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.