Ya Allah shuu zakii!

I survived my 9 hour plane ride, but I crashed during the 3 hour flight from Vienna to Amman. I had a stomach ache, yet I was starving, I was exhausted, yet I couldn’t sleep. It kind of killed the magical moment of landing in Jordan. On the bus ride from the airport to our hostel, the other students were looking out the window while I stared blankly at the seat in front of me. Someone yelled, “Look, there’s camels!” And I snapped out of my dehydrated stupor and with a flat, firm expression I whipped my head towards the window and said, “camels?” The RD thought that was pretty funny.

The hostel is actually on an archaeology site and there was a library where us history and linguistics nerds could geek out. We sat together and worked on Arabic grammar, which is pretty basic at this point—we just want to know how to make a sentence.

Arabic is different from other languages I have studied. I have no problem conjugating verbs or looking up new words; in fact, I actually find that fun. This approach works for learning FusHa, which means Standard Arabic, but not so much for amiyya, colloquial Arabic. I still don’t understand the roles of fusHa and amiyya in the Arab world. I know that most literate people will understand fusHa, but I get the feeling that it’s weird to talk only in standard Arabic. Also, in amiyya, 'yes' is 'ah' or 'uh' and it throws me off. It's the sound I make when I'm trying to think of what to say, and when I hear it said to me, my first thought is that I'm being ignored. Oh well, I’m sure six weeks of immersion will help clear things up.

Amman is made up of 7 hills (hill=jebal) and we walked over one of them to get to a street filled with stores. First we exchanged some money, then, we were released into groups of three on a scavenger hunt to find the answers to basic questions like “What kinds of bread can I buy?” and “Where can I find feminine hygiene products?”

There were some random donkeys in the street, but apparently that's not normal in Amman.

There was some confusion with the bread in the bread store. I don’t even think it was a ‘bread store’, but we saw pita bread and entered saying “khubz? khubz?” which is Arabic for bread. And we didn’t want to buy any bread, but we felt guilty so I decided I’d buy a piece; however, I only wanted one piece, so I kept saying “waHid waHid.” He told me it was 1 dinar, which is a rip off, but I wasn’t paying attention; I was digging in my purse for my recently acquired half dinars. One of the other men said “no, nevermind it’s free.” So, our confusion in Arabic can either get us ripped off or earn us free stuff. Looking back, I think it was so strange that we would try to purchase one pita (I later learned that they usually sell in a pack for a quarter) and the men felt bad and let us have one. We also stopped at a water store and I think we annoyed the man working there because we barged in, interrupted his Percy Jackson movie (which is probably Bercy Jackson because they have no letter ‘p’) and asked how much water cost in limited Arabic without purchasing anything.

For dinner we went to a restaurant and ate shawarma, pita, and hummus. Now, our group is able to readily produce three Arabic words, and those are:

MarHaba مرحبا (hello)

Shukran شكرا (thank you)

Ma’assalama مع السلام (goodbye)

After our fiftieth “shukran” to our waiter, he made a comment that went something like “Shukran something something bii arabii" which I think means something like “‘Shukran’ is the only thing you can say in Arabic.” I decided to surprise him the next time he brought us a plate of shawarma so I said, “ya Allah shuu zakii!” A Jordanian phrase I learned which means “Oh God, what deliciousness!” The waiter laughed so hard he spilled the water.

After gaining ten pounds at the restaurant we trudged back up and down the jebal to get to the hostel.

I fell down the Jebal.

Tomorrow we’re going shopping again and then we’ll meet our host families. My roommate and I can’t wait!