This weekend I was lucky enough to spend time with Amal, Jill's language partner, at her home in Zarqa. Jill, Laura, and I took a service taxi, which is basically a large van that follows a route between two destinations (in our case, Amman and Zarqa) and stops where ever you need it to along the way.
After spending time in Zarqa, I can see why people say that Amman is better. There are no malls, no movie theaters, no Pizza Huts or KFCs; the streets are noisy and dirty; and I would bet that the only internet in the city is dial-up in smoke filled internet cafes. Most of the people there are refugees, and much poorer than the people in Western Amman. But there is a sort of authenticity and vibrance that doesn't exist where we live, which is close to the University of Jordan and the swanky clubs of Abdun.
As we walked from the bus station to the second-hand clothing market, we passed the army base and dozens of homeless refugees. At no point did I feel threatened or at risk, but I certainly stood out amongst the crowd. I by no means "fit in" in Amman--especially in wasit al-balad (the old, downtown area)--but there are places in Western Amman where I have been addressed as an Arab, and spoken to in Arabic. In Zarqa, I am clearly an outsider. Part of it is my skin, and part of it is my clothes, but most of it is because I do not wear the veil. I would guess that more than 95% of women in Zarqa wear the hijab, and some even wear the niqab (the black veil that reveals only their eyes). While I could certainly cover my hair to blend with the crowd, part of me feels as if I would be doing it for the wrong reasons, that I would be taking advantage of this religious custom for my own secular benefit.
Being in Zarqa reminded me of wasit al-balad, especially the calls of the street vendors, the colors of the spices, and the beautiful scarves pouring from the little shops onto the street. One big difference is that people do not speak English to us, even though we are clearly foreigners. So although we were stared at as usual, we could listen to the Arabic around us as we tasted little candies and smelled the meat from the shwarma stands.
Amal is very sweet, and went out of her way to make us feel welcome. Not only did she buy us candies (tutu), falafel sandwiches, and snacks before taking us to her home, but she showed us her favorite shops in town and paid for our bus ride to her neighborhood. Her family lives in an apartment building, with each family living on a different floor. Her grandfather lived on the main floor, and her family on the second. We walked into a large sitting room and sat by space heaters as we waited for lunch to be ready. Her father came and smoked his cigarettes with us, and discussed American politics and the voting system in Jordan. He is very well educated, and worked as a diplomat in more than 14 countries in Europe and the Middle East. His English was basically flawless, but he was patient with us as we struggled to form sentences in Arabic.
Amal's mother prepared us a delicious lunch, and after we took off our shoes we were led to the special sitting room for guests. There were no chairs or couches, but these mattress like seats on the floor. We sat around a small ottoman-like table filled with rice, bread, peppers, and stew. The food was delicious, and even though i felt totally stuffed, I sipped some kahoua aswad (arabic style black coffee) and met the rest of her family: 4 sisters, and 2 brothers. We tried to watch the VHS of her sister Shems' wedding, but after maybe 20 minutes of trying to remove the tracking from the tape, Amal gave up and put on the Debke DVD she bought from the market.
Debke is a sort of arab line dance where you interlace fingers with the person next to you and move to your right with different steps and beats. Its super popular at weddings and parties, but people do it EVERYWHERE! And I really mean everywhere! I've done it in people's homes, at theatre at the Hashemite University with the Debke team, at the mall, and on the badminton courts and the University's sports complex. After some serious dancing to Elisa and Wail Kafouri, Amal's sister brought us some scarves and tied them around our hips and began to teach us rakus sharke (eastern or belly dancing). Unlike Debke, which boys and girls dance everywhere, rakus sharke is done only by girls, and only in the privacy of their homes. No boys allowed! Abadan!
After we were out of breath from all of the dancing, Amal's oldest sister invited us to a Tawjihi party. The Tawjihi is the exam high school students must take in order to enter University. Its wayyy more intense than the SAT or ACT, and your admittance on getting into a good college AND a particular major depends on it. Saturday was the announcement of the results, and horns were honking and fireworks exploding all day. (There actually was a problem with the test results this year, and they had to be re-announced the following day--although this did not stop any form of celebration!)
The party was girls only, and I've never been happy to be with only girls in my life! It was so interesting to see Amal and her sisters take the time to match their hijabs to their outfits for the five minute walk to the party, and then almost instantly remove them upon entrance into the house. There were women of all ages--anywhere from 2 to 80--and each in different styles of clothing. Some of the older women wore the thobe, a long black dress with beautiful embroidery, and some of the younger girls wore their most stylish jeans and sparkly tops. But the age- and style-gaps did not stop them all from singing and dancing their hearts out. The hostess was constantly chanting and her guests repeating after her, while her two daughters danced in the middle of the living room. We danced more Debke, although this time to the beat of a drum, and then once again tied scarves around our hips and put metal discs on our thumb and forefingers while we learned to belly dance with all of the women. Needless to say, we do not have parties in the US like this. All of the women were so comfortable with each other, and cheered each other on as they shook their hips to the music. It was a sort of girl-bonding that certainly exists in the US, but one that doesn't typically cross age gaps. I'm so glad that we were there! There has been a lot of girl-bonding in my life lately, and I loved seeing it in this new environment and feeling it, even though I couldn't understand everything they were saying.
After a while they passed out kanafe, a delicious heluwiyat (dessert) that is made out of sweet cheese, bread crumbs, and syrup or honey. I was still stuffed from lunch, but couldn't pass up kanafe and ate mine quickly. After a minute or so, a women noticed that I had eaten my piece, and tried to give me another. "La la la, shukran!" I said (no thanks), but she insisted. "Fudle! Helu!" (Go ahead! Its sweet and delicious). Oh, how I know that its sweet and delicious.
After about a half an hour of more dancing and a cramp in my side (as Jill put it, "Why do I have cramps all over my stomach?? Oh yeah! Because I ate kanfe and jumped"), we walked back to Amal's house to be presented with more heluwiyat, basboosa. This is my favorite, and, thus, couldn't turn it down even though I was close to going into a diabetic coma. Basboosa is basically coconut and semolina wheat drenched in honey (i.e. delicious). We discussed more politics with Amal's father and her extended family, and then retreated to the guest sitting room where we talked about what celebrities we think are cute, giggled, played UNO, ate baked sweet potatoes, and gave each other henna before falling asleep on the mattresses on the floor. Yes, I temporarily turned into a seventh grade girl.
