Monday in Al-Rajef

  Al-Rajef, Jordan
Tuesday, June 24, 2008

This morning activities started promptly at 8:00. From then until 10:00 we had 4 half hour blocks of time for the campers, with each color group moving from one classroom area to the next every 30 minutes. One of the simple English concepts we hope the children will learn is colors: many of the activities include repetition of red, blue, green, yellow and a few others. They are divided into 4 groups by color, a science class today, taught by Jessica with the help of Yazan and Joshua was to put colored ice cubes (water mixed with food coloring, then frozen) into containers, place the containers in the sun and let the children watch what happens when blue is mixed with yellow, red with yellow, blue with red and so on. Another activity was working with colored play dough. This is obviously a favorite activity, and we plan to include it every day from now on. Another activity was teaching the children basic body parts in English the song "heads, and shoulders, knees and toes." The song also includes eyes, ears, mouth and nose, and the children really enjoyed it. Raia read them stories in both English and Arabic that taught them to count various animals, and they also made paper bag hand puppets. In PE, they played structured games, but the structure was a little too much, so we decided to just leave it as unstructured playtime to run off some energy each day.

bubble blowing during PE

 
At 10:00 the campers came into the long entryway room for breakfast: juice and bread with butter. We had planned on about an hour's break for everyone at that time, but the children had finished eating in about 15 minutes and were again ready for action. So breakfast time will be shortened to half an hour from now on.
 
From 10:30 to 1:00 we had another block of activities including playing "freeze" to music. The children dance to a mix of Western and Arab music but must freeze when the music stops. They really loved this game, especially when their teachers joined them. In one class, a little fellow refused to dance and insisted on just sitting on his chair. Joshua scooped him, up chair and all and moved around with the music. The next thing Joshua knew, there was a line of children boys and girls waiting their turn for a chance at the musical chair!

Joshua is a big hit during freeze dancing

Joshua really got his workout in that class. At one point my wife got involved along with the other teachers and danced with the children. It was certainly nothing wild but when one of the village teachers came in, her hands went to her mouth in an international expression of "oh my," and she went to call other local teachers who are helping in the kitchen. Marjolaine was concerned that she had shocked them in this culture where women are expected to be very reserved. Afterwards she went to talk to the woman and said she hoped she had not offended them. The teacher told her that she had not been offended at all; she thought it was wonderful; it was just something they had never seen before and would not have thought of doing themselves!
 
Classes wrapped up at 1:00, when lunch was served. It was a copious meal of rice and chicken, and vegetables in yogurt, with bottled water to drink. By 1:30 the children were ready to go home.

lunch at Al-Rajef

Our driver Nabil the Second (not the same driver we had in Amman, but also named Nabil) drove them to their homes, while the adults ate.
 
Around 2:00 we had a staff meeting to find out how everything went and see what could be improved. MaryAnn guided the discussion as we then planned the classes for the next day. We decided to have everyone go into Wadi Musa (at the mouth of the Siq leading to Petra, only 20 minutes away, for dinner. MaryAnn wanted to catch a bus back to Amman so she could attend the graduation at ABS, where she and Matthew had been teaching for the past year. By the time we reached Wadi Musa, the last bus had left, so Nabil drove her to Ma'an about an hour away where she was able to catch a bus.
 
We took half an hour free time to look around Wadi Musa, and then met at the inexpensive Al Wadi restaurant for dinner. The Jordanian teachers wanted to go see a friend visiting from Kuwait, so they asked to be excused, leaving the 8 American participants to share dinner. After more than a week of nothing but Jordanian food (very tasty - but very different from our usual), many of us chose hamburgers or spaghetti for dinner. It was a good time to relax a little and talk about how everything was going.  Nabil was back to pick us up at 7:30 and everyone was back at either hotel or apartment before 8:00.

The hotel where my wife and I are staying faces west, so the sunsets are magnificent. We watched the orange globe of the sun, shimmering in the desert heat, sink down into the intricately textured, rust-colored Jebel Haroun and the other mountains around Petra. I'm sure we won't forget those vistas.