J14 PCV Site Visit and J15 Official PCV Site Announcement

I realize I just finished describing a typical weekly schedule in my previous post, but I also want to emphasize that our life here as J15 PCT’s is anything but monotonous. With events such as Eid Al-Adha (The Festival of the Sacrifice), weekly weddings or engagement parties, regular births of new babies (60% of Jordanians are under the age of 22), World Cup 2014 Qualifier Soccer matches, and friends and family just stopping by to visit there is always something exciting happening in the lives of Jordanians.

In addition to all these events, the J15 PCT’s have just completed two very important steps this week towards our progress in becoming PCV’s: the current PCV Site Visit and the Official J15 PCV Site Announcement. For the Site Visit all J15 PCT’s were split into (gender segregated) pairs and sent off on our own for the first time to visit a currently serving PCV at his or her site.

I went with another PCT to visit Mike who is a volunteer serving as an English teacher in the village of Gadisiyah in the governorate of Tafilah. Mike could not have been a more welcoming and gracious host for the two of us and I had a fabulous time visiting him. His village has one of the highest elevations in all of Jordan and sits at 1650 meters (5400 feet) above sea level. Not only this, but his house rests on a cliff with spectacular views over-looking Wadi Dana Nature Reserve, a 1000 meter deep canyon cut out of the mountain by the Great Rift Valley which contains the Sea of Galilee, the River Jordan, the Dead Sea, the Red Sea, and the Great Lakes of Africa. As I was only in Gadisiyah for a day and a half, we didn’t have time to go hiking or exploring in the Wadi, but I was lucky enough to make it half way down into the canyon (where there are lots of trees!) and play soccer for three hours with the teachers from Mike’s school.

Upon our return from the PCV Site Visits, the J15’s stood outside in the freezing cold around a huge map of Jordan in the parking lot of the university. On this map 38 villages were labeled throughout the country. One by one the Peace Corps Jordan staff called out our names and the names of our villages where each of us will spend the next two years beginning on January 4th, 2012. The J15 Site Announcement Ceremony concluded with a serving of cake and all 38 of us spread out across the map of Jordan in the location of our permanent sites as of January 4th.

I was lucky to discover that my site is in the same governorate (Mafraq) as my training village and only 3km from Mafraq City. This means that, while my village has a population of only 8000 people, I will be only a 10-15 bus ride from the urban center and market, and I’ll be less than hour on public transit from my wonderful home-stay family and Jordanian friends in my training village.

Now I still have not yet been to my future village, nor do I have much knowledge of it, but I do have a one page information sheet provided to me from Peace Corps from which I would like to share some information with you. Firstly, however, I need to explain that the job title that Peace Corps Washington offered me and which I explained to many of you before I left (English Teacher Trainer) is not a job that exists in Peace Corps Jordan. I honestly do not understand how this happened, but there are about five J15 Trainees who thought they were here as English Teacher Trainer Volunteers, but are being forced to work as a Teacher of English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) Volunteer. I will admit that I was pretty frustrated upon my arrival in Amman to discover that I will not be doing the job that I had been preparing myself for over the past 10 months. I had several conversations with Peace Corps Jordan staff (including the Country Director, the Director of Programming and Training, and the TEFL Coordinator), about my frustrations over this grave miscommunication. By now, however, I have accepted my role as a TEFL Volunteer and really do enjoy the interactions I have had so far with Jordanian (male) students, but I did emphasize pretty strongly to Peace Corps Jordan staff that I do not believe it is appropriate in the future for Peace Corps Washington to offer English Teacher Trainer positions in Peace Corps Jordan.

All that being said, I am quite excited to be a TEFL Volunteer in my new village in January and have actually had the opportunity to help out with the training of the other J15 TEFL Volunteers: I helped facilitate technical sessions on both classroom management and assessment. Several other Trainees came up to me after the sessions to tell me they appreciated my demonstration, so I am happy to be helping out with the training in that sense. Additionally, all TEFL Volunteers in Jordan are required to teach 100% of their English classes with a Jordanian counterpart and, hopefully, my counterpart(s) and I will be able to learn teaching strategies and techniques from each other.

Furthermore, I would like to continue sharing information about my permanent site: The school has 273 (male) students and 27 (male) teachers from grades 2-12. In Jordan all students take English from 1st grade through 12th grade and there are 3 English teachers who share these 11 grades at my future school. The average class size is about 27 students, though the average classroom is about 35% the size of classrooms in the US.

Something that I am particularly excited about is the fact that I am the first Peace Corps Volunteer ever to work in my village. On the negative side, this may mean that many of the people I work will never have been exposed to Americans or American teaching styles and consequently I may have a difficult time at first feeling effective and successful in my work. On the positive side, my school and principal and counterparts are eagerly awaiting my arrival, I may have a greater opportunity to encourage positive change in the school and community, and I will be able to have more freedom and autonomy in my work as I will not have to face constant comparisons with previous PCV’s.

Other information about my site includes the fact that many of the men in the village work as soldiers, bureaucrats, farmers, or businessmen. In addition, there are about six other J15 (and several J14) Volunteers working in Mafraq City and the surrounding villages providing ample opportunities for collaboration within my village as well as in other villages, Mafraq City, and even at the university.

Additionally, I am scheduled to visit my site in about 3 weeks and I intend to take a few pictures and share more information with you about my village at that point.

Finally, I really do appreciate you taking the time to read this and showing an interest in my life and work here in Jordan. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and wish you a happy holiday season. (!كل عم و إنت بخير)

Mid-PST Check-In

This week marks the mid-way point of Pre-Service Training (PST) for my cohort of Trainees, collectively known as the J15’s as we are the 15th group of Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV’s) in Jordan. By now most of the J15’s have settled into our PST routine, which I will describe in detail below.

We all typically spend every Sunday and Monday together at the university where we have training sessions in Arabic Language, Safety and Security, Health and Wellness, Diversity, and Jordanian Culture, as well Technical and Job-Specific training related to our particular assignment as a PCV in Jordan.

The middle of the week, Tuesday through Thursday, is spent in our particular training villages. In my training village there is one other male Trainee (John), who is my roommate in my home-stay family, as well as three female Trainees. In the mornings, John and I go to the boys’ school while the women head off to the girls’ school. At the school we spend time observing English classes, drinking tea with other teachers and the principal, staving off throngs of children who apparently only know how to say “Whass yer naame?” in English, and co-teaching about one lesson per day with a Jordanian English teacher.

After school on Tuesday’s, Wednesday’s, and Thursday’s we come together with the girls to have Arabic class which is taught by our Language and Culture Facilitator (LCF). We typically have 4-6 hours of Arabic Language and Jordanian Culture instruction and practice on each of these three days as well as on Saturday’s.

Friday is considered to be the holiest day of the week when most shops are closed, public transportation is quite limited, and everyone spends time with their family. For the Trainees this means that we get a relaxing day with our family, really good food, and lots of tea with friends and extended family members. Saturday is also considered to be part of the weekend, but more services are open and available and our LCF comes back to the village for a full day of language and culture class.

This will continue to be my schedule for the next three weeks or so at which point final preparations for my transfer from being a Peace Corps Trainee (PCT) to becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) will begin. PST officially ends on January 3rd, 2012 with the Swearing-In Ceremony for all J15’s; January 4th, 2012 marks my first official day as a PCV when I will move to new my village where I will spend the next two years.

MPI Video

Check out this cool video from Manna Project International (MPI):  a non-profit organization that I have worked with at Vanderbilt, in Ecuador, and in Guatemala.

Pictures from PST

Hi there,
I don't have much to say right now other than things are going really well, I'm settling into life in my training village, and my host family could not be any more welcoming and fun.
What I do have is some pictures from my training village.  You'll see what my town looks like, what my apartment looks like, and some of the fun times I have been having with my host family.

Additionally, I have a video from before the Jordan-Singapore FIFA World Cup Qualifier Match in Amman on Friday: