Progress on the Internship!

Well, this week we have made remarkable progress in our internship.  We had hoped to be teaching English this week as well as beginning the survey but have received the assurances and created a schedule whereby these will both begin next week.  So every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday Austin and I will go to the marqez in Iraq Al-Ameer where we will teaching two separate courses on English, one for beginners and one for more advanced or older students (I have also decided that I will go to the handicraft village pretty much every day after work in Iraq Al-Ameer to weave and make ceramics).  Austin will be teaching the boys and I will get to teach the girls.  Hopefully it won't be too hard but I have never proven too able to teach or hold the attention of children for very long so we will see how well we can do.  It will definitely be an adventure.

  On Mondays and Wednesdays we will report to the Mudireea in Wadi Il-Seer where we will begin work on a comprehensive survey in the Iraq Al-Ameer area.  The survey will have a demographic aspect and also focus on needs, and solutions for the community and what programs the Ministry of Social Development can implement in order to help the people of Iraq Al-Ameer.  It should be a pretty fun survey, although I believe it will take quite awhile to get the answers we need from individuals in the community mainly because I'm sure that every family we talk to will take a minimum of an hour since we will be drinking tea and offered lunch at every home.  It should be fun and will hopefully improve my arabic comprehension and conversation skills.  Over all I am excited for the progress we are making and excited, if a little nervous, for what this internship will entail next week.  Below I have included some pictures to add a little flare and show you a little of what we have done at the center.  I hope you enjoy!

This is the room where I will be teaching English to between 10 and 20 girls age 5-15:

Before

After

These are the kids that we met on Monday.
It should be pretty interesting!

Inter-Gender Relations

So that might have been a weird title but believe me, it is a good one for today's blogpost.  So, ever since I have been in Jordan I have wanted to talk to the women and find out about them, their lives, and how they feel just like I have been with the men.  Well, obviously that is quite hard since men and women aren't allowed to eat together, women are very closed and won't speak to you on the street, and I think the only woman I have regular contact with right now is Fatimah at the center.  This weekend all of that changed.

The sign for the Iraq Al-Ameer
(It means cave of the prince)
handicraft village

  Saturday, I decided I wanted an adventure and headed of the "Iraq Al-Ameer Handicraft Village" a women's cooperative near to my work where they hand-craft shawls, paper, soap, and ceramics and are also close to two different archaeological sites.  I had visited it before with a person from our work and found out that I could take classes in traditional Jordanian weaving, pottery, soap making, and ceramics all of which sounded extremely interesting.  Well, since I got there late in the day I was informed that they were already closed but was shown around and introduced to every single woman in the center.  It was very interesting for me, because like I mentioned earlier, I have wanted to talk with Arab women my entire time here.  Mainly I have only seen them in passing and have never had any meaningful interaction with them except for our boss, as work.  I was surprised to find that instead of closed off women who did not wish to talk, I found women who were very accommodating and interesting in what a random American who speaks very bad Arabic was doing out in the middle of no where talking about learning how to weave.  After getting a tour of the ceramics and weaving areas, I informed them I would be back the following day (Sunday) after work to begin classes in weaving.  I was then asked to sit down with the director of the center who was very nice and found out that her cousin who was sitting beside her, Naeem, spoke extremely good English and was preparing to go back to school to earn a masters degree in Geography.  She asked that I help her practice English when I am at the center and I told her that I can help her in anyway possible.  It was very nice, and I then went and sat near the caves and pondered/read a book for a few hours.

Me attempting to create a beautiful hand-made Jordanian Shawl

  Since my first encounter at the Handicraft Village I have returned twice with Austin after work.  The women have opened up to us immensely and apparently find us quite attractive (which was a completely unexpected occurrence).  In fact, the first day we visited they even fed us lunch which made it the first time I have ever eaten a meal with an Arab woman in this country.  They are extremely nice and accomadating, and are allowing us to work on Shawls that they are doing to fulfill an order in the United States.  Can you imagine the label on those shawls, the people think they are getting ones made my little Bedouin ladies from Iraq Al-Ameer and instead the label reads "Hand woven by extremely tired American Interns for the Ministry of Social Development."  Oh well, what they won't know won't hurt them right?  Basically, I am having a wonderful time learning how to weave and find it to be a very tiring and labor intensive process.  Not only do I understand them and theirs lives better, but I also understand why the industrial revolution rocked so much.

My Arabic name is Mohanned which means Sheath,
Apparently it is because I look like this fellow
who is an extremely famous Turkish Television Star.

  Perhaps the coolest contrast to see is the difference between these same women when we are talking to them in private, and when we enter the public sphere and get on the bus.  In private they are vibrant, fun and talkative.  They make jokes, laugh hard and can be seen to enjoy life immensely.  In contrast, when we board the buses these same women are solemn, closed and completely quite.  They do not say hello and do not register our proximity.  It is not my place to judge whether or not this is appropriate or good.  This is simply my observation, instead, I simply find it interesting and enlightening.  Some would say this means that the woman are belittled and demeaned but I do not know.  I think I need more information and understanding in order to form an opinion on this point.  To close, our boss informed us today that the prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, said that knowledge should be gained first by observation, then by listening and last of all with questions.  This is much the opposite of how we look at it in the west and we must remember this as we seek to learn about the Middle East and it's people.

A World-Wide Audience!

So, it's official, I have a world wide audience!

For everyone who reads my blog, thank you!  I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy sharing it.  I would love to hear responses or comments about what I have written and what you liked or have thought about this blog.  The main purpose of this blog, for me, is not only to document my travels but help us learn about other people.  I feel like that is one of the most important things that I can do, help others learn about what I have been so ignorant about for so long.

  That being said, if you have any comments or questions please post them!  I would love to answer your questions and seek out answers that I don't know myself.  This blog isn't for me, I'm here and experiencing it all firsthand, it's for all of you readers.  Again, thanks for visiting my blog and making me feel like people might actually enjoy reading about my adventures in Jordan!

Syrian Sunset

   Well, I'm a little behind in multiple different ways but this past weekend I saw Syria!  Can you believe that?  I saw frikin Syria which I think is so darn cool.  Also, judging from what I saw... all of the Media is lying.  Seriously, the only explosion I saw was fireworks and there was no sign of gun fire or tanks.   Seriously, our media must be lying because my first hand extensive knowledge says they are wrong ( haha, I hope everyone knows that I am joking).

  Maybe I should explain why I was chilling close to the Syrian border, especially since people are probably freaking out right now.  Well, the director of our program, Ralph Brown, was in country and was able to get all of us students invited to a huge dinner in Northern Jordan with a very powerful family he knows quite well.  So, after church on Friday we all pile into some vans and made the long trip up to what seemed like the Middle of nowhere.  It was amazingly gorgeous and surprisingly green from all of the agriculture.  Of  course the family we were eating with had to show us all of their property and expensive possessions so we go to see a lot of camels and I even got to ride one, bare back!

Once again, I feel like the best way to describe the day is through a number of pictures so here you go!

This is dozer, the huge bull camel I got to ride bareback.
I was the first person in the group so he wasn't angry
 yet but it was actually surprising enjoyable

Dozer's disgusting mouth after he became angry a little later.
Camels are huge and have disgusting mouths.

This is the sign on the outside of the camel pen.
  Apparently a camel can kill  you quite easily.
Maybe that's what that disgusting smell was...

That is Syria in the background.  Pretty cool photo in my opinion.

This is "Sophia" the pregnant white camel in a different pen that
absolutely love to be scratched under the cheeks.
Is she smiling at my kiss?

Just a cool picture in my opinion

The Syrian Sunset...

So yeah, this was the most eventful thing I did last weekend and it was a heck-of-a-lot of fun!  Also, if you ever want to ride a camel bareback, just let me know and I can give you some pointers!

The Great Divorce (No, not by C.S. Lewis)

In Jordan I have the wonderful opportunity to speak with many different people and social classes. Mainly I talk to Men between the ages of 20 and 50 who have good English and love Americans but I've gotten to speak with many different people. One of the things that I love to do is talk to them about their views on politics, the Middle East and other things like that. I love the responses and they are very eye opening to see how general they are across the body of people I speak with. I will describe one of them here for you to see and think about yourself.

First of all, pretty much every Jordanian I talk to says they love Americans. They tell me they are the best and kindest people in the world but they hate our government. A few days ago I was talking to a man named Kholdun who made sure to tell me EVERY time he mentioned America or its politics, that he loved Americans, the only thing he hated was our government. I was deeply impressed that every time he would bring this up in a conversation, and if fact every time most people bring it up in a conversation, they make that differentiation. Something that takes an extra 10 seconds every time to say but in fact makes a huge difference. He said the same thing about the Israelis he knows and all the governments of Europe. This is where the title comes in, because Americans do not divorce these things in our minds.

How many of us, when we first think of Islam, Arab, or Middle East, immediately think of terrorism or religious fanatics? How much of our country assumes that every person in the Middle East hates the west, always has hated the west, and will continue to hate the west? Why do we think of the Middle East as a place that has been violent for 2000 years and that the people here simply can not obtain peace because they are not peaceful people? Why is it that we, as the most powerful nation in the world, do not differentiate like my simple Jordanian friends? We as Americans have become insulated by power and refuse to see the world as it really is. Even when we travel, instead of truly seeing the culture we expect America to come with us. We insulate ourselves and trust other people to tell us what is going on when we can find out for ourselves and it is damaging us greatly.

Mother Teresa said, "When we judge we leave no room for love." We as Americans need to get out of our bubble and understand the world around us otherwise we will continue to make dumb mistakes and never truly engage the people of other nations who love us and the ideals of America so very much. I hope that my experiences here in Jordan are helping me to see the loving people here, and that in some small way all those who read this back in the states will see the Jordanians for how they really are. Loving, wonderful people with huge hearts.

Note: After receiving some wonderful feed back on this blogpost I have to make one addition.  I love America and Americans.  There are many things that make our nation great and many wonderful ideals and thought processes that seem inherent in our upbringing.  I, however, do not like ignorance and feel that if we are ignorant on a subject we do not have the right to have a vocal opinion.  In order for us to truly be the leaders we should, we all should educate ourselves on important subjects and seek to hear both sides of the story and form our own conclusions.  The whole point of the blog post, is for you and me to ask ourselves how much we truly know about the Middle East.

My Internship

Well, since the reason I am here in Jordan is to perform an Internship with the Ministry of Social Development, I figured I should probably write a little about what I am doing and how the work has progressed.  Although we really only worked one day this week, I believe this has been the most productive week thus far.  I believe I have already written about our meeting with Rasha on Tuesday where we learned about the survey we were doing, it's purpose, and the additional analysis and proposals we needed to create in order to fulfill our task.  Later in the week we found out that she wants the whole thing translated by today and the analysis done by tomorrow, I gently told her that that was unreasonable but that we would have it to her as soon as possible.  Hopefully we'll (meaning me) will be able to get the translation moving along nicely so we can get this thing pumped out.
  On Wednesday we went to our first and only day of work actually at the Marqez this week and it was quite productive.  When we arrived we found that the director of the Marqez, Ali, was on vacation and the Assistant to the Secretary General was auditing the center once again.  Apparently many people at the Ministry are aware that the renovation process is taking a very long time and are trying to find the problem and fix it so that the Marqez can get to helping the people of Iraq Al-Ameer.  We got to talk to him for awhile and he set up an appointment with the Regional Manager for the next day so that we could talk to her about the center, what we can do to help, and possible solutions or programs to help the community.  That night I prepared a small report to present to her the following day, detailing what we saw as the issues in the Marqez and programs or ideas that could be implemented to help solve the issues.
  Thursday was by far my favorite day and we were able to get a lot done.  Our meeting with the Regional Manager and her Assistant went amazingly well.  They told us that we needed to find out more about the people in the area, what they needed, and how the center could help.  So, they decided that the four of us, with some people from the Marqez, would create and distribute a survey to the area to best gather the information and then Austin and I will perform an analysis on the data and we will begin implement programs to help the people in the ways they need the most.  We also discussed classes and workshops we could perform and some of our ideas of ways to help the center.  They told us that half our day was going to be spent working in the Marqez with the community while the other half would be spent on the survey. It as a great meeting and extremely productive.
  As you can see, my internship is really starting to heat up and I am extremely excited to begin all this work but sad that my leisure time is being cut back.  Oh well, I came out here to work and learn right?  That's what I'm gonna do!

Great News!

  So this actually isn't directly related to my time in Jordan but I am very excited about the news. This weekend I got the following email:

Good afternoon,

This is just a quick and very informal note to let you know your hard work has paid off - you have been awarded a Study Abroad Grant from Phi Kappa Phi, congratulations!

Please notify us as soon as possible of your acceptance of the offer of this grant (an acceptance form is attached for your use).  Please return by June 16.

If you did not send an official letter of acceptance into your study abroad program with your application, you will need to send that letter to Headquarters as soon as possible - checks will not be distributed without an official acceptance letter on file.

Stay tuned for more emails/requests/forms/directions – you name it – to complete this process…but until then – yeah you!

Maria C. Davis

National Marketing Development Manager
The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi

Web     // http://www.PhiKappaPhi.org

Phone // 800.804.9880 x35

Fax      // 225.388.4900

 This means that I have received a thousand dollar grant from a National Honor Society for my time here in Jordan and comes at a great time as I try to crunch numbers and figure out how I am going to afford this trip.  In not too long I will be featured on the following site http://www.phikappaphi.org/Web/Awards/Study_Abroad.html which I think is dang cool.  Anyway, this was simply amazing news that I just received and I am very happy so I thought I would share.  I'm also really  surprised that I got the award, there were over 440 applicants from around the country and only 25 grants!  Yay for good letters of recommendation and help on my essays.