December was a month filled with accomplishments. I came to Amman wanting to teach English. In Rhode Island, I teach at the Refugee Dream Center - every Wednesday and Friday I would be teaching a group of adults from around the world, learning about so many new things as well as teaching about new ideas and concepts. I really missed this coming into my fifth month on program. The last week of November, I found out that I would be able to work with the Access Program ( a US State Department program aimed at providing scholarships for students to learn English ) that was located in Amman. I attend classes every Friday and Saturday, and to be honest guys, attending the Access class is what changed my entire experience living in Amman. I am always excited to sit in on their classes, to talk to the students and work with the teacher. I have a difficult time not having responsibilities, in Rhode Island I am always juggling a million projects and four internships, and four moths of being away from that was difficult for me. Access kind of allowed me to get back into the groove of "working". For the rest of this post , I'm going to mention some of the highlights of my time in Amman during December :) December 9, 2016: Concerts abroad! After my Access class, one of my friends had invited my roommate and I to see a concert later that night. It was a the first singing concert I'd been to in Amman, and was very excited to go! The whole set up for the performance reminded me of Lupo's ( a place in Rhode Island that hosts a lot of concerts). December 23, 2016: Celebrating Christmas in Amman! Christmas is a big deal in my family back in the US. We go all out with Christmas cookies, the "creepy" Elf on the shelf spends the month of December moving around , we have a theme for our Christmas tree's such as last years " Mike Wizowsktree" Modeled after the small, green, one eyed monster from Monsters Inc. We are basically the definition of the capitalistic version of Christmas. This year, because I was in Jordan, I wanted to celebrate the holidays with my friends. My roommate and I decided to have a small gift giving/ receiving extravaganza. We actually went as far as to look for "Christmas stockings" to put the gifts in, and ended up with hatta Santa hats from a store on Rainbow st. A few days before Christmas we got together with some of our friends and exchanged gifts while playing Jackaroo... which then led to us singing karaoke songs into one of our friends phones, in the middle of a café. The holiday season during my exchange is one I will never forget. December 28, 2016: Beit Sitti! For December, instead of traveling with Amideast, we took a cooking class in Al Weibdeh. We went to Beit Sitti, which translates to " My Grandmothers House" in English. They host cooking classes where you basically prepare four course traditional meals. While we were there, we learned how to make Mujaddara, Moutabbal, FarmersSalad, and Muhalabia. The space was beautiful, and the food was iktiir zaki ( very delicious ). December 29,2016: Markets, Sweatshirts, and Tea. I love adventures, and after arriving in Jordan I kind of refer to everything as an adventure. However, this day is definitely in my top ten. In Jordan throughout December, it was very cold. I accidentally left my jacket that I bought specifically for my time in Jordan in my bedroom... back in Rhode Island... So I had been on the hunt for a winter jacket to last me the few months of cold weather. Because I am lucky enough to know some of the most helpful people in the world, one of my friends offered to come with my roommate and I to an outdoor market to see if I could find a cheap, high quality, preferably black/olive green jacket. We went on a Thursday afternoon and what started as a normal shopping experience slowly became one of the highlights of my exchange. For starters my roommate discovered a beautiful navy blue sweater that in her words was " emblazoned with the perpetually smiling and noble face of Americas true leader and his family... the Obamas". One of our other friends showed up later on and we spent a while looking for flannels in all shades and sizes. Then came time to find the jacket... however we briefly stopped at stand that had a " Grinch" doll, because that is one of my favorite characters of all time. My friend found a jacket that I ended up falling in love with, and then helped me lower the price. After the outdoor market we walked to Al Weibdeh, stopped for a moment to admire the view of Amman , and got tea at a cafe. Days like this, are what have formed my exchange expierence - I constantly try to do new things, things that I will never have the opportunity to do outside of Amman. Carpe Diem.
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( The next few blog posts are going to be recaps on the last four months in Amman. To anyone who reads, thank you and I hope you enjoy :) )
November was a month filled with a wide range of experiences, from visiting Ajloun and Jerash, to helping decorate the new YES Alumni Park, oh and don't forget volunteering with the US Embassy for their Election Night Event. In this post, I am going to speak about some of the things I experienced during my fourth month living in Amman; I guess we are starting on November 5 ... November 5, 2016: The YES Alumni in Jordan were working on a project to open a park in Amman for the community. Because we are currently on the YES Abroad program, the four of us exchange students were invited to help "set up" the park for it's opening day! My roommate and I went earlier in the day with some of the Jordanian Yes Alumni. When we arrived, we all basically broke off into "groups" - some were planting flowers around the entrance pathway, others were painting stairs, and some were playing soccer. I helped plant flowers ( partially because anything which involves "art" isn't really my strength ) and it was hard work, but a lot of fun. I had the opportunity to talk to two of the YES Alumni while we planted and although we mainly spent our time laughing at our attempt at gardening it was really nice getting to know more of the "YES Family". Fast forward a few hours and the park was decorated, guests for the "opening ceremony" arrived, and all of the volunteers were tired. The ceremony was brief, and afterward everyone was welcome to buy snacks, jewelry, or get henna in a small open market that was set up, and some of the YES Alum played American Football. I got henna for the second time in my life ( the first was in Disney World ) and it was beautiful... about ten minutes later one of my friends and I tried to have the "perfect" high-five, and low and behold we partially messed up the henna! My favorite part of the day however was after we left the YES Park to get food. We went to a burger place near Taj Mall and while we all waited for food, one of my friends tried teaching me how to read some words in Arabic. I wasn't great at it, however I loved trying to figure it out - eventually he just pronounced it for me and I memorized and repeated it. But this moment, it was the first time someone actually attempted to teach me the Arabic alphabet without giving up after two minutes. I really appreciated the help he gave me, it allowed me to gain confidence with reading Arabic script and it helped me get out of the " I can't do it " mind frame. November 8, 2016: ELECTION NIGHT! Although I am not old enough to vote, this election was one of the most important elections I have lived through. The U.S. Embassy in Jordan hosted an event which allowed Jordanians and Americans to interact in a "party" like atmosphere, where we celebrated US and Jordanian relations as well as the US election. Results were not out yet ( because of the time difference). The four of YES Abroad students were invited by the Embassy to volunteer throughout the vent. Two of us worked on recruiting event guests to participate in making video messages to the future president, while the other two helped run a photo booth. My roommate and I walked around in heels with giant red poster boards using our Arabic and English to communicate with a wide range of people. Later on in the night my roommate and I switched shifts and I took a break. Some of my friends were at the event so I ended up hanging out with them. A DJ was playing music for the event and somehow we all ended up dancing and singing along to "Happy" by Pharrell and then doing the "Macarena". When the night was coming to an end, the US Ambassador to Jordan came out to greet guest who were coming for the second party the embassy was hosting. The four of us decided that we wanted to meet her, so we asked one of the employees if we could get in line to shake her hand. He walked us around the building and brought us to the front of the line! We shook her hand, which was a great ending to a really fun night. November 12, 2016: Downtown is my favorite place in Amman. I love the energy, and all of the new and exciting things you can discover while walking through the balad. My friend and I decided that we wanted to spend a day exploring and visiting historical sites. We started on Rainbow st and walked to the Citadel. I had been to these sites before, but it is always a different experience when you go with new people. We spent a lot of time at the Citadel and took some amazing pictures/videos. Afterward we walked to the Roman Amphitheatre - but first we stopped at a small store to buy chips and drinks. The Roman Amphitheatre is beautiful, it is my favorite place to sit and think. We walked up the steps and found a place to sit where we ate our food, discovered that Doritos and salt n' vinegar chips taste great together, and listened to music. We walked back to Rainbow st, later on and sat at the Wild Jordan Café, because the view of Amman their is incredible. November 26, 2016: Castles and Greco-Roman Cities! With the YES Abroad program, we take different excursions throughout Jordan. For this trip we ventured north of Amman to Ajloun and Jerash. We traveled to Ajloun to see the Ajloun Castle which was built in 1184. We walked its long corridors, learned about the history of the castle and the city from our guide, and stood atop the castle to view one of the most breathtaking views I have ever had the privilege to see. After leaving the castle we traveled to Jerash to see the ruins of a Greco-Roman city. We stood in what once was a huge chariot racing stadium, took pictures in "the Forum" ( a huge oval shaped space with massive columns ), and visited the Temple of Artemis. This day trip taught us all a great deal about the history of Jordan and we were able to gain knowledge about some facts we previously had not known - for example some of the best olive oil and honey in Jordan comes from Ajloun and Jerash. October is by far my favorite month of the year. Not only is the weather perfect, it is also the month filled with apple picking and family adventures ( and also my birthday! ). Spending all of October in Amman was an adventure, and in this post I'm gonna attempt to recap on what I did.
On October 1st, I went with my roommate to a YES Alumni event. For anyone that doesn't know, the program I am on ( YES Abroad ) also has a program for students outside of the US to come to America for a year on a full scholarship. The event was for all of the Jordanian alumni of the program. The event was hosted at Le Meriden hotel, and because we were attending on the second day, the event was mainly about team building activities. When we first arrived we received shirts and were quickly introduced to some of the alumni by our coordinator. Everyone there was extremely kind and it was really interesting to hear about others exchange experiences. The first activity we participated in was a scavenger hunt of sorts. After this was all set an done we went outside to a space near the hotels pool. This is where the team building activities became trust exercises. We had one activity which was basically the scarier version of a trust fall. There was also an activity where one person held the bottom of a piece of paper and another held the top and then the coordinator lit the paper on fire... I still don't really understand the point of that activity but I have never laughed so hard in my life. The final activity we had, was to create a short performance. My group sang a song in Arabic and then I sang Adele " Rolling in the Deep" while some of the group danced... It was so much fun. The reason why this day meant so much to me wasn't because of all of the activities ( although they were fun), it was getting to know all of the alumni. I made so many friends that day, that have really helped me during my time abroad. On October 5th, I went to the European Film Festival with my roommate and a few of the alumni I met earlier in the week. Before going to see the film, we walked around Rainbow st and attempted to see these stairs that usually have umbrellas hanging above it. Unfortunately the umbrellas were not up, but it was nice being able to walk around and actually see where different stores and artworks were. We went to the film however we didn't get to stay for the whole thing because of our curfew. October was also the month that I was introduced to my favorite game in the world, Jackaroo. Jackaroo is like the game "sorry", only ten times more fun and way more intense. There is a café near my house where they have all different board and card games and that is typically where I play with friends. I can't wait to play this game in the US with my family and friends. A few other things I got to do in October include, going to a Flea Market, seeing a community theatre perform the play " Love in the Time of War ", and I got to take over the YES Abroad Instagram Page to share my experience in Jordan so far. One of my favorite memories actually was going to the Roman Amphitheatre with my roommate and a friend. We were just standing outside taking pictures and these two little girls came over to sell us water and snacks. We said no thank you but ended up talking to them for a little while and took a bunch of pictures. We ran into them a few times after that but it was just really interesting to me. It was interesting because most people just walk past them or just say "no thank you" and that's it. I don't know that moment really changed my view on the world. It made me want to talk to everyone, introduce myself to everyone, get to know all those around me. I haven't been on my blog for a little while now so I thought today would be a good time to update it. The last two weeks have held moments that will forever impact my life- so let me start from the beginning.
From September 11 - September 17 my school was off for Eid Al- Adha. Throughout the week my roommate and I spent a lot of time roaming Amman, meeting up with friends from school, and taking many, many pictures. I think my favorite part of the break was when my roommate and I came home from a café to be greeted with a makeover from the 5 year old girl who lives one floor above us. She is beyond adorable and she actually wasn't too bad at putting on make up either. The best part though was that our host brother walked into the house right in the middle of her doing our make up, and the whole apartment erupted with laughter. I'll add some pictures to this post so you guys can see how amazing we looked. Anyways the reason why I loved this particular moment was because it reminded me so much of my sister and brothers back home. My sister is an amazing make up artist and my brother Petey always wants to help whenever she does mine. What I've realized while in Jordan is that I am constantly collecting small moments like this, that the other people involved might not remember forever but I will. Funny story actually, on our first night off my roommate and I went to Abdali Mall. We went and got freakshakes from Nutmeg and talked about our lives back in the U.S. After this we decided to go check out the indoor mall and when we walked in their were carnival decorations hanging from the ceiling and American Hip Hop music blasting through the speakers. We were kind of confused until we saw a sign that said "Eid Carnival". Then it happened, I witnessed the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my life. When we looked over the railing to the floor below us we saw a bunch of families standing around a carnival themed set, teenage boys dressed as clowns were dancing in the center and a few carnival rides were on the outskirts. My roommate and I busted into laughter because neither of us were expecting to see this. We hoped onto an elevator and went down to the floor where all of this was happening and we just watched and sang along to the music, I even got to call back home so my Mom and my classmates could see all of the excitement. I don't know why but this moment has become one of my main highlights of this trip so far. We also finally got to try Mansaf, Jordan's national dish! My host Mom said immediately that she makes the best Mansaf, and I'm pretty confident that she's right. It was so delicious and the best part about it was that it was a family affair, we all ate together and talked and it was all around a great time. Having a week off also gave me a lot of time to reflect on this trip so far and think about my next steps. As many of you back home know, I love to plan. I mean I have had a plan for what I want my life to look like since I was eleven years old. Being an ambassador through the YES Abroad program is one of the most amazing opportunities any student could have and I am so honored to be in Jordan. September 21 marks 1 month in Amman, and honestly I still can't believe I am here. I can't help but constantly be excited about everything around me and things I am learning about this new country and about myself are life changing. Let's see what the next months have in store! The Boulevard is the Jordanian equivalent to Patriots Place. It's a Modern outdoor shopping center filled with cafes and hotel rooms that look over all of the shoppers. My roommate and I however were not there for shopping, we were looking for another café. We had tried walking to it a few days ago but could not find it. Why couldn't we find it, you ask, well we took a cab this time and realized that you had to go on a highway to get there. But at least we knew we were walking in the right direction. The part of Jordan we were in is often refereed to as the " new downtown of Amman " which I can understand. Tall glass buildings seamlessly cover the area and lights brighten the street. The area was beautiful, and although we had a cab driver who wanted to make sure we understood that he would give us a discount if we wanted to go to the Dead sea my roommate and I were still captivated. The first thing we noticed when arriving the Boulevard was the #LoveJo statue. Tourists were taking pictures in front of it, but because we will be here for 8 months we decided to wait until after the café to take our pictures... We walked up a staircase and we were greeted by the beautifully decorated shopping center. A fountain was the first thing I noticed but directly above it were decorations for Eid Al Adha which is coming up next week. Honestly this boulevard puts the Warwick mall at Christmas time to shame. After admiring the scenery we walked around until we found the café! I have seen so many pictures of the food and these milkshakes they have called "freakshakes". Freakshakes are these crazy giant milkshakes that are topped with so many things! I got a Cookie Dough Freakshakes and it was delicious! They were playing music from the early 2000's which provided a good moment for some laughter and stories. I left America for Jordan on August 21, 2016. I was beyond excited to experience a new culture, to hear Arabic all the time, to try new delicious food. I was sad to leave my family, my life back in Rhode Island, and the comforts and privileges within an american society. I was nervous that the girls I was traveling with wouldn't like me, that kids at Mashrek ( the school I'm attending) wouldn't be accepting of the exchange students coming in, or that my host family wasn't going to be as excited to have us. Once I got on the plane though all of my anxiety and stress kind of flew away with the clouds. I realized that eight months seems like a long period of time, but in the grand scheme of my presence on this planet, eight months is nothing. I decided to explore this country not as myself but as a character ( another wonderful piece of advice given by my Mom). Taking a step back from my normal and just embracing the lifestyles around me.
Fast forward 2 weeks, and I am still certain that I made the right decision - that ten year old me was destined to be here and that's why I found this program so long ago. I still can't believe I am here. I can't believe my years of sticking to the path and choosing academics and work over typically fun things paid off. There were moments where I doubted if I was doing the right thing by investing myself in becoming a YES Abroad student, but right now in this moment I don't regret any decision I've made to get myself here. Being in Jordan is ten times cooler than watching any movie. Don't let me fool you though. I have only been here for two weeks and I have already been confronted with challenges. Being in a country that is the second poorest in the world in terms of water changes a lot of a persons daily routine. For example, I never realized how much tap water I drink in the U.S. Here in Jordan you can drink bottled water or filtered tap water because the tap water here is not clean. But your family also only has a limited water supply because in Jordan water is delivered to a neighborhood once a week. You take five minute showers once/ rarely twice a week, ( five minutes is the maximum) but outside it is over ninety degrees and we walk almost everywhere. That is a challenge especially for someone use to taking a shower every morning or who takes one long shower back in the states. Having to take cabs to get to places but not being able to give directions is another challenge. Also, making sure your driver has the meter or "adad" on so you are accurately charged, and making sure that you have change or 1 JD bills in order to pay because cab drivers often don't give change and get very angry when they have to. Yeah taking cabs gives me a lot of anxiety here in Amman. I think the biggest challenge for me has been the school however. In Rhode Island I attended a far from traditional school. We don't have these structured sit down classes where retaining unnecessary facts is the name of the game. We go out and learn about what we love and bring it back to the community to help us all grow. But at this school it is very different - it's a private school, that offers an IB Program ( students can earn an international baccalaureate degree upon graduation), and is very, very textbook oriented. It is similar to my school back home in ways, for example students have internships over the summer, complete personal projects, and they choose classes based off what they want to be in ten years. I love academics don't get me wrong and the classes I am taking here are fantastic, I feel beyond grateful to have this opportunity - I mean some kids in Jordan would kill to come here. But the school just doesn't work for me. I love small classes - my math class has thirty students in it and I have never been in a classroom with more than 20 students. There are so many people in this school and things easily get crowded and loud. I do however love my Global politics class, which makes up for the things I dislike! Now again don't let me fool you. Living in another country is difficult... but amazing. I know I will have days when I miss home a lot and I will also have days where Shmesani is like my second home. In a month I will be seventeen years old and will officially be the oldest on my trip. In a month I will be able to give some direction to cab drivers inshallah and maybe talk with a store owner for more than two minutes. In a month I will hopefully be able to order treats from that bakery using the real names. I have so much to look forward to and all of the little things you overcome while abroad make you so much more appreciative. Actually what kind of motivates me throughout my day are the students at the Refugee dream Center. I am in Jordan for only eight months and I have some privileges while I'm here. When I was in china I got a small taste of what it's like to live in a country you know little about, to not know the language or how currency works, In Jordan it's the same thing. Although I cant 100% understand, I now have a small idea of how a refugee feels when they arrive in a place they must now call home. Today was not only my second week in Jordan but also the first day of school for the week in Amman! I was very excited about school today because I love the two "social studies" classes I am taking. My global politics class is a great space for debates and diving into topics, and my history class is extremely interesting. We were going to spend the school year studying the Civil Rights Movement in America and the Apartheid in South Africa. I was interested in these topics because I thought it would be interesting to learn about how people from another continent viewed these historical events.
I arrived at my school around 7:30am, walked up a lot of stairs, and settled into my homeroom when I was interrupted with enraging news. THEY REMOVED THE HISTORY COURSE!!!!! Yes only eight juniors took the class, but history is a very important subject. I don't know, I am kind of angry about them taking away the class but it just leaves more time for me to work on my research. After school, my roommate and I set out to find this café called Nutmeg ( look it up, it seems great). We walked for about thirty minutes but couldn't find it, so we turned around and hiked up the hills to our new favorite café Mindhub. We both got our usual chocolate coffee and then a mint lemonade. We spent over an hour sitting and calling our families back home and showing them the drinks and the scenery. When the sun started to set we used Careem ( Jordanian Uber) paid 2 JDs ( $2.82 USD) and ventured back into the comfort of our host family's home. The weekend has finally arrived, and my roommate and I decided to start our first day off with another mission: to find a café. The neighborhood we live in is beautiful but in order to get to the main streets you have to walk down what I refer to as the " hills from hell" because they are beyond steep and sometimes slippery. You have to really commit yourself to something in order to go down those hills. It took us a good half an hour to get to the area of the main street we were searching for.
After a quick stop to the ATM we decided to walk up another hill, maybe we would find a market or store that will forever change our lives... and guess what we did! We discovered our very first café! One of my goals for this trip as to find a non-American coffee shop that would be a great space to do school work in and a place that I could reflect on my weeks, months, days in. When we walked in we immediately felt at home because of the "hipster/western" vibe. Mason jars, creative drink names, and costars have never made me so excited before! We both ordered two very different drinks ( which in some ways also described our personalities) - my roommate ordering a mint lemonade, and myself ordering a chocolate coffee fusion. The drinks were great ( we actually both ended up going up and ordering more drinks this time I got the mint lemonade and she got the chocolate coffee fusion) and the atmosphere was even better. We got a chance to relax and really think about how crazy the last week has been (not before taking a million pictures of our drinking and giving a million compliments to our surroundings). Cafes are very popular in Jordan - it's actually really embedded in the cultural. When traveling through Jordan you will see a wide variety of them; some cafe's are only for men ( which is kind of an unspoken rule), some are replications of American/Canadian cafes ( Starbucks is 100% represented throughout Amman, there are also a lot of Costa's which I have never been to but are very popular), and some are purely Jordanian. I am so excited to find more cafes throughout my time here, but I am also happy that there is one relatively close to my where I am staying! My roommate and I found a bakery on the outskirts of the neighborhood we live in. I have no idea what the name is or what we have been buying from them, but they have the most delicious sweets in the world. We found this gem while taking a walk the other night. Our run to the ATM turned into a junk food haul.
When you first enter the bakery you will see plates of cookies wrapped in plastic wrap, a soda machine, and then on your right a wide array of Jordanian baked goods. Almost everything is covered in honey or pistachios and the smell is incredible. The man that works there is very nice and tries to show us whats really really good out of all the treats they offer. On our first trip we bought Kanafeh ( which I spoke about in a previous post) and these desserts that taste like pancakes drenched in real maple syrup. We bought a total of 6 and I spent 1 JD ( $1.44 USD)! We have been there two more times since this initial experience and each time we try new things. Finding this bakery meant a lot to me. I really wanted to come to Jordan and experience different aspects of the culture and life here. I found out later that night that this bakery is the same place my host family goes to, which started a whole conversations. Food always bring people together and it helps create memories. They'll be plenty more posts about this particular bakery and eventually I will remember the name. School in Jordan runs from Sunday - Thursday. Which to some in America may seem crazy but it doesn't feel any different. For the next 8 months we are attending Al Mashrek International School - a Private school in West Amman. We visited the school on Thursday and learned about the program and took a tour of the grounds. Mashrek is beautiful, outside it looks like a college (minus the playground). The classes here are very diverse and the teachers are beyond qualified.
On the first day I woke up at five in the morning ( 10:00 pm American time) and got ready for school. we were told to be outside ten minutes before seven because the "yellow school bus would be there exactly at seven". After having breakfast and packing a lunch we headed outside at 6:50 am - not before taking some first day of school pictures. Ten minutes went buy and the bus was not here exactly at seven... shocking I know. So we continued to wait. Forty minutes later the bus arrived - and school starts at 8:00 am sharp. Low and behold we were late to our first day of school. Mashrek has a lot of stairs- Imagine the Providence Place Mall only had stairs and you needed to get to the third floor. That's what getting to the senior school floor is like. After arriving at our school half an hour late and hiking up to the senior school floor we were directed to a big air conditioned room filled with other eleventh graders. we walked in and were asked o introduce ourselves. We then joined the group to learn about schedules and pick classes. At Mashrek there is block scheduling and in between every class is a 20 minute break. You usually have between 1- 4 classes per day depending on your schedule. On the first day we met the history and economics teacher, attended a math class, and a computer science lesson. I am beyond excited to take History and Global Politics. Our first day was great. Everyone was incredibly kind and helped us find our way. I am excited to learn within the walls of this school \not only about academics but about a part of Jordan not everyone gets to see. For the first time we got to sleep in! We had no Amideast classes or meetings and were given the chance to explore our neighborhood. I ate breakfast with my host Mom as she explained that the house was now our house and to feel comfortable being there. After breakfast we met up with the two other YES students and their host sister to go to the Bird Gardens. Because we are all 16 years old the guard was not supposed to charge us, but we ended up paying 1 JD for the visit. The Bird Gardens were pretty, but also a little bit scary. In the middle there is a playground filled with young children and their parents. Around the playground are small enclosures with different "birds". One has ducks, the other has peacocks, There is a whole section dedicated to pigeons and then there is the monkey. Now if you have ever been to a zoo in America it's very sad to see animals in cages not living a life remotely close to what they would of had in the wild. The Bird Gardens monkey was the most disturbing, sad situation - the monkey was alone in a very small enclosure that has thick layer of trash on the bottom. He has a wooden swing, but you can clearly see how distressed it is. None of the Jordanians seemed to have an issue with it and the whole thing was just scary to look at.
After we abandoned the bird gardens we went to a store and grabbed some water. We then sat over on some steps and spent a good hour trying to flip water bottles to some song ( I still don't understand why flipping water bottles is now the coolest thing ever, but it is frustrating when you don't get it). We then walked around for a while and finally went home. We were supposed to start school so my roommate and I wanted to go out to get school supplies. We took a cab to Taj Mall. Taj Mall is giant compared to the Providence Place mall and is filled with stores around the worlds. We bought a ton of notebooks and I finally was able to buy milk. I have been searching for milk the last 4 days because I brought hot chocolate from pastiche to Amman and I really, really wanted to make it. I spent 1 JD on milk which is equivalent to $1.40 USD. We then decided to go and get something sweet- my roommate got Pinkberry but my choice was so much better. I found a Tollhouse cookie cafe that not only served Tollhouse cookies but also served frozen drinks inspired by different cookies. We then got a cab, were dropped off on the other side of our neighborhood, and walked for half an hour to get to our house. In Amman you do a lot of walking. We had breakfast at the hotel on our second day. I woke up at 7am and went down to the dinning area, where I met a waiter. The waiter showed me every item of food that was laid out and even had a conversation with me in Arabic. After talking to him, I grabbed a plate and made the tough decision of what to pick! I settled on hummus and bread, labneh ( a yogurt spread), Jordanian spring rolls, and some fruit. While sitting in the dinning area it was very quite - partly because I was the only person in the room for a good hour but the TV they had was also off. I took this time to look through the folder that Amideast gave us. The folder was jam-packed with valuable information, including an Arabic and Amiyah survival guide! After an hour my roommate and the others came down and at 9am we had our first meeting of the day. Throughout our meetings we talked about safety, host families, school, stipends, etc. We ate lunch at the hotel, which was relatively the same.
At 5:30pm we all piled into a van a went to meet our host families! My roommate and I were the first to get dropped off. We live in a building with multiple apartments. The elevator is possibly the scariest thing I have ever been on in my life, but it's part of the experience. My host family is made up of a single mother and her three adult children. The house is beautiful and although it is hot outside inside is a lot cooler. When we first arrived we met the sisters and our host mom. We talked about what we were interested in, our ages, our favorite music/tv shows, etc. Then the brother came home and we all kind of sat in an awkward silence with occasional conversation in Arabic. After a few hours we came into our new room. The bedroom is very nice with a lot of storage space our own bathroom area and a desk. We also have a porch where I have been spending a lot of time which has a beautiful view of the neighborhood. Jordan does not have a lot of water, actually the are the second poorest in terms of water resources - so that night my roommate and I had to figure out when we would take showers. On our third day in Amman, we left our host family in the morning to go and get our Visas at a police station. It was kind of a scary experience - the police station was old and it just seemed like a place you would hope to stay away from. We all had to have our finger prints taken and were told to wash our hands in a coed bathroom- that was a strange experience. We then headed back to the Amideast center and had another meeting before having an Arabic lesson, which was a lot of fun! We learned how to conjugate words. Soon after this an officer from the US Embassy came to welcome us to the country and tell us about her experience. The real highlight of the day though was going on our tour of the city. When we finished meeting with officer from the embassy we piled into a van with one of the coordinators and a tour guide and learned all about Amman. We visited the Citadel and the multiple other sites, as well as the Roman Amphitheatre. Both locations were breath taking. It's crazy to believe that you are standing on top of thousands of years of history. After visiting the sites we went to Rainbow st to get Falafel Sandwiches. Although the original restaurant we were supposed to go to was closed, we found another one called "Falafel and Potato" . The sandwich was delicious! While we were eating the call to prayer cam flooding the streets. That is one thing I have kind of fallen in love, getting to hear the call of prayer no matter where you are. Once we were done we went back to our host families house. We sat on the sofa for a while with the family then went to bed. On August 22 I arrived in Amman, Jordan along with 3 other YES Abroad students. We were all excited, tired, hungry, basically we all felt every emotion possible once our plane landed on the ground. Our venture in the airport was brief although - quick warning - the floors are very, very sticky there! After getting our initial visas and getting our bags, we met two Amideast staff members that were going to drive us to the hotel we were staying at. They were very helpful - and funny! Viewing Amman in person for the first time was such a surreal moment. The country is filled with white buildings that match in design, and there is a lot of traffic ( I was told by one of the staff members that the traffic was caused by all of the Jordanians who work abroad that come home for the summer which causes the population driving to increase). Our ride from the airport to JAD Hotel was between 20/30 minutes. Throughout that time our driver pointed out different restaurants and landmarks and made a big effort to show us all of the American things Amman had - such as Popeye's and KFC. We also had a huge debate about which country had more Starbucks cafes, lets just say the U.S. won. The JAD Hotel is nothing but beautiful. Our rooms were open with beautiful views, and lets not forget the crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. After a 14 hour plane ride, this was more than any of us could have hoped for. That night we had dinner at Syrian/Jordanian Restaurant- which included what are liaison described as " Syrian BBQ". The hummus and fresh bread was delicious! One of the girls on our trip was celebrating her birthday so we also got to try knafeh - a Jordanian desert with cheese and fried noodles. The waiters carried out the knafeh on a silver tray with a giant sparkler sticking out of the top - it was insane! Our first night abroad was amazing and really showcase some of the many things we heard about before arriving. One night down 237 more to go! Way back in 2012, I was starting seventh grade. That was my first year in a new school, my first year getting letter grades, and my first year hearing about diplomacy. I remember learning about Benjamin Franklin and how he is considered to be " America's First Diplomat". The idea of traveling the world and representing my country while learning about new places and cultures excited me more than anything. Fast forward to 2016 and I still dream of being a U.S. Ambassador. This blog is about is an opportunity that brings me one step closer to achieving my dream.
When I was 13 years old I discovered the YES Abroad program. The purpose was to send 65 American students to countries with significant Muslim populations to foster relationships and understanding that would transcend international borders. I immediately fell in love with the program and had my heart set on going to Morocco. I started studying Arabic and French ( because in order to travel to Morocco you needed a year of French ) and learned all about the countries culture and history. Now in my sophomore year of high school I applied to the program. I was so excited because this was something I had wanted to do for four years. The hardest part for me was writing the letter to my host family. I wasn't sure if that letter was actually going to be sent out to the perspective families and I wanted the letter to be really well written- I actually spent a few days writing it. When it came time to rank which countries I wanted to go to, the country I dreamed of going to Morocco ended up being third on my list. India and Turkey became my first and second choice and before I knew it the application was sent through cyberspace and the inevitable waiting game began. A few months later I found out I was a semi-finalist and had an in person interview with two women from AFS USA. The interview went really well and was my favorite part of the "application" process. A few weeks before finalist were hoped to be announced a survey was released saying that YES Abroad was adding two new countries, Jordan, and Bulgaria. I was ecstatic! Jordan is in the heart of where I hope to live and work, and all of the things I have been doing in Rhode Island could easily continue there. Needless to say, I immediately emailed back saying I was highly interested in Jordan. I was teaching English at the Refugee Dream Center when all of a sudden my phone rang. It was my Mom. I excused myself from class and when I answered all I heard was " YOU GOT IN, YOU"RE GOING TO JORDAN"! I was so excited, once I got off the phone with her, I started calling everyone in my phone list. This thing I had been dreaming about for years all of a sudden turned into my reality! All I can think about now is going to Jordan. I'm studying the language, watching every documentary and reading every book about the country. I've been applying to volunteer with numerous organizations and have already connected with numerous people in the country. I believe this experience will be life-changing and I can't wait to go and share my experience with my friends, family, and whoever decides to read this blog! Let The Countdown Begin! |
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