meet marhaba!!

two new great things i have learned this week:

1. greetings are like a game of one-upsmanship. if you say "marhaba" (hello), the other person will say "marhabtain" (multiple hellos), or, better yet, my favorite: "meet marhaba" (100 hellos!). my host parents got a kick out of that one when i said it to them last night.
my spoken arabic teacher said that plural greetings are more polite (like "vous" instead of "tu" in french) and also more religious. you are greeting not only the other person, but also "the two angels on their shoulders and all the creatures on the earth."

2. "personal questions are normal questions in jordan." it is not uncommon for a stranger to ask you a deeply personal question ("what is your relationship with your boyfriend like?" is a question my friend got on her first day in her new home), especially regarding your origin. it is not impolite at all to ask if someone is "jordanian-jordanian" or "palestinian-jordanian," even though some of the issues surrounding palestinians in jordan are quite tense.