Week one

We made it! As I write this, I’m sitting on the rooftop terrace of our guesthouse in Amman and listening to the petroleum truck drive past. That’s right, kids. We may not have ice cream trucks in the Middle East, but we DO have petroleum trucks. Suckers! But in all seriousness, it’s the same idea as an ice cream truck: when you hear the song trailing down the street and you find yourself craving some good petroleum, you just take a step outside to collect it.

On a related note, I’m exceedingly happy to be here. I feel like I have been here since the beginning of time—not since…oh my goodness, seven days ago. When we arrived at the airport in Amman, Daryl and Cindy, the MCC regional reps who live here, welcomed us warmly and brought us to the YWCA, a guesthouse for women staying in the city. Most of the YWCA’s residents are single women whose families live outside of Amman, but who find themselves in Amman for work or school. It also houses a lot of single elderly women who were so sweet to us. They would patiently try to engage in broken English/broken Arabic conversations with us and would always remind us that we were welcome there. The plan was to stay at the YWCA for the whole month that we’ll be in Amman doing language study, but Daryl and Cindy ended up finding us a small flat much closer to the MCC office in Jabel Weibdeh so we moved on Monday. The new flat costs half as much as our room at the YWCA did, it’s air-conditioned (!), it’s an apartment and not a room, and the view is amazinggg. While we really miss our conversation partners at the YWCA, we’re loving the perks of our new space and saving a lot of money. Since we’re in a flat now, we’ve begun the adventure of cooking for ourselves. We’re all pretty pumped about that! Trisha brought More With Less with her to Jordan so we’re delving into the depths of good Mennonite meals!

We arrived here on Friday (August 20) night and promptly started Arabic classes the next morning. So far, it’s going well. We’re doing four hours of language training every day so it can get a little overwhelming, but…we just try and encourage each other a lot. Our class is made up of seven English-speakers: us 4 SALTers, an Australian couple volunteering with the UNRWA, and an American girl who will be here for a year teaching English. It’s such a good group. We’re forming quite the little family bond. Today the Australian couple invited us to go to Petra with them on a little Eid (Eid is the weekend of September 9^th and marks the end of Ramadan. It’s kind of like Muslim Christmas. But different.) vacation. They said they’d have a lot more fun if they could bring their four new “daughters” along. We’re a little bit obsessed with them.

Our days have been mostly full of Arabic class and studying. A highlight of every day is lunch at the office with the MCC staff. We set up a schedule where two people prepare lunch everyday and then we all eat together. It’s the best. Right now, there are ten of us that make up the MCC crew in Amman: Daryl and Cindy, us four SALTers, Holly and Ryan (two MCC workers who will be moving to Tehran once their Iranian visas go through), and Nada and Suzi (two local MCC staff). I’m not even saying this because I know they’ll probably be reading: They’re all so wonderful and we’re so excited to get to know them more. I feel like God’s just opened the heavens and poured out so many amazing people into my life in the last two weeks.

So, the moral of the story is that life in Jordan is going very well. We’ve been learning a lot more about what the next weeks and months of life hold in store. I’ll officially be in Jordan up through the IIJP Fall Retreat which runs September 26-29. After that, Sara and I are Palestine bound. I cannot even wait!

This week at a little orientation meeting with Cindy, she handed me a book written by Alex Awad, the Director of the Shepherd Society. When Cindy met with Alex to discuss logistics about my arrival and service period, he gave her one of the books he’s written, Palestinian Memories: The Story of a Palestinian Mother and Her People to give to me. Inside of the cover he had penned:

“Janae,

Love God,

Seek Justice,

And Pray For Peace.

We look forward to welcoming you.

Alex

June 2010”

Literally. Probably one of the best gifts I’ve ever received. Since arriving in Amman, I’ve had countless conversations with Palestinians living in Jordan as a result of the occupation. Every time their stories center on how beautiful Palestine is, how much Sara and I are going to love it there, and how deeply they wish they could return. There are more Palestinian refugees living in Jordan than there are Jordanians living in Jordan so stories of how Palestinian families ended up here are abundant. Trisha’s mudiir (Arabic for “boss”) stopped by the office the other day and told us the story of how his mother walked 40 kilometers from Palestine to Jordan while she was pregnant with him in order to escape the violence that ensued after the creation of the Israeli state in 1948. Variations of this story are present in the life histories of millions.

Ah, I wish so deeply that you could all be on this terrace with me right now. The call to prayer just began and, as I look out at the hills of Amman, it’s ringing from a dozen different mosques in every direction. I know I’ve only been here a week so it should feel new and exciting, but I frequently stop and just reflect on the fact that I’m actually here and it blows my mind. Right now. I am on the other side of the world. Sitting on a roof. Listening to the call to prayer. There’s a man in a jellabiya sweeping the roof next to me. I’m looking at a sky that is a shade of cloudless blue that doesn’t really exist outside of the Middle East. I feel the warm air on my face. I am here. I am present.

Akron & Onward

Post From August 20:

Sorry for the lack of updates! Basically, all I have to say at this point is that if you’d like blogging from me at any point in the next 11 months, you should start praying that things go severely downhill. This past week of life was just too good to take time out to blog.

After an extremely life-giving, life-affirming week of orientation in Akron, myself and the other IIJP SALTers (Sara, Trisha, and Jo) are en route to Amman! Since these are names that will probably be reoccurring, let me give you the rundown on SALT Team Middle East. Sara and I will be SALTing in Palestine—she’ll be in East Jerusalem working with an organization called Sabeel (Do yourself a little favor and click on that link because Sabeel is the ultimate.) while I’ll be just a few miles away in Bethlehem. Trisha will be living in Irbid, Jordan and working as a teaching assistant at the Arab Episcopal School there. She’s not sure exactly what she’ll be doing yet, but it’s possible that she’ll be working with some of the deaf children that attend the school. Jo will be SALTing in Iraq and working as a teaching assistant at a kindergarten run by the Coptic Church. More exact details are also TBD for her. While not technically part of IIJP, Jordan (who is a person and not a country for the purposes of this sentence) will be living at a monastery up in Syria and teaching English as well as computer skills. Sara, Trisha, Jo, and I have collectively decided to make it our goal to adopt Jordan into our little regional team as he’s the only SALTer in MCC’s Lebanon-Syria region. We already have something mind-blowing in the works.

On that note, a shout out to all my fellow SALTers who may now be reading! As we’ve been travelling and exploring, Trisha, Sara, Jo, and I have been thinking of you all and missing you dearly! How rad would it be if we could all just tune in to each others’ adventures whenever we wanted? It gives me goosebumps to think about the places you all are right now and all of the beautiful people you are meeting—Bah! Live it up, my friends.

For readers at home, orientation in Akron was so great. I don’t know even know where to begin. It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed so much in one week. The orientation was not only for SALTers going to countries all over the world, but also for volunteers coming from countries all over the world to serve in the United States/other countries so it was basically like one big cultural festival. The whole week was just a beautiful picture of the Kingdom—people from all over the world united around one vision and loving one another. The people that are a part of this program are just some of the coolest individuals on the planet; it has been a privilege getting to know them. My roommate in Akron was from Assuit so it was fun to talk Egypt with her! Sally is super passionate about a retreat center in Egypt called Anafora that I went to last summer so it was really neat to find a commonality there. That lead to a lot more discussion.

Then, at 1:30 PM on August 19, we began our journey from Akron, PA to Amman. After a quick but important game with some other SALTers at the airport, we boarded the plane and bid farewell to America for a year. The flight from Philadelphia to Pairs was unbelievably fabulous—I slept like a baby. With huge thanks to Chad SALTer Rosemary, we decided to make the most of our 5.5 hour layover in Paris! Rosemary had given us directions to Sacre-Coeur so we hopped on the RER from the airport and made our way over to Montmartre. Our journey there was uber impressive. We made it there in record time and then trekked all the way up the hill to this beautiful view:

[Just kidding. No time to upload. Pictures to come later.]

After enjoying some fresh French air, we stopped for some baguettes and chocolate croissantsand began the journey back to the airport. Unfortunately, the way back was not such a quick trip. We got on the wrong train back to the airport which was extremely unfortunate. We were all holding our breath hoping this mistake wouldn’t cost us a flight to Amman. It was a close call, but we made it!

So right now we are on the flight from Paris to Amman and we’ve been joking about how we hope that someone will be picking us up from the airport. If not, we’ll just roam the streets of Amman screaming “MCC?! Where are you?!” and see what happens. We also have no idea if we’ll be heading to live with host families tonight or…where we will be staying. But it’s no big deal. We’re just excited to get there!

As I’ve been thinking about what this next year of life may bring, I’ve been also been thinking about all that went on in this last year of life and I’ve come to the conclusion that a year is a really substantial amount of time in which a lot of things can change. I’m preparing for rather major worldview alterations.

I’ll update more once we get settled in Amman!

Celebrations

Friday night my friends threw me a surprise going away party! It was so sweet of them, and it was so nice to spend a few hours with people who are so dear to my heart. A few highlights included seeing people who I haven't seen in a long time, a huge sign that read "MA'A SALAMA" (which means "good bye" in Arabic), and Jamie making me the most adorable cake! It was a brown suitcase with New York, Seattle, Egypt, and Palestine travel stickers on it. I loved it! As a gift, they even organized a little travel fund for me! So thoughtful! I have some pretty awesome friends.

Yesterday I Skyped with Becky in Benin. I've used Skype for computer to computer calling before, but never computer to mobile calling. And it was fabulous! We talked for 5 minutes and it only cost $1.33! Rates very depending on what countries you're calling and whatnot, but I recommend that every single person reading this right now do the following:

1. Download Skype.

2. Search for me and add me as a contact.

3. Purchase Skype credit.

4. Call me frequently once I get my mobile number in the Middle East!

Getting to talk to Becky for 5 minutes was so good, and it just made me even more excited for what's ahead in my own journey! We couldn't talk for long because she was out celebrating Benin's Independence Day. I could hear the noise and excitement in the street behind her. After all, freedom from colonialism is something everyone should get excited about!

Unless divine intervention wills it, I won't be celebrating any independence days this year. Actually, I'll be living in the opposite of independence day everyday. But I will be celebrating! I will be celebrating the strength of a community of people with a vision and a strong identity. I will be celebrating vitality and vibrancy. I cannot wait to be there.