Back to Amman

  Amman, Jordan
Wednesday, June 25, 2008

This morning Nabil was late to the 7:00 rendezvous at the hotel. My Cincinnati Bell cell phone doesn't allow roaming in Jordan, so communications have been more complicated that we would have liked here: I can't just call others people and find out what's going on. Being late was unlike Nabil, but the mystery soon explained itself. Around 7:30 he showed up with David Baker and Matthew Bates in the bus with him.  They had left Amman about 4:00 am with the WMYA group which spent the day making a day trip to Aqaba. They rode down on the desert highway as far as the turn off to Al-Rajef then called Nabil so he could pick them up, which he did. Stopping for us as well, meant that we just had time to reach the school by 8:00.

A view out the window in Al-Rajef

 

Classes started with the campers a bit more calm that the previous day. There were getting used to the program and how things ran. David and I caught up on the news of the camp in Amman. Our Youth Corps volunteers there are working very long hours and are lodging in some challenging circumstances, but are setting excellent examples and working very hard. We will have the chance to visit them tomorrow if all goes as planned. I showed Dave around and introduced him to the administrators and other local staff members. He was able to observe the activities and our volunteers in action and said he was impressed with how things were going.  Matthew Bates began taking over the responsibilities of directing the camp from our side of the situation, since we would be leaving in the afternoon so that we could observe the camp in Amman for one day before the programs wrap up.
 
The day went well; the campers understood and anticipated the program.

Freeze dancing

There was less homesickness (we had two or three cases yesterday that took some time to work through), and we accentuated the positive and tried to eliminate the few negatives there had been before.
 
One new activity was musical chairs. We discovered the competition was so intense among thee campers that the teachers decided to leave a chair for every child so that no one would be left out. This prevented pretty physical competition for the last chair.

Musical chairs

And it was fun enough just to move to the music and sit in a hurry when the music stopped.  Marjolaine continued getting to know the local staff ladies, and was invited to come visit them in the kitchen, which she found, was stiflingly hot, even without wearing a long robe and headscarf.

Marjolaine with the ladies in the kitchen

She working with them a little in the kitchen and they laughed and joked through approximate English and even more approximate Arabic. She helped prepare the chicken and the lunch salad, dicing the raw vegetables finely. After lunch, one of the ladies, an elementary teacher named Enaam, invited Marjolaine to come to her home for a visit, which she was happy to do.
 
Enaam explained that she is one of eight daughters in her family. Having a son is very important in Arab culture, so after each daughter was born her father said he wanted to try again. After eight daughters he finally announced "Enough, I don't want that son any more!" He worked very hard to help his daughters get ahead and though and unskilled worker, managed to put six of them through university. It was a fascinating peek into rural life in Jordan
 
Enaam showed Marjolaine her house and the family garden, with tomatoes and zucchini showing. Marjolaine found that the most interesting room was the guest room that had low cushioned platform running around the base of three walls reminiscent of the pillows that might be used in a Bedouin tent in the dessert. Unfortunately the visit could not last too long, because we had a long trip yet before us. 
 
Before lunch I copied all our digital photos of the camp onto CD and gave it to Musa so that they could view them and print them if they wanted later. I promised to send them some prints as well when I got back home. Even in Jordan, not everyone has a camera, certainly not good-quality cameras, so photos are still real treats not to be taken for granted.
 
After send the campers home on the bus, the staff had lunch and we had our staff meeting. I explained that we would be leaving for a day and a half, returning to the area to meet them in Wadi Musa on Thursday evening. Matthew led the discussion of activities and planning for the next day. After wrapping up the meeting, my wife and I and David Baker had Nabil drive us to Ma'am on the Desert Highway, where we could find a taxi to take us to Amman. We said our goodbyes and expressed our thanks to the Al-Rajef staff, and said we hoped we'd meet them again.
 
Yazan, Faris, Bujra and Raia rode with us, since they were going to pick up supplies in Ma'an for the camp. We talked with them quite a bit as we rode. They come from wealthy families; all four will be attending prestigious universities in the UK starting this autumn. We asked about their summer plans. Some of them will be traveling, some preparing for school. We asked about what they like to do in their free time. They're members of various sporting clubs, and all are certified scuba divers. We swapped scuba stories for a while, and talked about the advantages of international travel as part of our educations. Fatigue caught up with our discussion and three of the Jordanian students started napping or listening to MP3 players.
 
Yazan noticed I was wearing a United Youth Camps shirt and asked about our camp program, where it was, how expensive and such things. He had attended a camp in Culver Indiana the previous summer, where he had taken flight lessons. He asked if learning to fly airplanes was part of our camp program.  I told him we hadn't added that to our program yet, though it would certainly be a nice addition! He was also curious about the Youth Corps program, so I gave some information about that as well. Yazan offered to show us all around Amman and take us to his clubs when we get back to Jordan. I doubt if we'll have the time, but it was nice of him to offer.
 
In Ma'an, we asked Nabil to negotiate a taxi for us back to Amman. He could get a better price that we could with our western faces. He came back shortly with an older taxi and 1/3 off the going price. We loaded out suitcases into the trunk; our computer and shoulder bags went between Marjolaine and me in the back seat, and we started off north. Before leaving Ma'an though we stopped at the driver's house where he had someone else take the wheel, handing him a new pack of cigarettes and some cash just before we drove off. The taxi was not air conditioned, so we had to put the windows down in the extreme heat as we drove north on the Desert Highway. I was on the sunny side of the car and slathered on the sunscreen to keep from getting burned. The driver chain-smoked the whole three hours north, and I sometimes felt like I was smoking too since I sat behind him. We all kept brushing the ash off our clothes, but that's the way life is here, so we all three just rolled with it.
 
As we drove through the parched Arabian Desert, we passed many people in Bedouin garb. The traffic moved very quickly except for the times we passed marked speed controls. Once were stopped by the police who checked the driver's license and registration.  We also passed the ruins of several old forts or castles, vestiges of times when these trade routes had to be protected from marauders.
 Finally we climbed up to the elevation of Amman and found our way to the Larsa Hotel once again. How wonderful the air conditioning felt and a clean cool shower! We'll make it an early night. Tomorrow we'll visit the other camp program where our Youth Corps volunteers are working, at the YMWA camp here in Amman.