It was the end of a long week and the room was at least eighty degrees. Forty-five girls were slouched together in a semi-circle around the projector. We were in the middle of an afternoon session of Camp GLOW, a week of intense leadership training at a university campus for Jordanian high school girls. We’d just finished watching a TED talk focusing on the work of Sakena Yacoobi, the director of the Afgan Institute of Learning- an organization that created underground schools for girls in Afganistan when girls’ education was banned by the Taliban in the 1990′s.

My friend Alexa was facilitating the discussion and battling the 4pm lull.

“Girls, do you think you have the same opportunities as boys?” They all nodded again. I raised my eyebrows at the other counselors.

“Malak,” I said, pointing to one of the nodders, “What kinds of opportunities do boys and girls both have in Jordan?”

“We can all go to school,” she stated simply.

“And we can all play sports,” chimed in Hiba.

“What else can both boys and girls do in Jordan?” Alexa asked. We got a lot of examples: driving a car, going to college, deciding what to study, choosing a career.

“Alright,” Alexa said, stepping closer to the group, “I want you to stand up if you think you would be allowed to do some of the things I’m about to say, okay? And you can stay sitting if you don’t think you could do those things because you are a girl.” The girls nodded. They follow directions well.

“Most families in Jordan would send their sons to study in America if they got into a university there. Stand up if your parents would let you go to university in America.” Two girls stood.

“Stand if your parents would let you live away from home before you were married.”

“With a relative?” asked Ensam hopefully.

“No, by yourself.” One girl stood.

“Okay. You can play sports in school, right? But boys can play soccer anywhere they want, even in the street. Stand up if your parents would let you play soccer in the street.” No one stood.

“But wait,” said Ensam, “I don’t want to play soccer outside.”

“Why don’t you want to play outside, Ensam?” I asked.

“Because I would be embarrassed. Everyone would look at me. It’s better in the school where it is only girls.”

“But Ensam,” I tried to explain, “if all the girls played soccer in the street, just like the boys, no one would look at you.”

She shook her head. “But girls don’t want to play soccer in the street.”

People in the States say that women in the Middle East are oppressed.  And before I lived in Jordan, I might have said the same thing. But for some reason now, I balk at that word. Maybe it’s because of what Ensam said. Maybe it’s because I’ve lived with these women and I’ve seen their strengths, their skills, their courage. Maybe it’s because when we ask girls here if they have the same rights as boys, they nod. And I think in a lot of ways they’re right- most girls in Jordan are not oppressed. There’s a reason girls don’t play soccer in the street and it’s not because their parents say no. It’s because they don’t want to.

Girls in Jordan don’t play soccer in the street because they don’t want to make a scene. They don’t want to cause a problem. Standing up and being a leader means being looked at. It means being different. I haven’t met very many Jordanian girls who are comfortable being different.

Gender roles are deeply cultural and, for most Jordanians, very closely tied with religion. It is not my job to tell anyone that their perspective is wrong and if I did, I’d be a hypocrite. I’m an unmarried 24 year old with a boy’s haircut and baggy clothes. What do I know about gender roles? Yet somehow 45 Jordanian families have agreed to put their daughters in my care for a week. The very least I can do is respect their perspective. Still, the annual UNICEF report from 2012 showed that the number of Jordanian women who believe that a husband is justified in beating his wife under certain circumstances is 90%. And despite being known as one of the most liberal countries in the Middle East, Jordan has one of the highest rates of honor killings in the world.

These are the problems we are trying to begin solving with Camp GLOW.

“Okay,” Alexa said, “I want to ask you another question now. The girls that Sakena Yacoobi knew in Afganistan were not allowed to go to school, or to even have books. But she helped them go to school anyway, even though it was against the law. If she had been caught, she could have been killed. Why do you think she did it?”

Malak stood up. A crowd of young girls in hijab looked up.

“Because she knew she was right.”

https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=13-440-001.

It felt a little risky, which I guess is ridiculous. But I’ve become protective of myself lately- sticking to the families I know and the routines that I trust. Maybe it’s the gradual wear from a year and a half of being the foreigner, but I guess at least part of me knows now that there’s risk in going to a different vegetable stand, just like there’s risk in sitting in a double seat instead of a single on the bus, or saying hello to a stranger on the street. Some days people are kind and they say hello back. Most days the people in my life are supportive and generous and unbelievably good to me. But on some days strangers look back at me with fear and even anger. Some days they laugh at me. Some days they say things in Arabic that I wish I didn’t understand.

But I’m not making any new friends by sitting in the single seat on the bus and by going to the same vegetable stand every time, so I was glad today when I put my tomatoes on the scale and the man working said hello. I told him that I am American and he told me that he is Syrian. He has lived here for six months. He lived his whole life before that in Dera’a, a place that has now become famous for being the first city to protest in the Syrian uprising. I told him that I used to live in Ramtha, which is 6 kilometers from Dera’a. I used to wake up in the night to the sounds of shelling in his city.

I don’t know what to tell someone whose home has been destroyed.  I told him that I am sorry- something that has never been useful in any culture. But he undercharged me for the tomatoes. His home has been destroyed and he doesn’t know when he’ll be able to go back and he undercharged me for my tomatoes.

I am astonished by the strength that I see around me when I am brave enough to look.

I’m here because I was walking home and they demanded that I sit. This happens regularly in Jordan- among strangers, friends, and family alike. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live in the states if neighbors, grocery store clerks and bus drivers all felt equally comfortable inviting a stranger in for tea. And if the strangers said yes.

We eat cookies and gossip and wave to everyone who walks by. Eventually another member of the club passes by, a hadja with the traditional face tattoos and a heavy embroidered scarf wrapped around her head. My landlady throws out the order- “Taali agrode ma na, tali hone” (“Come sit with us, come here.”) The hadja grumbles, “Lo esh?” (“Why?”) But she’s already through the door. I try to give her my chair but she slaps me on the ass and sits on a crate instead. She is at least 75 years old.

I have an English lesson to teach, grant forms to submit, and laundry to do, but I have no problem sitting here for an hour with these women. This is something I have learned to do, to recognize a good moment when I see it. Maybe it’s because every day here is so filled with extremes- one minute I feel so discouraged or angry I might scream; then a beaming five year old with Down’s Syndrome takes me by the hand and leads me to the playground to push her down the slide. These are the moments that I live for and I think it’s the contrast that really makes me really stop and take notice. To wonder at the goodness, to throw my head back and grin.

The four o’clock call to prayer echos through the streets and I ask my neighbor how her week has been. “Shu akhbarik?” I ask- “What’s the news?” “Hamdilulah,” she says, “Praise God.” She’s my favorite neighbor- always grinning at me and forcing me into her house for cookies when I walk by. A few months ago her husband died unexpectedly of cancer. I visited her a few days before his death and I saw her kiss the top of his head as she walked past his bed. She stayed in the house for 40 days of mourning after his death, but now that spring has come she is out under the blue sky with the rest of us. She turns to me and says, “Alei birda bayeesh.”- “Whoever is content will live.”

We turn our faces up to the sun.

I know it’s February, but it’s time to talk about camp. Actually, I haven’t stopped talking about camp (more specifically, Camp GLOW- Girls Leading Our World), since last summer, when I hung out with 40 amazing young Jordanian women for a week at Mutah University. Every year these girls apply to camp from all over Jordan and are selected by Peace Corps volunteers based on their English language skills and leadership potential. The camp is conducted entirely in English, and the program focuses on  the leadership skills and dialogue important and relevant to girls growing up in Jordan.

Camp GLOW has been a part of Peace Corps worldwide since 1995. The program was developed by a group of volunteers in Romania and has since been implemented by 60 Peace Corps countries throughout the world. Every country has a different interpretation of GLOW- in some countries the program runs multiple times throughout the summer and in others it runs for just one week. In some countries girls are educated on subjects like HIV/AIDS prevention and in others they discuss women’s’ development in the workplace or their cultures’ perception of beauty compared to what they’ve seen in magazines or on television. In every country girls and women have different struggles, different challenges, different perspectives on what it means to be a woman in a growing world. What unites GLOW worldwide is its commitment to the development of skills all women need to grow into strong leaders in their communities: self-care, trust-building and teamwork, creativity and perspective taking. and community involvement.

I was struck by my experience with GLOW last July, and since then I’ve been working with a few other volunteers to expand the program beyond the one week program at a university. Girls who want to participate in GLOW face a number of obstacles- not only does the current program require girls to have excellent speaking skills in English, but they also have to be willing to leave their homes and families and travel to a place they’ve never seen before to spend a week with complete strangers.  Most teenage girls in Jordan have never spent a single night away from their families. For the past few months I’ve been working on a project that will help remove some of the obstacles GLOW applicants face by bringing the camp curriculum to villages around Jordan. Together with a group of volunteers I’ve created a program called Day GLOW, which matches the goals and curriculum used in the university camp, but that can be  led in Arabic by volunteers all over Jordan at a village level. Two weeks ago with the help of four other volunteers, I put the program to the test- and despite a number of issues (we may or may not have conducted the entire camp in another volunteer’s living room, for example), it was a clear success.

I’ll be spending the next few months taking steps to make the program available to other volunteers- writing a manual, putting together powerpoint slides, and materials and leading a workshop for volunteers who will then be ready to put on Day GLOW from villages all over Jordan. It’s been very exciting to see all of this begin to take shape, especially because I know these girls and I know how much opportunities like GLOW can change lives. In the words of one camper last summer, ”I will close my eyes and I will think of my future as a leader, then I will open my eyes and I will realize that it isn’t a dream because I know that women can do everything.”

I spent my first week in America doing laundry every day, just because I could. I took two showers a day. I ate anything and everything I wanted at any and all times- because I could also drive anywhere I wanted at all times! Around 5pm on the first day I started checking the sky for signs of approaching sunset, calculating how much time I had before I’d need to head home before dark. And then I realized that in America there were absolutely no limits to my travel. I found excuses to drive places at night- the gas station, the grocery store- just because I could.

I ate waffles. In public.

And then there were the social rules that I no longer had to follow. I realized I was getting anxious every time I entered someone’s house and it was because I hadn’t taken my shoes off at the door. But of course there was no need- no one was praying on that carpeting. I spent the first week flinching at proximity to men and avoiding eye contact, and it occurred to me that in Jordan I hardly ever look anyone directly in the eye. We don’t eat at tables- we sit on the floor in a circle. We don’t sit on couches or chairs- we lean on cushions against the walls. We hardly ever find ourselves directly facing one another, which makes a lot of sense given the less-than-confrontational nature of Arab culture. But in the states confrontation is built into the furniture. Restaurant booths made me uneasy. So did subway cars and kitchen tables. But after about a week I started to get comfortable. True to the 22 years I spent in the states before I became an honorary Jordanian, I put all the rules and habits and customs I’d picked up in the past year on the back-burner and fell right back into a lifestyle that was undeniably much easier than I’d remembered. Within two weeks I was hugging my uncles and leaving my shoes on.

It’s of course been much harder to adjust in the other direction- to return to the culture that’s only been mine for a year. I stumble over basic phrases and kiss people too many or too few times and on the wrong cheek. I make accidental eye contact with bus drivers. I keep telling everyone that my body’s in Jordan but my mind hasn’t caught up yet- it’s still in America, or at best drifting somewhere out over the Atlantic. But my friends and neighbors are patient with me, just as they always have been. “Shway shway,” they tell me- “Little by little.”

And of course things do move slower here. I spent my first day back in village covered in blankets on the floor of my landlords’ living room, watching old movies with the family and listening to the wind sweeping against the windowpanes. Today I ventured out to hang up my laundry and found the sun shining. I brought out a blanket and ended up on the roof for most of the afternoon, reading and listening to the music wafting up from the street. After awhile my neighbor’s daughters spotted me from the rooftop where they’d been doing the same. They hopped over the dividing concrete and settled in for the day, the older one reading the Qur’an and the younger ones swinging from the rebar like monkey bars. The sun sank down over the mountains and we practiced making shadow puppets against the low walls of the rooftop.

In that moment it seemed completely impossible that a week ago I was drinking Jamba Juice and driving a car down the freeway, steering with one hand. But I am not interested in living in two worlds at once. I am here now, all of me out on this roof with these children who are my neighbors, our hands determinedly forming the vague shadows of a camel, a rooster and a spider against the cinderblocks. The sun sinks low behind our backs, 7 thousand miles away from where it will set again, 11 hours later, over the town where I was born.

I knew we were approaching Eid again this year when I started seeing sections of the sooq in my village and the nearby cities fenced off and filled with brightly marked cattle. At my center we got ready the week before by making these cards:

And by talking about it endlessly.

Everybody gets pretty excited about the whole process and just about everybody comes out to watch the sacrifice in the early morning on the first day of Eid- even the youngest kids. Most Jordanians I know are a lot more comfortable  than Americans with seeing animals killed before they’re eaten, which seems admirable to me (although I was not at all disappointed that my landlord’s family skipped the sheep this year).

I woke up at dawn on the first day of Eid to the chanting of the Takbir (the traditional Eid prayer) that was played over loudspeakers from the mosque across the street from my house. The prayer went on for two hours and it sounded like this. After the prayer ended there was a sermon (also played on loudspeakers) and after everybody finished praying, the sacrifices went down. My landlord’s family didn’t buy a sheep this year, so they got their meat personally delivered by a tiny girl in an impeccable white dress, heels, and frilly socks who came running into the house to hand my landlady a large transparent bag filled with bloody lamb.

At around 9am the family visits started. The procedure for visits on Eid is the same, except that everybody buys new fancy clothes and gets all dressed up, especially the kids. I definitely saw significantly more rhinestones, clip-on ties, and hair gel than usual. The kids run around to all the adults with hands outstretched, because it’s tradition to give out money to children during Eid. The kids then turn around and spend it on huge amounts of candy, chips, and toy guns, which pretty much lays out the entertainment for the rest of the day. I hung out and ate sweets and got wired on Arabic coffee with the moms pretty much the whole first day, and on the second and third days I visited my host family from my training village.

This is what we do.

The whole experience is pretty overwhelming (albeit delightful), and after three days of marathon visiting and way too much caffeine I was about ready to return to normal life. But even so, when I sat upstairs with my landlady and her daughters, just talking and watching the kids run around (and shoot plastic guns) I was struck by how quickly they’ve become my family in the past two months and how readily they welcomed me into this tradition that means so much to them. So Eid mubarak (happy Eid!), everybody.

These days I am a bus-monitor, an artist, a therapist, a camp counselor, an environmental educator, an English teacher, a builder of playgrounds, a dreamer of project after project after project. I am vastly unqualified for most of the work that I do here and that’s something I’ve grown startlingly comfortable with. These days when anyone asks me for anything I say yes out of reflex and trust that my lack of experience will be balanced out by endless enthusiasm and the ability to Google what I don’t know. I have, of course, failed or been shot down many, many times. There have been plenty of occasions when I’ve tried and failed, when my assumptions have been proven wrong, when I’ve looked around me and wondered how in the world I ended up in this strange little village in the middle of a desert. There are moments every day when I know for certain that I will never understand this place completely. But living in Jordan has only increased my willingness to accept what I don’t know, to say yes, to offer what I can and to be glad for what I am given.

I learned from the start that I have to trust the people around me. How can I live any other way, with all these mysteries around me every day? Why did school start an hour late today? Why do all the falafel shops close at night during Ramadan? Why do we leave cats in the garbage cans and hand-feed the pigeons? Why did my bus driver bring me pistachio ice cream at 7:30am  this morning? Why is everyone so obsessed with John Cena and Titanic? And of course, whenever I am invited anywhere- Where are going and who will we see and when will we get back? Most of the time no one has an answer for me. A year ago this was a problem, but lately I’m okay with it. The difference isn’t that I’ve gotten better at Arabic or that I know more about the culture or that I’ve built stronger relationships with the people around me (although I’m happy to say that all of those things are true). The difference is that at some point during the past year I stopped needing an answer. These days I put on my shoes and grab my bag and get in the car- because I’ll find out where we’re going when we get there.

So happy one year anniversary to all my fellow J15 volunteers. Here’s a photo montage so we can all get sentimental.

It was a long, dry summer. We saw tremendous joy and tremendous pain. We worked in 100 degree weather and fasted during the longest days of Ramadan in 33 years. We watched as the riots and war and fighting broke out all around us and, like everyone else, we tried to do the best we could. But today we threw our heads back and were soaked in the rain of the new season and it felt, just as it always does, like a benediction.

Every day after work I go upstairs for lunch and visit with whoever happens to be there at the time, playing with their children or helping them with their English homework. I live underneath the kingpins of the village- the former mayor and founder of the special education center where I work, his wife, and their thirteen adult sons and daughters, some of whom live in conjoined apartments and others who live with their husbands or wives in other parts of the village or in nearby cities. They cycle through the family compound with their husbands, wives, and children, and I still have yet to meet everyone in the family or to figure out who exactly lives where. I smile and kiss cheeks and memorize the names that I can, and I’m welcomed by everyone I meet. A few days ago I walked out to the street to take out the garbage and a little boy ran up to me in the dark, handed me a pomegranate, and ran away. These are the kinds of things that happen to me now.

We sit for hours drinking tea and eating fresh fruit from the grape vines and fig trees and most of all we talk. My village is filled with people who love to learn, and because my center is run by Abu Yassar and his children, the whole family is very invested in the work I’m doing here. They want to know what I think of special education in Jordan and how it compares to the U.S. They have question after question about my impressions of the center and my ideas for the students and teachers. And just as much as they love asking me questions they love making me a part of their lives. Last night we sat for hours on the roof picking the stems from a crop of raisins as the sun set over the mountains. They laughed as I stared out at the sun setting over the valley. It’s normal to them of course- this beauty all around them. But I’m the foreigner and so I sat there stunned as I have so many times before- the call to prayer echoing over the valley and the trees and the mountains red in the setting sun. You know it happens every night, they say laughing. It happens every night, and I’ll be here to see it for another year.

I’ve been wandering a lot these past few weeks, and this week I’m helping out with a friend’s Brain Camp in her village in the south of Jordan. It’s about a six hour trip total from the site where I’ve been staying to my friend’s village, so I was in for a long day. I got on the bus, found a window seat, crammed myself around my backpack and the seat jutting backward into my knees, and settled in to a solid iPod bus-daze. Just before we were about to leave a woman in niqab sat down next to me with her two-year-old son on her lap. He was about the age where a kid can only handle being in one body position/location for about three and a half minutes, so as soon as we’d pulled out of the station he had squirmed out of her lap and out on to the aisle of the bus. He spent the next hour or so roaming from seat to seat, touching peoples’ various limbs and bags with the perfect indiscretion of a toddler. Pretty soon he was being casually passed from lap to lap, and he ended up in the arms of the passenger in front of me, an older man dressed in traditional bedouin thobe who was perfectly content to bounce this stranger’s child up and down on his knee and feed him date cookies.

I’ve been watching this kind of thing happen for ten months now and I guess most of the time I’m used to it. To be honest, lately I’ve been in my own head so much I haven’t noticed much of anything at all. But right then I sat there awestruck by the community around me, these people who in 100 degree weather on a cramped, dirty bus will open their arms to a stranger’s child covered in cookie crumbs. I sat there on the bus as the olive orchards and mountainsides passed me by and stared at that old man and that little boy and I fell in love with this country all over again. I felt a tap on my arm and turned to find his mother pouring out a plastic cup of water from the liter she’d taken from her purse. She held it out to me and then I heard her murmur the words I knew she’d say, the ones I’ve heard hundreds, maybe thousands of times in the months that I’ve lived here: ”Welcome to Jordan.”

Peace Corps has ten core expectations for volunteers, and when I swore in to serve in Jordan eight months ago, I agreed to hold myself to those standards. The one most often on my mind lately is number three: “Serve where Peace Corps asks you to go, under conditions of hardship if necessary, and with the flexibility needed for effective service.” I’m not a martyr, and I didn’t come to Jordan to complain. I expected the kind of hardship Peace Corps told me to be prepared for: to be cold, hungry, sick, confused, harassed, and degraded, and I expected to meet those challenges “with the flexibility needed for effective service.” I expected hardship during my service. I just didn’t expect hardship that would break my heart.

I didn’t get to say goodbye to the kids at my center or the teachers, and I didn’t make it over to any of my neighbors’ houses either. When Peace Corps told me I needed to move permanently from my site, I had one day to pack everything and leave. Of course I’m planning to visit as soon as I can, but there’s something startling and strange to think about going back as a visitor to the house that was once my home and the school where I once worked. I’m sure I’ll get used to it, and I’m sure that when Peace Corps does find me a new site, it will become my home too. But for now I can’t shake the look on Om Yazzim’s face as she helped me pile my belongings into the truck- it was the exhausted look of a mother who’s said goodbye too many times. She kept coming out with more things to give me- pots and pans, farshas, pillows and several blankets; she insisted that it might be cold where I was going. Then, when everything was in the truck (half of it hers ten minutes before), she kissed my cheeks the way we do in Ramtha- once to the right and three times to the left. Then she stood in the driveway, the tears rolling down her face, and waved to me until I was gone.

I’m going to go somewhere else now, somewhere where the Arabic will be a little different, the cooking a little off, where undoubtedly there will be a new pattern for how to kiss people hello and goodbye. And I’ll learn it all, because I’m going where Peace Corps asks me to go. I care about my work  and I love Jordan too much to give up now. But no matter how much I learn to love my new village, I will always remember the home I had in Ramtha and the family I still have there. And when I see Om Yazzim and her family, my students and teachers, and my neighbors again, I will kiss them once on the right and three times on the left- because I am from Ramtha and I will never forget.

No one seems sure how long I’ll be away from my site or even if I’ll be allowed to go back at all. We’re all hoping the situation in Syria will become less violent- for the sake of the Syrian people, the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have been displaced from their homes, and the neighboring countries who are now experiencing strained resources and violence as a result. Even now when I am further removed from the border I see Syrian children at the bus stations and on street corners, begging for money and food, tugging at my hands or my purse and crying “masaari, money.” It’s hard for me to be away from home right now. I miss my bed, my fields to run in, my work, and my community. I don’t like being uprooted this way, with no knowledge of when I’ll be allowed to return. But if it’s hard for me to be here- safe, well-fed, and comfortable in the home of one of my closest friends, I can only imagine how it feels to be a refugee right now. I can only imagine how it must feel to awake in the night to the sound of gunshots from the north and to hope every day for news of resolution, for the chance to return home once again.

Brain Camp was designed by a couple of Peace Corps volunteers here in Jordan to encourage students to practice the kinds of thinking skills that aren’t frequently taught here- things like problem-solving, planning, creativity, and opinion formation. The kids spend the week learning and practicing these skills through games, activities, and art projects, and at the end of the week they work in teams to come up with their own creative solution to a real life problem- the  water shortages here in Jordan. You can read more about the Brain Camp program and the educational needs it addresses in this delightful New York Times article.

When I first started planning for the camp I was worried that the kids wouldn’t be interested- most American kids I know would not be that enthusiastic about spending a week of their summer learning critical thinking skills. But these girls really surprised me. Not only did we get two times the number of girls we expected, but most of them arrived early every day, listened to the presentations with attention and respect (some of them even took notes!), and appeared to be having the time of their lives the whole week. I guess to kids that have spent most of their education practicing rote memorization and repetition a week of wacky games and learning can seem really exciting and fun. It was wonderful spending time with these girls. Their commitment, respectfulness, and sense of fun were a joy to take part in.  I can’t wait to do it again next summer.

We’ve all been a little crazy around here the last few weeks- I guess it’s something to do with the fact that pretty soon people we love will drop out of the sky into our arms. My landlady seems delighted and also very anxious about the whole thing, and I guess my feelings are about the same. Turns out, cultural differences or not, we express those feelings in the same way- by cleaning everything in sight. I guess it has to do with having all these huge, crazy feelings of joy and wanting to show them somehow. There’s no way Om Yazzim’s daughter would ever show up demanding freshly mopped floors and squeaky clean toilets, and maybe she won’t even notice. But my landlady and I can’t stop ourselves- we need to get our worlds ready in whatever way we can.

Today I went upstairs to return some dishes and found Om Yazzim on her hands and knees, scrubbing the floor of the hallway. Her hair was all frizzled and pushed up from her forehead, she was covered in dust and soapsuds, and she was wearing a nightdress that she clearly hadn’t bothered to change out of- probably because she’d been cleaning since she woke up. She told me she was tired from all the work but she still had the bathroom and kitchen to go. She said all of this with a giant grin. I came back up a few hours later (after cleaning my bathroom and kitchen) and we sat in the living room and ate watermelon on the floor in silence (all of the farshas, curtains, and rugs were in the laundry). I guess we both had a lot on our minds. For the past 5 months I’ve spent a lot of quiet meals glancing at Om Yazzim and wondering what she was thinking about. But tonight anybody who’d seen the two of us wouldn’t need to guess- you’ve never seen anyone look so happy while cleaning a toilet.

7am: Wake up, eat breakfast, go for a run in the fields around my house. Try to avoid wild dogs, construction crews, and the shepherds and their herds.

9am: Roll in to my center, say good morning to my mudier, teachers, tea ladies, and bus driver.

9:15am: Go around to all of the classrooms and say hi all of the kids individually to help them practice shaking hands and greetings.

9:30am: Check my schedule and go around to remind teachers whose classrooms I’ll be in that day, make copies and set up whatever I need for that day’s activities. Here’s the schedule I made with my teachers:

I like to follow the schedule when I can, but at least 75% of the time it doesn’t work out that way. The work environment here is a lot more spontaneous and a lot less schedule-driven than my American mind ever assumes, and that’s something that I’ve had to get used to. Today I walked in to my center and everyone was outside sitting on a rug spread out under the trees while the bus driver shook berries out from the branches on to the kids’ heads. So instead of doing worksheets we sat in the shade and ate berries all morning. Not a bad trade-off. I leave Thursdays open for the activities that got post-poned during the week and things tend to work out alright.

Berry picking day is the best.

10am: Snack time! Help pass out falafel sandwiches to the kids and drink tea with the teachers while the kids eat. Try to follow the teachers’ conversations while also trying to keep the kids from taking each others’ sandwiches. Two things usually happen during snack that I love:

1. The kids will all unfailingly drop whatever they’re doing, get out of their seats, shout my name, and wave to me when I come into the snack room. Sometimes they all chant my name in unison and it never fails to make me feel like a complete rockstar.

2. My teachers, bus-driver, and tea ladies are all on a united front to make sure I eat as much as possible every day. Sometimes I get a handful of berries, dates, or even ice cream, but there’s always falafel. There is. always. falafel.

10:30am: Work on materials and worksheets for the teachers, like this:

11:00am: Go to whoever’s class I’m scheduled for and bring worksheets I’ve made  to help with the kids’ IEPs or an activity of some kind. So far I’ve done water-bottle bowling, a couple art projects, play-dough, and simple games like charades, Simon Says and I-spy.

11:30am: Go to the second room I have scheduled that day and bring a worksheet or activity. Here are a couple we’ve done so far:

12:00pm: Go around to each classroom and take the kids who’ve had good behavior that day outside to help feed and play with the rabbits. (We have rabbits now! More on that later.) I’ve been working a lot with the teachers on behavior modification this semester, so I made these charts for their classrooms to help them keep track of the kids’ progress throughout the day:

We go out to the rabbit/pigeon/chicken coop outside, usually all holding hands because my life is adorable. Then the kids help me bring grass in to the rabbits and we spend a couple minutes petting them and talking about how soft they are.

(There are four rabbits, and their names are Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Falafel, and Hummus. The teachers named them.)

12:30-1pm: The bus rolls up and everybody gets ready to leave. The kids love riding on the bus- partly because they are all obsessed with buses and cars in general (obsessed.), and partly because our bus driver is the best. He routinely brings them rabbits, frogs, snakes, baby pigeons, and iguanas.

And that’s pretty much the way things go around here. Here are some other pictures of the other stuff I’ve been making for the center this semester:

As with most things in Jordan, my work at the center is crazy, largely unpredictable, and really, really fun. I mean, how many people get to go to work and pick berries, have dance parties, and pet baby rabbits? As my fellow SPED volunteer Megan said the other day, “I get on the school bus and I just can’t stop smiling. I guess I’m really happy here.”

So after work we convinced the school-bus driver to drop us off at her sister’s house and we spent the afternoon making and eating  lunch and then hanging out and eating ice cream with all the family members that showed up to meet the awkward foreign American. Eventually (after I dropped a lot of hints) all 5 women, 1 man, and 4 children piled into the car to drive up the road and visit the farm. I’d been picturing the whole red barn, rooster on the roof, lots of hay- type scenario, but the reality was a little more business-like:

We took a tour through the building, which was all white tile and giant carts filled with egg trays that, according to our guide (teacher’s sister’s husband Hammud), get tilted at 40 degree angles to the right and then to the left every hour. Then we practiced picking up the eggs with an anxiety-producing suction machine.

And then it was time to move on to the incubation rooms, which were heated at 95 degrees and filled with tiny, fluffy, out-of-this-world-adorable baby chicks packed in floor-to-ceiling stacks of plastic crating. Hammud casually pulled one of them out and plopped it down on the floor.

At which point we all reached in and started to make friends.

After a few minutes of bonding with the most adorable animals on earth it seemed like it might be time to leave, so I started to get up and put my new friends back in their crate. But instead Hammud and the kids all handed more chicks to me (I had like 5 in my hands at this point) and insisted that I take them home to live with me forever. So of course I said yes.

I didn’t consider the fact that I have no experience raising anything ever, that I’d never actually even encountered a baby chick in my life before that day, or that  I own a cat. Whatever, someone had just offered me an armful of baby animals and I wasn’t going to turn them down. So we put them in the trunk and drove home.

The first step when I got home was locking my bloodthirsty, attention-starved cat in the bedroom while I googled the business of raising 5 day-old chicks without any equipment or experience. Fortunately there are a lot of people that have already done this (special thanks to the DIY movement and Barbara Kingsolver), and I was able to figure out pretty much everything that I needed, which included a brooder and a lot of birdseed. so after a little research and a trip to the hardware store in Amman I was able to produce this:

It’s constructed mostly duct-tape, cardboard, and fire-hazards, but the chicks are alive and happy so I’m calling it a success. When they get a little bigger I’m planning to move them to my center so our students can help take care of them. Farming is big out here, so the more skills our kids learn in that department the better. And I guess I’m learning with them.

and I remember one day coming across this sentence: “Visiting is the national pastime of Jordan.”

Kind of a bold statement. Especially if you don’t really know what “visiting” is supposed to mean. But now that I’ve lived here for 5 (close to 6!) months, I get it. Because most Jordanians really do seem to spend the bulk of their free time visiting, hosting visitors, or preparing for visits (i.e., making food) for their family members and neighbors. In Al Manshiya, my training village, that meant that every afternoon and evening would find me on the farshas of someone’s living room, drinking tea and smiling at several people I’d never met before and couldn’t understand. Here in Ramtha I’m on a pretty solid visiting-every-other-day kind of schedule, which is a little more healthy for my personal space. Visiting can last anywhere from 45 minutes to 6 hours to several days, and there’s actually a pretty dependable procedure that’s followed. Here’s the breakdown:

Arrive at someone’s door, pretty much always unannounced. Ring the doorbell, which will unfailingly make a screeching sound like birds mating/fighting.

Kiss the child or woman who answers the door in whatever way your region recognizes as appropriate. In Ramtha it’s your right cheek to their right for one kiss, then three to their left.

Awkwardly remove your shoes on their doorstep while they watch you. Never wear boots unless there’s a side-zipper. (Thank god for the side-zipper.)

Follow your host to whatever room has the soba. Everyone in the room will stand up when you come in, and then you’ll do kisses with all of the women (children are optional but I always kiss them too because it’s the cutest), and mutter all of the appropriate greetings at each other as fast as you can without listening to their responses or providing your own. You’ll talk later, right now you have 5 other women and 3 toddlers to get through. If there are men in the room (which is unlikely because they tend to hide from foreign female visitors), you’ll each put your right hands over your hearts, bow your heads a little at each other, and say “peace be upon you.” But probably there aren’t any men.

Then everyone gets to sit down again on the farshas and you’ll awkwardly arrange yourself so that  your feet aren’t exposed to anyone (it’s an insult!) and your legs are together. Probably you’ll sit with your legs tucked to the side with your feet underneath you, and when you start to get crampy and try to switch sides your hosts will notice and a kindly old woman will bring you a blanket to drape over your feet.

Whoever answered the door will probably leave to make tea, so you’ll feel a little abandoned and exposed. But don’t worry, she’ll return with a plastic tray bearing the teapot, several tiny glass cups, and some kind of slogan in English like, “Tea is for everyday!” or “Crazy for Cafe!” They’ll pour and distribute the tiny cups and it’ll be way to hot to drink or probably to hold, so you’ll put it in front of you on the floor and guard it from roving children.

It’s black tea, kind of weak, with at least 2 cups of sugar for an 18 oz teapot. If it’s not 2 full cups of sugar people will comment. Usually sage goes in the tea, but sometimes they do mint or cinnamon bark (which is the best).

If there are enough people present, conversation will flow naturally about illnesses, meals people have made recently, and things that happened to people you don’t know. You’ll smile benignly and drink. If there are kids you can play with them. If there aren’t that many people around then conversation will be more centered on you, which is harder if you’re like me and not that great at Arabic yet. But after you go on enough visits, you’ll have memorized the questions:

“Where do you live?”

“You live alone??!!!”

“Oh thank God you have a landlady. What food does she make for you?”

“Are you married?”

“No??! Why not??”

“How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

“Only one brother??!!! Why.”

“How old is he and what does he do and where does he live?”

“Are your parents here with you?”

“No??!! Where do they live? How often do you talk to them? When are you going to see them again?”

“What are you doing in Jordan?”

“Which is better, the United States or Jordan?”

The fun part is that if you make it through this battery with one family member, she will provide all of the answers to the next person who asks you (and there will be others). A new family member will walk in halfway through the visit and start in with the first question and your compatriot will put a hand on your shoulder as if to say “You can tap out, I got this,” and then race through all your answers for you as you drink tea and try to overlook the fact that she just said you’re working as a nurse and that you don’t have kids because you’re waiting to find a husband in Jordan (God willing).

It’s all part of the process.

After the tea, there will be a snack- usually dates but sometimes sweets or baklava (or once, Turkish delights! Like in The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe), followed by Turkish coffee (again, the sugar ratio applies).

By this time you’ll probably be ready to go (you’ve been dropping hints about how dark it’s getting and how worried your landlady will be for the past hour), but just as your getting up someone will come out with giant bowls of fruit and several knives, and you will be required to sit back down again. Everyone will eat at least three pieces of fruit. They will peel everything for you, especially after you jump into the apple American-style without cutting it. They will tell you that’s how Tom eats apples on Tom and Jerry.

After three pieces of fruit and probably a glass of juice or Pepsi (pronounced “Bebsi”), you can maybe go home. They will be upset. They will command you to stay and eat more with them and spend the night. You will firmly refuse, because otherwise you will end up moving in with them.

You kiss everyone in the room again, promise to visit again soon, put on your shoes in the doorway while the kids watch and giggle, and you’re on your way.

As you stumble home you realize that both of your legs have fallen asleep from sitting on the ground so long, your stomach is making crazy noises from the inopportune combination of food and carbonation and sugar, and you’re completely wired from all the caffeine. But you’re smiling- because you’re a Jordanian now, and this is your national pastime.

Visiting my host sister with my training group...perfect chaos.

This is my life. When people ask me how I’m doing, I usually just give an answer that reflects the last 20 minutes or so- “I’m good- I just ate some really good falafel with my landlady!” Giving an answer that reflects the whole day’s experiences usually seems daunting. The upside is that I am never, ever bored at work (or any other time I’m away from my apartment). The downside is that so many things happen every day that there’s no way I’ll ever be able to remember them all. But maybe by the end of these 2 years I’ll be completely used to everything that seems so crazy now. I’ll be back in the U.S., drinking endless cups of sugar-tea and flipping open my phone to film strangers on the bus. So when I demand to know where you’re from and everything you’ve recently eaten, be patient with me. I’ve been off in another world.

The day started with a funeral. Everyone arrived at the center, kids went to their classrooms, we drank tea, and so far everything seemed normal. And then all at once all the teachers got up from the table where we were sitting, grabbed their purses and phones, and yelled “yela!” (it means “let’s go.”) I’ve gotten used to the fact that when people say “yela” in Jordan, I have to drop everything and go with them. Most of the time I don’t know where we’re going, but I’ve gotten used to that too. So we all left the center, walked across the street, and were ushered into a house by the 9 year old standing out in front. We walked into someone’s (I still don’t know whose) living room, took off our shoes, and then proceeded to shake hands and kiss everyone in the room. It was a big room, and all four walls were lined with farshas,  and all of the farshas were filled with women.There was about a 6 foot space that was empty, so after the kisses were done all 7 of us squeezed in there. Then we drank Arabic coffee (it tastes like cardamom!) and ate dates and sat in respectful silence for about 25 minutes, after which all of my crew stood up, said “yela!,” shook hands with everyone again, and left.

The kids were waiting for us when we got back. While we were gone they had been eating chips and cookies, getting into fights, falling asleep, and wetting themselves, and I was the only one who was surprised. After some personal hygiene and more tea the teachers and kids gradually divided themselves into classrooms, with some kids still kind of roaming, and I roamed too. I’m supposed to be spending the first month just observing, but that got pretty monotonous after about an hour, so I gave it up and got down on the floor to play with the kids. I also broke up 4 fights, changed the pants of two different children, repaired a backpack, and wiped more noses and opened more chip bags than I can remember. At some point in the day the teachers all shouted “yela!” again, and we all went into the mudier’s office for a meeting.

The bus driver had apparently taken a bag of dates from the funeral (or it was a gift?), so we drank tea and ate those and stood around while everyone talked about how cold it is. I’ve had to work pretty hard to adjust to the accent here in Ramtha (they add a lot of b’s and ch’s to everything), but after a month I’ve gotten a lot better at understanding people. The problem is that understanding someone in a conversation is different from trying to follow what 10 different people are saying when they’re talking over each other. So I lost track of things (still not sure what the meeting was even about), and during the whole thing one of the kids wandered in- a little girl with Down’s Syndrome who I’d met earlier. The office is pretty small and seating is limited, so all 10 of us were crowded in a circle around the mudier’s desk, and this kid somehow kind of wedged herself into the middle of that circle. I gave her a handful of dates and even though a couple of teachers told her to leave, no one seemed particularly bothered that she was there. So she stayed, and just kind of bumped around from person to person while the meeting went on. Every time she found herself in front of someone new she would hold her hands out to them, tilt her head a little to the side, and just stare at them in this sweet wide-eyed way, just taking it in. After awhile I gave up trying to understand what everyone was saying and just sat watching this kid, and wondering if she and I didn’t look about the same to the 9 other people standing around us. And I think even if I spend the next 2 years wandering from one place to the next, confused as shit, I’d like to do it just like her, with my arms out and my eyes wide open.

Just so we’re clear, no one owns cats in Jordan. No one even likes cats in Jordan. When told my landlady I wanted to get a cat, she was horrified and confused. So it was reasonable for me to assume that this cat didn’t have an owner….apparently I just happened to try to adopt the one cat in Jordan that already had a home? This could only happen to me.

Anyway, I apologized to the poor kid and gave him his cat back, and probably it would have ended there, with that being his first (and possibly only) impression of Americans- people who try to steal your cats. But his mom was watching the whole thing from the roof and just about dying with laughter, so she invited me in. I gave them some of the cookies I’d just bought and apologized a lot, and then the five other children who live there popped out of the back rooms to start building farsha forts, wrestling on the floor, and having jousting contests with the broken curtain rods lying on the floor. Basically it was a scene of perfect chaos, and their mom and I sat on the floor drinking Turkish coffee and eating cookies while she told me about how much she loves yoga (??!!), and how great my Arabic is.

And that’s how I made friends with my neighbors.

Me with my landlady and my new tutor!

My center is closed right now for winter break, so I’ve been spending the last two weeks wandering around Ramtha, getting to know my way around the city and the area where I live. I’ve also been working pretty hard to get to know my neighbors, which has been a little challenging…because I don’t have a lot of neighbors. I love being out in the farmlands, but farms are big, and far apart. I have maybe 4 families who live a walkable distance from me, and I’ve visited 3 out of the 4 so far. People out here keep to themselves a little more than what I’ve seen in other Jordanian communities, and that’s  a little disappointing to me, especially when I hear from my friends at other sites who have people knocking on their doors all day long- neighbors who offer unceasing invitations and visits and support. But I love the people I’ve met here so far, and I love where I am. So I guess I’m okay with my level of community looking a little different from the rest.

And I get to look at this every day:

“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge my duties in the Peace Corps, so help me God.”

And now I’m a volunteer.

We’d already done the goodbyes the night before, when all my sisters came over and made me Kipsa (my favorite- chicken, raisins, almonds)- and made sure to get my address (both Jordanian and American) and to insist that they’re all coming to Ramtha ASAP to visit. It was a really nice way to say goodbye, and I got to see everyone I’d wanted to for the last time. I’d packed everything the night before, but in the morning the bus honked outside a little early, while we were still finishing breakfast in front of the soba. I scrambled to get everything ready, and my host mom helped me grab all my stuff (really she carried most of it) and we got out the door and across the street before she said “But Maggie- I made chai!” I apologized and said all the things I had to say, that I’d miss her and that I’d see her in a couple days for swearing in, that I’d visit in a few months. But I couldn’t come back in to drink her tea. And it kills me even now to think of Om Ahmed walking back to the house alone to drink a full pot of chai by herself.

There are few people I know who’d be willing to open their homes to a stranger for 2 months, let alone someone who can barely communicate with them. My host mother and sisters are some of the kindest people I’ve ever met, and they’ve made my first 2 months in Jordan feel like home. I’m excited to swear in, to move to Ramtha, and to start work at my site. I’m going to spend two years in Ramtha and I know that will be the place that defines my service here. But I’ll never forget my first home here, or the family that was good enough to call me their daughter before I’d even learned their names.

On the first day of Christmas, Peace Corps gave to me…

A soba* with a gas tank

2 jars of peanut butter, and a soba with a gas tank

3 phone cards, 2 jars of peanut butter, and a soba with a gas tank

4 ugly sweaters, etc.

5 mansef platters

6 turkish coffees

7 bedouin scarves

8 Arabic flashcards

9 language tutors

10 Good Time bars

11 bags of pita

12 cups of chai

AND A SOBA WITH A GAS TANK.

*a soba is a giant and slightly dangerous gas or wood-powered stove that heats the room in Jordanian homes

Merry Christmas, everybody! I’ve never spent a Christmas in closer proximity to Bethlehem and further from my family. I’ve never had a Christmas day that started with an Arabic lesson and a 2 hour training on mandated reporting and ended in a 90’s dance party. And I’ve never eaten my Christmas Eve dinner at a United States embassy, or cried during a group viewing of A Muppet Christmas. I’ve never had a Christmas like this one, and overall it was a pretty weird and wonderful holiday- like most of my experiences here in Jordan. It was hard being away from friends and family…harder even than I thought it would be. I think all of us felt it the most on Christmas morning, when we were dragging through another day of training when all we wanted was to open presents and sing carols and be around the people we love. But sometimes it takes a really tough emotional experience to remind you of the community you have around you.  I know that was really true for me these past few days. So I’m thankful for my friends and family here in Jordan, and even more thankful for the people supporting me back home. Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and thanks for the love, everybody.

After the party at the center I got to check out my future apartment, which is the bottom floor of a big house about a block away from my center. I’ll be living underneath my landlady and her family, all of whom seem like lovely people. They introduced themselves, explained that I was their new daughter, and promptly made me mansef. I’m really happy to be living under a family, especially since the area where I’m living is really rural and spread out, so I think I’d have a hard time meeting people if I wasn’t directly underneath a family already. I like the area a lot though. I’m about a 20 minute walk from the city of Ramtha, out in the farmlands where things are a lot quieter and also prettier. My apartment is super small, but it’s got a kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, so there’s nothing to complain about really. And I’m less than a five minute walk from work, which is a bonus. 2 more weeks of training and then I swear in and get to move to this lovely place!

When I got home my host family fed me again (so much food, always.), and I found out that one of my host sisters who was two months pregnant had had a miscarriage while I was gone this week. I was really really sad to hear that. Lana is one of my favorite host sisters…she’s always trying to help me with my Arabic and she’s really funny and kind of sarcastic, which of course I love. Sometimes she just looks at me from across the room when everyone’s talking in Arabic and we both laugh because it’s clear that I understand nothing. She’s great like that. Anyway, after dinner all of the women went over to Lana’s house together to visit. There were a lot of women already there, including another couple of other volunteers and their host sisters and moms. Lana was sitting on one of the farshas in the middle of the room with lots of blankets, and we all sat around her and drank tea and said nice things to her. I sat with the other two volunteers and the three of us hung out and did the best we could to follow the conversation. From what I could understand, all the women were telling stories about their pregnancies and their daughters’ pregnancies and miscarriages, and giving all kinds of advice on what to do and eat during pregnancy…(Apparently the secret is a spoonful of olive oil a day, and lots of apples). A couple of the women had brought their kids along, and we just sat around comforting each other and drinking tea while the kids ran around and played on the farshas and watched cartoons. And I know it was a really sad occasion, but I was surrounded by all these women and children that I’ve gotten to know and really love this past month- and they were supporting each other and showing their love just by sitting there with Lana when she needed them. And right then and there I just felt really at home.

Om Ahmed and I headed back home with my host sisters and their kids around 8- and because it’s a new moon right now I could see a ton of stars out there on the edge of the village. And while I was staring up at the sky I saw a shooting star streak across the sky. I didn’t make a wish or anything (because supposedly I’m an adult). But it still felt special- the same way it did when I was a little kid in my sleeping bag staring up at the sky. And this was a weird Thanksgiving, maybe the weirdest I’ll ever have. But somehow way out here in the middle of the desert with all these people I only met a month ago, it still felt special, and it felt a little like home.

So if while you’re reading about squat toilets and mansef you feel the need for some good old fashioned 1st world problems to balance it all out, you now have that option. Get your peanut butter ready.

Life in Al Manshiyah is beautiful and confusing and crazy and difficult and really fun. My host family continues to be awesome. My host mom and brother have taken to wisking me away on mystery field trips on the weekends…last week they took me on a crazy, rambling adventure searching out the ruins of ancient Bedouin villages in the countryside. We ended up getting lost several times and then ending up in a family’s back yard exploring the mosaics embedded into the stone walkways around their house. And then their kids led us down the road a ways where there was an archeological preserve, I think from the ruins of a Byzantine church. It was locked, but my host brother gave them some candy from his car and they ran away to their dad and came running back laughing with the keys five minutes later. Jordan. So we got to go tramping around these ancient ruins and took lots of dramatic pictures of me next to crosses and mosaics and whatever else we could find to document. Overall it was a pretty great day.

So much has happened since I last posted that it’s hard to even know what to write…I guess I’ll just start with the last few days. This past week was olive picking week- the whole village brought out these old rickety wooden ladders and climbed up into the trees with their families and just picked the trees clean. I was up there in the trees with my host family and my brothers’ and sisters’ kids, who all thought it was hilarious that I know how to climb a tree. And since I’m taller than any of my family members, I helped out a lot with the higher branches. By the end of every day the tarps on the ground were covered with green and brown olives that everyone ended up stepping on a little and later got smashed up into olive oil for the whole year. It’s the best olive oil I’ve ever had too- partly because I know it came from my backyard, but also because it has this really rich woody flavor that goes well with leban, a thick creamy yogurt we eat all the time on bread. Olive oil and bread are the two staple foods here- that and tea, which is served about 10 times a day. They boil the water with at least a full cup of sugar already in it, and sometimes they put cinnamon in the pot with more sugar when they serve it, which is delightful. And last week when I was vomiting my life away they gave me tea with sage leaves in it, which actually helped a lot.

Oh yeah, so I was crazy sick last week. It was disgusting and awful, but the whole experience is kind of funny in retrospect.. I got home from a late session on…maybe Saturday night? I never know what day it is ever. Anyway, I wasn’t feeling so good, like maybe I had a fever. And of course everyone in my family was over and we all proceeded to eat mansef on the floor together (minsus the kids, who had their own section) and the power went out. I got out my flashlight and donated it to the main room like the good little Girl Scout that I am, but pretty soon I started to feel really sick. So I tried to help clear the bones off of the floor mats and take in plates, but I was feeling really dizzy and horrible, so I kind of felt my way into the bathroom and next thing I knew I was vomiting into the Turkish toilet in the dark. So there I was, sprawled out on the wet floor in my giant Jordanian bathroom sandals, vomiting in the darkness on my knees.  It was a moment of existential reckoning.

So I crawled back to my room in the dark and spent most of last week in bed- I had to skip training at the university because I couldn’t move, and that’s actually why I haven’t posted in so long. I was busy vomiting. But now I’m all better (Al Hamdilulah!) and life is good. This week I’m visiting another volunteer and then finding out my site placement, so exciting things are happening in my world. Hopefully by the time I post again I’ll know where I’m spending the next 2 years! Love you all and happy Thanksgiving to all of you wonderful people back home. Eat some pumpkin pie for me, okay?

EXAMPLE TIME! The second night at my homestay we went to visit one of my host sisters and she promptly baked me a cake and gave me the following gifts: one of her shirts, a new purse, pictures of her and all of her children (which she tore out of the photo album in front of me), and a can of deodorant (that one was weird, but so nice!). Yesterday night another one of my host sisters and a couple of the brothers sat down with me and straight up taught me all of the words for all of the objects in the living room. They also decided that the notecards I’d made for the alphabet were insufficient, and proceeded to make me a new set with pictures of all of the words that started with each respective letter. Sometime maybe I’ll post pictures of them…they’re a work of art. And everyone is so concerned for me and my personal safety! They always want to know where I’m going and when I’ll be back, and I think they’re pretty much scheduling the family meals around my class schedule. They also gave me the biggest room in the house to sleep in, which has the only real bed. My host sister is now sleeping on a couple farshas (kind of like mattress pads?) on the floor of the living room.

And the childen! They’re everywhere, and every time I think I’ve met all of them more come out of the woodwork! All of the families live in homes that they built around the mom’s house, so the kids just wander freely from house to house and climb all over and build farsha forts and eat things and play in the mud. It’s basically every kid’s dream, and I’m loving hanging out with them. They’re also really intent on teaching me Arabic, which is great because I’m pretty much on the same level as the 2 year olds. We do a lot of counting to 10 together and practicing our letters…when we get it right all the uncles and aunts clap.

Anyway, my host family is everything I ever could have hoped for and I’m really really happy to be hanging out with them for the next couple months. I can’t imagine a better way to learn about this culture, and I basically never want to leave. Al Hamdilulah!

mansef hands

Tomorrow morning we’ll find out what villages we’re being placed in for the rest of training…not sure if we’ll find out who are host families are or not. Either way we’re moving in with them on Thursday and I’m VERY excited. I really hope they have kids…I think I’m about on the conversational level of a 2 year old right now, so it’ll be perfect. After we move in with our families the rest of our training is focused on language lessons for 4-6 hours a day in small groups in the villages. They’ll bus us into Mafraq for our specialty trainings 2 days a week, so that’s probably the only internet I’ll be seeing for the next couple months (although most sites are blocked here at the university…gmail (sans gchat) and wordpress seem to be the only exceptions). We also get to start doing site visits in our villages next week, which means I get to hang out at a special education center every afternoon. Training is a lot of language and culture orientation and  it can be really draining…sometimes it’s hard not to get overwhelmed with all the things I don’t know. I end up falling into this weird “trainee” mindset and forgetting the reason I’m here- because I have skills that I can use to help other people. I think getting into a center and seeing what I can do to help will go a long way.

the citadel!

It’s been really really hard saying goodbye to everyone these past few weeks. I’ve pretty much been a crazy emotion-monster.  Even with all the goodbyes though, it still didn’t seem real somehow that I was leaving…like I was only hypothetically joining the Peace Corps? I don’t know, it was trippy. I guess you can’t really process or even imagine an experience this weird until it happens. But when I watched my dad walk away in the airport it really hit me that this will be the longest I’ve ever gone without seeing him or talking to him. And that’s true for Everyone. I. Know. Needless to say, I ended up doing a walk-and-sob through airport security, which was probably really uncomfortable for everyone around me who just didn’t understand the kind of emotional precipice I was teetering over. And I might have left my waterbottle on the plane and started tearing up when the flight attendants couldn’t find it and wouldn’t let me go back onto the empty plane to look for it (really though, I loved that waterbottle, and where am I going to get another Juan & Maria’s Empanada Stand sticker?! Not in Jordan.) Anyway I got through okay and ended up in the right place…and I think that’s pretty much going to be gold standard for me this week. To quote my mom (which hopefully won’t make me cry), “Inch by inch, life’s a cinch. Yard by yard, life’s REAL hard.”

So that’s out of the way.

My name is Maggie, I’m 22 years old (and I’ll be writing this blog until I’m 24. Oh god.), and I’m starting service in the Peace Corps on October 21st. I’ll be serving in Jordan as a Special Education volunteer. Right now I have 41 days until I leave for Jordan and I’m alternating between being really excited and really really scared. I guess that’s normal? Anyway people keep asking me if I’ll have a blog, so here it is.

I’m pretty sure I’ll have more interesting things to write about soon…but until then you can look forward to updates on packing, taking the GRE, and waiting waiting waitinggggggggggggggg.

Enjoy!