Today, we were woken up at 3:30 by the call to prayer (azaan). It was beautiful and my roommate and I listened and watched the sun rise out of our bedroom window. They actually ended up projecting the entire prayer (namaz) through the mega speakers and since we are located in an area where you can hear the call to prayer from 5 different mosques, the whole thing went on for over 30 mins. Click below to hear a recording of the azaan. Luckily, I was able to fall asleep again and we woke up later and had an AMAZING breakfast. I will make a post solely on the food here in Jordan soon which will have more details on all the meals. After breakfast, we headed down and met with Andrea, a psychotherapist who has worked all over the world helping expats with culture shock. We first did an activity where we were blindfolded and couldn't speak and had to order ourselves backwards by the first letter of our first name. The activity simulated the inability to read, understand body language or communicate that we would face in the beginning of our time in Jordan and we followed the activity with a discussion about helpful and unhelpful culture shock coping mechanisms. It was very insightful and helped us prepare for the inevitable hard times we would face some time in the next 6 weeks. We had a break in which I just spent some time with my friends talking, laughing and reviewing vocabulary for the upcoming placement test. After the break, we headed to Ajloun Castle (قلعة عجلون) and city of Jerash (جرش) which are 1.5 hours north of Amman (عمان). On the way, we passed a Palestinian refugee camp and since the Jordanian northwest is much more lush and at a higher elevation than Amman, we saw many olive trees. Ajloun is a 12th century castle built on a hill overlooking the town of Ajloun and you are even able to view Palestine (sometimes even Syria) from the top. It is a beautiful fortress and offered beautiful panoramic views. After exploring Ajloun, we headed to the city of Jerash, where we could see many Roman ruins of amphitheaters and horse racing tracks. Afterwards, we headed to dinner and though it was only 7:30 or so (iftar is at 7:45), they started setting out all the food so that it would be ready for us to eat at 7:45. It was a full mezze set up and looked absolutely delicious. As soon as the call to prayer started, we all started with dates and then tried everything on the table. here are two pictures of our set up- After we finished the mezze, they set out a bunch of kebabs and grilled vegetables which were all so incredibly tender and just an amazing experience eating outside and watching the sunset and having this amazing food. (You can find out more about all the food in the above picture in my upcoming food post) After dinner, we had tea and these amazing qatayefs (قطايف), which are basically sweet fried handpies/dumplings stuffed with sweet and cinnamony walnuts. This popular Ramadan treat is officially my new favorite thing ever!!!! After dessert we had the amazing opportunity to watch a traditional dabke dance. It is kind of a folk dance in a circle with a lot of complicated synchronized tap dancing like footwork accompanied by an amazing instrumentalist playing a reed instrument and a singer. It was so much fun watching and is definitely a joyous dance and is often performed at weddings. Here's a short clip I recorded of the performance but it really went on for over 20 mins and included lots of different tricks. By the time we returned, everyone was exhausted but super happy and we got to bed close to 1:30.
I look forward to many more incredibly busy but incredibly fun days like these in the future! مع السلاما صفية
2 Comments
Alefiyah
6/24/2016 01:19:13 pm
Hey Sophie. Thanks for updating me on all of the fun stuff that you are doing in Jordan:) Keep it up
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Pat Nomanbhoy
6/24/2016 06:53:06 pm
Sophia, it was wonderful to hear all about your first week in Jordan.
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We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us. !أهلا و ساهلاHi! I'm Sophia, a high schooler from the San Francisco Bay Area. I received a scholarship through the State Dept. to study Arabic in Jordan in the summer of 2016. Categories
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