From Lawrence of Arabia to John al-Khalaila

This last week, while in Jordan I've been trying really hard to follow the program and speak 2 hours everyday with a native in Arabic. Surprisingly that is more difficult than you would expect, primarily because everyone here speaks English. However, once you have made a few friends or rather once you have talked with someone more than once, or for more than an hour, you are automatically inaugurated into their group of friends and their family, gaining all sorts of benefits. For example, the other week my roommate Matt and I met a group of Shabaab (young men) who were all native Jordanians, which is a somewhat rare since about 75% of Jordan is Palestinians. So after talking with this group of Shabaab they decided that they would give us new names. So I have now became John al-Khalaila and am part of the Beni Hassan Tribe. Which is one of the largest and most powerful tribes in Jordan. The al-Khalaila part of my name signifies that I am part of smaller part of the larger tribe of Beni Hassan. My roommate Matt became Mathew al-Abadi which is also a large tribe in Jordan, the Prime Minister of Jordan is from this tribe.

Another example of Arab hospitality can be found in another set of friends that my roommates and I have made. One of my roommates Garret, found a group on Facebook called Jordan Volunteers, and expressed interest in being a part of the group, as a way to meet people as well as serve. As a result a girl by the name of Woroud al-Jammal messaged him and set up a time for us to go and meet with her, her older sister Bitul, and her older brother Adel at a hookah bar (I may have written about this last week). After several hours of talking with them and getting to know them we had to leave to get home and do some homework, and on the way out they expressed that anytime we needed anything we could call them and that they would be our family while we were here in Jordan. As a result of this relationship with this family my roommates and I were able to go to an Elderly Home (Markaaz Musaniin) to chat and visit with some of the people whose families have abandoned them (very literally abandoned them). In Arab culture, you just don't drop you're old people off at a home, you take care of them and they live with you until they die. So we went with this group of young people and chatted and sang and danced with the elderly people. It was really very very fun, and fulfilling.

After going to the old people home, we had to go to the store and so we asked where the best place was to get food, and we were told that C-town was the best place. After we got back into Amman, one of the people from the group decided that we needed help in getting around and so he walked with us until we found a taxi, which was about 30 mins later. Then he got into the taxi with us and told the driver where to go. Then he paid for the taxi. Then only after much persuasion were we able to persuade him that we would be ok buying food on our own at the store and getting a taxi to take us home. It was somewhat silly/funny, and also somewhat annoying, but that's just the way that Arab hospitality is.