Cigarettes, Sickness, School, and Style…

Subhan’allah, there is no where you can go in Amman where you will not be assaulted by the foul stench of cigarette smoke! People smoke in cafes, restaurants, taxis (the drivers!), shops, shopping malls, in busses, elevators, you name it they smoke there. As a result my throat is sore and I’m having trouble breathing. Which leads me to my sickness. I’ve got flu. I got sick the night before classes started and have felt yuk ever since. All I want to do is sleep, my brain is contantly foggy, my muscles ache, throat hurts, ears hurt, and now I’m coughing – Brilliant. Al-hamdoulillah – I am consoling myself with the fact that my sins are being lifted insha’allah.

School is busy, al-hamdoulillah. I’m doing well in my first class insha’allah, just that my memory won’t retain all the vocab. We have to memorise a minimum of 50 words per night – but that is working on the basis that you already know some Arabic, so I have about 80 words a night, and you all know how my memory is! My second class, grammar and sciences, is not going so well al-hamdoulillah. The teacher speaks really fast, and although it is meant to be a class that begins from “the beginning” he’s working on the basis that we already have a basic knowledge of grammatical structures – which I don’t, not even in English! I often get totally lost because he uses English grammatical terms that I don’t get (never done grammar in English – yes I am a product of the pedagogical philosophy of “grammar by osmosis), and then combines them with a million new Arabic terms all in the space of 60 seconds! Masha’allah! So yeah, tomorrow is our first day off from classes because there is a public holiday for New Years Day (apparently there are some great sales starting tomorrow – if I hadn’t spent way over budget in this last week [about a months worth of $] then I’d shop).

Masha’allah one thing I cannot get over (other than the rampant smoking) is the way Jordanians dress. You will never see a Jordanian woman in the street without high heels and uber-fashionable clothing – even with hijab! It’s really quite amazing, they even dress up their little girls (one of whom was standing next to me when I was in the supermarket and pulled a mobile phone out of HER handbag – she was no more than 8/9 years old! And no it wasn’t her mother’s because that was who was calling her). There are two ways you can tell a foreign (muslim) woman from a Jordanian woman… look at her shoes, and look at her bag. Even the blokes get dressed up here. The fashion is for hair with a tonne of gel, super-tight jeans and what look like old-school adidas shoes. They all look like they are headed for clubs – even at 8am!

I get a heater today – soooooo cold. Insha’allah I’m going to go to the Abdali markets on Friday to get a warm jacket, wool socks and the like – I don’t think you could ever pack enough clothes to keep you warm through a Jordanian winter. The worst bit is that everyone keeps saying how good/unusual the weather has been so far (i.e. this winter) there’s been no rain and there’s sun everyday! Subhan’allah I don’t know how much more cold I could handle.

So yeah, if Jordan has taught me anything it is that I have no fashion-sense! *lol* Al-hamdoulillah.

So I shall sleep now so that I can manage to get in min 4/5hrs of study tomorrow (to keep my head up). Please make du’a for me, I’m really needing it. Jazakallahu kheirun.

Love y’all fi sabeelillah. Ma’a salama