Another first day of school

Sunday morning the bus picked us up at 645am! We went a new route as we now picked up students as well as teachers. Now started our first day of school. Jamie went to the weaving room while I went to the ceramics room. They are both part of the vocational section where the students are probably high school – adult. I sat around for a while (if you haven’t noticed I do that a lot) and talked to some of the teachers that speak English as well as saying hi and introducing myself to some students and talked for a while with one that spoke good English. Many of the stared and I just tried to smile through it when some would try to talk to me or ask questions in Arabic. Finally I found out from one of the teachers that they were not going to do anything today and probably start ceramics next week. Jamie and I got to go to a snack break at 10am with some of the students that didn’t/couldn’t fast (not sure which one). Also the younger kids, I think under 10, got to eat. After that the day still went pretty slow still. We talked to some teachers and found out that Monday we would be placed in the school section for a couple weeks to see how we like it over there and then come back to the vocational side and then choose where we want to be put. Came home, now takes 1 hour and 20 min. to get back to our place, they drive crazy here, they go so fast and stop so fast, always beeping and there are tons of hills and small streets. I have been getting a little carsick and hope that will stop. Took a little nap and we went on my 2nd official run. Hill is still insane. Tonight was “on your own for dinner” night and we all walked down to a little snack shop to have a gyro type thing, called Shawarma.

Monday was now our day to go to the school section. We were both put in an arts & crafts room together. The teacher was very nice and spoke good English so we could talk to her and she could tell us what to do and what was going on. The first class was 2nd graders and she helped them make a decoration poster where they stamped a shaped with paint. The part I didn’t like was that the kids didn’t get to do much on their own. The teacher pretty much put the paint on chose where it would go and the kids helped press it down. The next class she asked Jamie and I to do the craft. Since I’m all about kids expressing themselves creatively, I decided to do it different. : ) I got 4 kids and Jamie got 4 so we each did our own. I let the kids put the paint on and let them pick where to put the stamp on the page, okay so ours might not have turned out to be the best looking final project…
We are not sure what will happen tomorrow, if we will stay in the art room or move around. It was nice having something to do and the day went fast. I sat in the front of the bus on the way home thinking it might help the car sickness, but not only did it not help but an added plus to see my life flash before my eyes every time I thought we were going to crash.

We have made a few admirers in the last two days as well. One very cute little boy, probably about 6 (but it is hard to tell age since some are really small depending on disability) would peek at us on the bus and always smile and blow kisses. Some of the kids from the vocational side would pass by the art room and wave, this might happen a few times an hour. We have another boy on the bus that likes to get our attention and wave; again, this happens several times throughout the ride. Some other boys kept “accidently” rolling a ball in the room we were in and pushing each other in and another would look at me and then when I would notice and smile back he would get a big sheepish grin and get embarrassed and put he face in his hands. It is amazing how much we can communicate without words and also how much we can figure out by going on visual cues alone.

One new picture today: this is Jamie in the art room.

Mt. Nebo

I got 8 hours of sleep Thursday night! Okay I still woke up at 530am BUT went to bed at 930pm so I think I'm getting the hang of it.

I went on my first group run. We went on an about 2 mile route they have been doing and it was pretty nice, the only problem, "Inshallah Hill." Inshallah is a term the Jordanians use often meaning, God willing. We named it ourselves. I have no idea how to measure the height or the distance of this hill that we live on top of but what I do know is that I felt like my lungs were going to explode from my chest. It was absolutely ridiculous. Anyways, I had to walk a little which is odd for me but I made it alive. It should be great training for us... Inshallah.

We then took a taxi to the bus station and the bus to Medaba. (By the way, since there is 5 of us, and we don’t like spending money on transportation, us four girls always cram into the not so roomy back seats of the taxis.) Once in Medaba we found another taxi that would take us to Mt. Nebo. The view from Mt. Nebo was kind of cool but hard for me to grasp the fact that Moses stood in the same spot as God showed him the land…

Deuteronomy 34:1 Then Moses went to Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab and climbed Pisgah Peak, which is across from Jericho. And the LORD showed him the whole land, from Gilead as far as Dan; 2 all the land of Naphtali; the land of Ephraim and Manasseh; all the land of Judah, extending to the Mediterranean Sea F64 ; 3 the Negev; the Jordan Valley with Jericho – the city of palms – as far as Zoar. 4 Then the LORD said to Moses, "This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I told them I would give it to their descendants. I have now allowed you to see it, but you will not enter the land."
5 So Moses, the servant of the LORD, died there in the land of Moab, just as the LORD had said. 6 He was buried F65 in a valley near Beth-peor in Moab, but to this day no one knows the exact place. 7 Moses was 120 years old when he died, yet his eyesight was clear, and he was as strong as ever.

We went to a smaller, local restaurant to eat Friday night dinner. We shared kabobs (on pita with hummus & Turkish salad, which is like an amazing salsa) and then went to a sweet shop and shared some Jordanian dessert.

Today is Saturday, I slept for 9.5-10 hours! Went to sleep at about 930-10pm, again was exhausted, and woke up at 730am! I didn’t even hear the call to prayer at 430! Good time to get on track since school starts tomorrow. We ate brunch together and then Tine, a girl that was on the project last year who is still staying for another month joined us for church service in our apartment, and after ate linner (lunch/dinner). It’s 6pm and I’m getting very tired already, debating weather to take a nap or try to tough it out and get to bed early again.

Other things: I got a cell phone. Pretty excited about that, I actually can receive calls and text from the US too!
Also here is a video of our flat…


Here is a link to my public facebook photo album. Right now you can see a couple pictures from our flat as well as Mt. Nebo photos, I will continue to add.

PHOTOS

Up to Date

Okay everyone, my first official blog… guess I should let everyone know what Amman is like and what I have been doing the last couple days.

SLEEP: Let’s start with the time zone/jet lag factor. Jordan is 8 hours ahead of Minnesota (central time). I have been doing okay with sleep, better than I thought. I got in Tuesday night at 9pm and stayed up talking/getting things put away until about 1am. I woke up at about 6am. After work I decided to take a nap, thinking I would sleep a hour… over 3 hours later I woke up. The next morning I woke up at 430am from the call to prayer (we will discuss later). This morning was best yet, I was so tired I went to sleep at 930pm and woke up at 530am. And since that was 8 hours, I’m hoping I am on track!

WORK: For the last two days I have gone to the place where I will be working. The place is called YWMA and is a school for the mentally challenged. We get picked up by the school bus (all teachers/students get picked up by the busses) and we ride its for almost an hour to school. There is two parts to the school, a regular school and a vocational school. I will probably be placed in the vocational school where older students go to learn life skills but mostly do either weaving (rugs/baskets), ceramics, or woodshop. We will also teach an English class once a week as well as go on house visits once a week. School for students starts this Sunday (remember workweek is Sunday-Thursday). The last two days we haven’t had much to do, the teachers are organizing their classrooms a little but mostly they just chat in Arabic (a lot about food we think) while we mostly sit in silence for a couple hours. To end, we are ready for the students to come to be busy!

LIVING/ROOMMATES/GROUPMATES: I have 2 roommates and 2 groupmates (I made that word up just now for them). We are in a nice 3 bedroom flat. We have a living room (with TV), good size kitchen, dining room, and 2 bathrooms. We are defiantly not suffering. I live with Audry & Jamie, both from Ohio, Stephanie & Eduardo live a floor down in a similar place. We will each take turns making dinner (5 nights out of the week) and the other 2 nights is leftovers or on own. We travel together and also formed our own running club… actually probably the ONLY people, for sure women, running. And rumor has it we will try to run the Dead Sea Marathon in April!

OTHER: So a couple things that are interesting about Jordan right now. 1. The “call to prayer.” Everyday starting at 430am the call to prayer goes off on loudspeakers throughout the city coming from different masques. Naturally, this usually wakes me up, its very different. It also sounds at different times throughout the day but the 430 one is most noticeable to me. Here is a clip of what this sounds like… (not my video)



The last thing is that we are in Ramadan right now. This makes eating and drinking for us a little more difficult because 1. No one else is doing it, 2. No food places are serving, and 3. If we do eat we need to do it in private. I have been starving at the school the last 2 days and yesterday snuck into the bathroom, stuffed a granola bar in my mouth, and chugged some water… still so hungry!

Today is Friday, so it’s the weekend for us. We are going to go on a short run and then travel to Mt. Nebo.

Interesting Jordan Facts

-Independence from Britain in 1946
-Current King: Abdullah 2 Bin Al Hussein (since 1999)
-Shares boarder with Syria, Iraq, Palestine, & Israel
-92,300 sq. kilometers
-Jordan’s population 5.7 million Amman’s population 2 million
-Language: Arabic
-Religion: 95% of the population are Sunni Muslim (Islam official religion)
-Ramadan: Holy month of fasting from sunrise to sunset. No food, drink, or smoke while sun is up. No alcohol sold all month. (2009 Ramadan is from 8/21 to 9/19)
-Currency is Jordanian Dinar (JD) Right now 1JD=1.41USD
-Our transportation: taxis & buses
-Work week: Sunday-Thursday (Friday & Saturday=weekend)

Bought My Plane Ticket

I leave Monday the 24th.
My Skype name is Schreiber.Kelley