Amman, Arabic, and Apples

In the backyard of my tiny home in western Pennsylvania you can find a pool with dirt in it instead of water. It was filled in with dirt some 25 years ago, before my family moved into the house, because the sides of it were caving in. You can't really swim in a pool filled with dirt, so instead my family uses it as a garden. This quaint plot of soil is the closest I have been to an international adventure my entire life, because growing up I was convinced my sisters and I could start a tunnel there and dig all the way to China. The tunnel I started to dig probably reached a maximum depth of one foot before I promptly gave up on my aspirations of international travel and left our pool full of dirt feeling a mix of exhaustion and hope. It'd be years before I learned that in between me and China there was not only the cement bottom of the old pool, but the entire center of the Earth, and no matter how much I might hope I could make it through the 10,000 °F core, it is simply impossible. In two days I will embark on a voyage across the Atlantic ocean by plane, a much more practical medium of travel than transcontinental tunnels. Despite the fact that logistically the outlook of this international adventure is far more promising than my previous attempt, I have a confession: swimming in a pool of dirt or building a tunnel to China seems less daunting the adventure that I'm about to jump into.

My adventure will start with a trip to the Cleveland airport. Once I get there I will start a string of flights that will include stops in three different countries, transport me nearly 6,000 miles and take me 13.5 hours of travel. The last country I will arrive in is Jordan, where I'll be staying at the capital city of Amman for the next four months. There are three things that I've decided are my biggest concerns going into this trip:
1.) Will winter weather ruin my travel plans?
2.) Am I prepared enough?
3.) This is the big whopper, the most important concern by a long shot: What if apples aren't the same in Jordan?

Getting to Amman is going to be the first concern I have to address. Travel can always be nerve wracking, and despite my previous experience with flying, there is still something about making it through security that always concerns me. I perpetually get the feeling that there is some sort of insider knowledge and etiquette that you only know once you've travel a certain amount, and it leaves me with the feeling of being excluded from some sort of secret club. I'll get nervous that I'm not taking off my shoes fast enough, or that I forgot to take something out of my carry-on that I was supposed to before putting it through the scanner. These feelings of being inept are entirely unfounded and no matter how much I worry I always end up on the plane on time. Knowing ahead of time the things that will go through my head always helps me to reassure myself and calm down, the problem is there is even more to add into the equation this time around. Whenever I've traveled before I've never had to worry about the weight and size of what I was packing because they were all trips under a week, this time I had to squeeze a lot more into my luggage. I've never flown internationally and the thought of going through customs for the first time by myself can be intimidating. The most anxiety inducing problem of all is the weather that is coming in. Flight delays are part of life, and the thought of one doesn't bother me. What I am apprehensive about is the ripple effect that it could cause. As I mentioned previously, I'll have a couple of stops along my way to Jordan. At these stops not only will I be changing planes, but there is at least one time when I'll be changing airline carrier. So while I'm traveling Air Canada for the first leg of my journey, the second leg is covered by Austrian Airlines. This means if Air Canada delays my first flight, I'll be stuck in a chain of events where I have to contact the different carriers to get all my flights changed. This wouldn't be the end of the world, but I'm sure I'd have to take some deep breaths along the way to calm myself down.


Now, if I get through all of my travel plans and make it to Jordan I'll be as happy as a dog with two tails, but the thought of arriving on site is nerve wracking. I've been through pre-departure courses, I have a 24 page handbook about the program I'm going into, and I've sent countless e-mails and filled out a plethora of forms to get where I am. These are all great things that have gotten me a long way in feeling prepared, but on the other side of things there has been so much to do I'm perpetually worried that I missed a step along the way. What if I didn't study enough about the culture, what if I forgot to pack vital items that I'll need. In the mix of worrying about simply getting to Jordan, I have a fear that something else may have slipped through the cracks. I won't truly know if something did get left behind or forgotten until I get to Jordan and start the program.


Being jittery about travel arrangements and forgetting something important is something I share with many people. The concern that not many other people seem to share with me is a worry about what apples are like abroad. This is a source of endless confusion for me, because why wouldn't you be concerned about apples? There are more questions I have about apples than most people can fathom.  What kind of apple varieties are accessible? Do they have apple orchards? What's the average price of apples? Do Jordanians cook with apples? Are there even apples in Jordan? How can I rest easy knowing that it'll be at least four months until I can have my Mom's apple crisp, or my Grandma's pink applesauce? Who am I going to share a strange affinity of apples for without my sisters around (or at the very least who will tolerate my affinity for apples)? Will the apple trees that have always stood in my yard still be the same when I come back? I mean, who on Earth decided to give us an internet full of so many wonders but forgot to make information about what the apples are like in Jordan easily accessible? Sure the Jordanian embassy in America website has lots of information about population and holidays and climate, but where's the juicy information about everybody's favorite fruit? Why is nobody else concerned about this?! These are the questions that plague my thoughts and haunt me late into the night.


The last time I had to ask these sorts of questions about apples was the summer of 2013. I was at the summer preview day for Susquehanna University where I had committed to go, and I was with a group of primarily undeclared students. A professor stood at the front of what I would later learn was Isaac's Auditorium and had us count off in pairs. In these pairs we would ask each other questions and tell the rest of the group what we had learned about each other. My partner was John. One of the questions we had to ask each other was what is one of your concerns coming to SU. John and I talked for a while and neither of us could really think of anything, and then it hit me, I had no idea what the quality of the granny smith apples were in the cafeteria. This was a catastrophe, how could I not have looked more into the selection of apples they had available and what quality they were. When we presented our partners concerns John mentioned how worried I was about the apples, and I was reassured that there would indeed be granny smith apples available, but that did little to curb my appetite for information about what the apples were like at Susquehanna.


It's been two and a half years since that summer day when I was filled with curiosity, and I can honestly say that the desire to learn more about apples in the cafeteria has taken me a long way. It led me to a 17 page paper on Johnny Appleseed, and it's been a great conversational topic with just about everybody I have a meal with at SU. The thing is, it's hard not to be nervous when starting something new. But if I learned anything from my experiences at college, it's that sometimes what starts out as a fear can be a base for excitement, learning, and growth. Sometimes it's the simple everyday objects that inspire us the most. Throughout my journey I won't be able to keep track of or speak on everything I encounter, but more than anything I'm excited. Maybe I did forget something important, but that might lead to an experience I would never have had, and maybe weather will affect my flight schedule, but that could just be part of the adventure of my journey. It's been a long time since I was in my backyard trying to dig myself across the world, but the excitement of that sort of trip still hasn't left me. And this excitement has already motivated me to learn, because when I get to Amman and I need the arabic word for apples, it's تفاح (tafah).