Last week the J15 PCT’s (the fifteenth group of Peace Corps Trainees in Jordan) had another important milestone on our road to Swearing-In and becoming Peace Corps Volunteers (on January 3rd!): The Counterpart Conference and Permanent Site Visit. All the TEFL (English Teacher) Trainees, as the YD (Youth Development) and SE (Special Education) Trainees had gone the week prior, hopped on a bus together and took the hour and a half long ride into Amman where we were met at the hotel by all of our future principals. This two-day long Counterpart Conference was a very exciting time for us as none of us had had the opportunity to meet anyone from our school, or really anyone from our village for that matter.
After the initial get-to-know-you conversations, which actually provided me with a great opportunity to practice my Arabic in context, the first activity that we did was a team-building activity. Each pair of principal and trainee was given 100 straws, 2 meters of tape, and 20 minutes to plan and build the most stable and tallest tower. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at how well my principal and I worked together. After drawing out an initial model of what our tower might look like we went to work constructing our tower. After a couple false-starts we had what we believed to be a good solid base and were ready to start building up. We quickly discovered, however, that I am terrible at taping straws together (though I was better at connecting straws together without tape). What pleased me most was that we both recognized the strengths and weaknesses in the other and were happy to work together to support and enhance the strengths of the other so that our end project was significantly better than either of us could have done alone. In fact, our tower was so good that the judges deemed it second best and awarded us with a box of yummy chocolates. I believe this to be an important metaphor for our future work at the school site and I hope that my relationship with my principal and English teachers continues to develop as it started in Amman.
Also during the Counterpart Conference, the PCT’s and the principals broke off into two groups to develop a pair of lists of expectations. Both groups developed lists of what they believed the other could expect from them, as well as what they were currently expecting from the other. I thank Peace Corps for providing us with this opportunity to vocalize our needs and expectations from the very beginning, and also for giving us the opportunity to see what the principals were expecting of us. More importantly, however, it was wonderful to see how closely aligned were our expectations and those of the principals. This conference was certainly a great first step towards developing relationships and doing our work in our schools and communities throughout Jordan.
Following the Counterpart Conference, rather than the PCT’s getting on the bus together, we each got into a car with our principal and took off to our permanent site for a two-day site visit. Now my principal does not actually live in my village, rather he lives in the nearby city, so I only was able to spend one day in my village. The day I spent in the city with my principal and his family, however, was wonderful as they all went out of their way to make me feel welcome and really a part of the family. They took me on a tour of the city, cooked some fabulous kebsa (a slightly spicy dish [literally, one big dish that we all eat out of] of rice, chicken, lentils, veggies, and almonds), and even offered me one of their beds to sleep in at night.
I am not even sure how this last part came about, but they even insisted that I sing five Christmas carols to them. As I am sure you all know, I am a terrible singer, but fortunately for me Arab music has almost no connection to Western music (their notes aren’t even based on an octave, rather there are something like 13 notes in one scale), they have no ability to distinguish good Western music from bad Western music (just as I have no ability to distinguish between good and bad Arab music), and they seemed to love listening to my Christmas carols.
The next day we went into my village (قريتي) to check out the sites and school in town. We started at the boys’ school, where I’ll be working, and I spent most of first period meeting many of the 27 other male teachers. I spent most of second and third periods with the principal and one of the English teachers getting a tour of school, which included the teachers’ lounge, computer lab, kitchen, beautifully decorated hallways, and every single classroom. In Jordan, like most countries of the world, the students stay together in the same classroom all day and it is the teachers who rotate from class to class. This system certainly has its advantages and disadvantages when compared to the American secondary school system, but it afforded me the opportunity to see every single (male) student in the school in only two periods.
I really appreciated how my principal was willing to take the time to introduce me to all the students in the school. I also appreciated how he emphasized the facts that I will be a teacher just like all the other teachers in the school, that I will work with them for a full two years, and that I will not be merely an English teacher but rather a community volunteer for the entire village. Now that effectively every male from the village between the ages of 6 and 18 has had the opportunity to meet me, and even hear me speak a little Arabic, I am much more confident in my ability to forge relationships, teach English, and serve in my community.
Finally, I spent the rest of the day touring the village. I was lucky enough to visit the local health center and meet the doctor and nurses, visit the post office and meet the postman, and meet a couple of the local shopkeepers. The last site I visited in town was my new (huge) house. My house is about a ten minute walk from my school on the edge of town with a deck overlooking the countryside. I have two big bedrooms, an entry way, two huge living rooms, a bathroom and a kitchen. I can’t imagine how I will fill up my whole house all by myself, especially considering how cold it is right now. I imagine for the next couple of months I will confine myself primarily to the kitchen, bathroom, and one of the bedrooms where I will keep my heater. Maybe in April or May when the weather starts warming up I might start exploring the rest of my house, but for now I imagine I will just hunker down in my bedroom and try to stay warm.
Lastly, I want to wish everyone a happy holiday season and happy New Year. Peace Corps was nice enough to bring us all together on Christmas where we were able to celebrate with an American Christmas dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes, yams, stuffing, pumpkin pie, and root beer floats. Though I apologize that I do not have any pictures from this celebration, I do have some photos from my site visit available here.
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