Grace: Big, happy family

On Wednesday we finally got to learn who our host family is, and yesterday we met them and spent our first day in their homes! My host family has a mother and a father, Reem and Ali, two sons, Aymad and Bashar, with a third son working in the US, and a daughter who will be in town soon, Tamara. My host family speaks English well. That has made the transition to their home so much easier. Nonetheless, it also means I have to be very assertive about speaking only Arabic. That’s so hard to do when I really can only say “please speak Arabic” in English! When they do say something in Arabic, I often have to respond in English, making them more likely to switch to it for their next sentence. Bashar is the worst at that. He just chuckles when I tell him to avoid English. And I expect to spend a lot of time with him, being the same age, so soon I’m going to have to put my foot down!

Yeah, they look like perfect angels here. I had to pull the boys by the ears to get them to sit as a family. Aymad (21), Bashar (20), Ali, and Reem.

Their house is gorgeous. It’s in an upscale area of Amman, with a nice gated fence and two floors, and a guest area as well as the often-used living room and kitchen. At first I was told that I would be sharing a room with Tamara, but it turns out I have a bed and room to myself – two beds, actually! They had two SIT students staying here just a few days before I arrived.

Such a gorgeous place to sit.

What do you think – am I more of a blue or a pink?

We spent a lot of time at the TV tonight, which is fine considering I could listen to more Arabic that way. Tomorrow, Bashar is taking me and others clothes shopping. But he’s very into brand names, so I’m going to have to insist on the downtown souqs and bazaars rather than the incredibly upscale malls of Rainbow Street and Abdoun.

And I suppose I should mention the language. That’s what I’m here for, after all. Jordanian Arabic, what’s spoken in the streets, is very similar to the formal Arabic, or fus-Ha, which is what I study in the classroom. But they make interesting additions to their vocabulary and grammar. Many very common words, such as where, what, and “there is/are” have been replaced by colloquial words, which I was not expecting. Then they also borrow past tense negation for the present tense, and add a “b” sound in certain instances when one word ends in same the vowel that the next one starts with. Many vowels are shortened or elided. It’s very interesting, but it also means that my fus-Ha is going to be tainted by colloquial as well as English after a while! It’s hard as a foreign speaker to know which words I’m learning are universal and which are Jordanian Arabic’s alternatives. But I haven’t started classes yet, so we’ll just have to wait and see what this new environment does for me!

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