Bereft in Blogging:
Having been recently reminded of my meager number of blog posts and poor blogging performance (thanks Mom), I have decided to try to salvage my readership (again, probably mostly Mom) and churn out an update.
Turkey Day:
Thanksgiving in Amman has been entirely wonderful—if not for the delicious food (Arabic and American alike) and marvelous company, then merely the sheer number of Thanksgiving dinners I have attended (4, to be exact). Wednesday was the official Fulbright potluck, Thursday we put on a dinner for the Sudanese men we teach, and last night (Friday) was an “Arab Thanksgiving” with the woman that owns the store next to our apartment. Feyrouz, the owner of the store, lived in New York City for a number of years; we’ve gotten to know her and her family throughout our daily shopping trips to her store for soda, chocolate, halloumi cheese, and other junk foods with which to properly eat our feelings. She very kindly took pity on us (unattached young people–that is, those that are not married or do not live with their parents–are very unusual here and are either looked upon with mild distant disapproval or showered with food and love…we’ve mostly experienced the latter) and had us over for Thanksgiving. She made coosa (zucchini stuffed with meat and rice and my absolute FAVORITE), malfoof (lamb meat wrapped with boiled cabbage leaves), and several different rice dishes. We then drank tea and smoked shisha with her and her family late into the evening. It was quite a pleasant way to pass Black Friday (the first Black Friday in something like 21 years that I didn’t battle crowds at department stores, in fact). I will be attending dinner number 5 this afternoon–with the family of one of my tutees.
Eid al-Adha:
There are two big annual holidays for Muslims–Eid al-Fitr (after Ramadan) and Eid al-Adha–both of which I was thoroughly fortunate to be around for. The Eid al-Fitr took place at the end of August / beginning of September, right when I got here (feasting galore in Lebanon)—and the Eid al-Adha took place the first week in November. For the Eid al-Adha, we got a week off from school—which my roommate Hannah and I swiftly capitalized on and bought tickets to Lebanon and Turkey. So, for the first 8 days or so in November, we took a much needed mental hiatus from all things pedagogical and jaunted around two of the SWEETEST cities in the region: Beirut and Istanbul. I feel like a series of visual representations will be more effective here than a rundown of our itinerary…more on this later…
Amman Living:
The days are filling up quickly. I am still helping with the 9th and 10th grade at the Jubilee School, my Fulbright assignment school. It is an intriguing mix between government school and private school—academically engaged students from all walks of life must go through a rigorous admissions process, and how much their families pay is based off of their income. I have also started teaching some English enrichment courses for 9th graders. Even though I’m pretty sure my novelty has largely worn off by now, the kids, although a bit rascally at times, are still really incredible and engaged. My friend Zayn has started an Arabic language debate club at Jubilee, and there was a great deal of interest in that, so I’m really hoping to start an English language debate club as well.
In addition, I’ve jumped on board with a project started by Jen, one of my roommates, where we teach beginning and intermediate English classes to two houses of Sudanese refugees. My friend Cooper and I are teaching at a house in Jebel Amman, and my roomates and our other two friends are teaching at a house in Jebel Wehbdey.
I spend the rest of my time either with Arabic tutoring / studying or lesson planning. There’s little time for goofing off these days—but yet I still manage to get my more-or-less-daily fix of 30Rock.
Arabophile Anonymous 