Dead Sea Stories

            So far, life in Jordan is looking up. I’ve successfully moved classes, and I got an A on my first quiz, so the academic side of things is going well. The last couple of days I’ve just come home and studied, and I feel like I’m beginning to get into a productive routing.

            These last couple of days have also confirmed the fact that I’m an introvert – I’m not antisocial, but I get my energy from being alone. I was so tired every day this week, I couldn’t bring myself to do hardly anything. But the last couple of days, even though I haven’t really slept anymore, I’ve been energized at the end of the day, and I think it’s because for the first time in a week I had alone time to study, and I’m getting things done.

            Most of the time I’m alone is at home; my roommate and I have settled in comfortably. Our schedules still conflict, but now that we’re more comfortable making individual plans, there’s less friction. We and our family get along well; at one point, they told us we could only shower three times a week, but when we explained that we could, in fact, take short showers, they acquiesced. Sometimes, at night, the housekeeper brings in fruit plates and this excellent sweetened mint tea, and that has become one of my favorite things here.

            One of my least favorite things here is the taxis; for every nice one you find, there are two others trying to rip you off. If there’s a guy in the car with you, they’re less likely to cheat you, but they still either refuse to use the meter and try to charge you three times too much, or th

ey go the long way or take detours to rack up the meter. It’s easier to guard against now that we know our way around better, though.

            Speaking of being around, we went on the biblical tour of Jordan this weekend. The tour was interesting; it was the Islamic, Jordanian-slanted version of the story, but still fairly accurate. We went and saw the oldest map of Palestine, and the church housing it, and then we went up Mount Nebo, where Moses is said to have shown the Israelites the promised land (It was slightly anticlimactic – it was only a little less brown than the other side, but I suppose several thousand years can change a view).

            And then, of course, we went to the Dead Sea. I swam for about a minute-and-a-half, then decided I didn’t like it and went and rinsed and got in the pool instead. It was hard to swim and it stung and it left my skin coated and kind of icky, but who cares? I’ve swum in the Dead Sea. We also went to the outdoor market this past week, and I got a couple pairs of awesome athletic pants for a few dollars each. We’ve also decided that it’s a good place for souvenirs, so we’ll be going back.

            That was about my week; I went to church with a few friends on Friday, and it was a good service. The sermon was on John 3, and we discussed it a little afterwards. We’ve had some interesting religion and politics discussions (in English) in class, which I have watched silently, for the most part. This week, classes seem to be more relaxed; we spend a lot of time chatting instead of practicing, but I feel like we’re still learning a lot, and it gives me a chance to relax a little. And I’ve had time to Skype my parents several time – yes, I did call my mom on her birthday.

            So, I’m learning Arabic, I’m meeting people, and I’m learning to like the food. We’ve found a gym we’re planning on signing up for this week, and we’re starting to venture out into the city. And of course, we’ve swum in the Dead Sea. Overall, a pretty good week. We’ll see if the culture shock hits in a few days…

Jordan: Settling In

            Hi! I’m sorry for the lack of organization in this blog post; I have more work than I was anticipating. Something exciting and unexpected has happened since my last blog post – I’ve moved up a level! As someone who’s never studied Arabic before, I started out in Arabic 101, but I had already memorized the alphabet and some vocab as groundwork, and the grammar is really similar to Hebrew, so I talked to a few of the administrators, and they ended up moving me up to the second-level class. It’s harder, and the homework takes longer, but I’m learning a lot more.

            It’s been an interesting time so far. I’ve settled into my host family’s home and begun to get into a routine. Class times are set, but social occasions and outings are up in the air, and exercise is a small problem. Most of us, after trying to navigate to gyms and learning their prices, have decided to just work out in the house. Cardio is hard, because jogging out of doors isn’t really done, but we’ve decided it’s not worth a gym membership just for that, even though most of us are in ROTC and have to worry about physical fitness tests when we get back.

            Yesterday we went on a tour of Amman; I have pictures of the citadel looking over the city and the amphitheater. By the way, the name Amman comes from the Ammonites; remember them? The tour was great; they showed us the sites and showed us around the city, so we would know where we were and if the taxi drivers were ripping us off or whatnot. I took lots of pictures; the views were great, and museums and ruins are some of my favorite things.

            After the tour, another girl and I headed back to our host homes, which were fairly close to the building we study at. That was an adventure. Jordanian taxi drivers don’t know addresses; you have to either be able to direct them or know landmarks. This makes it difficult when your home is an apartment building surrounded by other, nearly identical apartment buildings. Long story short, we ended up losing the map and my address, asking about six people for help, and finally finding a mother who was willing to walk me to my address after talking to my host mother (in Arabic) to find out where it is. After that, my friend came home with me, and then my host mother’s daughter, who was visiting and speaks English, talked to her host mother until they figured out how to get her home.

            I was afraid my host mother would be mad, but the first thing she said to me after the usual hello-how-are-you was “Hungry?”. I had my own private feast laid out, and the rest of the evening was nice. If you don’t know, I’m not the most adventurous when it comes to trying new foods. However, I didn’t want to offend anyone, and I’m going to be here for two months, so I decided to do my best to learn to like the food. It seems to be working – after a few times having something, the food grows on me. I’ve gained a whole new level of insight into the phrase “acquired taste”.

            My roommate and I are getting along nominally; we’re both moving to the next level (she’s taken a year of Arabic already), so we’ll be in the same class. We have very different study habits, though, so we’ll see how that goes. My new teachers are very nice, I like the kids in the class, and hopefully I’ll have time to do the work needed. Today we studied some vocab and a lot of grammar, but the grammar is really similar to Hebrew, so I pick it up ridiculously fast. My teachers say I will have to work hard but should do very well. I don’t feel confident going home by myself, though, so I usually tag along with my roommate, who’s an extrovert and always going places.

            Jordan in general is pretty nice, especially now that I’m kind of used to the food. Shorts are absolutely unacceptable, unless you’re in a single-gender gym or gym section, but T-shirts are fine, as long as they’re not too tight or too short or etc. The city, because it’s undergone such rapid expansion with refugee influxes and etc., is laid out in no logical order whatsoever, and takes quite a bit of doing to get to know. However, the white stone buildings and palm trees are pretty, and the temperature is warm, dry, and breezy – I’ve heard it compared to California, actually.

            They say culture shock usually sets in about a quarter of the way through your time in a country, which for me is in about a week-and-a-half. We’ll see what happens. So far I’m not experiencing as much Jordanian culture as I’d like in the first place; most of my time is spent surrounded by English speakers. Perhaps when I can get around on my own a little better, I’ll be able to go out and explore a little more, maybe with a couple of friends. But for now, I’m still settling in.

PS - Yes, we did climb all the way to the top of that amphitheater. And the last picture is of a cold strawberry juice - those things are awesome!

Jordan: First Impressions

Yay! My first summer blog post!

Well, I’m sitting in a house in Jordan, listening to the call to prayer. It’s been a very hectic last couple of days, and I’m not through processing yet, but already there’s a lot to tell.

As they say, getting there’s half the fun, and I could write a blog post just about the day we spent flying from Austin to Atlanta to Paris to Amman. I traveled with another guy from Texas until Paris, where we met a bunch of the other people in our class who were on our flight. Long story short, I ended up going to bed at 2:00 Friday morning, Amman time, and then having an extremely hard time going to sleep due to jet lag and general anxiety. Long story short, it was a night full of tossing and turning and headache and sporadic homesick crying sprees, and I ended up getting about six hours of sleep between Wednesday morning and Friday afternoon, instead of my usual sixteen to twenty.

Once I finally decided to give up, get up, and pull myself together, though, the rest of the day was nice. We went down to the lobby at 9:00-ish, and then the AMIDEAST staff picked us up and took us to our host family homes. Instead of living in dorms or apartments, we go singly or in pairs to live with a family in Amman, to help us learn about the culture and language. I’m living in my host family home with another girl, Jordan, but she missed her flight in Chicago yesterday and isn’t supposed to be here until eight tonight, so right now it’s just me.

I was a little nervous about meeting the host family by myself, especially not speaking any Arabic, but luckily, they knew more about it than I did. Before I’d finished formulating, from my very sparse vocabulary, the phrase “where do I eat? In the kitchen? Not outside the kitchen/dining room?”, they began to show me over the house and explain the rules, in english, which saved everyone a lot of trouble (in case you’re wondering, you can’t eat outside the kitchen.)

The house is very nice; it’s an apartment, but it’s very nicely decorated. I’m bad at descriptions, so you’ll have to look at the pictures (my parents were awesome enough to give me a new, very nice camera especially for this trip). Our bedroom is not a bedroom at all, but a suite, with its own closet, bathroom, sitting room, and bedroom. And if that’s not enough, I’ve never lived in a house with a maid/cook before. It’s not America, of course; the hot water is limited, and you can’t flush the toilet paper, but there’s no getting around it; it’s a very nice house.

My host family, from what I can tell right now, is an older couple and their granddaughter. The granddaughter, who is nineteen, is serving as a translator right now; it’s very helpful when figuring out what to do, but kind of unhelpful when I try to use what little Arabic I have and get a shake of the head and an “in English, in English”. When they discovered I hadn’t had breakfast (I hadn’t eaten in a while, actually; planes have a way of killing my appetite, so I hadn’t had a real meal since Wednesday morning) they immediately showed me to the kitchen for pita, hummus, and falafel.

Overall, they seem very nice but also fairly reserved; they seem fairly content to lead their lives while I type here quietly in the back room, which at the moment is exactly how I like it. I feel like, if I was hosting someone, that’s about how I would be. Of course, it’s only the first day, but so far, I’m very happy with the arrangements. It looks like there will be plenty of time to study (and possibly nap), which is what I’m about to do now, but also time to practice my Arabic and partake in family life.

I haven’t seen that much of Jordan yet, but the people have all been friendly, from the passport control to the hotel manager, the weather is hot and very dry, and the culture is varied but definitely different from America’s. When in the airport we saw both women in tight jeans and t-shirts and women wearing full burkas. The week starts on Sunday; Friday and Saturday are the weekend. Driving around, the buildings all seemed compact, and most of them were made from the same beige substance, probably sandstone. There are trees, and there is English; we passed a Pizza Hut and a KFC on the way to the hotel last night. The hotel was nice, too, but it’s the first building I’ve been in in a long time where you could smoke in the lobby.

I don’t have Wifi at my host home, so it will be tomorrow morning, at orientation for AMIDEAST, when I’m able to post this. I’m sure other things will have happened by then, but I’ll save them for my next post. This isn’t this week’s post; this is just an initial piece. I should be posting around Tuesday for the next eight weeks, so look out for those!

Anyway, since my roommate’s coming tonight, I won’t be able to sleep then, so I should probably try to nap now. Best wishes from Jordan!

PS - The first three of these are the hotel room the night before last; the next three are my current living arrangements; the other girl is my roommate; the last few are from our drive through Amman.

Dear Harvard Freshman

            Well, I’ve moved out of my dorm, stored my stuff, and am staying with my parents in a hotel until we leave for the airport tomorrow morning. It’s been a great few days; we went all over Boston, from the Freedom Trail to the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) to the beach. It’s nice to be done with most of my responsibilities for a while, and it’s amazing to get to see and be with my parents again.

            It’s been a wonderful year, one of the best of my life. I’ve met so many people and learned so much and done so many new things, I don’t even know where to start. I’m never quite sure, but I feel I’ve grown and matured, and I’m both sad to say a temporary goodbye to Harvard and excited for what the future holds. I’m planning on also posting during my time in Jordan, so stay tuned over the summer.

            For this last post, I thought a lot about how I should sum up the year. As I mentioned in my last blog post, I wonder sometimes what kind of person will be in my room next year. Friends and I have discussed what we would say to the person coming after us, if we were allowed to leave a note in the room. So I decided that, for my last post, I would write a letter to the freshman who will be living in my room next year.

            Dear Harvard Freshman,

            Hi! I know you’re probably feeling slightly overwhelmed right now; this is a new place, with tons of new people, and already there’s so much to do. I also know you’re getting lots of letters and advice from friends, family, proctors, deans, professors, PAFs*, academic advisors, and etc. But I feel like I learned a lot this year, and I wanted to pass on a little of that advice, so that you can start out ahead of where I was.

            I know you’re a talented, hardworking person who’s willing to do what it takes to succeed. I appreciate how hard you’ve worked to get here. You have to realize, though, that going to Harvard isn’t at all about getting into Harvard. Once you get here, the playing field is levelled; everyone goes to Harvard. That’s not special anymore; that’s not the point.

            The point is what you do here, what you learn, who you meet, how you grow. I know that at the beginning of last year, I was flooded with opportunities, so much so that I wanted to forget about all of them and do my own thing; it was just too much. But now when I look back, I wish I had taken advantage of a few more of those opportunities, whether that be Through the Gates** trips, visiting the MFA, or just jogging along the Charles more often when I lived five minutes away from it.

            My first semester, I was very focused on studying, and I did well. I learned a lot, both in and out of class, and I was a good student. But college isn’t high school; it isn’t about just being a good student, putting together a good resume. College is about being a good person; when you graduate, the list of things you did won’t be nearly as important as what those things did to you. College is a holistic experience. The academics matter, but they are part of an entire experience of living on your own, learning resourcefulness, independence, maturity, work ethic, and the like.

            So don’t study all the time. Go learn how to live. Learn how to relate to people and start independent projects and try things that are outside your comfort zone.  My second semester, I still spent time on study, but I also started hanging out with friends more, taking a leadership role in my extra-curriculars, and setting aside time to relax and try new things.

            Not, mind you, that the ‘college life’ is all it’s cracked up to be. Doing things that you know are a bad idea for the instant gratification doesn’t make you a better person; it makes you a person with regrets. Make your choices carefully, wisely. There’s nothing wrong with letting loose or indulging a little, but don’t sacrifice your future or your character for a few moments of satisfaction. Find something that’s going to be worth it instead – there are opportunities here to do so much!

            I don’t know much of anything about you. You could be from Texas or Tanzania, well-off or disadvantaged, assured of your success or wondering how you got in here at all.  But whoever you are, there’s a place here for you. There are people who will love you and care about your success, and are willing to give you all the help you need. Don’t ever feel like you’re alone; reach out for help, and I guarantee, it will be there. The professors, administrators, and students here are wonderful, and I hope you’ll grow to know and love many of them before this year’s over, just as I have.

            Best wishes for the future, and congratulations! You’re here!

            Sincerely,

            Lauren Mandaville

*PAF – Peer Advising Fellow – an upperclassman assigned to a group of freshman to provide peer-to-peer mentoring and advising

**Through the Gates – Harvard-sponsored freshman outings to cultural events and area attractions

Rushing through Reading Period

            I honestly forgot that it was Monday, and that I needed to write a blog. My week is regulated by classes, and since classes got out last Wednesday, all the time is kind of blending together. I spent most of yesterday finishing my second draft of a 12-page research paper on the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice for English, and I spent pretty much all of today writing the first (and probably last) draft of a 9-page research paper on Holocaust art for Hebrew. I will spend tomorrow working with my partner on a presentation of our Physics project. The papers are due Thursday; the Physics is due Friday.

            One of the hardest parts of college is time management. As I get more and more involved in more and more things, my time to study is more and more limited. I get out of everything that’s optional, and still I find myself distracted by dozens of little things from everywhere that want to suck away my time. Yesterday and today contain almost all the time I’ve had to just sit and work, and it was really nice to finally get things done. There are only a few days left; hopefully I can stave off the panic and sense of being overwhelmed that are also counterproductive. My usual method of doing that is to catalogue my to-do list, write it down, and then start crossing things off, which as you can see, I am doing subconsciously by now, since that’s how I started this post. However, having gotten that out, I can actually write about the rest of my week.

            One recent highlight was our “Secret Angel” week for the seniors in my a cappella group. It’s about the same thing as Secret Santa, except that of course it’s not Christmas, and involved one or two of us buying themed gifts for one senior from Monday until Saturday, when we had our senior appreciation dinner. It’s a new tradition – we started this year – and I’m kind of ambivalent toward it. On the one hand, it was really sweet, and the seniors really loved it, and I really love the seniors, so I loved it. On the other hand, it’s another one of those parasitical responsibilities that I can’t get out of, that keeps sucking away my precious time, so I occasionally wanted to strangle it.

            I also wasn’t too sure about the dinner at first. As treasurer, I’m already biased against new sources of spending, and the hour before the dinner was spent in the middle of a lot of yelling, rushing, and general chaos. We bought the food and commandeered the cutlery and dishes from the dining hall (we were in a room above it, and don’t worry – we brought it all back afterwards!) The dinner, however, was lovely. We spent most of our time discussing all the gifts from the week, from the point of view of the givers and the recipient.

            After the dinner was over, we were suddenly informed that, as the new members of the group, we needed to invent choreo and perform to a couple minutes of the song “Wrecking Ball”. Yes, that one. I know, hazing on the last week of school – strange. However, it was fun, and we were laughing so hard I don’t think anyone actually felt embarrassed, despite the fact that we are all fairly quiet introverts. And afterwards, we had a sorting ceremony; no one was expecting that, either. I’m in Ravenclaw. And yes, there were people in Slytherin. It’s hard to describe in a few sentences, but the evening went very well, and I returned home unproductive but happy.

            Home. I don’t mean that in the same sense that I mean my home where I grew up, with my parents. But this is my room, my space, that I have made my own, that has seen me in my private moments and sheltered me throughout the year from the cold and the rain and the hullabaloo of the outdoors. And yet, in a few short months, someone else will come into this room, and it will be as much their room as it is mine right now. And before it was mine, it was someone else’s. It makes me feel kind of strange, transient – I’m just passing through; this place doesn’t really belong to me.

            I suppose*, though, that dorm rooms are no different from any other rooms. Even if you build the house when you get there and tear it down when you leave, the ground will still be there; you can’t take it with you. Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.”** We’re all, after all, just passing through. And yet, how much stuff you can accumulate in a dorm room after only a year! How much stuff must we accumulate in a lifetime! But you can’t take it with you. I suppose life’s kind of like college – the real purpose in coming is to see how much you can learn, how much you can grow, before you leave again.

            Speaking of leaving, this post is much longer than I was expecting. I’ve obviously spent too much time drawing out deep meanings for my papers. I will post one more time for this semester, but I’m considering posting about my experiences in Jordan over the summer, if you all are interested in reading, so stay tuned! A week from tomorrow, I’ll be flying home!

PS - I forgot to mention - our performance on Saturday went well, too! There are a couple of pictures that I took of the band a few of our a cappella members also formed for the occasion!

*I know, that’s the hint – philosophical musing coming up!

**Ecclesiastes 1:4