Ahlan wa sahlan, tafadali—welcome and please, come in, help yourself—are the words that have surrounded me from my first day in Amman. They are, admittedly, the same words that shopkeepers use to lure you into their shop, but in my mind they hold more importance because they demonstrate two of the most important virtues for people in Jordan: generosity and the hospitality that follows. There is nowhere in the world where I have felt more welcome than here in Amman.
It’s called karaam (كرام): generosity. It means that guests can ask their hosts for anything during the first three days of their visit—but in reality, two and a half months into my semester I’m still the guest—and that in Bedouin tradition, when a stranger arrives at one’s house (or tent), the proper procedure is to first welcome her with a meal and then, after coffee has been served, perhaps inquire as to where the stranger is from or what she is doing. It also means that being invited to dinner with a Jordanian family implies that one will be coerced into eating anywhere between two and five plates of food (it usually leans towards the latter). And finally, it means that every time I walk in the bakery, I am immediately offered two or three cookies, even if I was only planning on buying that same amount.
It can be easy to discount this generosity. Perhaps some would say that it’s only my personal experience with Jordanians and Arabs, and others may say that this type of generosity is normal. Yet it can’t be that every single student studying abroad in Jordan has had the same stories, and it cannot be that the generosity here is the same as the generosity back in the United States; when was the last time you struck up a conversation with a stranger on the street and then were suddenly invited to dinner? In the United States, I have never even been offered free candy from a store. Here, that experience has become commonplace. It’s not to say that there aren’t generous people in the United States. Instead, it’s to note that in Jordan, generosity is not an exception or a favor; it is the norm. Whereas back home I routinely eat snacks while walking or sitting and eat meals without offering others a piece, here it is usually considered shameful to eat anything without offering your food to anyone around you. When I walk from the gym to school eating my pita and zaatar, a few individuals will even say saahtain (bon appétit).
This custom of karaam and generosity towards strangers and family alike has been the most striking aspect of Jordanian culture for me, but I also feel that it’s especially important to underscore my general experience of generosity from Arabs and Muslims alike in the wake of the attacks on Paris. As I write this, it has been a mere week since the Paris bombings, and though there have been incredibly kind and wise words from many, some of the public responses I have seen to Paris have been extreme in their own right. I have all too often heard the view that ISIS encompasses many, if not most, Muslims and that refugees in Syria are the biggest threat to Western safety. This view isn’t just factually wrong, but it also negates the warm, beautiful culture of generosity that I have had the pleasure of being immersed in all semester. Even though I am soon leaving Jordan behind, it will be impossible to forget the generosity of such a small country.
