Mafraq, Jordan

Today I went with my friend Melissa and her friend Mei to Mafraq, Jordan to visit one of the Syrian refugee families that Melissa visits with sometimes. Mafraq has become a town that is biggest host community for Syrian refugees. It is the town where the refugee camp (Zataari, which is the 2nd biggest refugee camp in the world right now) is home to.

This town is about 5 miles form the Syrian boarder. you can see mountains in the not to far off distance and those mountains are in Syria. There has been a lot of growing tensions and hostility in this town because of the continuous influx of Syrian refugees.

We were going to Marfraq to go visit a very sweet family that Melissa has become friends with that came to Jordan about a year or so ago. Its a family of 3 kids (4 month old, 6 year old and 8 year old), a mother , a father and a grandfather all living in the apartment they are in. A lot of their family is still in Syria now and some are still in jail for various political reasons.

The family is so kind, welcoming and adorable. None of them speak any English and the dialect of Arabic that they speak a very specific Syrian dialect from Homs, which is the city that they are from. So, as it turns out, I could understand pretty much everything they were saying all day, but I couldn't respond or speak in a dialect that they understood very well. I'm learning Modern Standard Arabic, which is the foundation of all Arabic dialects (of which there are SO MANY!). Every little corner of everywhere seems to have their own dialect.

In Syria, Modern Standard Arabic is taught in school typically, but its not something people speak with one another or really have much of a background. Many words or sounds are similar enough, hence why i could understand what they were saying for the most part, but with my still pretty limited knowledge of the language and no understanding of how to speak any dialects...its didn't get me very far speaking wise.

That begs to ask the question, "well, then why am I learning Modern Standard Arabic instead of a dialect?" Well, Arabic is has so many dialects that at this point I wouldn't know which to choose or where i would really want to specialize in. Besides, only learning one dialect limits my future knowledge and understanding of Arabic as a whole. Also, Modern Standard Arabic is "Formal Arabic" and its important/necessary for me to a good foundation of the language, grammar and rules (which MSA has many more then other colloquial dialects) in order to then understand any future dialects.

Anyways, I'm rambling. We stayed at the families house for about 6 hours. the mother spent about 3 of those hours cooking a huge meal of delicious Syrian food for us. Melissa and Mei hung out in the kitchen a lot to learn the recipe for the food, while I hung out with the kids mostly. We played games on Melissa's phone, colored and wrote notes in hearts in Arabic to one another. They were so sweet and it was a lot of fun just hanging out and learning about them and their lives in Syria a bit.