First post: applying to the University of Jordan

I spent the last academic year abroad in Paris, and one of the many things I learned is that the transition to a new culture begins long before you actually set foot in a new environment. I’m going to begin recording a few reflections now, as I think that my preparations and the anxieties and excitement that arise are also an important part of a cross-cultural experience. This is especially true since this type of experience teaches me as much about myself as about others, and so I like to watch the process of change that I go through when I travel.

Currently I am trying to apply to the University of Jordan, because I must be admitted there before I can actually go. I have been trying to call the admissions office in Amman (the capital city of Jordan, where the university is located) but I have not been able to get a good connection without a speech delay, and so the person on the other end keeps thinking that no one is there, and hangs up. I have emailed three or four times, and though I have tried several different tactics – short, and to the point emails or detailed explanations – I have gotten only “please see our website.” I have, of course, seen the website, but the application is for students who wish to stay two years and asks for documents that I do not have, such as a notorized copy of my diploma (I will graduate in the Spring from Brown) and a “certificate of good conduct.” It also seems that I have to have everything certified by the ministry of higher education, though it is not clear if this is theirs or mine, and I’m not sure of how to go about doing this in either case.

Vague bureacracy makes me nervous as there is a great deal of room for the person in charge to use his own power, and thus it’s very unpredictable.

I realize, in general, how much I do not know about the place where I will live for the next year – I can’t picture the university, how it is set up, or even the city of Amman. I’m not sure who has answered my call in the admissions office at the UofJ, whether he is one man covering phone calls and has begun to recognize the crazy American girl who keeps sending him emails or whether he is part of a large team and my contacts remain anonymous because of the unlikelihood of getting the same person twice.

I also wonder how they see an American who wants to come there. I know that diplomatically Jordan has good relations with America, and that Jordan receives the third-largest amount of foreign aid (after Israel and Egypt) that America gives, but that does not mean that a Jordanian, who may very well have friends or relatives badly affected by the Israeli-Palestininan conflict, sees me with a blank slate.

I have a friend at school who is from Ramallah (a city in Palestine) and she told me that I will be welcomed especially warmly as a foreigner, but that people there are just kind in general. That hospitality is part of the culture, part of the nature of the region’s inhabitants. I sincerely hope that this is true, particularly but not only because it was not true in France!

Don’t get me wrong, I adore France, and being foreign is not an issue on a personal basis, but walking into a shop or down the street, I felt a lot of pressure to become “French.” I spoke quietly when using English, and I rarely talked about “my country” as many foreigners are wont to do, unless I was directly asked.

This was a very contradictory issue, however, because many people would refuse to speake French with me! Some, I suppose, wanted to keep me from mispronouncing their beloved mother-tongue or from attempting to appropriate or exotify their language. Others, though, simply wanted to practice a language which they found exciting, useful, or both. Still, I always felt as though I was one down when I was not French – as though I already had something to prove. But maybe this was just my self-consciousness coming through. I hope that this will not be the case in Amman.

Tomorrow I will call the Jordanian Embassy to see if they can give me a sense of how best to navigate the bureaucratic organization of the University of Jordan.