Hello! First, I would take pictures of all these exciting events, but I can’t find my camera battery charger. sad.
I am so sorry for being so behind in blog posts! We haven’t been spending the night at Al Al-Bayt anymore, which gives me about an hour a week for internet time. Luckily for you (and me), SPED and Youth Development are spending the night tonight before we all go to Amman to meet the directors and counterparts at our actual sites! We will be having the counterpart conference for a couple days and then go with our new co-workers to our new home for a two day site visit. I will get to see my center in Kreimeh and to see my house; we sign the lease during our visit. It all seems so crazy!
Okay I’ll back it up to the past few exciting life events that occurred before today.
The week of Thanksgiving was a blur of people, places, and emotions. The J15s (me) went to visit current PCVs currently serving. I got to visit a village outside of Irbid, which means we got to meet up with several other volunteers around Irbid and eat Papa Johns. It was an absolute highlight of the trip. As much as I like chicken, rice, tomatoes, cucumber, pita, and yogurt…in various forms, I am very much sick of eating it daily. Jennifer, the PCV, and I got to talk about all the random questions I had, make brownies (YES!!), and watch He’s Just Not That Into You. It was an All-American night and it was perfect timing. I love my host family and my village, but it is exhausting to spend weeks trying to digest the language, the food, the never-ending questions…basically being “on” all the time. Speaking candidly in English was a breath of fresh air. The next day I shadowed her at her center and got to meet her center staff. It made me excited to learn about my center and the students I would be working with for two years. I started feeling incredibly impatient because I knew it was a matter of days (well, day to be exact) before I found out my placement!
On Thanksgiving we were going back to Al Al-Bayt for site unveiling, but first we stopped in Irbid and went to an American coffee chain, where I ate my feelings about missing Thanksgiving. I got an enormous frilly coffee, an egg and turkey wrap, and a chocolate chip muffin. You better believe I absolutely ate all of it like a crazy person.
All the J15s got back to Al Al-Bayt excited for the rumor of the Peace Corps providing pizza for the sad Americans away from home…turns out the rumors were not true. The past few years pizza was provided, but we got the usual Kibsa (one of the versions of rice, chicken, pita, etc). Needless to say the mood was a bit disappointed. After eating lunch, we were further tortured by having to sit through more sessions before learning about our site. The wait was killing us. The energy in the room was electric and impatient. FINALLY we were a) told there was no pizza, and b) told to go outside to do site unveil. Talk about an emotional rollercoaster. I stood arm in arm with Meg and Judith, my two “cousins”, pretending that if we linked arms, they would have no choice but keep us close to each other, and preferably, by Irbid. We all stood along the edges of the white outline of Jordan painted on the college parking lot. My name was one of the first called. Brian, one of the big bosses, yelled “Megan Mozley…Al-Kreimeh”. I ran to him and grabbed my envelope with “Megan Mozley SPED-Al-Kreimeh/ Irbid” printed boldly across the front. I ran to my village and stood eagerly listening to where everyone, but mainly my other SPED girls were placed. Judith was called…. “Irbid”. Yes! At least two of us would be together. Maggie was called, “Rumtha”. She was also close to Irbid. Slowly everyone was called out and most were being placed in the north, by Irbid. I looked at Meg, still standing on the outside of our mini-Jordan and started panicking. Surely she wouldn’t be in the north with so many of us there. She looked calm, but I knew she wanted to be in the north. She steadied herself with Brian called, “Meg….”. We waited silently for what must have been five minutes… “North Maazar”. Her envelope read “Meg-SPED North Maazar/ Irbid”. We cheered and hugged and wouldn’t stop running around exclaimed how excited we were to all be so close. Most of us are about 20minutes outside of Irbid, and Judith lives in the city itself…needless to say, slumber parties will be happening.
After eating some sweets, we got back on the bus to return home to our families with the realization that it was Thanksgiving slowly sinking in. The bus ride was quiet and contemplative. I didn’t think Thanksgiving would be a huge deal for me to miss. I had missed it numerous times before. While sitting at my “aunt’s” house, watching a video of her wedding and slides of her family vacation, it hit me. They asked if I was tired “Inti Nasana?” I responded “La, Ana mishtek Ayelti fe America…illiom otlaw Americii...” (no, I miss my family in America…it’s an American holiday today). They asked again about my family and I immediately started crying. It was a weird moment. I was sitting on the farsha (the pads they use on the ground instead of couches) in the living room of a woman I hardly knew…crying while her daughters and my host mom watched. I looked at both my aunt and my host mom and noticed they also started crying with me. They asked how long I was here and I said two years. She said she was close with her mom and understood it was hard to miss someone. Her daughter, who is 17, brought me water and reassured me that two years wasn’t that long. It was one of those moments that absolutely bond people. I felt instantly closer to my Jordanian family and knew they cared about me enough to show immense amounts of empathy for me.
When I got home, I called my mom and found out the family wasn’t coming over until Sunday…so all that sadness was wasted! I told her about my site and my trip to Irbid. I then let her know that my hos mom wanted to talk her on the phone. We prepped how the conversation was probably going to go (hello, how are you, hamdillah-thank god, Megan is fine, etc). I took the phone to my host mom and she immediately turned two shades darker when trying to remember her English, in which she is typically well versed. The two spoke over the phone about my health and happiness and my mother thanked her for taking care of me. Standing there watching the interaction, I realized that this may be the first, and only, time these two lives would intersect and the moment became unforgettable. My host mom got nervous and handed the phone back to me giggling nervously… and just like two of the most influential women in my life split paths.
Friday afternoon two J14s had us over to a Thanksgiving dinner…sweet potatoes and all! The 14 of us went around the room saying what we were thankful for and sharing our traditions with our LCFs. They were not particularly fond of all of the food choices, but ate respectfully….I can attest to that being a two-way street at times. We enjoyed the afternoon of being American, but returned back to the host family stress later that evening. Just beyond the horizon, and well in the front of our minds, was our mid-training language proficiency interview. We studied furiously (well somewhat furiously), and I ended up doing okay, but not as great as I wanted. I received a Novice-Mid rank, and step below the Novice-High rank I need to get for the final LPI. Most trainees got Novice-Mid, but it still disappointed. After reading our rankings of our LCF, and listening to our language tapes, a decision was made to switch our LCF to a fantastic language teacher named Moaid….granted the spelling of that is probably very wrong. He has worked with us tirelessly this past week and is determined to raise our Arabic skills….in fact, he is having us meet for a class soon so…I’ll leave you with a few moments of happiness from Pre Service Training:
We are doing secret santa and I can’t wait.
We are currently watching Aladdin with all our LCFs.
I am happy to be in Jordan.
