We still need some help

My center has written a grant to build a playgound for the kids. If you are interested in donating, pleast visit:

My project

You can donate right from the website using a credit card, or mail a check to the address listed on the page. Donations are tax deductible and all of the money goes directly to my project.

Thank you sooooo much!!

MSC

So in the middle of Operation Smile, I had to leave for three days in order to attend our Mid-Service Conference (MSC). It was a chance for the J10s to get together and celebrate our accomplishments over the past year. It was the first time we have all been together in an official capacity since swearing in (our in-service trainings were done by sector, so we weren’t all together). The conference was held down in the Eco-lodge at Dana, which was an absolutely amazing site. It doesn’t have electricity and all of the food is vegetarian (a nice change from trying to pick out small pieces of meat in all my food!) In order to get down into the lodge, we did a 13 km hike (luckily it was all down hill and through the flat valley, since I am horribly out of shape!) We had some productive sessions on projects for the next year and even had the chance to play a game of American football (my team won). It was a really good self-esteem booster and got me excited for the next 9 months in country. I can’t believe how fast my service is going! There is a saying in Peace Corps that the days go by incredibly slowly, but the weeks and months fly by, and I am definitely finding that to be true!

Atheer and Sa'ad

One of the most amazing things about being in the hospital and hotel with the patients and their families for ten days is the opportunity to hear their stories. Of our patients quickly became the darling of the media because of his heartbreaking story. The patient, Sa’ad is ten years old and in addition to being born with a cleft palate, he was born with his bladder on the outside of his body. (I never got a chance to see what had been done with this, but I know he needs some more surgeries to fully correct it). He was brought to Jordan by a younger looking guy, who I later found out was his brother. Sa’ad’s family consists of 12 children, with Atheer, the brother who brought him, being the oldest male. His age is up for dispute since he told the media 15, 16, and 17 and told the females in the hotel 20, but needless to say, he was a pretty young guy. His mother is very sick and isn’t able to care for the kids so Atheer, as the oldest male has been providing for the family. Last year his father and six other men from their village were taken and only their heads were returned. So Atheer has the responsibility of caring for twelve children, a sick mother, and a younger brother with a cleft palate and his bladder on the outside of his body, all while surviving in Baghdad. He does this with a poise I have never seen before. I am happy to report that Sa’ad’s surgery went amazingly well, and while we weren’t able to provide the surgery for his bladder in Jordan, he will fly to Kurdistan later this month to receive the surgery there.

The Queen

This year was the 25^th anniversary of Operation Smile, and because of this there were camera crews all over! The first day of operations (for our patients at least) was probably the craziest because Queen Rania (wife of King Abdullah the 2^nd, King of Jordan) paid a visit to the hospital. This was the same day I had arrived at 6. The second group of patients came over to the hospital around ten, and immediately several patients were snatched up to be stationed around the hospital for the royal tour. The rest were brought up to me in pre-op. Throughout the next few hours, official people would come up and ask for “three young patients” or “four active patients” etc for the Queen to see. Right near the time of her arrival, I realized I was in the wrong place if I wanted to get to see the Queen, and I headed on downstairs to “check on our kids” (aka position myself to see the Queen). I found a seat near a bunch of our Kurdish mothers, and was able to see the Queen as she came through. She is absolutely beautiful and was wonderful with the patients. After she finished her tour of the hospital, one of the bilingual Kurdish mothers came over to where I was sitting and told the other mothers that they had just seen the Queen. Turns out we had forgotten to tell them what was going on, and since they didn’t speak any Arabic, they had no idea they had just shaken hands with royalty. Next time we will be sure to inform them ahead of time! (The picture was taken from the Operation Smile pictures on picassa: http://picasaweb.google.com/World.Journey.of.Smiles )

Sneaky Operations

The morning after the revolution, I headed over to the hospital with the patients around 6am. I had the opportunity to sit with one of our Kurdish doctors, who filled me in on a lot of the history of Kurdistan. This blog isn’t allowed to be political, but it was fascinating to listen to his views on world politics. We arrived and I brought our patients upstairs to the pre-op. There I met a wonderful wonderful woman who has been on seven missions with Operation Smile. Her job was to keep order in the pre-op waiting area and make sure the patients were ready when it was their turn. I spent most of my day helping and translating for her. In addition to our Iraqi and Kurdish patients, there were also some Jordanian patients waiting for surgery. At one point one of the women asked me when her son would be getting surgery. I asked to see his bracelet so I could check his patient number and see when his file was coming up. She showed me that he didn’t have a bracelet, which set off alarm bells for me. The screening process we had gone through the night before had assigned each child a patient number that corresponded to a large packet of information they had collected. After exploring the situation further, I found that this woman had shown up the day before and received a folder, but had left before the screening started. She somehow found out where the pre-op waiting room was (no easy feat in that hospital!) and had brought her son up to wait for surgery, all without having any of the screening procedures done. The doctors kindly explained to her how they system worked and told her that her son couldn’t have surgery that day because the surgery schedule was already set. This woman lived down south, and at this point, it was too late for her to catch a bus back home. So the doctors allowed her and her son to stay the night in the ward and the son ended up having surgery the next day because of the mother’s persistence. Her determination to get what was needed for her son was very impressive, and was a perfect example of how to get things done in Jordan; decide what you want and demand it until you get it. (the pictures are pre- and post-op for Banin, one of our cute little Iraqi babies...the pre-op picture is from the Op Smile website)

The Kurdish Revolution

On Sunday three of us headed back over to the airport to pick up the Kurdish patients, while two other volunteers took the Iraqis over to the hospital for screening. Once again, we weren’t on the list, but the guards remembered us from the day before and let us in with no problems. The Kurds arrived two hours late, and looked absolutely exhausted getting off the plane. They were lead by five Kurdish doctors who spoke perfect English, Arabic, and Kurdish (and some spoke Turkish as well). This was particularly helpful since most of the families didn’t speak any Arabic or English, rendering us useless as volunteers. The doctors begged us to let the families go back to the hotel and get screened the next day, but unfortunately, since this mission included Jordanian patients as well, we had no choice but head over to the hospital for screening. Most of the patients hadn’t eaten in about 12 hours at this point. We arrived to the hospital, and were told we could take our patients down to the dining hall for some dinner. What a relief! Until we got down there and the cafeteria staff said they were closed. We brought our dejected patients back upstairs to sit in the waiting room. Meanwhile we started making some calls trying to get our kids some dinner. We were repeatedly told “It’s on its way, just wait”. About this time one of our fathers started vomiting and then passed out (we were lucky we were in a hospital!) They got an IV started in him. One of the PCVs who lives near by stopped by with some bread for our starving patients. At this point, one of the Americans on the surgical team got fed up with the situation and decided to take matters into her own hands. I was trying to get a situation sorted out with a missing patient file, and the next thing I knew, our 21 Kurdish families were charging the cafeteria demanding food, led by an amazing American. Luckily this tactic worked and our families were able to eat before spending the next four hours going through the screening process. I think we finally made it home around 11 that night, exhausted, but with full bellies thanks to the revolution.

No ID Necessary

This year the patients arrived in two shifts, one plane from Baghdad arriving on Saturday, and the second, arriving from Kurdistan on Sunday. (From here on, the patients from Baghdad will be referred to as Iraqis, and those from Kurdistan as the Kurds, even though they are Iraqis as well, it was the way we differentiated the two groups). On Saturday I helped pick up the Iraqi patients. We got to the private airport pretty early, and found that our names weren’t on the list of people allowed to go inside the terminal. After fifteen minutes of chatting and begging the guards, we were granted permission. However, just as we were about to go into the airport, the founder of Operation Smile arrived. So we immediately set to work convincing the guards that she could come in as well. It turned out she hadn’t brought any form of identification with her (other than a business card) and the guards said she couldn’t come in. Thirty more minutes of us chatting up the guards in Arabic and we were all safely in the terminal. It’s amazing how far a little bit of Arabic and a big smile will get you in Jordan!

Operation Smile

Operation Smile is an amazing program that provides free surgery for children with cleft palates (we used to call it hare-lipped in English, and in Arabic it is rabbit-lipped). In Jordan, the program brings children from Iraq and Kurdistan to Amman in order to perform the surgeries, since the doctors aren’t able to travel there. As PCVs, our job is to take care of the children while they are in the hotel, pre- and post-op. This year I was a volunteer coordinator, which meant I stayed in Amman for the full ten days, and supervised the other volunteers who came in two-day shifts. It was a long week, every day starting around 6am and not finishing until midnight, but it was wonderful to help our 51 families through every stage of their child’s transformation. This year is the 25^th anniversary of Op Smile, so in addition to the usual people we had a lot of camera crews (including CNN) and even the founders came by for a day. I have asked permission to share the stories of some of the families I was privileged to meet during my ten days.

Flotus

This past week I had the opportunity to meet the First Lady (and learn the term Flotus…First Lady of the United States…that was a new one for me). She came to Jordan as part of a Breast Cancer Awareness tour through the Middle East. She spoke briefly at the embassy and then posed for some pictures with us. We were given money for transportation, food, and a hotel which made this opportunity almost impossible to pass up! It was also a great chance to meet some of the J11s (the new group in Jordan) and share ideas for work and surviving in the village. I really like their group, and it’s good to hear ideas from a new group, who aren’t quite as jaded as the J10s have become after living here for 15 months.

Flotus

This past week I had the opportunity to meet the First Lady (and learn the term Flotus…First Lady of the United States…that was a new one for me). She came to Jordan as part of a Breast Cancer Awareness tour through the Middle East. She spoke briefly at the embassy and then posed for some pictures with us. We were given money for transportation, food, and a hotel which made this opportunity almost impossible to pass up! It was also a great chance to meet some of the J11s (the new group in Jordan) and share ideas for work and surviving in the village. I really like their group, and it’s good to hear ideas from a new group, who aren’t quite as jaded as the J10s have become after living here for 15 months.

Fabric Softener

Thanks to another one of the volunteers in Jordan, I have been introduced to a life changing product; fabric softener. Earlier this year I switched from dukan (little corner store) brand detergent to Tide, and that has made a huge difference. My clothes have started smelling a little cleaner, and seem a little cleaner. But they remained crunchy feeling after each washing. So thanks to this other volunteer, my clothes are now soft and clean smelling, and feel so comfortable to wear. For those of you volunteers in other countries, I can’t recommend the fabric softener enough!!

Kul aam u intu bkher

Kul aam u intu bkher!

Ramadan has finally ended, as has Eid al Fitur, the celebration at the end of Ramadan. For Eid, I decided to take a trip across the border with some friends. There were 8 of us total, a size that is usually not so fun to travel with, but we had no problems at all, and it was a wonderful trip.

Crossing the border was a disappointment, because we hoped to avoid the problem of an Israeli stamp in our passports, but were unsuccessful. This means we are no longer allowed to travel to any other Arab countries (other than Jordan and Egypt). We tried our best, but the border woman wasn’t having it.

We stayed inside the old city, at a great hostel. Some of us chose the cheapest option, sleeping on the roof, and although it was cold, and rained a little, the view was certainly worth it. We could people watch from our beds, without being seen, and let me tell you, people watching inside of the old city of Jerusalem is about as good as it gets!

Thanks to Bess’ dad (who was visiting her for the week) we were able to have a guide explain to us some of the bigger sites. There is so much packed into such a small space, I think we would have missed most of it without a guide. We did the stations of the cross (albeit in reverse order), the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (where Jesus crucifixion site and tomb reside), the upper room (I didn’t realize it had been turned into a mosque, and now it is just an empty room), the church of Dormition (where Mary ascended into Heaven from), the pools of Bethesda, Mary’s birth place, the Western/Wailing wall, the Dome of the Rock, and Al Aksa mosque, and probably a million things I am forgetting. Then I went across to the Mount of Olives (while everyone else went to the Holocaust museum) and I saw the really old Olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane, the tombs of some prophets, and the place where Jesus wept. It’s amazing how much you can pack into 4 days!!!

I also had a chance to go to the Lutheran church in the old city. They have an English and an Arabic service every Sunday, and we used the LBW, so I felt right at home! The church is doing some really neat projects in the area and I wish I had had more time to talk to the Pastor there.

We managed to have the best luck ever getting back home (despite the border being randomly closed for an hour, and a lot of problems with them not believing that we were Jordanian residents) and made it home surprisingly quickly and cheaply. It was nice to get back home and share my pictures and presents with everyone in the village. It also gave me the opportunity to butcher Christianity with my horrible Arabic explanations of the sites (here, Jesus eat bread with his people, then mosque, now room… Here Jesus not die…etc)

I look forward to going back, if not during service, than certainly after with Cuttino. It is an amazing experience that I highly recommend to anyone interested in Christianity, Judaism or Islam.

Please help!!

My center has written a grant to build a playgound for the kids. If you are interested in donating, pleast visit:

My project

You can donate right from the website using a credit card, or mail a check to the address listed on the page. Donations are tax deductible and all of the money goes directly to my project.

Thank you sooooo much!!

Ramadan Approaches

This picture was taken a few days ago, when the moon was full. We are now waiting for the moon to be only a sliver in the sky, to signal the start of Ramadan, the month of fasting. It is supposed to start on the 12, 13, or 14 of September (I heard as early as the 9^th, but that seems unlikely). I’ve heard the second year is easier, so hopefully that will be true. For sure visiting during the Iftar (the breakfast at night when the sun goes down) will be easier now that I actually speak a little bit of Arabic. I also know more people in the village so I am looking forward to visiting after the evening meal with the families I know. And the middle of Ramadan marks our one year at site-aversary. I think that will be a great feeling, knowing I have survived for an entire year, and it’s all down hill from there!

Habibee

I have a confession to make, and that is, Cuttino is no longer my habibee (my love). He has been replaced in my heart by a new man, named Mohammed. I met Mohammed about 10 months ago, and fell instantly in love. Since then, I have had the opportunity to see him once or twice a week when he comes to my center. His mother is perfectly ok with me taking him home with me to America. The whole center calls this boy “Jessica’s habibha” and whenever they remind me of Cuttino, I pretend to throw my engagement ring, which is a big hit with everyone. Sorry Cuttino, you have been replaced.

The Backpack

My center recently went to a ceremony in a nearby town, put on by USAID. I ended up taking our younger kids (all above age 14) to the “kid’s room” while the older kids sat and watched speeches (most of the kids we brought were deaf, so they really did just watch). In the kids room, the oldest kid besides mine was about 6 years old. I thought it was kind of silly for us to stay in the room, but the woman in charge assured me that it would be better for my kids. And it was. In that room, we got to watch Tom and Jerry (a national obsession), eat chips and cookies, and then the best part. Every kid was given a USAID t-shirt, and backpack. In the backpack was a water bottle and a pencil case with some new pencils. All of the kids were instructed to put on their t-shirts and backpacks in order for some photo-ops. We managed to snag a few extra bags for the kids who weren’t able to come that day.

The kids have been bringing their backpacks to school every day for two weeks now. Today was like every day, and every kid brought in their backpack and hung it up on the hooks in their classrooms.

Right before we were about to leave, the director called me over to see Mohammed’s backpack (one of the older deaf boys). I looked inside, and there was a live rabbit, munching on some grass. I instantly understood why he had asked to go outside and get some plants earlier in the day, but was shocked that no one had noticed he had a live animal in the classroom all day! After I got over my shock, I managed to take some pictures of Mohammed proudly holding the rabbit that had attended a full day of school with no one noticing.

Summer Round-up: New Volunteers

The newest group to Jordan has arrived (J11s) and they swear-in in mid September (poor guys have training during Ramadan!). We are getting five new volunteers down by me, and it’s great because our bus actually passes through the towns of two of them on our way to Ma’an. I’m excited to get new volunteers down here, because we have lost so many this year (3 ET’ed, and one COS’ed, ET=Early Terminate/quit, COS=Close of service/finished the twenty-seven months) Our new volunteers sound great and I’m excited for them to finish training and move on down here!

Summer Round-up: Trip home

In mid-July I returned to the states for a whirlwind trip. The main reason for the trip was to go to Nate and MMG (sorry, going to be MMG forever!) wedding, which was absolutely wonderful, and quite convenient seeing as all of our friends were in town for the same occasion. In addition to attending a wedding, Cuttino and I also had to plan our own wedding (MLK Weekend 2009) since we won’t be home until two and half months before it. We managed to register, book the church, book the reception site (which will do the food, drinks, decorations, and cake) and buy my dress all in the span of two weeks. Hopefully the rest of the details will be easier to do from abroad. I don’t think I ever realized what a racket the wedding industry is! In addition to seeing Cuttino, my family, and friends, the highlight to the trip was picking up the newest Harry Potter book, which came out while we were at home. It was the perfect thing to keep me from being too sad leaving everyone when the time came (Cuttino kept it hidden in his trunk so I couldn’t read it while I was home)

Summer Round-up: Girl's camp

So in Jordan, if you are ever feeling sorry for yourself, or feel like you have low self esteem, all you need to do is head on over to the girl’s school. I had volunteered to help at the girl’s summer camp (grades 4-12) earlier in the year and was excited to get to start in early July.

Every girl ran to greet me when I arrived; they kissed me (the traditional greeting) tried to hold my hand and played with my hair at every chance they got. They all fought to be in my English classes every day (even though as soon as we started they asked to go and play handball instead). We did some basic English lessons, and played some team-building games, the most memorable being radioactive swamp with the older girls. Most of us in the states have grown up playing team building games and “get” the concept without it having to be explained. That is definitely not the same here. And the cheating was rampant! It took the girls’ two days to figure out how to get across the “swamp” (we ran out of time on the first day) but they were so happy and proud of themselves when they did.

My other favorite activity was team Scattegories with the older girls. I have never heard so much high-pitched screeching every time their team got a point. It was a lot of fun.

I hope to be able to work over at the girls’ school more often this year, because the girls are a lot of fun and seem to like learning English.

Summer Round-up: 5th of July Party

Got to spend the 5^th of July (worked out better with the weekend) at the American Embassy, feeling the most American I have felt since being in Jordan. It was everything a 5^th of July party should be, including the Apple Pie. The only thing missing was the fireworks (apparently they caused some damage last year when they landed and so they were nixed) but we get plenty of those in the village, so they weren’t missed.

The next day was the yearly softball game between Peace Corps and JICA (the Japanese volunteers, don’t really know what JICA stands for!) They were trying to avenge their loss from the previous year, but quickly fell behind 10 runs in the first inning. The rest of the game was pretty close, but Peace Corps prevailed and remained the Jordan softball champions.

Summer Round-up: 5th of July Party

Got to spend the 5^th of July (worked out better with the weekend) at the American Embassy, feeling the most American I have felt since being in Jordan. It was everything a 5^th of July party should be, including the Apple Pie. The only thing missing was the fireworks (apparently they caused some damage last year when they landed and so they were nixed) but we get plenty of those in the village, so they weren’t missed.

The next day was the yearly softball game between Peace Corps and JICA (the Japanese volunteers, don’t really know what JICA stands for!) They were trying to avenge their loss from the previous year, but quickly fell behind 10 runs in the first inning. The rest of the game was pretty close, but Peace Corps prevailed and remained the Jordan softball champions.

Summer Round-up: Eleanore's Project

Since Operation Smile (the Iraqi mission) was cancelled for June, I volunteered to be a Regional coordinator for Eleanore’s Project, which is an amazing program which takes refurbished custom fit wheelchairs from children who have outgrown them in the states and donates them to children in Jordan. In addition to the chairs, they send a team of experts to custom fit every chair to the exact specifications of each child. It’s an absolutely amazing site to see.

We started out in Amman, with a very slow start, waiting for the chairs to arrive from Aqaba. Every day we were told “They will be here tomorrow, insha’alla” (God willing). Unfortunately, that turned into almost a week of waiting for the chairs. When they finally arrived, they were in a HUGE shipping container which had to be unloaded and sorted by region of the country. My favorite moment of unloading came when it was time to pull down one of the power chairs. Power chairs are incredibly heavy, and this was unloading from a shipping container on an 18-wheeler onto a pick up truck, and then onto the ground. The guys in the truck said they needed five or six people to get up and help lift it down, and noone was moving, so I decided I could help. Up until that point the men had been carrying all the heavy things and only giving us things like wheels to carry. But since noone else was moving, I figured someone needed to. So I jumped up on the pickup truck and started helping lift the chair down. The man next to me was trying to pick it up by the arm, which was detachable. I could hear someone yelling from the ground “Not from the arms” but of course this was in English and the man didn’t understand. All I had to gesture with was my head, so I started whacking his hand with my head and saying “Mish hatha eid” (not this hand).

Our jobs as volunteers was mostly translating for the team (from America and Canada) and our knowledge of our particular areas and expert abilities in finding bizarre items when necessary (we need some towels and tarps….we need some heavy black thread…etc) We also spent time holding babies and talking to families. Most of the children we met had hardly left their houses in their lives and spent the majority of their time lying on a farsha (a thin foam mat).

It was unbelievable to watch the wheelchair fitting. In Wadi, a team of two primary (with four or five helping occasionally) technicians spent seven hours completely rebuilding a chair for a little boy with the worst scoliosis I have ever seen. It took five minutes trying to figure out where exactly his spine went. He had had a wheelchair before, but it was one of the one-size-fits-all, take grandma to the mall type chair, which didn’t fit him and actually caused more damage. When they were done, Mohaned was able to sit up and look around in his chair. It brought tears to my eyes to be able to see him in that finished chair!

Vote for Petra!!

So for the past six months, every time I have been visiting, and every time there has been a visitor to the village, we have talked about “Voting for Petra”. When visitors come, the villagers don’t ask if they liked Petra, they first ask if they have voted for it. The voting takes place at www.new7wonders.com/. Here in Jordan, you can also vote by cell phone, and while expensive, you are allowed to have as many votes as you want, which means everyone I know has voted at least five times.

The list has been narrowed down to only ten places to choose from, so everyone should go and vote for Petra. Not only will it bring more tourism to Jordan (which the economy desperately needs) but the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty are on there, and come on! There is no way the Statue of Liberty compares to Angor Wat, the Pyramids, Petra or the Great Wall of China! So go and vote. You have until 07-07-07 (clever…)

Wadi Mujib

For our June out-of-site a bunch of us decided to go hiking in Wadi Mujib. We originally wanted to do the two-day hike that goes from near Tafilah down to the Dead Sea, but it is currently closed for health reasons. So we opted for the 6 hour hike instead. We started our trek from Amman, because the camping next to the Dead Sea sounded ridiculously hot this time of year. We originally had a different driver, who wanted to charge us 80JD for the trip down and back, but after our wonderful experience with Hani the day before, we decided to give him a call.

He showed up to pick us up at 6am, and had put several farshas (bed like mats) in the back to make the van more comfortable. We met our guide at the lodge, and he was excited that we were Peace Corps, because they had a PCV (J3 or J2 maybe?) named Paul who had worked there for two years. We were all immediately insanely jealous of this Paul who got to hang out in Wadi Mujib for two years!

The hike was incredible, and has surpassed Wadi Rum as my favorite thing in Jordan. The first fifteen minutes or so are straight uphill on a road. But after that, it is all walking through canyons with a rushing river. We walked back and force across the river several times, and then came to an area with pools of water. We swam through the pools and played in the mini waterfalls for several hours.

Then came the exciting part of the trip. We hiked back to where we had split off and followed the river further down stream. We noticed that the water was picking up speed, and at one point I fell and would have floated all the way downstream if it wasn’t for the helpful hand of another volunteer. The highlight of this hike came with the waterfall rappelling. Ok, so it was more of waterfall being lowered by a rope, because there wasn’t much rappelling involved, and very little control to be had as the huge waterfall pummeled us during the descent. But it was absolutely beautiful.

Unfortunately none of us brought our cameras with us during the trip, because there was no way to keep them dry. However, the group we were with were from a French outdoors magazine and their photographers (with amazing cameras) took a lot of pictures of us. We gave them our email addresses in the hopes of someday being able to see these pictures. Inshalla it will all work out and I will be able to post pictures of the breathtaking scenery.

Mukawir

Jordan's new motto is “Don’t worry, everything will work out”. Because of the Jordanians amazing hospitality, it seems that everything always works out in the end. For example; we were in Madaba for the afternoon during our weekend out of site, and decided we wanted to go to Mukawir, which is King Herod’s castle where John the Baptist was beheaded. It is about an hour’s drive and the visitor’s center told us it would cost about 25JD round trip in a taxi. Unfortunately we had 7 people which no taxi driver in his right mind would let all of us fit in one taxi. So we decided to try our luck with a mini bus. We walked to one of the main circles in Madaba and stood for about five minutes. I saw a decrepit blue van driving up and flagged him down. My friend went over to do the negotiating. At one point I saw him putting his head in to look at the seats. The guy was willing to drive us there and back for 15JD, but he didn’t have any seats in his van. Fine with us! We all climbed in the back of the van and made ourselves comfortable on the floor. Hani, our driver was amazing, and actually got out and hiked with us up to the castle. He even made some things up to tell us about while we were walking around the ruins.

On our way back, he insisted that we stop by his house for tea and to meet his family. Since we had plenty of time (buses from Madaba leave for Amman very frequently) we agreed. Visiting in a group is so much easier than visiting alone, because when you don’t understand something, someone else is bound to! His family was lovely, with a wife and five young children, several sisters and brothers and their kids. I was of course given the baby, who promptly drooled all over my pants. We ended up staying at their house for around an hour, and only with repeated “Inshalla” (god willing) of a promise to come and eat Mansef the next week, were we allowed to leave.

Dave and Casey's visit (part 2)

On Tuesday the boys came over to my center for the morning and played with my kids all day. Rya managed to charm everyone as always and the other volunteer has a new best friend in Yusef. After work we decided to head up to Wadi Dana, where several volunteers spent Easter. It is a beautiful drive from my village, and it was wonderful hiking around. Next year I will make sure that I go earlier in the spring to see all of the wild flowers, but the view was still pretty good even this late in the season. For our trip home, we decided to take the Tafila road to the Dead Sea highway, and then take that south until we got to the Dilagha turn off (a route that is significantly longer than returning the way we came from). However, it was a beautiful drive and on the road back up to Dilagha we saw this large rock that is always shown in pictures of Petra. It is way out in the desert and I think was guarding the entrance at one point. It’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere and inaccessible without a car. Even with our long detour we still made it back before sunset in order to have dinner at Abu Aymen’s house. They made sinia (a dish with potatoes, chicken, tomatoes, and a red sauce) which is one of my most favorite meals. It was absolutely delicious!

On Wednesday we headed up to Karak Castle. It is another Crusader castle, and there are a lot of volunteers in the area, so it was nice to meet up with a bunch of them for lunch. We didn’t get a whole lot of time to explore, because we took another long route to get there. It is an amazingly well preserved castle, and you can see remnants of the church, jail, stables, and a mosque (from later occupants obviously…)

Dave and Casey's visit (part 3)

Since January we had been planning on going out to Ruwashid, which is super far east in the desert, to see a black castle, surrounded by a fresh water lake. It is only accessible if you have a car, and I was super excited about the trip. Unfortunately the long Thursday caught up to me, and I got a horrible case of food poisoning, and had to spend all of Friday laying in bed and running to the bathroom. I was so disappointed in not being able to see the castle! So someone needs to come and visit me so I can go!

Saturday the boys stopped back by Amman to pick me up so we could head down to the Dead Sea (yet another place I had not been in Jordan!). The water is ridiculously salty, and not only do you float very easily, it’s actually rather difficult to stop floating, which resulted in us looking like demented gymnasts twisting around in the water. And of course, no visit to the Dead Sea would be complete without covering yourself in the mud, which apparently has some important healing properties. I guess my skin did feel pretty soft the next day….

After work on Sunday we decided to head on down to Aqaba for some snorkeling. For a mere four dinar you can spend the afternoon pretending like you are in Finding Nemo. This was only the second time I have been snorkeling (the first being in October in Aqaba) and I still find it so amazing!

Monday was the last full day and we spent it in Wadi Rum. We climbed the Rock Bridge (ok, I climbed, they all RAN up it, and left me feeling like I was gonna die!) The route we took down was not the same we took up, and it included several scary sections, that kept reminding me of the J3 who was sent home because she broke her leg climbing in Wadi Rum. Luckily we made it down safely and even had enough time to drive around some before sunset.

The only problem with having people visit is the let-down after they leave. It is hard to get back into the swing of things!

Special Education Workshops

Thursday was another long day (after a week of long days!) The special education volunteers have been planning a series of workshops run by volunteers and counterparts. We took a survey of all of the centers to find out what they were interested in learning and what their centers do well that they would be interested in sharing with other centers. The idea was that each volunteer/counterpart team would do an hour long workshop on a topic that the group was interested in. For this workshop however, things went a little differently. I left my village at 3:45 in the morning to make it to the workshop by 8am. We had a speech pathologist who did her presentation bilingually who talked about causes of speech disorders and ways of teaching students who can’t talk. In addition to the speech pathologist, we ended up being in contact with a theater group from Amman, who uses all children with special needs as their actors. Before we knew it, we had an audience of 500 girls from the local girl’s school, and half of our workshop time taken up in transport. However, the play was wonderful and I think all of the teachers were amazed to see what the actors were able to do. We also considered it a success because we had around 50 little boys from the boy’s school sneaking in trying to watch the play put on by students with special needs! After the play, the director gave a workshop on using drama to teach students with special needs, which was very well received. From there, I hitched a ride up to Amman in order to meet back up with Dave and Casey and plan our excursion to the Black Castle

Dave and Casey's visit (Part 1)

Over a period of twelve days, I managed to see almost all of Jordan, without once missing work. I realize now that Jordan is an incredibly small country and if you have a car, almost anything is a day trip (even after working at the center all morning). So everyone come and visit and I will show you all of Jordan!

The first trip that I went on was to Shobak castle, which is about half an hour north from my town. On our way we stopped at Ayn Musa, which is one of the places that Moses struck a rock and water came out. While I was reaching down to touch the water, another volunteer splashed me in the face with the water, which I think ruined the spiritual moment another woman was trying to have…oops! Shobak castle is a lot of fun. We took some falafel sandwiches and ate a picnic up on the top. After exploring the ruins, we decided to check out the tunnel. We were with another volunteer who happens to live in Shobak, and she reassured us that we would pop out at the end on the other side of the hill. The tunnel was built in case the castle was ever under siege and the inhabitants needed water. It was completely dark, but luckily we remembered our flashlights (or used the little light on our cell phones). At one point there were stairs in this tunnel, but now it is pretty much a smooth dark ramp. We were carrying several water bottles, which made it nearly impossible to descend on all fours (crab walk style) so we decided to throw them down. The sound of them crashing down the tunnel lasted way longer than I expected and when we found them at the bottom they were in pretty rough shape. Luckily we fared better than the water bottles and made it out alive, although covered in dirt (and I had just done laundry!)

Soccer program

My center has a large number of older boys. In Jordan, the sexes are segregated for most of the day, and so to have a large number of older boys who spend their entire day with only women is weird here. For this reason, we came up with the idea of the other volunteer bringing some of his boys from the school over for an hour a week to play soccer with my kids. We have done this for several weeks now and it has been amazing. All of the kids love it. My kids daily ask when the boys are coming over to play soccer, and the boys will stop me in the street and ask when they are coming to the center. One day, we played soccer for about 40 minutes, until we got too hot and decided to go upstairs to cool off and drink some water. I followed a few minutes later (I was helping one of my students up the stairs) and when I got inside I found all of the boys crowded in the deaf classroom, writing on the chalkboard and looking through the sign language book, trying to communicate. It was such a touching moment to see the boys so engaged in trying to communicate with their deaf peers.

Monkey Valley

The other volunteer in the village and I decided to climb the hardest hike in Petra one Saturday afternoon. There are big signs warning “Do not go beyond this point without a guide”, but since we had been out there to climb Jabal Haroun before, we figured we were fine. We made it part way to Um Al Biyara and decided to stop for lunch (everyone’s favorite hiking food; bread, peanut butter, fake nutella and bananas). Somehow our stop got us all turned around and we ended up on the wrong side of the mountain. However, this mix-up found us in what we named “Monkey Valley” because we kept hearing monkey sounds, and we had to literally climb through trees to get through. It was a great hike, but we were exhausted. When we made it back to where we started, we noticed the really obvious stairs going up the mountain. Next time we will know right where to go!

Operation Smile

This past weekend I participated in Operation Smile, which is a program that repairs cleft palates. This mission in Jordan serves both Jordanians and Iraqis. For this mission there were 80 Iraqis staying in a hotel in Amman, and our job as volunteers was to help them with anything they needed throughout their ten day stay. Volunteers were split into two or three day shifts. Mine was the last weekend of the event. I think our job can best be summed up by one short experience. I was waiting in the lobby after lunch seeing if anyone needed any help. I noticed a young woman with two babies, both of whom were crying. She was watching one for another father who was in the restroom (each child can bring one parent). I offered to take one of the crying children and started walking around with him. During this time, one of the older girls asked me for some water, which meant I needed to go to the front desk, get the key to the closet and get out the water. While I was doing this (and still holding the crying baby) a woman told me her daughter had fallen and her arm was hurt. However, this woman didn’t speak Arabic (and the Iraqi Arabic is quite different than the Arabic we know anyway), she spoke only Kurdish (there were around 40 Kurdish families there). So I had to find a doctor to go and look at her daughter’s arm. While I was looking for the doctor I managed to find the father of the baby I was holding (who had fallen fast asleep in my arms). I found the doctor in his room, and sent him down to the hurt child, and then had to find our Arabic-Kurdish translator, since the doctor didn’t speak Kurdish either. Once I finally got all of them in one place, it was time to go and build clay animals with some of the other kids. Needless to say, by the end of two days, I was pretty tired!

However, I didn’t get to rest, because I had to drive all the way down to Aqaba (5 hours by bus) to catch up with the field trip my center was on (it had been changed at the last minute because we couldn’t find a bus). Luckily I made it down and met up with the group without trouble. Unfortunately I didn’t get to go swimming or on the glass bottom boat, and instead only got to eat dinner and then go shopping (since the teachers wanted to, the kids got dragged along, apparently everything is cheaper in Aqaba…) Luckily the Sunday afterwards was a holiday and we didn’t have school so I got a chance to rest!

Visiting families

So after six months, I have finally started visiting the families of my students. It is something that I have had trouble with, because I am used to America, where you wait to be invited. Here it is totally aadee (normal, fine) to ask someone to be invited to their house, and when you know the family to just show up. I finally took the initiative to do this, and it has been wonderful. Muhamed, one of my students has a wonderful supportive family, and they are really fun to visit. His next door neighbors (I’m confused on the exact relation, I believe it is his aunt) has a huge family and so whenever I go over there, there a billion children running around, which I love. This week I brought over my camera (we are making a picture book to help the students with communication, so I wanted pictures of Muhamed’s family) This picture is one that one of the older girls took of me surrounded by all the kids. Figured it was a good Peace Corps moment picture! My student is the one to the left of me in the picture, about to clap his hands (such a cutie!)

PDM

I just got back from a great workshop put on by Peace Corps. R, the teacher in the deaf classroom and I spent four days in a nice hotel in Amman (hot running water immediately, someone else cooking and cleaning the dishes, and power, it was great!). This is a PC worldwide program where volunteers and counterparts learn the steps in creating large projects. At the workshop R and I started the process of planning to build a playground for our center. I have never written grants before, or done a project like this, so it was neat to learn the whole process from visioning, to listing assets, to budgeting to monitoring and evaluating projects. It was an exhausting four days, especially since I had to do the whole thing in Arabic (a lot of the counterparts spoke perfect English since they were English teachers, so their volunteers got to do the work in English). It was difficult since I didn’t know words like “evaluate, delegate, asset, etc” in Arabic, but in the end it was very rewarding, and I think R learned a lot as well. We are starting the work on the playground already and I am excited to see what becomes of it. The goal is to finish before Ramadan (early September) which I think might be a little ambitious, but R thinks we can do it. The problem is that if we aren’t finished, no work will get done during Ramadan, and then it will be winter and too cold to work until next spring. One of the counterparts listed weather as a deficit, or obstacle to projects, and some of the other counterparts argued with this. But it is for sure an obstacle for us in Rajef!

The other exciting part of PDM (Project Design and Management) was finding a fantastic, cheap, Indian food restaurant near the hotel. The food was fantastic and made me miss Rangoli and Gary’s cooking! It is for sure on our list of places to return to in Amman!

This week is a short one, because we have a community meeting at our center on Wednesday (still not exactly sure what it is about, but it means there are no kids) and then on Thursday our center is taking a field trip down to Aqaba (on the Red Sea) for the entire day. Should be a fantastic and exhausting trip, I’m looking forward to it!

The Rock Bridge

A friend came down to my site for the weekend, so we could write a grant for our special education workshops. Since my site is so close to Wadi Rum, we decided to go hiking for one of the afternoons. In Wadi Rum there are three natural rock bridges, and on my first trip I had climbed the smallest of the three. She had already climbed the largest one, but we decided it would be a fun hike and headed up. The path wasn’t entirely marked, which made scrambling up the face of a mountain a little tricky. We would occasionally find a little pile of rocks marking the way, and small arrows carved into the rock face, which for the most part kept us on track. The hike was absolutely beautiful, and the temperature was perfect (further up the mountains, in my town it actually snowed, but we only had a little sprinkle in Wadi Rum) The Rock Bridge was amazing and we ate our lunch of peanut butter, nutella, and banana sandwiches next to it.

Getting back to the main entrance was the scariest ride of my life. The 4x4 driver kept looking in his rearview mirror and laughing as we clung to the “Oh no” handles as tight as we could and tried to keep our faces neutral. I’m surprised we made it out alive the way he drove that jeep over the sand!

The day after the hike, I managed to get sick again (it had been 36 days without being sick, which is my new record!) Hopefully next time I can make it to 40 days!

Biblical Weekend for Easter

It’s pretty amazing to live where parts of the Bible actually took place. In a period of two weeks, I managed to see Jabal Haroun (where Moses’ brother Aaron is buried), Lot’s Cave (check out Genesis 19:30-he gets drunk in this cave and sleeps with his daughters….good stuff! that's the second picture), Mt Nebo (where Moses died, check out Deuteronomy 34:1-12, God shows Moses the beauty of the land, and then Moses dies, the first picture) and I also saw the baptism site (the third picture). There is actual archaeological and historical evidence that this site is the actual baptismal site of Jesus. There are letters that explain the exact location, as well as a series of churches built on top of each other right next to the spot. The site is now located outside of the flow of the River Jordan because it has changed course. The River Jordan is what separates Israel from Jordan, and is only about 12 feet across. It was interesting to look across the river and see Israeli soldiers guarding their side.

For Easter service, I went to the sunrise service on Mt. Nebo, followed by an Easter picnic on the mountain. Getting there was interesting. There were about fifteen volunteers going, and our servees (little van) driver at first told us ten people could fit in his van. He then changed his mind and allowed us to have fifteen, which had us a little worried about where we were all going to fit. In the back of course! Unfortunately those of us in the back also had the deviled and colored Easter eggs, in an enclosed space with no air. I love deviled eggs, but the smell of them in such a small space for thirty minutes was not what I wanted at 5:30 in the morning.

Luckily we arrived safely. The outgoing Episcopalian bishop of Jerusalem gave a beautiful sermon and the entire service was in English. This was probably the most acutely that I have felt homesick the entire time I have been in Jordan. But it was wonderful to share Easter with my fellow volunteers on such a beautiful mountain.

Driver's Ed

During one of the many hours we spent in driver’s ed, there was a video we watched that explained why it was important to keep your eye’s on the road at all times. We thought it was the most ridiculous video ever and I remember laughing about it for days afterwards (this might just be a Michigan video, so if it is, I apologize!). The video is shot from the perspective of a driver. The camera pans down to the radio for a second, and when it looks back up, there is a camel standing in the road in front of the car. I thought this was ridiculous, until the other day.

The women from my center and I headed down to my friend’s site near the Dead Sea to work on a series of special ed workshops that we will be doing later this year. The road between my village and hers passes through “Wadi Araba” which is basically the desert between here and Israel. The road from my village down the mountain to the wadi is absolutely stunning. I’m glad I don’t get carsick, because the road is very very twisty, and our center bus driver loves to drive fast to scare me. I was talking to my coteacher and as we came around the corner I looked up to see not just one, but a family of camels meandering down the road. I guess you really should keep your eyes on the road at all times!

Literacy and Jabal Haroun

Marhaba!

I have had a busy week, with a lot of exciting things to share.

First off, thank you all so much for all of the books you have sent! I know I have told some of you this in private emails, but it is absolutely wonderful to see. When I first got to my center, we had some books in the bookcase, which the kids largely ignored. Now, with the combination of books you have sent, and a million books I have written, the bookcase is colorful and exciting. I now have the problem of the kids fighting over the books because they are so excited about them. We have had many conversations about how you carry a book, how you look at a book, and how you don't throw books or hit other students with them. Several of the students will choose to look at books instead of play with the toys during their free time. This makes me so unbelievably happy! So thank you so much for all of the books! (I would love more as well if you still want to send them, it is nice to be able to switch out the books so there is always something new in the bookcase for them to read....just remember that I am translating all of these books into Arabic, so books like "A Fat Cat Sat on a Mat" is great in English for phonetics, but when you translate it into arabic, it doesn't make much sense....)

The translation process: First I take the books over to my tutor's house, and we go through them and translate them, and I write out the Arabic. Then I go to the computer lab at my center and type them out in Arabic (I'm getting faster at hunt and peck on an Arabic keyboard!). Then my coteachers all fight over how each sentence should sound (since I am writing these in Amia, the colloquial language, and all written material is usually Fus-ha, the standard, there isn't a set system for writing the way I am, thus the endless debates). After they finally decide how it should go, we print the words. I then cut these out and paste them into the books. Then we scan the books, so if my kids destroy them, we will have another copy on the computer that we can print another time. It takes a long time for each book, but it is totally worth it to see my kids excited about reading!!!

Ok....onto Jabal Haroun. I don't know if I have mentioned this, but from my house I can see Jabal Haroun, which is where Moses' brother Aaron is buried. From my house you can see a huge mountain, with a small mosque on the top of it. We have been saying since we got here that we needed to climb it! So Saturday, the volunteer in my town, another volunteer and I decided we should go ahead and do it before it gets too hot. It was an amazing 7 hour hike, starting in Petra. The town where the other volunteer teaches is all of the people who used to live in caves in Petra. In the 80s, the government relocated them in order for the tourists to be able to see Petra, without stumbling over people's houses. But on the outskirts where we were walking, there are people who still live in caves. Now, I had heard this, but to see it was completely different and quite humbling. I complain about my house being cold in the winter, but these kids live in actual caves.

I have a lot of picture from our hike, including a bright blue lizard, and me standing on top of the mosque (there were stairs), and several pictures of the four dogs that followed us for our whole hike. I hope to post them sometime this week or next, I'll email when I finally get them up!

Hope spring weather is finally starting for everyone! Miss you all!
Jessica