marHaba! (!مرحبا)

Hello and welcome [marHaba (مرحبا)] to my Peace Corps Jordan blog.  From here I'll be posting updates, stories, and pictures from my work and adventures in Jordan and the Middle East.  Please feel free to subscribe, follow, and/or share with anyone else who might be interested to receive regular updates.

For those of you who do not know, I will be arriving in Jordan on October 21, 2011 to begin my service as a Peace Corps Trainee (PCT).  During my first 2.5 months I will receive job-specific, technical, linguistic, cross-cultural, health, and safety and security training.  Also during my time as a PCT, I will be living in a home-stay somewhere near the city of Al Mafraq.  Upon my successful completion of Pre-Service Training, I will be sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) right around the New Year.

Starting in January I will begin my work as PCV as an English Teacher Trainer.  This basically means that I will be working with current teachers of English to Jordanian children to support these teachers in their teaching as well as their English skills so that they may serve their students as effectively as possible.

Some of you may have been wondering why the title of this post has a capital "H" in the middle of marHaba.  This is because when Western, English-speaking linguists decided to transliterate Arabic script into Roman script they discovered that spoken and written Arabic has 2 distinct letters which, to Western ears, sound just like the letter "h".  For this reason, one of those letters is transliterated as "h" whereas the other, used in this case, is transliterated as "H".

Unfortunately for me, this not only happens with the letter "h", but also with each of the following letters:  "s", "t", "d", and "k".  Furthermore, Arabic has 3 different sounds that Americans equate with the "th" sound.  This all may sound plenty difficult, but I cannot forget that in addition to all these couplets there are at least 4 more letters/sounds in Arabic that do not exist in American English.

Suffice it to say I've got my work cut out for me, not to mention the fact that I am moving to a culture that is so foreign to Westerners in so many ways.  I will have to learn to make considerable adjustments in my lifestyle, all the while attempting to communicate in one of the world's most difficult languages to learn for an English speaker.

Nevertheless, I couldn't be more excited and intrigued for this next step in my life.  I am utterly grateful for all the support that so many of you have provided to me throughout the years.  Although I go to Jordan looking to forge new relationships with new people in a new culture, I will always remember and hold a special place in my heart for the people I've met and the relationships that I have developed over the years across the United States and throughout the Americas.  Finally, I have to thank my family for always supporting me and encouraging me to live my life.