So this is the new year...I don't feel any different.

Greetings! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas season and were able to get together with friends and family! I can picture it now: a cozy room with giant blankets, a fire in the corner, a giant tree decorated with handmade ornaments…my family gathered around the table eating Christmas cookies and listening to carols while drinking egg nog….okay so I realize that is nowhere near any Christmas I have ever had. It typically involves the following:  a beautifully decorated room (thanks mom!) cookies I haphazardly decorate against my will after the first 10, my family watching some new movie, probably based on a comic book, and inevitably some argument about whether or not the movie stayed true to the events in the book…and I hate egg nog. A girl can dream right?

This year my Christmas looked even more radically different than my image of it. We started out by leaving our host village and staying at Al-Bayt from 24-26^th so we could have a somewhat American holiday. On the 24^th we went to see the Peace Corps office in Amman and then to the Embassy for a Christmas lunch. We all got on our enormous bus and waited anxiously to get on the road to Amman. Our training director wished us luck and then dropped the bomb that our group had our very first Early Termination. She was an older woman who went home because her mother was ill. After we got the news, we sat in contemplation for approximately two minutes before the caroling began and we were off to Amman. Most people that know me know I am in no way a fan of Christmas carols…well more specifically listening to a month of Christmas songs nonstop. The caroling was nice for about five minutes, and then I popped in my headphones and listened to my own Christmas mix, having nothing to do with Christmas. Well, it had to do with Christmas in the fact that the music was from Kevin’s various Christmas mixes…thanks Kevin!

We got to the Peace Corps office and were supposed to get into groups, fill out a getting to know you worksheet, and meet everyone in the office. The introduction day turned into us spending two hours in the PCV lounge going through the shelves of books, the heaps of movies, and the mounds of clothing left behind by the previous volunteers. The room full of free wonders became the final tour spot for most of us, much to the annoyance of our secretary who planned the tour worksheet activity. I left with a few movies and books to take with me to my village. We then filed back onto our bus and set off for the Embassy. I wish I could tell you all about the Embassy, but security risk…blah blah…so I won’t describe it much. We got inside and it was the perfect image of a Christmas party, there were trees decorated, giant gingerbread villages, hot chocolate, the works! Our other training director welcomed us and read a lovely letter from President Obama thanking us for service. He then told us the lunch was only possible through the donations of Embassy workers…thanks guys! We then ate more than I have ever eaten. We had turkey, stuffing, roast beef, sweet potatoes, veggies, and of course…pumpkin pie!! After eating, we chatted with the J13s and J14s that were at party and got to know our new family a bit more! Eventually we were forced back on our bus and shipped back to Al Al-Bayt for Christmas Eve.

Some of us at the PC office blatantly stolen from another volunteer (thanks Evyn)

In true J15 fashion, we chose to celebrate Christmas Eve with a crazy outfit dance party DJed by my LCF, Mu’ad. I must say it was a huge success! Meg and I made signs, which means Meg sat in my room and made the signs while I watched, and we posted them around the room. I believe everyone attended for a bit and we all decided a couple hours of continuous dancing was the most cardio we have done in the past couple months. It died down and the room became the card playing/ internet room (it’s normal role) while people talked to family members and reminisced about Christmases past.

Dance party pics courtesy of Michelle:

Christmas morning it was raining. We have to walk outside our dorm building, across the parking lot, and into another building to get to our meals…so we schlepped across the parking lot to get our special Christmas breakfast of pita, cheese, cucumber, tomato, and falafel. At least our chef said to me “I prayed to my God that there would be snow for you on Christmas”. I instantly wanted to cry and hug him, neither of which are appropriate, so I thanked him, took my usual breakfast, and left. I told as many people as possible about it, and they had the same response, so I guess we were all missing home a little. 

As is the Peace Corps way, we had a couple sessions on Christmas. Our warm-up was brought to us by a J13 who was leaving. She made a White Elephant game and we got all the stuff she didn’t want to pack. In a way, it was perfect! Naturally the warm-up took longer than expected, so language was shortened, which was good because none of us were mentally checked-in for learning on Christmas. After an excruciatingly slow morning, we ate our special Christmas lunch of Kibsa (what we eat EVERY lunch at the university), and I went to my room to watch Tron:Legacy  (Merry Christmas to me, I gave myself the gift of Daft Punk and Garrett Hedlund. After about an hour, we decided to all get together for the Secret Santa finale!

We gathered in the dance party, internet, movie, card room (AKA the Training Of Teachers room officially) and set our presents under a tree drawn on butcher paper. There were farshas thrown about, sleeping bags around, people in giant sweaters, the heaters were on, and a slight glow came in through the windows, providing the perfect Christmas morning effect. We paused Office Space, and started the gift giving. Everyone had a gift and as far as I know, people were happy to have some semblance of Christmas involved in Jordan. We included the LCFs and counted it as a cultural exchange. One LCF received a handmade card, and instantly started crying…apparently handmade items have the same effect everywhere.

I found out Meg drew my name and was my very own Secret Santa! She gave me a Wenik card (to call home), a jar of Nutella (LOVE), and the best mug I have ever seen, it comes with a spoon! It was perfect!  I immediately went back to my room to eat my Nutella and watch the rest of Tron. I also took a much needed three-hour nap. When I woke up, I joined my  PC family in the multipurpose room to talk to family, play cards, and just be together.

Our SPED-Manshieh group with Mu'ad

Christmas was more than I could ask for. 

After Christmas it was business as usual and we had a fun-filled day of sessions and were taken back to our training villages. I was greeted by my lovely family, who made me a homemade card calling me precious, and gifts of chocolate and lotion. I felt incredibly loved and it hit me that my time with them was limited, as we only had a week before we moved out of training villages and ended PST. The next few days were spent getting ready for the LPI and spending as much time as possible with my family.

As expected, LPI day was horrible. I was incredibly stressed about not knowing Arabic and felt self-conscious about every word I said. During my test, the interviewer asked me about the plot to both Batman and Groundhog day…turns out I don’t have words for either of those plots…I can barely explain them in English, let alone Arabic. I left the room feeling defeated and sat with everyone as each one came out of the room feeling confident; it was unpleasant. We then had to wait a couple days before we got the results. I achieved Novice-High, which is what I needed, but I am incredibly disappointed with it. The other trainees in my village got Intermediate-Low so that was a bummer for me. I feel like I am the incapable one of the group, even if we aren’t supposed to be comparing. I don’t know, it was one of those moments where I felt like I disappointed my LCF and, as many of you know, I don’t handle disappointing people very well. So that’s where my mental state is right now.

Anyway, on to my experience leaving the village, it was awful. I felt so connected with my family and it broke my heart to leave them. Like some divine act, the power in my house went out and we sat around the kerosene sobba and the old-school oil lamp in the kitchen. My new grandmother, aunt, uncle, and the cousins were over to wish me safe travels. We all sat in a sort of calm silence for an hour and discussed the fact that I have nothing when I move to site. I learned some quick cooking tips, and politely reminded them that I would not have a stove-top at first. Of course the first appalled reaction was my aunt saying “but how are you supposed to make tea?!” I felt it was a perfect Jordanian response. They left and I promised to visit as much as possible. 

I miss these guys!

The next morning was a blur of tears, promises to visit, promises to eat more than pita and cheese sandwiches, promises to call, promises to buy a sobba…and more tears. I finally made it out of the house as my hostmom was crying at the front door. The bus picked us up and we made our final ride from Manshieh to Mafraq. In two days I will be swearing in with 36 other trainees, and we will be the official J15 Peace Corps Volunteer group. It seems to have gone so fast, and yet so slow all at once! Our host families will be at the swearing-in and we will be forced to say our final goodbye (until we visit of course!). 

On the 4^th I move to my site…with nothing but my two giant bags and the miscellaneous things I have acquired since coming to Jordan. It is completely surreal. I hope I learn to love Kreimeh. I hope I learn to cook. Hopefully I get internet hooked up within the first week so I can inundate the blog with pictures stolen from other volunteers, boring blog posts, and facebook updates. When I move to site the markiss will be on holiday for a month so I will have nothing to do but learn my way around and hopefully buy my necessities. This may be it for a while team, so I made it nice and long for you. 

You’re welcome- wish me luck!