Ok so as promised: A longer, more detailed version of exactly what I've been up to!
Just a small sampling of the things I've been doing:
Last week, well, as well as right now, there's this huge International handball tournament going on. There are teams from coutnries all over the Middle East and beyond! Countires like Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan, Bahrain, and Jordan of course! All these guys are under age 19! And the teams from Iraq and Iran are coincidentally staying at the same hotel we were in before going to our host families! Soooo, because some from our group are still in the hotel, including our program director, he talked with the coach on the Iranian team, and long story short, we ended up going to the first Iranian match of the tournament! It was so exciting! It was a little bit weird, to have this big group of American HS students show up to cheer on Iranian HS students, but it was so much fun! They were the underdogs too! And, in my opinion in large part thanks to our cheering, they won! They were so excited to have fans, especially loud, obnoxious, American fans! Then after the mtach we net them in their locker room to congratulate them! It may have been a little wierd considering the relationship our governments currently have with one another, but it was this amazing example of people to people diplomacy. And it feels pretty cool to have some Iranian friends.
The Iraq-Kuwait game was being played next, and we all wanted to stay....but we got denied by our program director, who thought that maybe people to people diplomacy was stretched a little thin over Iraq. I guess I agreed with him, as much fun as it would have been to be an AMerican rooting for an Iraqi team, I think it could have been seen condescending....
But anyways, the day we went to the tournament we were on our way home from an over night stay in Ajloun, it was so relaxing! We stayed in a bunch of small cabins and just had a day to ourselves.....which was good, becuase when I finally did return to my host family....it was so exhausting!
My host family REALLY likes to have sleep overs with all my little cousins! We've had many so far where we stay up late watching american movies (In english, with english subtitles on becasue sometimes the actors talk to fast for them to understand) and we have popcorn and cnady and soda...just like back home. But I learn a lot for these kids. I love all my litle cousins. I learn alot about the differences in our cultures, especially when we come to a "makeout" scene in a PG13 movie. ALl the kids cover their eyes! And the movie either gets fast forwarded or they change the channel until anything inappropriate is over....it was almost funny...becasue my host borther and sister were saying that the movies hsould be rated R or X...jsut for some scenes with kissing....I told them that they show those scenes in most schools now...and their looks of shock were quite amusing....So things are definitely different here....Its so fun laerning all of these cultural nuances....
Then of course I had another FUN week of arabic..NOT. I love the language and I love learning it, especially in a native-speaking country, but...bottom line is, its school, in the summer. And who has ever liked that??? Its five hours a day four days a week...and I have to get up early to catch a bus....ugh.....but its still fun...just..exhausting!
Then this last Thursday, which is our first day of the week that we don't have classes, our wonderful program director (there is sarcasm, I know you can't hear it, but its there. He's actually really great, jsut kind of crazy someitmes :) ) So anyway, our director scheduled us a day of lectures! on our day off! I had to get up even earlier than I do for class! And I wish I could say the lectures were good..but they weren't...
The first couple were at the Jordan Institute of Diplomacy, one just telling about the Institute and it's objectives, that was actually pretty interesting. The second was from four of the students studying to become Jordanian diplomats. I didn't learn much from this one simply because the students gave VERY diplomatic answers...as in they kind of just jumped around our questions instead of answering them.
Then we were off to the US Embassy which I was still impressed with the second time. Ther we listened to a woman talk about USAID and it's programs. Ok so this lecture was pretty good, I learned a lot about how the US is helping Jordan and the surrounding region. My only problem was, the women who gav e the presentation had the most annoying voice in the whole world! Ahhh...does that make me a bad student ambassador?? If I judge whether or not a presentation was good based on the presenter's voice??? hmmmm...
Anyway, then we headed back to the hotel to listen the an Iraqi refugee and a women who works with an NGO working with displaced Iraqis within Iraq. The women working for the NGO was interesting. The Iraqi refugee should have been..but wasn't. He wasn't very keen on telling any stories of his or giving any background into his situation, even though we asked him many questions about it. All he realy wanted to talk about was what he thought should have been done with the war on terror...which again should have been interesting..but wasn't...plus he had the quietest voice for a man I've ever heard...I could barely hear a word that came from, his mouth! I learn way more from my Iraqi neighbor at my host family!!
But it was an informational day to say the least...and it was an exhausting one too. Then over the weekend I was with my host family. They took me to some of their favorite restaurants here is Amman, and we spent a lot of time together. I'm really getting to know my host sister! WHich is both good and bad...good for the connection we have, bad becasue we end up staying up WAY too late every night takling for HOURS.....
Yesterday I went with my mom and host sister to a swim club and went swimming-that was fun-I got to go swimming! yay! In an actualy pool! I can't tell you how much I miss that....
It was an experience tho...we were at a females-only club...I was shocked to see women walk in completely covered in the traditional Islamic dress...then come out of the locker rooms in the SKIMPIEST bikinis I've ever seen! I felt overdressed in a one piece!
But then we met up with one of my host sister's firends who I had met before to go have lunch, then we went to this HUGE book fair. My host mom had to get back home so it was just me, my sister, and her friend. There were book from all OVER the middle east. And although MOST of them were in arabic, there were some English stands! But it was fun just hanging out with people my age and talking about BOYS and how different things are here vs. the US (they've both lived in the states).... Then we came back and visited family-it was fun but VERY exhausting!!
ANd today starts another week of classes! I'm so tired! And tonight my host mother's HUGE family is ALL comign over to our hosue for dinner....my host father told me not to eat today in preparation...he said we were having a feast! AHHHH!!!!
I'm still loving it here...but I'm starting to get anxious to come home. I miss my bed...and I miss my air conditioning!!!! Hahaha...I hope July has been as much fun back home as it has here..its flying by!
Have you all forgotten about me already????
Kadie
Just a small sampling of the things I've been doing:
Last week, well, as well as right now, there's this huge International handball tournament going on. There are teams from coutnries all over the Middle East and beyond! Countires like Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan, Bahrain, and Jordan of course! All these guys are under age 19! And the teams from Iraq and Iran are coincidentally staying at the same hotel we were in before going to our host families! Soooo, because some from our group are still in the hotel, including our program director, he talked with the coach on the Iranian team, and long story short, we ended up going to the first Iranian match of the tournament! It was so exciting! It was a little bit weird, to have this big group of American HS students show up to cheer on Iranian HS students, but it was so much fun! They were the underdogs too! And, in my opinion in large part thanks to our cheering, they won! They were so excited to have fans, especially loud, obnoxious, American fans! Then after the mtach we net them in their locker room to congratulate them! It may have been a little wierd considering the relationship our governments currently have with one another, but it was this amazing example of people to people diplomacy. And it feels pretty cool to have some Iranian friends.
The Iraq-Kuwait game was being played next, and we all wanted to stay....but we got denied by our program director, who thought that maybe people to people diplomacy was stretched a little thin over Iraq. I guess I agreed with him, as much fun as it would have been to be an AMerican rooting for an Iraqi team, I think it could have been seen condescending....
But anyways, the day we went to the tournament we were on our way home from an over night stay in Ajloun, it was so relaxing! We stayed in a bunch of small cabins and just had a day to ourselves.....which was good, becuase when I finally did return to my host family....it was so exhausting!
My host family REALLY likes to have sleep overs with all my little cousins! We've had many so far where we stay up late watching american movies (In english, with english subtitles on becasue sometimes the actors talk to fast for them to understand) and we have popcorn and cnady and soda...just like back home. But I learn a lot for these kids. I love all my litle cousins. I learn alot about the differences in our cultures, especially when we come to a "makeout" scene in a PG13 movie. ALl the kids cover their eyes! And the movie either gets fast forwarded or they change the channel until anything inappropriate is over....it was almost funny...becasue my host borther and sister were saying that the movies hsould be rated R or X...jsut for some scenes with kissing....I told them that they show those scenes in most schools now...and their looks of shock were quite amusing....So things are definitely different here....Its so fun laerning all of these cultural nuances....
Then of course I had another FUN week of arabic..NOT. I love the language and I love learning it, especially in a native-speaking country, but...bottom line is, its school, in the summer. And who has ever liked that??? Its five hours a day four days a week...and I have to get up early to catch a bus....ugh.....but its still fun...just..exhausting!
Then this last Thursday, which is our first day of the week that we don't have classes, our wonderful program director (there is sarcasm, I know you can't hear it, but its there. He's actually really great, jsut kind of crazy someitmes :) ) So anyway, our director scheduled us a day of lectures! on our day off! I had to get up even earlier than I do for class! And I wish I could say the lectures were good..but they weren't...
The first couple were at the Jordan Institute of Diplomacy, one just telling about the Institute and it's objectives, that was actually pretty interesting. The second was from four of the students studying to become Jordanian diplomats. I didn't learn much from this one simply because the students gave VERY diplomatic answers...as in they kind of just jumped around our questions instead of answering them.
Then we were off to the US Embassy which I was still impressed with the second time. Ther we listened to a woman talk about USAID and it's programs. Ok so this lecture was pretty good, I learned a lot about how the US is helping Jordan and the surrounding region. My only problem was, the women who gav e the presentation had the most annoying voice in the whole world! Ahhh...does that make me a bad student ambassador?? If I judge whether or not a presentation was good based on the presenter's voice??? hmmmm...
Anyway, then we headed back to the hotel to listen the an Iraqi refugee and a women who works with an NGO working with displaced Iraqis within Iraq. The women working for the NGO was interesting. The Iraqi refugee should have been..but wasn't. He wasn't very keen on telling any stories of his or giving any background into his situation, even though we asked him many questions about it. All he realy wanted to talk about was what he thought should have been done with the war on terror...which again should have been interesting..but wasn't...plus he had the quietest voice for a man I've ever heard...I could barely hear a word that came from, his mouth! I learn way more from my Iraqi neighbor at my host family!!
But it was an informational day to say the least...and it was an exhausting one too. Then over the weekend I was with my host family. They took me to some of their favorite restaurants here is Amman, and we spent a lot of time together. I'm really getting to know my host sister! WHich is both good and bad...good for the connection we have, bad becasue we end up staying up WAY too late every night takling for HOURS.....
Yesterday I went with my mom and host sister to a swim club and went swimming-that was fun-I got to go swimming! yay! In an actualy pool! I can't tell you how much I miss that....
It was an experience tho...we were at a females-only club...I was shocked to see women walk in completely covered in the traditional Islamic dress...then come out of the locker rooms in the SKIMPIEST bikinis I've ever seen! I felt overdressed in a one piece!
But then we met up with one of my host sister's firends who I had met before to go have lunch, then we went to this HUGE book fair. My host mom had to get back home so it was just me, my sister, and her friend. There were book from all OVER the middle east. And although MOST of them were in arabic, there were some English stands! But it was fun just hanging out with people my age and talking about BOYS and how different things are here vs. the US (they've both lived in the states).... Then we came back and visited family-it was fun but VERY exhausting!!
ANd today starts another week of classes! I'm so tired! And tonight my host mother's HUGE family is ALL comign over to our hosue for dinner....my host father told me not to eat today in preparation...he said we were having a feast! AHHHH!!!!
I'm still loving it here...but I'm starting to get anxious to come home. I miss my bed...and I miss my air conditioning!!!! Hahaha...I hope July has been as much fun back home as it has here..its flying by!
Have you all forgotten about me already????
Kadie
3 comments:
Kadie,
It sounds like you are having a wonderful time. What a different and exciting world that you are experiencing! I sure enjoy following you along the way. I just saw your Mom and brother yesterday at the grocery store in DeForest.Take care and many safe travels.
Ms. Niemeyer
Hi Kadie,
I continue to enjoy reading about your journey through Jordan and the Jordan culture. I am happy for you that your host family has been such a positive experience. That has to make your experience even better. Sounds like you have a great connection with your host sister. You will have a new extended family. What a great gift to take with you from Jordan! Thanks for taking time to keep us up-to-date on your life in Jordan.
Love you,
Aunt Deb
No! No one could forget about you Kadie! I visit your blog almost everyday and when there is a new posting--it makes my day. I love hearing about all the things you've been up to, so exciting! Thanks again for calling me on my birthday--it was sooooo special! I almost peed my pants when I heard that voice of yours!
Love you always,
Miss Megan
Post a Comment