Back in Business

After a quick trip home, it was back to Jordan to officially start my Fulbright research grant. While I'd been in Amman since early July, I was mainly focused on learning the Jordanian Arabic dialect and getting settled. I was excited to get back to my "life" in Jordan, but I was more than a little anxious returning to Jordan for several reasons. First, I was acutely aware of the reality of having to complete my dissertation research over the next nine months (so that I have enough to write (give or take) 250 pages next year!). Second, I was flying back to Jordan on September 13th, four days after the shit-storm from the idiotic "Innocence of Muslims" video and two days after the embassy attacks in Egypt and Libya.

In order to get back, I first flew to Detroit and then I had my first (and last) direct flight from the US to Amman on Royal Jordanian. Royal Jordanian operates three direct flights from US cities with large Arab populations (Detroit, Chicago, and NYC). This meant that my flight was predominantly Arabs flying to Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, etc. As a result, we had to go through additional and intense security screenings at the actual gate. This involved another TSA safety check as well as border patrol agents asking questions of each passenger about where they were going and why and also doing what seemed like police background checks (I swear one guy was being asked about a ticket he received in LA). I got the standard border patrol question that I also get coming back into the country: "why are you studying Arabic?" Thankfully I've learned that the word "dissertation" usually stops any further questions (in most conversations!). All this is to say that I was definitely a bit on edge during the flight back because of the current tensions and stress in the international community. Of course, being served barely any food and water on an 11 hour flight did not help.

The only nice part of the flight was watching the direction of the ka'aba change as we changed direction during the flight. The ka'aba marks the direction of prayer for Muslims (it's in Mecca, Saudi Arabia) so the images on the flight screens showed anyone who wanted to pray during the flight what direction they should be facing.

I've been back for three weeks now and I, personally, haven't noticed any ramifications of these tensions. I still say I'm "min Amerika" (from America) in taxis when I'm asked, and honestly, the taxi drivers are usually so impressed that I'm learning Arabic (especially when they find out I've been learning fuHsa or Modern Standard Arabic which is harder than dialect) and want to hear how I learned it and why I'm learning it. The only change from the summer is that the US Embassy has been sending out weekly "security/emergency messages to citizens" to avoid certain areas on Fridays. In Arabic, Friday (yom al-juma') is the day of gathering and is when men typically gather at the mosque for noontime prayers. By virtue of being together, protests often are planned immediately following prayers. A good rule of thumb in Amman right now is to avoid downtown (wast al-balad) on Fridays as well as the US Embassy where Islamists have been protesting the video. There's a particularly big protest planned downtown tomorrow, so I will be hanging out on the other side of the city!

I am more than aware that Jordan is in a tough neighborhood at the moment with Syria above us, Israel to the left, Iraq to the right, and the Sinai below us--but I have not had any issues here nor do I feel unsafe. When it comes down to it, daily life is more like this than the above:

Jeremy and Sarah celebrating his birthday at Cantaloupe

The other half of the celebration (Alysa and I)

DONKEY!!!

Alina with the donkey just chowing down on a street in Amman

My awesome Aussie roommate made me dessert one morning last week
before he left for work at 6AM! The written instructions read:
-add "hundreds and thousands" of rainbow sprinkles