The End

So here’s the end. I’ve been here for three and a half months now and honestly, it doesn’t even feel like a week. People always say time flies when you’re having fun but even when I wasn’t having fun, time just flew. I barely got a chance to blink. I mean, I’m looking forward to coming home but I’m not overly pumped. I’m going to be happy to see my family, drink out of the tap, eat bacon, etc. but I don’t know, I can always go back to those things.
I’m going to miss so much here. I’m going to miss the cheap, good food – the shwarma and falafel and maansaf. I’m going to miss the ridiculous T.V. shows, the beautiful Arabic calligraphy on every sign; I’m going to miss the people I’ve met and the friends I’ve made and playing backgammon with some of the guys while smoking cherry argeelah in a cafe. I’m going to miss the fresh juice, Turkish coffee, sharing a cigarette with a random taxi driver, my amazing and generous host family; but most of all, I’m going to miss the feeling of Jordan, the feeling of being here in the Middle East. We’re surrounded by warring nations but nothing can harm us, nothing is going to hurt me here, I’m safe. It’s a calm, almost serene feeling that I will never be able to fully explain. I don’t want to sound like I had this huge epiphany here, I didn’t, but what I can’t explain is the people, who they are, where they’re from, why they act the way they do. I don’t get it. Why are they so generous? Why would they be so kind to me? Americans are not kind to them so what are they trying to pull? I used to think this way, before now, but now, it’s easy to explain. It’s simple to understand. These are good and kind people, not all of course, in every culture you have good and bad, but here, the good is beyond anything one would see in the states.
I'm going to miss Jordan very, very much and I'm definitely going to miss my wonderful host family. This is really hard for me, Jordan is another one of my "homes" now and it's always hard to leave home, even if there is another one waiting for you. I can't wait to come back to Jordan again, I know that it will be waiting for me in a few years with open arms. See you later Jordan, and Palestine, here I come.

Tattoos

An interesting aspect of Jordanian society, especially Bedouin society, are the tattoos. Half the men here, at least out of the ones I've met, have a black tattoo on their hands or forearms. Most of them get them in Amman but some have gone to a Bedouin tattoo artist who does it with a hot needle and some ink. Either they are an Arabic letter or word or usually some sort of indistinguishable symbol. Every time I ask what they mean, they just smile and say its personal. It's very interesting because in Islam, tattoos are a no go, like most major faiths (don't destroy the body God gave you, etc., etc.). It's just another hypocrisy in this society that jumps out of you. I think, similar to Kenya, the tribal aspect of society, many of the times, overrules the religious aspects. In Kenya, it was with premarital sex/multiple "significant" others and here, there's a contradiction in regards to tattoos, war, respect of women (from my point-of-view), etc. We don't deal with a lot of tribalism in the states so when you encounter it here (which is all the time, your last name defines what tribe you belong to), it catches you off guard and it teaches you a lot more about the society which you will never read in a book or discover from a tour bus. I love it.

Patriarchal-ness of Jordan

I'm sure you all would've guessed by now but something that is very obvious is the Patriarchal type of society going on here in the Middle East. There are different levels of this in the Middle East, Jordan is far more liberal than the Taliban's Shari'a Law for example. In the Holy Qur'an, women are equal to men and everyone here says this as well but if you just look at the society, you will notice that the equality is not always there. For example, whenever my host family goes to visit friends or family for mansaaf, the men sit around one dish and eat first while the women serve us drinks, napkins, pickled goods, etc. Afterward, the women sit in a separate room and eat from the same plate as the men have. It's kind of like the women get the leftovers, I've never been very comfortable with this and this only happens when there is a good amount of people (other than that, the men and women always eat together). When I asked if this is done out of respect for the men or women, the men kind of laughed and said of course it's done out of respect for the men. You can see this in the mosques as well, the women are always either behind the men or in a separate room designated for women. They do this both out of respect for the men and so that the men don't get distracted when they are praying.

Even though everything Muslims believe teaches equality and everything they preach is based around gender equality, it is not apparent in everyday society. I found this kind of hypocrisy very interesting. What is also very interesting is despite the fact that many men here cat call, honk at women, creepily flirt with them, etc. (my host dad included), they all say they respect them as equal human beings. Hypocrisy is just a blast, isn't it? This treatment of women is probably one of the more interesting parts of Jordanian/Middle Eastern society, by no means am I saying all men do this but from what I've seen, the definite majority of men here say one thing, but their actions say another; at least from an American stand point. Here, in Jordan, its just another part of daily life.

Race in the Arab World

First off, just want to say that I finished my ISP, I mean I still have to tweak it, etc. But I'm pretty sure it's all khalas (finished).

Now, something that I've found very interesting here is the idea of race here. I never realized this, but Arabs view themselves as Caucasian. If you look at any form in the US where you mark your race, there isn't a separate box for Arab and I can assure you they should not be considered Asian. It just throws me off a little bit that they consider themselves Caucasian, there is even cream available for women that if applied daily, will make their skin more pale. Everyone in the states is trying to get tan, everyone here's trying to get a little whiter, good stuff. Many Jordanian views of African-Americans are pretty ridiculous too. Many believe that crime in the states is due solely to African-Americans, which makes the fact that our President is African-American just hilarious to some of them. A friend of mine was in a cab where the taxi driver literally laughed the entire trip about our African-American President and how that seemed like a bad idea. The funniest part about this for me is that they love Obama, they think he can do a lot of good for this part of the world, it's just his racial background that confuses many Jordanians. I have a lot more ridiculous stories about taxi drivers, I don't think I could fit them all onto this blog so when I get back to the states, I'll make sure to tell some of you folks about them.