Daily Life in Jordan (with all of its positives and negatives)

Even though I live a neighborhood that I refer to as the Beverly Hills of Amman—a suburbanesque area peppered with palm trees, neighborhood grocery stores and heavily-guarded embassies—I still encounter the differences of daily life in a developing Arab country. Just walking around the University of Jordan reveals many of the differences in being a college student in Jordan. After a little more than three hours of Arabic class we grab lunch for about $.75-$1.50 in either an on-campus cafeteria or at one of the many falafel/smoothie restaurants just off campus. Walking back to the Language Center, where all the classes for non-native speakers are held, bears a striking resemblance to a catwalk—groups of Jordanians sit shoulder to shoulder down the street to people watch. For most students it seems like a university education is a just a good excuse to be out of the house and away from family. Interestingly enough, most girls have found that they don’t need any more school supplies than what fits inside a small clutch purse. Couples lurk quietly under weeping willows in garden areas where they can (scandal!) hold hands. The University of Jordan—the premier university in all of Jordan—actually has a restricted section in its library. Like something out of Harry Potter, students have to petition for access to the banned books (most address topics like the creation of Israel or sex).
I joke that daily life as a student at the University of Jordan feels as if I were back in high school—that is, if I were a lot cooler in high school. Mandatory class goes almost all day, leading me to spend a lot of class time thinking about my weekend plans, joke with classmates or look for activities to warrant being excused from class (“but it’s a once in a lifetime experience to hear the Pakistani ambassador speak Doctora Basma…”) I don’t have a car in a driving-oriented city. On the weekends I frequently find myself at the mall with friends. After school, American students with Arab homestays have to report where they are going, with whom and when they will be home.

Most days I am ecstatic if, by perching precariously on the edge of my apartment’s balcony, I can pick up our neighbor Abu Seif’s slower-than-dial-up wireless internet for long enough to write a few emails. Now being given an address like “The restaurant is near the first circle” is perfectly comprehensible. It’s almost impossible to avoid coughing after a large breath of the leaded fuel emissions produced by the rush hour traffic. I love coming home in the afternoons to watch Al Jazeera English, usually discovering an odd documentary or even just catching the headlines from a 24 hour news network whose top story does not involve a female pop singer’s messy private life. Although my apartment has carpet (a sign of status since most Arab households simply tile their floors for easy cleaning), I miss some conveniences like dishwashers, garbage disposals, spring mattresses and most of all a dryer for my clothes. Keeping the windows open (since very few places in Amman have air conditioning) invites a thin layer of dust on flat surfaces and, if we haven’t cleaned recently, a great number of bugs nesting in a pile of last night’s dishes. The only minimally adequate water heater has lead to quite a few frigid showers and chilly evenings as winter approaches.

I live in a three level house where fellow female students live with me in the bottom two levels of the apartment underneath our landlords. Our overzealous grandpa-like landlord, a former electrical engineer (who worked under Qaddafi in Libya “when he was still a good man, not crazy”), frequently surveys our house hoping to find burnout light bulbs or various appliances that need servicing. Happily, now that his wife has returned from a visit to Canada we only hear from him once every two days.
I could describe the dynamics of our apartment in various ways. We are good friends who check on each other if they haven’t come home by 11 pm and a little microcosm of interfaith dialogue (as my roommate put it “one Muslim, one Jew, two Christians and a partridge in a pear tree”). Our house is frequently host to dinner parties and bootleg movie screening sessions, a safe haven for other students whose tolerance for their homestay has worn thin.

Living long enough in the Middle East to develop a daily routine and converse on a basic level in Arabic has been an excellent introduction to life in another culture that American media often portrays as strange, scary and oppressive. Although I look forward to the day when I will return to a country where I don’t have to take a taxi to school and where I can hug a male friend on the street or read a book for pleasure alone in a café without breaking social norms, I don’t regret taking advantage of the chance to live in Jordan.