Determined to keep up with this...

This will be another quick one. We're in the final stages of orientation at the moment... having finished up our placement exams for Arabic, and gone over where and who our homestay will be (that we're moving into tomorrow). I'm still stuck not quite knowing what to make of this experience... i still feel like i'm just on a tour (perhaps because we haven't started classes yet). I can't wait to get back into the stress of information overflow on the mind. once again, i feel as if there is so/too much to learn, i just hope i can take it all in. Somethings that i'm trying to keep in mind as we move through these processes together. What things are my privelege making me overlook... who/what/where/ and why am i not seeing/understanding something around me? I feel like this program is so structured that my experience is pre-packaged. Which is both comforting but also not... what things do i need to change in my mindset to really be aware of what i'm doing here?

Luckily yesterday i got a chance to catch up with Paul, one of my (our) friends from Syria as he was staying down in Amman for break. We exchanged gifts and things, but most importantly stories about the happenings in Damascus, and the well-being of my friends. I also recieved an email today from Owais (ath-thanee... i.e. the owais that was the son of my tutor) and for the first time i really felt as if i missed my teacher and her family very very much, and sincerely. perhaps because it just feels awkward for me to feel so comfortable here in Amman, because my experience in Damascus was just so emotionally taxing... it's as if i actually miss the social pressures that made me uncomfortable for so long, because otherwise i feel like i'm just having a fake experience... does that even make sense? Luckily though, i'm moving into my host family tomorrow. i found out today that it's actually quite a big family... 2 parents (father a doctor with private practice, mother a supervisor at an Arabic school, 22 year old son, 20 year old daughter, 14 year old daughter, 7 year old son). It's definitely going to be interesting to see how the size of the family and their ages all interact. I'm really looking forward to it. (i feel like i've said those last two phrases about 100 times in the past hour... with all our conversations of what to expect from living arrangements with rural and local homestays).

so i don't know. i'm happy. i kind of feel like i'm out of reality and i need someone to snap me back into it, but i'm just going to do what i can. we'll see. ok, we're heading out to the mall/dinner. exploration time.

peace

Recieved in Amman

This will be a brief blog, but i've come to the conclusion that i must keep up with this blasted site in order to help my friends and myself really relate to what i'm going through. So I arrived in Amman last night around 7pm local time, after about 31 hours of travel from leaving Duke on a beautiful Friday morning, to arriving in rainy and cold Amman to our nice hotel. My SIT group of 15 students is staying in a the same hotel for the next few days as we go through a 3 day orientation. I haven't really gotten to see that much of the city, as we've only been bussed out to the SIT main stay and then to restaurants and such. This experience is definitely quite different from that of Damascus, and so is the city. The city seems much more vast.... the rolling hills are filled with these boxy buildings attempting to be white. I don't know why, but the city seems a little less accessible to me than Damascus, but i have only been here one day and haven't had a chance to get acclamated to the bus system that i was forced into on my first day in Damascus. And now that i think about it, my first days were actually quite quite different. In Damascus, i slept through my alarm to have my two soon to be syrian friends Jannat and Fadi banging on the door to take me to get my AIDS test, teach me how to use the service, dragging in between swerving cars, yelling at me to run, stay, catch up, throwing names of streets, bridges, and buildings at me like i was a wall for post-its. and all of this was in Arabic. Here i woke up early on my own (probably by virtue of the fact that it was no more than 40 degrees in our hotel room and couldn't sleep well) to finish up a book review, then have a relaxing continental arab breakfast, to then be shipped in our little tourist bus of 15 americans and led all in English to our comfortable office where we prepared coffee and tea, to get us through the process of orientation to Jordan and the time zone.

I'm extremely excited about this experience to come though. I know that i have so much to learn from every single person on this trip, and i can't wait to see in what settings and converstaions i will find new ways to percieve this world around me. I am worried that my Arabic may fade a bit in the beginning as everything seems to be in English. Luckily, i'm feeling comfortable at the moment at where my Arabic is. I can't wait to start studying it again though (it's like a drug i swear). But yeah, I'm too tired to focus right now, so i'm just going to get some sleep and start reboosting my brains energy.