"Akhbaar"

I love Arabic grammar. Whenever I talk to native Arabic speakers about learning Arabic they tell me that English is extremely easy compared to it. And this excites me! Recently in class, we learned a couple types of sentences: verb + subject + object, and subject + predicate. A nerdy linguistic thing that makes me smile is that the Arabic word for "predicate" is khabr which is the singular form of akhbaar (news). Also, I love the Arabic root system, which also works in Hebrew, and which consists of three consonants in a special order that convey meaning. Fa'l is the Arabic word for "verb" and adding a long vowel (alif) makes it faa'l which is literally the 'doer' of the verb and the subject of the sentence. Thus, taalib (student) comes from t+l+b (to seek/request) and actually means "one who seeks knowledge." I imagine it's like a word factory. Kitaab means book, kaatib means writer, yaktab means he writes, and maktab means office. k+t+b is in words that have to do with writing, and adding prefixes, suffixes, and/or a long vowel to the word changes its grammatical function. Jamal, the word for "camel," belongs to the same root as words having to do with beauty, because camels are considered the most beautiful animal.

In Arabic it seems that information can be given in a very compact way due to the way in which prefixes and suffixes can serve as the subject, possessive pronoun, and/or object pronoun. "I love/like her" can be said like "أحبها" or aHebbha. The long 'A' tells you that the speaker is the subject, then h+b is the root for "love" and "-ha" makes the object "her." The night after we learned this in class, I was watching my favorite Turkish drama, zawaj maslaha, and the blonde girl who's trying to steal Futoon's man appeared, so I exclaimed, "ANA MA AHEB HIYA" when I should've said, "ma ahebha." What I said was "I don't like she" and my family laughed at me.

At first I was confused about who actually lived in my house, but now I know who my host siblings are and who are visitors. We go out to other families' houses, often staying out way past my American bedtime. My family is practically nocturnal, drinking coffee at 8pm and starting the socializing at 9 or 10pm. It makes sense; it's summer, right after Ramadan, and it's too hot to do anything during the day anyways. I like meeting extended family members. Every time there's a gathering, it's an excuse to whip out the tabla and start singing and dancing. My host brother and cousin are usually the center of attention and the rest of us clap and sing and chant "ay-wa ay-wa ay-wa ay-waaa!" The night we leave Jordan is the night of one of my host cousin's wedding, and Michael said we won't be able to go but my host mom said she's going to talk to him, so we'll see what happens. I really wish I could go; my host siblings said they'd take us shopping for dresses and we'd get to dance with everyone.

At the beginning of our trip, our bus driver scared us. We call him Vin Diesel because he weaves his bus through traffic and doesn't get out of the way for anyone. They get out of his way. He's a bad dude. He's always crabby in the mornings; we don't talk to him then because he's playing soulful Arabic ballads loudly. We've broken the ice, however, and now we're friends-he told us so. He's actually really kind; everyday he buys us juice boxes and whenever he lights a cigarette he politely offers one to the student who sits in the passenger seat, who has to politely decline. and today he got us kunafa, which is deep-fried cheese coated in sugar and syrup. It is the most unhealthy thing I have ever eaten.

Last weekend, my host family took me to a "farm" which is the equivalent of "going up north" in Wisconsin. It was a little house outside the city with a yard that looked like it came from HGTV; here we barbequed lamb kebabs and danced dabke.

At the farm

My host brother took my roommate and me to Rainbow Street, where all the trendy shops and hipsters live. Amman is really pretty at night, and everyone is awake and out playing music in the streets or shopping. In one little public space, there was a group of people singing a song that sounded familiar to me, and it wasn't until afterwards that I realized the choir at my church sang the same song!

The Roman Citadel lit up

Amman at night

A couple days ago my classmates and I went on a field trip to the biggest mosque in Amman. This blog post is getting long so and not much happened so I'll try to summarize it quickly. The girls were required to wear black abayas and a hijab. The abayas they lent us smelled like other people's sweat and my blanket scarf was way too big to be a hijab! But oh well, it was fun.

The cathedral across the street

The King Abdullah Mosque