Pre-Ramadan Summer

Summer started full force! We have started our summer project of painting my center. So far, we have all of the hallways painted, the doors have characters with student names (think Strawberry Shortcake with 13 strawberries- one for each student). Next move is doing all the classrooms! I have never been more excited for a project. My teachers are thrilled to have a saw in their workplace, and have been incredibly motivated to finish the rooms, in order to surprise the students when they come back. They have been so motivated, that I have had to force them to stop painting on several occasions, so the students can help us too. My plan is to let the kids experience the thrill of creation and imagination, as well as teach practical skills, like the color wheel/ mixing/matching paints, spatial planning, etc. The teachers were able to go from self-conscious, over-questioning “helpers”, to full-fledged artists. Watching them gain self-confidence in their abilities to match colors, add personal touches, and plan their rooms has been one of the most rewarding parts of my time here. I feel lucky to have been able to play a part in them having an opportunity to develop their creativity. Hopefully this experience will also help them add more creative elements into their lesson plans. It has been wonderful watching my teachers through this process, and I hope I get a chance to see the same with the students.

I have also been busy working at an English immersion environmental camp for 12-16yr old students in Aqaba. I have amazing memories from my time there last year, and this time was even better! Over the two weeks I was there, I got to watch students strengthen their English speaking skills, create masterpieces, be inspired by Aviation, break eggs on the beach, learn about us & each other, and have a fantastic camp experience!

For the first camp, I was a counselor for Arts & Crafts. The girls were so inventive! We tried to make all the projects involve some sort of recycled material. My favorite was making props for the environmental skits they perform at the end of the session. These young women made some of the most amazing pieces from everyday items!

our far superior arts & crafts station sign

making props- this ended up being coral reef!

I got to be a Drama counselor for the second camp, which was the boy session. Obviously I loved being a drama counselor, even if some of those boys gave me a run for my money. I loved how energetic, eager, and interested in skit making they were. For the most part they were well-behaved, although, I did lose my voice several times during their session due to me having to pull out my “lifeguard voice”. A fellow volunteer looked at me in awe and said, “Mozley, it’s like you are a little mouse that you don’t expect to hear this voice from, but all of a sudden it’s like a lion”. I think that may have been one of the best compliments I have gotten. Thanks Rotary Camp for all the years of training!

egg olympics! 

egg olympics egg toss (cheater!)

one of my skit groups! (he is car)

During each session, the students (and us!) get to go on a field trip to the Ayla Aviation Academy, where the students were inspired to become pilots. I learned that all international aviation is done in English, crazy, huh? It seemed to motivate our student to practice English even more! We got to meet some of the cadets, see the flight simulator, see the hangar with beautiful planes, and visit the Royal AeroSports Club of Jordan, where all the fancy planes, gyrocopters, hot air Balloons are kept. I think I was way more excited than our students, but I tried to play it cool.

I'M FLYING A PLANE (...well, sort of)

Speaking of hot air balloons, through some brilliant networking by one of my friends, I got to see Wadi Rum by hot air balloon for free!

pre-flight yoga

amazing!

After my two-week semi-vacation on the beaches of Aqaba, I went back to site for a couple days before leaving again to volunteer for an Operation Smile mission. As I have discussed before, Op Smile is amazing. Seeing the international community of doctors, nurses, volunteers, staff come together to perform these surgeries around the world is just… well, it is just the coolest.

I stayed in Amman after Op Smile in order to go be All-American at the Embassy for the 4^th of July party. Naturally we tried to dress the part of American, so many stars, stripes, boots, jean-shorts (jorts, if you will). Here is one of the pictures before we left. I am wearing jorts and cowboy boots, but you can’t see them in the picture. We may or may not have yelled “HAPPY FREEDOM DAY” every 30 seconds. I feel I should issue a formal apology to all of Jordan. Anyway, we swam, ate hotdogs/hamburgers, listened to awesome life music from the Air Force band, watched fireworks, danced, met new friends… obviously had a few beers. The day was perfect.

YAY AMERICA DAY!

Eventually I made it back to site, just in time for the start of Ramadan, the month of fasting for Muslims. I have a pretty serious Ramadan to do list- let the spiritual cleansing/ future planning begin!

Workshops and SPED week

The months of April and May have sprinted past me. I didn't even notice! I suppose it is time for you to let you know what I have been up to on this side of the world. As always, this will be long, but hopefully the pictures break it up!

April was full of workshops! The first workshop was a two part Disability Awareness workshop in a nearby village. The PCV at that village and I worked together to create a program to introduce her young women (Youth Development Volunteer) to Special Education, inclusion, and accessibility. We were able to develop a successful interactive program, including both lectures and activities. One of my teachers gave information about Special Needs, her Special Education program in college, the work with our students, and ways to assist people with disabilities. She was a lifesaver! I asked her last minute to talk about our students for a bit and she ended up providing the bulk of educational component of the workshop! She and I taught the girls (ages 13-16) some Arabic Sign Language, and then we transitioned to awareness games.

This component is fairly controversial, using games like blind mazes, charades, etc to teach some sort of awareness, but I chose to include it because it provided an interactive way to engage younger students and get everyone moving after the lecture portion. The students and teachers both participated and loved each part. After each game we sat discussed how it felt to be blind, nonverbal, etc. The young women were able to beautifully articulate the difficulties facing many of my students.

We also included time to walk around the center and discuss accessibility. The girls were upset to realize that people with physical impairments wouldn't even be able to enter the center because they have stairs with no ramp. The bathrooms were the other part of the center that they were appalled to see the lack of accessibility. I distinctly remember one girl looking at me with clear alarm and saying “They cant even go to the bathroom?!!?” I was thrilled that going around the center and redesigning it was such an eye-opening experience.

Inclusion was also discussed during our workshop. We played a game in which they had to get in groups based on the color of paper on their back (without talking). It is a typical icebreaker game, but in this, we had a couple girls alone and then discussed how they felt when everyone was pushing them away from the group and didn't want to include them. One of the girls actually said “I felt autistic”. I wanted to say, “well, my job here is done”, but we talked about what that meant and ways to include children with special needs.

The final activity of the day was designing an activity-day, run by the girls, for the students at my center. The girls came up with different stations and a group art project.

getting in groups for inclusion activity

discussion about how it felt to be excluded

some of the participants

Nawal (Program Manager/Translation lifesaver) and Bryan (Country Director) stopped by to support us!

Some of the girls and staff from Kasumi's youth center

 A couple weeks later, my students arrived and we had a fun-filled day of pin-the-tail on the lion, musical chairs, art, bowling, and finger-painting! The most rewarding part of this day, besides watching the girls figure out how to modify the activities for each group, was the relationships that were being formed throughout the day. The students and the girls from the youth center really bonded! Hopefully we will be able to recreate this during the next semester. Our goal is for our centers to be friends without us being involved, so when our time in Jordan is over, their friendship can continue to grow!

Ghaida adaptive bowling (she kicked it) and her cheerleaders

pin the tail on the lion!

art project 

fingerpaint posters (each student and girl made a flower on each poster). we made two posters, one for my center and one for their center. They are like friendship posters!

The second workshop was with a fellow SPED volunteer. We put together a behavior management workshop to present to our teachers. She was on her A-game, she always is, and got a local professor to come and help facilitate our workshop. We were also able to get out powerpoint slides translated by local students at a university (another amazing program started by a PCV), so it was all in Arabic! We had the teachers popcorn read the slides and handouts. The powerpoint focused on positive discipline techniques, specifically ways to improve positive behavior and minimize negative behavior. We spent most of the time on how to creative behavior charts and appropriate ways to reinforce behaviors. After a discussion-filled presentation, we had the teachers get together and perform skits. They had a disruptive student (hitting, not paying attention, leaving the room, etc) and practiced effective discipline tools. We ended the workshop with arts & crafts time. We made rainbow behavior charts for each room so the teachers could have them up and ready to use the next week!

Discussing the Mistaken Goals chart

presenting the Rainbow behavior chart

rainbow chart (me, maggie, dr. zayne)

crafting joy! making rainbow charts

The workshop allowed our teachers (from both centers) an opportunity to come together, share complaints, discuss goals, and develop new ideas for behavior management for the classroom. It acted, in part, as a support group for the teachers. Again, as with the other workshop, the hope is they will continue to do activities with each other, strengthening the relationship between SPED centers.

Maggie, the other volunteer, and I felt fantastic about the workshop, and the professor asked if we would be willing to recreate the workshop in a couple of her classes. Stay tuned for those developments!

I don’t want to bore you with all the things happening, but there is one more adventure I would like to include in this post… you know…since you are here and reading anyway.

Special Education Week in Jordan just happened to be in May. Centers across Jordan were encouraged to take part by visiting other centers, going on public outings, inviting visitors, etc. I am incredibly proud of my center for having an outing or activity each day of the week. My teacher and I found out the dates for SPED week the Wednesday before, and panicked. Luckily I had contacts at a few of the SPED centers (one I which I randomly met on a bus on the way to Amman. She was the director of a center near us and very familiar with Peace Corps. She had three volunteers at her site. What luck!) and we were able to create a schedule for my students.

The first day was Easter, so I was not able to attend the field trip, but apparently it went well. The most impressive thing, at least what got talked about most, was the impressive floor to ceiling murals) That was actually the final push needed for me to start our murals, but more on that later.

The second day we went to a SPED center in the Ajlun area, Maggie’s center. Our students got to be friends, our teachers were able to reconnect from the workshop day, and we made crowns covered in “bling” from Maggie.

Maggie, some of our students, me and so many crowns!

Day three was a visit to another center. The director of the center used to be the physical therapist at our center, so the teachers were excited to see him and what he has been doing at his center. It was beautiful center. It was about three times the size of our center, complete with a physical therapy room, gardening program, and practical skills workshops for the students (basket-weaving, printing, etc). 

making baskets

My teachers getting a tour of the center

dance party with new friends

Visiting this center was a wake-up call for my teachers, and on the second part of the day we spent most of the time watching the students play and discussing ways to improve our center. The main discussion was about his involvement and dedication in the center. While there is no doubt that our director loves our students and she absolutely wants what is best for the students, she is not always the most available person, due to her husband’s status. She spends much of her time in Amman, which leaves little time for her to see what our center is lacking. For instance, often my teachers have to go buy paper, pencils, colored pencils, anything they want for the class instead of having it provided through other means. They have fantastic ideas, but do not have the funds to create innovative teaching, so often they stick with pencil/paper work since it is cheaper than buying materials for other activities.

Hopefully we can get my director to visit other centers (she did not take part in the field trips or visits) so she can see what would be possible with more support, not just financially, but I have learned a little bit of positive praise goes a long way with students and teachers alike. I felt like I was starting a mini-revolution, and I was pumped.

After the center, we went to an area with what looked like abandoned county fair rides. There was an old bumper car track, a swing, several small mechanical car rides, paddle boats, and slides. We got permission to use some of rides (mainly just the small cars) and played until it was time to go home.

Day four was a trip to the physical therapist. The students were least excited about this field trip, especially since most of them just waited on the bus until it was time to go. This day was only a photo-op, which I obviously was unhappy about, but one day out of 5 isn't so bad.

The final day of SPED week was a day of activities and a party at our center. We all gathered in our foyer, made coffee-filter butterflies, danced, ate cake, and chatted. Eventually the students were given gifts (gender specific of course) and the day was complete.

dabka! 

prepping the coffee filter butterflies (color with markers, spray with water, dry, scrunch in the middle, tie with pipecleaner. ta-da!)

the boys got cars, the girls got dolls

The most important part of SPED week is that while there was a fair amount of conflict, mostly from 30-something year old bus driver, who felt under-appreciated for the part he played in the week, no adults got in fist-fights, no one died, the week ended with everyone still talking to each other, no relationships were irrevocably ruined, and the students had a blast. That is a success in my book!

Why they would never let me give a speech

Some of you may be up on your Presidential tour/ Middle Eastern news and already know this, but for those who don't... President Obama is visiting us! Well, not us specifically, but Jordan. I jotted down a few thoughts of things I would say to Mr. President if I see him strolling on the sidewalk in Jordan. I am sure that will happen, right?

If I could give a speech to Obama about Peace Corps and why continued funding for the program is crucial:

Mr. President, I had no desire to come to Jordan, or anywhere in the Middle East. I was hesitant, worried, unimpressed when I got my invitation, but I already decided I was doing the Peace Corps regardless, so Jordan it was. I got here and everything seemed loud (particularly the 5AM call to prayer), messy, confusing, broken… then I met the people. I first met my host family, who took me in unconditionally. I, a complete stranger, was to live with them for three months and barely be able to communicate, but they did not care. I was instantly a part of judging who was funnier contests, helping with homework, introducing Thumb Wars to the family, and watching cartoons with three young boys. I immediately felt welcome and wanted. We all cried when my time there was finished. I then came to my current site, where day-in and day-out they seem to let my idiosyncrasies go with minimal questioning. I have not once felt like I was a nuisance or unwelcome at my site. Each person is genuinely interested in my life, who I am, what I want to do, what my family is like, what my favorite food is, etc. I will be devastated when I have to leave, but I know I must remember it will end at all times so I can gather up as many experiences as I can to take with me to America.

I wish that everyone could feel the love, the inconceivable open arms that I experienced my first minute at site. If they could feel that, I know perceptions about the Middle East would be different. If only they could sit down over that first cup of tea, watch the faces of their neighbors fill with love and pride as they speak about their families, their goals, their drives… and realize it is not so different than sitting with friends in the States and talking about their families, their goals, their drives. We are far more alike than different. If only I could bring every person here to have this amazing feeling of instant belonging, and compassion. I know there would be more dialogue instead of heedless decisions based on stereotypes and learned hate. Being here, learning about the culture, and really knowing the people in my village, has been a game changer in terms of how I look at issues regarding the Middle East. I actually look at them now. Before I would just gloss over them, thinking it is just a group hating another group. I thought it had no impact on my life, but it does now. I can put faces with any of the stories I read, and I know now that things have to change.

My hope is that I can give as much of me as possible to the people in my village, my Jordanian family… teach them through action that not all Americans are evil, or hate Muslims, and I can only attempt to take back as much as possible from them. If I can convey just a tenth of the amount of acceptance and love I felt here to just one person at home, I will feel my time and challenges have not been in vain.

I urge you President Obama, to find time to talk with Peace Corps volunteers. Learn about the experiences around the globe. I bet you find countless stories similar to mine. I understand you do not have the time to sit with families across the world and hear about their lives, but maybe you could spend a few hours with us women and men who do exactly that every day for 27 months. We are the future of America. We have lived with families, discussed politics, religion, the future of the world, economics, the best way to make the local dish…etc. This is where the change happens.

When we return to America, we continue this dialogue, with anyone who will listen, sometimes even when that person tries not to listen to that one funny story about the dog for the 15^th time. We will be more aware of the bias in the media and call out those responsible when necessary. We will educate our friends and family on misconceptions concerning our country of service and the issues facing that region. Not only this, but the village will continue to talk about the volunteer for years. My village is still talking about a volunteer that was here a few years ago, and others have the same experience. We leave an impact Mr. President, and my goal is to leave a positive one so there is an improved view of America. This group of men and women should be a focus for you.

To continue to cut funding for an organization with a unique opportunity to not only improve the view the world has of the United States , but to come back with new skills for the workforce, and a drive to make global changes, seems a shame. I hope you consider my words and find time to speak with other volunteers on how important service is, how it changed worldviews, and what they plan to do with that new outlook. I am sure whatever goal the volunteer says, The United States of America will benefit. That may be something to consider when looking at the budget for Peace Corps.

Thank you, enjoy the rest of your walk. 

A New Semester, A Sector Closed

Warning: This is a lot about goals for the next year and ranting about SpEd sector being closed. Read the walls of text at your own risk. I apologize that it is dry and anecdotal-less

After having a reviving trip home, which helped me remember why I am serving here and got me excited for the next year, I came back to Jordan with new motivation, also maybe fifteen extra pounds of pizza, steak, chicken, donuts, beer, etc.

During the school break, the J15 training group had our Mid-Service Training, where we were told we are closer to the date of our COS (close of service) than we are to the date of our PST (pre-service training). That floored me. I have been working in Jordan at my village for over a year and cannot say I have any major project to show for my time. That does not mean I feel I have not been effective here through my relationship with my families, my students, my teachers, and my new friends.

I have started to think of myself as someone who may not be a big project person, but rather the person who shows up every day with a smile, enthusiastic words, a supportive phrase and endless amounts of patience (inshallah). I like to think just being at my site and working daily with my students, I have made some sort of impact. I can see more creativity, more motivation to be challenged, a desire to learn, curiosity, excitement to participate in class, and a genuine interest in me.

 I should point out that this change is not just in the students, but is also happening with the teachers. I see more activities not involving paper/pen work, creativity in lesson planning, seeking out collaboration with other teachers or myself, interest in behavior charting, and a heightened sense of confidence with new teaching styles. I wish I could say I was the person who was the sole facilitator of change, but I think it has to do with so much more. I am not the only new person at my center, we have two new teachers who came to the center excited to do work with the students and brought fresh energy in the middle of the school year. Fresh perspectives along with a center director who gives the teachers freedom in their classrooms is crucial for livening up the learning environment and making students want to come and learn. My hope is to amplify this new desire by finally getting the walls painted in this next year. I have wanted to do it since I have moved to the center, but nothing is ever as easy as it seems. With my renewed motivation, hopefully I can make it happen for the community as my parting gift!

During Mid Service Training most volunteers got updated information about new frameworks for their sector and changes in the way things were progressing, but for the five remaining SpEd volunteers, we have no new framework or new training techniques for volunteers. Our sector was closed in Jordan. We were one of the few remaining, if not only, SpEd Peace Corps programs running worldwide and we received the news this summer that we would be the last SpEd sector group in Jordan. Obviously this came as a shock for those of us serving. We felt like we had failed our sector, failed out counterparts, failed our communities, and in a small way, failed our students. I know that may seem a bit melodramatic, but it is hard to stop those thoughts from rushing in when you get that phone call, or when you have a debriefing session about phasing out six months later. In the session, the five of us aired our frustration, tried to minimize the discomfort of having the discussion, motivated each other to keep going, and mainly validated the anger.

Most of you reading this know how important I think Special Education is and to be cut from a country that is trying to develop a better program because of lack of sustainability is heartbreaking. While sitting in the room, we thought of 15 different ways the SpEd sector could have been used more effectively. Unfortunately it was too late for that conversation and all we could realistically talk about was what to do now. Our hope is to design a program for the Youth Development volunteers to interact with SpEd centers, to start a Peace Corps Response program in Jordan to help SpEd at a government ministry level, to develop workshops for our current counterparts/centers on behavior management and resource development, and to use outside organizations to pull volunteers into the center and create lasting partnerships. Our (Jordanian) program manager said, “Let’s make them feel this loss” meaning we should do as much as we can in the next year to show how effective and successful the Special Education Program was. It fired me up to do as much as I can in the next year because it will go by fast and I want to feel like I have something to show for my time here.

   

My hope is that I write about it here, I just may stay motivated to follow through. You should all ask me for updates on all of this periodically to keep me on a schedule!

Here is a picture from Christmas as a reward for reading all of that.