SCUBA Diving

During the AVEA camp, the campers interviewed different community members. My group interviewed Abdullah, who is a diving instructor in Aqaba. After the interview, I asked him how you go about learning to SCUBA dive. He said he had a three day course for certification, but I didn’t have that much time. He also said they did “fun dives” where you don’t have to be certified. Turns out it was only 30 JD for a day of SCUBA diving with guides who would take care of everything for you.

So three of us signed up to go once camp was over. We headed out about 9:30 am and ended up going directly across the street from where the camp had been held for the past week. They suited us up (so heavy!!!) and took us out into the water to practice breathing. The guide literally held my hand the entire time, and took me around to see different things.

I got to hold a puffer fish, see an eel, a billion types of fish and coral, and it was one of the coolest things I have ever done in my life (not just in Jordan). I felt totally safe the entire time and it was so unbelievably beautiful. I saw a little Nemo fish playing in an anemone, just like the movie! The ell came out and nibbled on the guide’s finger, and the pufferfish just floated around like a big balloon.

I highly recommend SCUBA diving to anyone!!!!

Op Smile: Round 3

The day of our playground party, I hitched a ride with Peace Corps back up to Amman for Operation Smile. This is the program that brought Iraqi children with cleft lips and palates to Amman for surgery back in November. I was once again in charge of the volunteer aspect (along with Jacob, Dan and Ally) over at the hotel. This year we had 60 Palestinian families (mostly cleft lips and palates, but some burns and large moles to remove as well) For nine days we kept these families entertained and taken care of in the hotel, and did patient advocacy work in the hospital.

The families were as usual, absolutely amazing. I have several invites to visit families in the West Bank and I hope to be able to see a few when we go after COS.

Each child is allowed to bring one family member, so while the child is in surgery (sometimes up to 5-6 hours, but usually 2-3) the mother or father is left alone. I spent a lot of my time waiting with these parents, holding their hands, and getting them what they needed. Seeing their faces when their child comes out of surgery (usually drastically changed) is an absolutely amazing experience. Operation Smile is one of the most rewarding things I have done while in Peace Corps and I really hope to find a way to work with this amazing organization when I return to the states.

AVEA Camp

I returned home from Operation Smile for two days, and then it was time to head down to Aqaba for a camp put on by USAID (through the US Embassy). This program was an English language summer camp for four groups of 50 high school students from Aqaba. I was there for the second half, which meant I worked for three days with 50 girls and then for three days with 50 boys. I was in charge of “leadership games” which really meant warm up activities in the mornings and making sure all of my team made it to each of the three sections (art, drama, environmental English).

Since I usually work with children with special needs, it was fun to get to work with these high schoolers, who had pretty decent English.

The camp ran from 9-3 each day, so once the kids went home, I was free to hang out with other volunteers, go swimming and snorkeling in the Red Sea, watch satellite TV and hang out in the a/c. It was a wonderful week and I thoroughly enjoyed myself!

Playground Party

Two weeks after our end of the year party, we finally had our last day of school. For this we invited Peace Corps down to town for a big Playground opening ceremony. For some reason we thought it would be a good idea to pin signs on each student that said things like “Welcome Peace Corps” and “Thank you for the money”. I thought it made the kids look ridiculous, but noone asked me. We also spent about an hour decorating the plate that was to hold the scissors to cut the ribbon with. This included a lot of hot glue and plastic flowers. Helu kthir. The party was wonderful though. My center went all out and made huge plates of Magluba (my favorite food) The playground looks great all finished and I know the kids will be enjoying it for years to come. So thank you to everyone that made this possible!!

Festival at the center

For the last few weeks of school the students practiced dances and competitions to do at an end of the year party for the parents. In addition to our students, the students from the preschool also came over and sang. The whole thing was absolutely adorable. My kids sang a song, similar to “Old MacDonald” and each of them was an animal, complete with costume. The two older classes did dances to Army songs (which are very very popular here, there is a whole station on TV dedicated to army songs). There were also competitions, including who can sew on a button the fastest, who can make the puzzle the fastest and who can put the blocks in color order the fastest. The kids had a great time, and I think the parents really enjoyed it as well.

COS Conference

After Scott and Sandra headed home, it was time for me to go up to Madaba for our COS (close of service/continuation of service) conference. The conference was held at a hotel with a pool, which was really nice. In between sessions about re-entry into America and resume writing, we could go and dip our feet in the pool (and later in the day swim). It was a nice time to celebrate our success and start planning for getting back to America.

Scott and Sandra's visit

In May my big brother Scott came to visit with his girlfriend Sandra. It was wonderful hosting them. Tighe and I took them all over the country. I got to do Petra at Night for the first time, which was a lot of fun, although kind of over priced. While they were here, Scott proposed to Sandra. So big MABROOK to them!!

Workshop with boys

In May Tighe and I replicated the Aqaba Disability Awareness camp in our town for the 5^th and 6^th grade boys. Because of a misunderstanding, instead of doing the camp after school for 12-20 kids, we instead did it during the day, which meant all 50 boys came over to my center. The first day was absolutely insane. We spent half of our time trying to get the boys to sit and listen to what we would be doing. I don’t think any of the kids got much content out of the sessions, but they did enjoy coming to the center.

The second day was held after school, and we expected maybe 12 students to return. Instead we had 25 students show up, which I count as a big success. The students were much better behaved and participated in all of the activities. I still had a huge head ache by the end of the day. Since most of the students at my center are deaf, I’m not used to so many children running around and yelling all day!

The best part of the workshop was teaching the kids some sign language. We gave them each a few pages of sign language, including the alphabet. The next day at school, most of the students had memorized all of the letters and were rapidly trying to spell words to Tighe. I was proud that they were so interested in it.

We are planning to do the same workshop for the girls in town (probably the older girls) during the summer camp, so hopefully they will be just as interested.