Jared Would be Proud

Ok first of all, I LOVE JORDAN. I definitely am not going to want to leave for many reasons.

Second of all, I have found my favorite place in Jordan. “Petra, one of the seven wonders of the world and a place of majestic beauty?” you may suggest. No. “A tiny Arab cafe, full of fruity argileh smoke and oud music where you can sip tea with the Bedouins?” No.

But for those of you who guessed the Subway restaurant a block from my host family, you would be correct. “Why,” you might ask, “are you studying abroad, if you just want to spend time at Subway?”

Because it is awesome.

I avoided Subways (along with McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks and others) for a while, because I wanted to experience things other than what’s available in the states. Then I saw the magical sign “Coffee + Cookie + Free Internet” on the door, and could no longer resist. I expected to be depressed by seeing something that was close but not exactly the same as something I was used to in the States. That’s what usually happens. Instead, I have found a sanctuary. This Subway doesn’t try at all to be Arab (the McDonalds here have a sandwich called the McArabia LOL). And yet it doesn’t conflict with the world it is in. It’s just a Subway.

Basically the only differences I can discern between Subways in the States and Jordan are that the staff of the Jordanian ones are 400% nicer (and I am not even doing them justice). Also they have corn as a sandwich topping…strange. And they are not crowded.

Actually the guys at this Subway are UNBELIEVABLY nice (like most Jordanians, I find). The first day I came here, they said “ahlan wa sahlan” and “sahteyn wa 3afia” (“welcome” and “bon appetit”) about 15 times as I bought my cookie and coffee. Then one of them offered to carry them up the stairs for me. They all speak perfect English because it’s an international company (and most Subway vocab has no equivalent in Arabic anyway I think), but they humor me and let me toddle around in Arabic. When I walked up to the second floor seating, I found a serene and pristine room with cozy lighting and soothing jazz music (or my favorite American radio hits, depending on who’s working), and huge windows overlooking my neighborhood’s busiest intersection. It’s like I can step out of my daily life in Jordan for a minute into a bubble hanging right above it that has lightening fast internet, abundant outlets and bathrooms with Western style toilets, dry floors, toilet paper, soap AND paper towels (five items that never occur simultaneously in this country. I think the government has some rule about it).

The second time I came, the man working here treated me like a favorite grandchild and offered again to carry my things upstairs for me. After I had been doing my homework for about an hour, he walked upstairs to ask me if I wanted a refill of coffee. When I turned down the offer, he said “are you sure? It’s free! I’ll bring it up to you!”

Today, the three guys working here were extremely kind and helpful as usual. One of them scolded the other for speaking to me in Arabic, which he assumed I couldn’t understand. When I said I understood, they all wanted to know where I was from (but not in an annoyingly over soliticous way like so often happens). They all got upset when I asked for a raisin cookie because “chocolate chip is the best.” They told me to wait five minutes for the chocolate chip ones to bake, but I insisted that I like raisin just as much. We chatted for a little. I told them I live close by and that they will be seeing a lot of me. Then I went upstairs.

And here’s the best part. Five minutes ago, one of them came upstairs with a fresh cup of coffee and a fresh-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookie for me JUST BECAUSE. “This is for you!” he said “Ahlan wa sahlan to Subway!!”

Ahlan bik my darling man, Ahlan bik. Now I have no reasons left to dislike this country, and I have a place to go as ammunition against whatever doozies life abroad throws at me. So call me an avoider, call me what you will. But every trip to use Subway’s wireless leaves me with a warm and fuzzy feeling, a skip in my step and a tune in my whistle or something.

See, I’ve been through studying abroad. I’ve been through the pain of living through total difference, and the pain of seeking the familiar and not finding it, and the pain of finding the familiar and no longer loving it. It hurts to see the world globalizing. None of us can stop it and people like me are actively contributing to it. But I also know that there are good things about globalization along with the bad. I am trying to learn to live and to find pockets of goodness everywhere I go. I sieze them WHEREVER they are. When I find one that’s international, nevermind the fact that it’s just another restaurant chain, it makes my heart glad. I have learned to appreciate moments of calm and efficiency and similarity. I am not hiding here in this Subway (Although I definitely keep it as an option). I am just appreciating it. I am always trying to reconcile America and the rest of the world. Sometimes it’s incredibly hard. From here, surrounded by walls with maps of the New York Subway system and framed pictures of cucumbers but overlooking the streets of Jubeiha, it is bizarrely easy. It gives me a sense of elation to know that something familiar and something totally unfamiliar can somehow work well together. It’s the same feeling I get when I walk around listening to “Miss New Booty” by Bubba Sparxxx on my ipod while watching women walk by me in niqaabs, like I am looking out of the corner of my eye into the face of a secret. It doesn’t really go together at all, but somehow it must, because this is the world and we all live in it together, and we all are born and we all die and we all like to be able to choose our sandwich toppings. I have the sneaking suspicion that things aren’t as complicated as we think. I can’t do anything but trust my mind to find the missing pieces. They are there somewhere.