentleman in a car asking me for directions as I walked through the neighborhood,  4) Arabs telling me I really do look like an Arab when they find out I am, in fact, not.

One of my good guy friends is with a host-family in Amman.  When he mentioned I was coming a few weeks ago, they said he should bring me to dinner.  My girl friend told me not to get my hopes up about it really happening because the family would probably be uncomfortable hosting me for dinner since I’m a non-relative female and not engaged to my guy friend.  She was right – the invitation was not renewed. 

No one in Amman knows street names.  When you get in a taxi, you give the driver a general area or landmark and direct him from there.

According to my girl friend, sometimes simple monetary exchanges, like in a cab or in the grocery store, can be awkward because there is still so much tension around physical contact between men and women.

Amman

A stranger in a strange land,

Maria