Tidbits of Arabic News translated into English

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Shops in a working/middle class street of Amman

First, it's a bunch of apartments and houses, all built from the slabs of white, greyish stone now stained amber with rain and wind and smoke. Just a short clip down the street, and you come to a house that has a rooster and two hens living in a cage on the alcove that is the front porch; beside that, a dusty garage that sells electronics and repairs your car; and finally you come to the end of the street, where there is a large plant store overflowing with greenery and vines in pots.

The street you've come to is now starting to get filled up with commerce. First, there's a super-market called C-metro that sells milk, cereal, meat, chocolate, paper towels, toiletries, cheese, butter, noodles, nutella, peanut butter, toothbrushes; but not scissors, and no floss, and not really any fresh fruit. If you want fresh fruit, I think there's a whole fresh fruit and vegetable store just a street over, with peaches, watermelons, canteloupes, red Turkish apples, and green apples, and grapes.

Back to the street to the C-metro. If you turn Left onto the street, you first come to store with shovels, garden stuff, and tools. Then, two stores with stickers, purses, hair barrettes, cheap jewelry, school bags, and all sorts of fun trinkets. Then an electronics store. Then a grand-looking place made of clean stone slabs with an archway, called the Daghlise Architecture firm.

Then there's an alleyway.

Then there's a store selling spices and herbs like oregano; then a place called Al Qowqaziya (the Caucasian), I forget what that sells; then a mobile phone store, a shoe store, an ice cream and juice store, then a big empty building, and with that, the street ends. It comes out on a main road called "Shara' Al Shaheed." That means Martyr Street. There is a big monument nearby to Jordanian soldiers killed in action.

If you turn right onto Martyr Street, you come to another mobile phone store; then sunglasses; then a store selling chips and drinks; and then another grocery store. And that's as far as I got.

If you turn left onto Martyr Street, you come to the City Rise Hotel, and a men's hair salon.

If you keep going two blocks onto the right of Martyr Street, you come to the best place ever: a stationary store. It has notebooks, pens, highlighters, and gel pens; piles of school bookbags; and stickers of smiley faces, cakes, and hearts. It has alphabet and numbers coloring books. It has really gorgeous journal books that come in pastel colors (lavender, apple green, light rose, soft blue) and say cheerful things like "Best wishes" on the cover in gold script, and have a lock and key on them, and so must be a girl's dream! There's play-dough, foam cut-outs of soccer balls, footballs, basketballs, and trophies; glitter and colored cotton balls, pads of post-it notes, scissors in glad colors, rulers, heart-shaped notebooks with flowers on the cover, and every other nice thing you can think of!

If you want to read about a really rich part of Amman, click here.
A poor part of Jordan, click here.

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