Graduation!

Petra University Graduation!

I went with my friend, Ghada, a former UNRWA co-worker. Her daughter, Dina, is amazing and just graduated from none other than Petra University!

 

 

 

 

I went with Ghada and her family to cheer Dina on as she received her degree in Pharmacy!

 

 

 

The graduation was similar to ours… yet at the same time very different.

 

 

Since I am too tired to detail any of this now.. check out the side photo (imagine lots of honking and swerving down the road)

 

 

 

And check out the below video… of the main ceremony.

As context, this video is after the graduates have entered and sat down — but before the graduation officially started. Anyway, quite different!

IMG 1729 from Julie Whittaker on Vimeo.

 

A Tale of Two Cities

In America we talk a lot about the disappearing middle class and the widening gap between the rich and the poor. Well, people are having the same conversation over here – half a world away.

People’s lives here are starkly different; rich and poor living right across from one another.. but in seemingly different worlds. If someone came to visit me and we stayed in my apartment, checked out the Pinkberry in City Mall, and grabbed a drink on the rooftop at Sangria – she would leave thinking that the life in Jordan is pretty great – and wonder why people are protesting on the streets about their government. On the other hand, if we went and walked through Baqa’s trash strewn streets, stopped by an UNRWA classroom with 50 students vying for a teachers’ attention, and talked to the men digging through the dumpster outside our house – she would leave with a very different impression.
It would be like seeing two cities.

The truth of the matter is, these are both true examples “how Jordanians live” …
and that’s just comparing Amman – not its villages nor the Jordan Valley nor the southern desert. Just like in America, there are a many different lifestyles…. and the gap between them is growing.

One of my students shared this video with our group, and I hope you take a minute to watch it! It’s a helpful way to understand the life here.

And for me, its an inspiring moment to see that young Jordanians are also giving voice to this issue and portraying it in such an engaging way:

Documentary: 4.5 Km from Jude Kawwa on Vimeo.

Learning from my Students: Work in Jordan

Work in Jordan is, anecdotally speaking, hard to find. Many young people leave to find work… when I say this I’m thinking of my friend, Malak, who is leaving for Saudi on Sunday for work, and Nisreen’s finance, Mousa, who is working in Saudi presently… plus countless other little insights from students and friends.

 

While speaking about stereotypes the other day, the idea of work came up. We learned the vocabulary hard-working // lazy – as well as punctual // late.

Stereotypically, Americans are hard-working and punctual. “Go, go, go, go, go.” “I have time to meet you…. from 4:00 to 4:30.” (Note this great article from the summer that my friend Bif shared recently.. all very true of us I think).

Stereotypically, Jordanians are lazy and late. Sweeping generalizations, of course. But still, I think of a joke Nisreen shared with me about the Jordanian attitude towards work:

 

 

Anyway, so in we delved!

American’s hard work ethic is one thing I’m really proud of… and I think despite its occasionals problems, that we are all well aware of (sacrifice family time, greed, etc), it is something people admire about us. And I think it is — in general — a generalization with a lot of truth.

Jordanian work ethic is more complicated to dissect.

To start, we discussed the lack of punctuality. At first glance, Americans might think Jordanians are rude — 15 minutes late to a meeting? Come on, get here on time! — but there are nuances to consider.

1) Here personal relationships are more important than, really, anything else. Therefore, if I’m walking to a meeting and my friend stops me to ask a question or request my help… khalas, I will be late – the people in my life are more important than professional commitments.

2) It is SO hard to get anywhere on time here. You are always trying your luck… will I be able to find a taxi? Will the bus take 15 minutes or 1 hour? Will there be traffic (…the answer is always yes) ? Will I be able to find a parking spot or will I have to park in another part of town?  So khalas, sorry I’m late to the meeting but COME on. Odds are everyone else had the same problem.

 

 

Then we jumped into the lazy stereotype… and it is true, that Jordanians definitely spend more time at work getting to know their co-workers than Americans do. Coffee breaks happen A LOT. But again… there’s that relationship thing again!

Anecdotally, I don’t think Jordanians are lazy… if anything, I would chalk the stereotype up to a lot of people being stuck in jobs they don’t like (….and thus, just as we do in America, do the bare minimum) – and a lot of people employed in a bloated public sector (….too many people, not enough work… ipso facto, lazy).

But that stereotype requires more delving…  more to come… (inshallah)

Learning from my Students: Family in Jordan

This post will be the first in a mini-series I have decided to call “Learning from my Students” … in which I share snippets of the things I am learning from my students (Petra U, Jesuit Refugee Services, and Al Baqaa).

So, to start… about family!

I made an interesting cultural faux pas when I organized a basic speaking activity around family at Petra University. After reviewing vocabulary and neccessary grammar, I asked every student to describe their family to the group – then I asked follow up questions to keep them talking. For one male student, I asked him what his family’s names are… “Ok, you have two sisters? What are their names?” “Yes, your mother? What is her name?”

This is the point of the story when all my Arab friends roll their eyes at me and laugh… because in many Arab families, people do not tell their mother or sister’s names to strangers – particularly strange men. I gather the idea is about privacy and protecting their female relatives — I can see some correlation to the insults present in our culture’s “your momma” jokes. So needless to say, I had really put my student on the spot… but luckily we all have a pretty good rapport so he and some other students explained the cultural difference to me. Its not true of all Arabs, in fact many students shared this without hesitation, but it is true that some Arabs / Jordanians / Muslims (I’m not sure where this particular cultural tendency derives from) do not share this to a group of strangers or “new friends.”

NEXT: Family and independence

As we talked about differences in university student life at Petra, our conversation rolled back to family. There are major differences in family life and relationships here. The typical “common knowledge” or stereotype is that Jordanians and Arabs in general have stronger familial bonds than Americans. People here will live with their families until they get married — then after they are married, maybe they live in an apartment upstairs — plus they see their extended family every week, if not every day.

My students asked me how often I see my extended family… and I thought of KK/Mikey/Brendan/AJ — Maria/John/Sean/Nia — Re, Gumpy, and Nana (etc etc)… and its what, probably once every two months? over the summer? Let alone during the school year… then its just holidays. One of the things I admire most about Arab culture is the high volume of family time… that is one of the things I want to bring my into my life, a little piece of Arab culture that sticks with me even when I leave.

To be fair though, many Arabs act the same way we do — usually because of work. It is common to hear about families with a son in Saudi or Dubai or even in America. People move, generally speaking, because the work opportunities are so much better in these other places. Yet, then the family is split — only seeing each other on holidays or a few times a year.. just like us.

Some students asked if I was lonely. The idea of living at university “alone” seemed sad to them… (“I’m too social” – one student said). Then I explained that at university, I lived in the same building as 200 other students.. with my best friends. So “lonely” was not really a feeling I felt —- although missing family was of course always part of the year … plus independence.

Many of my students talked about the lack of independence due to the familial culture. Students live at home with their whole family usually. This can make it hard for some students to become “responsible” – and leads to some students being “controlled by their family.” That is less of a problem for us.

Then again, as some students shared, it is not unheard of to live alone. One of my students is studying and working here — alone — and sending money home to his family in Nablus (Palestine). There are plenty of exceptions, like him, but generally speaking – our independence and responsibility comes at a much earlier age due to our looser family living.

So, there’s the start of the mini-series. I figured perhaps you would like to learn with me … and being so immersed with young people and mandatory conversation practice, I am bound to learn loads!! :)

Julie as a “sanfura” at Petra University

“Sanfura” is the word used at Petra U for freshman… a nickname for them. Anddddd it means “Smurf” — those blue smurf cartoons from our old tv shows. So all the new freshman — and myself, I suppose, as a new teacher — are Smurfs!

I have definitely not given enough blog space to rave about how much I like Petra University… but Sunday was such a good day that I have to do now..

Its now the second week – which might as well be the first, because no one goes to class the first week of university. This is an understood and expected thing.. the first week is for “figuring out your schedule,” visiting your old professors, and catching up with your friends. An extreme version of our “Syllabus week!”

At Petra U, I am vaguely in charge of “improving students’ English” .. within my roles in leading the Resource Room and assisting the English Club. To a certain extent, the opaque nature of this job has made it hard for me to figure out where I fit in… but on the other hand, anecdotally from my first week, its very clear. All week I sat in the English Club room and students approached me for help — some English majors, some other majors in the university… all passionately interested in improving their English. I was, needless to say, surprised by their enthusiasm for a nonobligatory extracurricular… but really, these students are amazing.

So all last week, I had students coming to my room on their breaks in between classes. And again, this is without any advertisement or effort on my part.. students coming for 1 or 2 hours to practice English with me.

And today was PARTICULARLY great because I tried out some of my activity ideas…

10:00-11:00 We practiced basic conversation by exchanging “Highs, Lows, and Weirdos”

11:00-12:00 We listened to John Mayer’s “Stop this Train,” read the lyrics, and discussed the themes

12:00-1:00 We played question games like “Who am I?” (everyone gets the name of a famous person on their head…and they have to guess who they are by asking questions)

1:00-2:00 We wrote each other conversation questions and practiced speaking from them…

 

Needless to say, the day FLEW!

My schedule won’t always be so flexible.. I think after this next week I will be assigned specific times to work with Remedial students.. but for now, I am LOVING the laidback conversation games .. and it seems like the students are too! :)

“Nana’s Comics” make their debut at a new university…

As context for this post: my Nana loves snail mail and always clips comics to send me.. I was always “that girl” at university who had mail in her mail box.. and I always had the best things to hang on my bedroom wall.. literally enough comics to make a book.

SO I did make a book!

My thought was that a) i want to keep these comics forever, and b) they will be so useful for teaching English language in a fun way, while also showing insight into American culture! I chose my favorite comics, plus pictures of dorchestAH (Nana’s hometown), and quote clippings (usually about chocolate) to make into a book! I organized the comics by theme:

– Family Dynamics

– Making fun of Boston Accents and/or Irish quotes

– Student Life (subcategories include: having a messy room — the student loan/debt crisis)

– Politics – Religion – Technology

…………etc, etc, etc

And needless to say, Petra University already loves it! I brought it in this morning to leave in my office/”The English Club” room — and I offhandedly mentioned it at a department meeting. IMMEDIATELY everyone wanted to see it and now its in the process of being copied into packet/worksheet form for all the teachers to use :)

So there you have it! Nana’s comics, making their debut at a new university…!

PS Nana, I was going to email you this story — but you are easily my most visible blog follower, all the blog comments feel like snail mail to me here! — so I thought I might as well just share for everyone in a public forum to make sure the thank you was well heard :) :) THANK you! Love you!