Amman, Jordan
Growing Up Among Hills and Call to Prayer: A Diplomat’s Daughter in Amman, Jordan (Kindergarten to Grade 2)
My earliest school memories don’t start in a small neighborhood classroom or a familiar hometown. They begin in Amman, Jordan—a city of hills, sand-colored buildings, and the echo of the call to prayer drifting across the rooftops.
From kindergarten to grade 2, Amman was my whole world. I was a diplomat’s daughter, but back then those words were just background noise to the things that really mattered: my school bus, my friends, the smell of dust and sun-warmed stone, and the way the city looked from the backseat of the car as we wound up and down the hills.
This is the story of those years.
A City Built on Hills
Amman is a city that doesn’t sit flat. It climbs and folds over itself—roads winding around steep hills, houses stacked like building blocks, and views that seem to appear out of nowhere around each corner.
Every morning, our car climbed and dipped through those hills on the way to school. I’d press my forehead against the window and watch:
- Sand-colored apartments with laundry hanging from balconies
- Little grocery shops spilling out onto the sidewalk
- People walking with bags of bread tucked under one arm
- Yellow taxis honking their way through traffic
The light in Amman felt different too. It was bright and sharp, bouncing off pale buildings and dusty streets. In winter, the rain made everything smell like wet stone and earth. Once in a while, if we were lucky, snow would fall—a rare, magical event that turned the beige city white for a day or two.
Kindergarten in a World of Many Flags
My school in Amman was an international school, the kind where the classroom felt like a mini United Nations.
On any given day, our small circle of friends might include:
- Kids whose parents worked at embassies
- Children from the local community
- Classmates from places I’d barely heard of yet
Lunchtime smelled like ten different kinds of home: sandwiches, leftover pasta, rice and stew in thermoses, hummus and pita, little snacks with labels in different languages. Our accents didn’t match, but our games did.
Kindergarten days were full of routines:
- Lining up by the classroom door with tiny backpacks bumping into each other
- Starting mornings with songs and stories
- Cutting and gluing paper shapes that stuck to our fingers
- Learning letters and numbers in bright colors on the whiteboard
Outside at recess, we’d run across the playground under a wide, bright sky. When the wind picked up, it carried a little bit of dust and the faint scent of something cooking from far-away kitchens.
Learning to Say “Marhaba”
Amman was where I first became aware that English wasn’t the only way to name the world.
Arabic was everywhere—in the curls of script on billboards, in shop signs, in the soft, musical way people greeted each other. At school and around the city, I picked up a handful of words:
- “Marhaba” – hello
- “Shukran” – thank you
- “Ma’a salama” – goodbye
Even as a young child, I felt the thrill of using those words and seeing faces light up in response. The security guard at the embassy, the driver, the lady at the bakery, my classmates’ parents—they all seemed to soften a little when I tried.
For a kindergarten kid, Arabic was like a secret code I was just beginning to learn. I didn’t understand sentences yet, but I recognized sounds: the deep “kh” in some words, the way the call to prayer rose and fell five times a day, threading itself into our routine.
After-School Life: Compounds, Car Rides, and Falafel
Being a diplomat’s daughter meant most of my after-school life happened between a few familiar places: our home, the embassy compound, and the car that connected them.
Our home was a haven of mixed worlds. Inside, we spoke our own language, ate the food my parents grew up with, and watched TV from “back home.” Outside the windows, Jordan was happening—kids playing football in the street, the hum of traffic, the afternoon sun sliding down behind the hills.
Some days after school, we’d drive to pick up fresh khubz—round loaves of soft Arabic bread still warm from the bakery. I remember the smell filling the car, my small hands tearing off a piece as soon as we left the shop, even if my parents told me to wait for dinner.
Sometimes we’d get falafel or shawarma from a place my parents trusted, wrapped in paper that went slightly translucent from the oil. To me, this wasn’t “Middle Eastern food”; it was just what dinner sometimes looked like.
Evenings had their own rhythm. As the sun set, the call to prayer rose from different mosques across the city, each slightly out of sync with the next. It was like Amman’s way of clearing its throat before night.
Field Trips and Weekend Adventures
Amman wasn’t just where I went to school—it was the base for weekend adventures that didn’t feel extraordinary then, but seem incredible in hindsight.
From kindergarten to grade 2, “field trip” could mean:
- Visiting ancient Roman ruins at Jerash, where tall stone columns and old theaters became our playgrounds for a day
- Driving down to the Dead Sea, my ears popping as we descended, floating in salty water that stung our cuts and made us all laugh
- Short visits to markets where spices were piled high in colorful cones and the air smelled like cumin, coffee, and something sweet
Back then, I didn’t fully grasp the history under my feet. I just knew that in Jordan, rocks and ruins weren’t dusty pictures in a textbook—they were things you could sit on, climb, and touch.
Grade 1 and 2: Learning Where I Belonged—and Didn’t
As I got older—grade 1, then grade 2—I became more aware of the differences between my life and the lives of kids who were from Amman.
Some of my classmates had grandparents living nearby, favorite cousins just across town, long histories in the city. They had stories of babyhood in the same hospital, preschool with the same familiar faces.
I had stories of “where we lived before” and “where we might go next.” My family’s roots were in another country entirely, but many of my memories were now tied to these Jordanian hills.
At school, we’d talk about “our countries” during international days. We’d bring flags, food, or clothing to represent where we were “from.” I remember standing there with my own flag, feeling proud—but also a little confused. I lived in Jordan. I felt at home in Jordan. But I was technically from somewhere else.
That contradiction quietly shaped how I saw the world: it taught me that home can be more than one place, and that you can love a city deeply even if your passport doesn’t match it.
The Faint Edge of Goodbye
By grade 2, I didn’t know exact dates, but I understood the language of embassy life: “tours,” “postings,” “when we leave,” “where we might go next.” Moving, for us, wasn’t a maybe—it was a when.
Even before the boxes appeared, goodbyes began softly:
- Parents mentioning how much they’d miss certain friends
- Classmates coming and going, some leaving Amman before I did
- Pictures taken “just in case” we didn’t come back
I remember the sense of time speeding up and stretching out at the same time. Days at school felt normal—math, reading, recess, messy art projects—but underneath, there was the knowledge that this chapter was temporary.
Jordan, and Amman in particular, had become part of my definition of “normal.” The idea of not seeing those hills every morning felt strange in a way I couldn’t yet put into words.
What Amman Gave Me
Even though I was only in kindergarten through grade 2, Amman left permanent fingerprints on who I am.
From those years, I carry:
- The sound of the call to prayer as a symbol of comfort, not distance
- A love for warm bread, olives, hummus, and falafel that feels like nostalgia
- The habit of scanning a city’s hills and rooftops, looking for its shape and rhythm
- The understanding that it’s possible to be “from” a place, emotionally, even if official paperwork says otherwise
Being a diplomat’s daughter in Amman meant growing up both inside and outside of Jordan at the same time—living in a bubble, but constantly pressing my face against the glass to see more.
When I think back to my first school days, I don’t just remember classrooms and playgrounds. I remember hills, stone, sunlight, the roll of Arabic in my ears, and a city that quietly became part of my story long before I was old enough to explain how.
If you ask me where I went to kindergarten, I’ll say “Amman, Jordan”—but what I really mean is: I learned my first letters in a city of hills and prayer calls, in a country that taught me what it means to love a place you were never meant to stay in forever.