Salaam!

This is our 3rd week in Amman– koolshi mumtaz (everything is excellent)!!!!

Abigail’s host baba (who lives in the same apartment building as us) took me to the masjid for friday prayer and it was incredible. We parked pretty much in the middle of the street and when we came out after the prayer, cars covered the whole street, parts of the sidewalk too. And there was a truck selling grapes and shampoo haha. It’s seriously so beautiful to see the strength of faith in people. Any faith, it is just beautiful to see it in someone’s eyes that they really feel faith in their heart. Seeing the street covered with cars and people made me so happy because it shows how much love there is for faith and how good it makes people feel. Even at home I am always happy on fridays to watch all the people coming from such different places to pray together. It reminds me of Ramadan when so many Muslims go to the masjid to pray late at night and then we wake up again before the sun even rises because the love and feeling of faith and peace in our hearts is so strong.

Classes are amazing. We are taking arabic, refugees and displaced populations seminar, refugees health and humanitarian action seminar, and a research and methods class. We have arabic for three hours twice per week and it’s so much fun! Majority of people in Amman can speak english so we have to try our best to talk in Arabic with each other and anyone else we meet here! For our refugees health and humanitarian action seminar, every week guest speakers from NGOs, health providers, and universities come to tell us about what they do and the history of current refugee crisis and so much information about issues/risks facing refugees and the host countries that they are coming into. We also have many field visits to the offices and centers of these providers every week!

A professor that visited us last week taught us about the challenges and stress that is put on Jordan for hosting so many Syrian refugees. We talked about how limited the resources are because right now Jordan is the third most water stressed country in the world. And while the basic needs of refugees are far from being met, Jordanians are rapidly running low on their own basic human needs. She left us with this, “The cost of three tanks can feed 600,000 refugees for six months.” Crazy to think about the constrasting effects and costs of violence vs peace.

But yeah we are learning so much and we are also so lucky to be with the families that are hosting us! Geri (my and Hannah’s host mama) has been taking us to her friend’s pound class which is an all girls cardio class where we use drum sticks it’s the most fun gym class I have ever done and it makes me feel so strong!!

Geri also took us to her friend’s son’s engagement party the other day and I didn’t have anything fancy to wear so I went to the mall to buy a dress (I found the most beautiful green turkish style dress) bought it and then when I was riding the taxi home, the driver ripped me off and I forgot the dress in the taxi… lol it’s all good. Hopefully someone really nice and cool has it now <3 But I did learn so much after that. My baba, mama, and my friend Sawsan told me before I left to stay really alert and guarded while I am here and I think I got to comfortable. It helped me realize that a lot of people here are in poverty now because there is not that many good paying jobs and sometimes people can get desperate and take advantage of others. So anyways I learned that even though it is good to allow myself to trust and feel comfortable, I really have to protect myself and stay alert. Safety first :))

Anyways anyways sometimes it is really easy to feel too confident or too comfortable and of course its good to have that feeling but also I have to always remember that I am still learning, I will always be learning, and I definitely do not know everything so its best to listen to my parents and all the other people who love me <3

“And hold out your empty ‘ricebowl,’ as it were, and see how the universe and love fills it to overflowing, time after time!” -Ms Penny

I feel uncool for admitting it but I WAS SO SCARED… The day before I came I was crying so much and I came two days late because my program started the same day my brother and sister-law had their wedding <3 so since I was two days late I felt like everyone was already friends and I felt saddddd. But that only lasted for less than a day because the other students in this program are so funny and awesome and welcoming, it’s sweet.