Orientation in Amman
On the drive to Amman from the airport, I realized that the city reminded me a lot of Albania. The small shops on the side of the road, the half built stone buildings and homes, the clothes hanging out to dry – a familiar feeling swept over me.
Because I flew in on a different flight than the group, though, I was at the apartments a few hours before everyone else. I was dropped off in front of my apartment building and was handed a key, a bottle of water, and a towel and was sent on my way. Although I was absolutely exhausted, Charles, one of our TAs on the Dialogue, said that I would be woken up when everyone else arrived, so I decided to just stay up and wait. I put my bags in my room, took a much deserved shower, and FaceTimed my mom. When everyone else FINALLY arrived a few hours later, no one came to wake me up – I was a tad bit bitter. The jetlag had kicked in by that time, though, and I wasn’t able to fall asleep until 5:30am.
The next morning was our Orientation at Qasid University. My roommates and I stopped at a café on the way to campus for breakfast and coffee. Everyone’s Arabic was rusty and mine was non-existent, but we somehow still managed to order coffee and pay. The place was filled with older gentlemen drinking coffee and smoking sheesha at 10:30am, which we thought was odd but were too tired to question. We later realized that the place was unofficially a male only café – it was nice of them to realize we were foreign and serve us anyways.
Once we got to Qasid, I was excited to meet the rest of the students! The program is made up of half Northeastern Students and half Project GO students (ROTC students from across the United States who study in the Middle East through a DOD funded grant program). Four out of my five roommates are actually the female ROTC students on the trip!
At orientation, two individuals from Qasid gave us a basic rundown of Qasid and Jordan. They went over how the transportation works, how our classes would be set up, our housing situation, and basic advice about life and what the the culture is like in Jordan. I couldn’t wait to begin classes so that I could finally learn the alphabet and read signs, menus, etc. It would be fascinating to see what 6 hours of Arabic a day would be like, though – especially when we would be completely immersed in the language at the same time. Also, I was interested to see how 6 girls would ration a limited about of water per week.
After orientation, we went on our first excursion! We had a tour of Amman and visited a Roman Amphitheatre and the Citadel. Side note about Jordan: they do not block off overly protect ancient ruins as they do in other parts of the world. This means that you are free to roam around and climb just about everything you want. I climbed everything. Overall, the day was a great way of being introduced to the area and getting to know the other students!
