Laura’s abroad in Amman, Jordan, until Dec. 19.

Ramadan Kareem! Today is the first day of Ramadan, which means that tonight at 7:05 p.m. the nighttime feasting will begin! Last night my host family kept trying to get me to eat in the middle of the night. Still stuffed from a dinner of potato, eggs, and bread, I couldn’t eat anymore. My host mom said she was worried that I haven’t been eating enough, but I honestly don’t think I’ve been hungry since I arrived in Jordan. I’m not fasting today but I’m going to try tomorrow. I think foregoing food will be fine, but I can’t see myself not drinking water all day. It’s been so hot the past week that I’ve been drinking gallons of water, tea and soda every day. I’m constantly thirsty and just half an hour in the sun makes me want to drink a tub of water. I honestly don’t know how Muslims in Jordan survive all day in the heat without drinking. My host brother offered to eat and drink with me so I wouldn’t feel alone, but we all knew he was just looking for a decent excuse to avoid fasting.

The past few days with my family have been difficult. Sleeping has been hard the past few nights because I was sharing a bed with my host sister in a small room without air conditioning. Plus, they like staying up until the early hours of the morning on the weekend and then sleeping until the afternoon, whereas I like sleeping when it’s dark. I only got about 3 hours of sleep before my first day of class and last night I got a few more.

I’ve shared a room at Northwestern for the past two years, but my roommate and I divided up the room so we each had our own personal space: I had my own desk, dresser and bed. Now, however, I have three shelves on the right side of the closet for all my clothes, books, and other belongings. I feel like an intruder into my host sister’s room and I’m still adjusting to having no privacy – everyone, including guests and the maid, come in and out of the room all the time. Even finding the privacy to make a phone call is difficult. I’m used to having my bedroom as a refuge, where I can study and read and relax. But now it seems that I’ll have to find somewhere else to call my own.

My family is trying to be accommodating and I appreciate that a lot. When I got home from school today, I discovered that they had rearranged the room and now two separate twin beds frame the window. Even though it’s still the same room, I instantly felt better. Now at least I have the bed as a little island of a refuge in this crazy house. With time, hopefully they’ll understand my need for a quieter sleeping environment too.

Yesterday, before the room was changed, I felt incredibly homesick for the first time. I had done well on the placement exam and oral test, so they put me into the advanced Arabic class. But there, I had a hard time understanding my fast-speaking professor. I’m used to the friendly, smiling, easy-going demeanor of the professor I’d had for two years at NU. Now I have a professor who intimidates me and insists on speaking only Arabic in class.

We took turns reading aloud from a text in our new book and I suddenly felt so overwhelmingly frustrated. With just a few hours of sleep the night before, and the exhaustion of trying to communicate for a week in a language I barely know, I felt terribly homesick. I felt stupid because I couldn’t express myself and I couldn’t understand what people were saying, but I was also extremely embarrassed that I’d become visibly upset in front of my new professor and four classmates. I hated myself for becoming so frustrated and knew I had to pull myself together, but for the rest of the day I felt constantly on the verge of tears. I came to Jordan to learn the language and experience a new culture and family life, but I still found myself desperately wanting to crawl into my own bed back in California and pull the covers over my head until Wildcat Welcome starts.

Once I got home, I started feeling better. I realized the lack of privacy and other such complaints were things I’d just need to get over. The value of living with an Arab family trumps all my other trivial concerns. For example, later that night as I sat on my bed struggling with my Arabic reading, both my host sisters came in, simply sat down, and helped me for more than an hour. We went through the reading page by page and they explained everything I didn’t understand. They had me read each paragraph aloud and corrected my horrendous pronunciation. Their patience was amazing and I learned more in that tutoring session than I would have if I’d stared at it for days by myself. Plus, they gave me a chocolate bar when we finished. The tutoring is a two-way street, too. Over the weekend I stayed up with my host brother to edit his resume in English so he could apply for a job in Saudi Arabia (why he needed an English resume for a job in the Gulf, however, still confuses me).

They’re also slowly teaching me the colloquial dialect so that I can understand them. The difference between formal Arabic and Ammani, which the locals speak, in some cases is as extreme as the difference between Old English and American English. In the colloquial, consonants, pronouns, interrogatives, and basic vocabulary differ greatly from what I learned at Northwestern and what is spoken in speeches and by news broadcasters. Thus, most people understand the formal way I speak, but I can’t understand the way they speak – hence my frustration.

Living with a family is about more than just private tutoring at night, though. I’m learning about their traditional culture as well as the modern influences. They feed me traditional dishes, like Palestinian makluba, but they also made me Top Ramen. We listen to popular Arab singers like Nancy Arjan or Ahmed Muna, but we also watch music videos from Rihanna and Avril Lavigne. On the weekend, we watched Harry Potter in Arabic but tonight we watched the special Ramadan TV shows, many of which are from Saudi Arabia. When guests come over, my host sisters don hijabs, long sleeves, and pants. But when everyone leaves, they’ll walk around in tank tops and shorts. Even within the family there are differences. When we went to a giant mall to peruse the pre-Ramadan sales, one sister wore a sleeveless shirt while the youngest sister covered up from head to toe.

Well, off to bed. I have another Ramadan feast to look forward to tomorrow!

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