My first 10 weeks in Jordan are being spent in Pre-Service Training (PST) where all trainees spend many hours in the classroom for language and culture training before we are officially sworn in as Peace Corp Volunteers. (Well, that’s assuming we all pass our 10 week language proficiency exam.) The Peace Corps has decided the best method for this training is making it community-based—a total cultural immersion experience. Our group of 32 trainees has been split up into groups of 5 and sent to live in small villages where we each live with a family and come together at the local school every day for our lessons and to start practicing our future job, “Teaching English as a Foreign Language” (TEFL).
The villages vary in size, and it is often hard to determine the exact population. We are told the range is from 1,000-20,000 and each is about 30-45 minutes outside of the larger city of Irbid. My village is Turra and is in the far north of Jordan, 1 km. from the Syrian border. As a result, at all times of the day there are many cars and large trucks driving through our narrow roads to cross the border. Also, many men in our village are employed in the transportation industry, like my host father.
Despite cultural differences, people in Jordan are very friendly and welcoming and my host family is no exception. I live with a family of 7, which is small by Jordanian standards, and in a house with typical accommodations (3 sitting rooms, a kitchen, a bedroom, a bathroom, electricity, running water, and ceiling fans) that make my Peace Corps assignment seem like a luxury hotel. In most Arab countries, parents go by the name of their oldest son, so my host father is Abu Amer (father of Amer, 41) and my host mother is Om Amer (mother of Amer, 35). My host brothers are Amer (14), Mohammad (11) and Bilal (10) and my host sisters are Shahinaz (13) and Maryam (3). They are very protective of me when we go out, and we have grown close through my English lessons for them, their Arabic lessons for me and our nightly games of Go Fish.
In just one month of my home stay I have already learned so much and had so many incredible cultural experiences, but the 24 hour/day immersion can be overwhelming when the language barrier gets frustrating and the ability to escape to something familiar seems impossible. I am slowly getting my family to see me not as a guest but as a family member and they now let me help out with a few of the household chores like clearing the dishes, washing my laundry and cleaning the kitchen. The way to show hospitality in Jordan is to feed your guest as much as possible, even if you have little to serve. It has been a daily struggle refusing the massive amounts of food they try to get me to eat, while explaining that this does not mean that the food is not delicious or that I am unhappy. Bread and hummus is our typical breakfast and some sort of chicken and rice dish is the usual lunch and dinner. I dearly miss my old diet filled with fruits and vegetables, but once a week my host father brings some back from Syria, because most things are cheaper there (including the cigarettes which he supplies to the whole village). With such a large extended family (both of my host parents have 10 siblings) I am constantly attending weddings, engagement parties, family lunches, or just going visiting (the national pasttime in Jordan). Everywhere you go you are served tea, and coffee, and Pepsi and fruit, nuts and sweets—yes, all of these, one after another. The food never stops coming and everything is drenched in a sugary syrup. The family also loves to watch me dance in the dubka line at every party, which I am getting better at though they still laugh at me.
The gender segregation is probably at its strongest in the villages and another major adjustment I have had to make. Women sit apart, eat apart, and are fully covered when outside their homes. In our "culture lessons" the females are told not to make eye contact with men on the street, not to speak to a man unless it is a family member and you are spoken to first, and if ever in a situation where you are the only female with a man or group of men, to get out of it immediately. I am also not allowed to be out of my house without my host mother after dark. It is hard to train myself to be constantly aware of these conditions of "cultural appropriateness," especially since a few of my host father’s brothers speak English and like to sit and talk with me. We are constantly reminded by the Peace Corps that one's effectiveness as a volunteer depends entirely on his/her reputation and the only way to build a good one is to respect and adopt the culture that you are living in, not try to get away with not adjusting because you are a foreigner. For females this means always wearing fully-covering loose clothing (even around the house), no exercising (okay, sometimes I lock the door to my room and do sit-ups and jumping jacks), and no showing pictures of myself not fully covered or with males or speaking of any male friends or boy friends (a major no-no for an unmarried girl). There is an internet café in our village, but we are not allowed to go there since it is not a place where women go.
In villages, it seems that all anyone does outside of their daily work is sit, talk, and drink tea. Five new American girls in town is still the hot topic since there is little else going on and everyone is very curious. People stand on their porch to watch us walk by everyday and most men and children yell something, usually the only English they know, "Hello, how are you?" Everyone knows everything about everyone here and there is no sense of personal questions being rude. When visiting with friends and family the first questions I am often asked are: Are you married? Why not? Will you marry my son? Will you get me a visa to visit the United States? Do you love Bush? Are you rich? How much did _____ cost? Are you Muslim? Will you convert? How do you like Jordan? These questions are now easy to identify but usually I try to avoid answering by acting like I can’t understand, and so I sip my tea and play clapping games with my 3 year old host sister.
I am almost halfway thorough PST, counting down the days until I am an official Volunteer and have a place to live on my own, begin my work as an English teacher, and start getting paid. Moving to a new place all alone and having to start to build relationships by myself is a bit scary but exciting at the same time. It is nice to know that you can count on the good nature and welcoming spirit of the Jordanian people to help you settle in.
See Pictures of Turra.
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