Professors, Bikes, Paint, and the Po-lice

Last weekend I took quite the tour of different strata of Jordanian society.  On Thursday evening, my "America and the Arabs" professor invited the whole class out to a restaurant to hang out with him.  At first, I was a little uncomfortable with the suggestion, but then I took a step out of my American mindset and realized that the student-professor relationship here tends to be more personal than in the States.  It ended up being a great experience--my professor is Jordanian but was educated in the UK, so he has really interesting insights into the relationship between Arab and Western society.  The whole time I felt very upper-class, having serious discussion about politics in a posh cafe surrounded by trendy young Jordanians smoking hookah.

On Friday, I went on a biking trip near the Dead Sea with a group called "Cycling Jordan."  We biked 25km through the farms near the sea and for the first time I got a glimpse of what life is like for the rural poor in Jordan.  It was a beautiful day and a gorgeous, panoramic view of mountains and desert surrounded us in every direction, but starkly contrasted with the run-down tents and shabby clothes of the farm workers we passed by.

Bikes about to depart for the Dead Sea

Bikes, eggplant fields, and mountains!

On Saturday, I went on a CIEE-sponsored community service trip to paint a mural at a girls' school in East Amman (West Amman--where I live--is much more affluent).  It was a lot of fun and the girls were really excited to see a gaggle of strange foreigners, but the disparity between the conditions we saw there and the comparatively fancy life my host family leads bothered me a lot.  I also couldn't shake the feeling that there must have been something more useful that we could have been doing for them besides just painting a mural.  Nevertheless, I hope that our artwork brings some color and inspiration to the lives of the little girls we met there.

Erin, Emmy, and pretty pictures

Finally, on Sunday, I got my first real taste of stereotypical Arab hospitality.  After class, my friend Samantha and I ventured to one of Amman's innumerable cafes to do some studying.  When we decided to head home later that evening, it was pouring outside.  We stood in the freezing rain for half an hour trying to catch a cab to no avail.  There was a small, one room police kiosk in the median nearby and after a bit the police officer stuck his head out and insisted that we come inside to warm up while he went out into the rain himself to find us a cab.  I can't remember ever being treated so kindly by a complete stranger before.  Such is Jordan, I suppose!