Brief Account of Week 4

And so begins month number two.

The past week was just as busy as the first three and I feel that it may be getting faster. In my Arabic class we have successfully graduated from the alphabet and are moving on to...grammar. I can't speak for the whole class, but it really isn't that exciting. I got to admit though learning to conjugate verbs is incredibly helpful when you want to say anything other than he ate, he drank or anything in masculine third person past tense. Speaking of which, I am still trying to get used to my Arabic professor and her way of teaching. She is great and I really like her, it is just a bit annoying that we have learned past tense before present tense.

In any case, we are moving along at a good pace.

As for non-school related events, I was able to go with my program to Usarah Village, near Ajlun in north Jordan, where we helped to begin the renovation/cleaning of the boys secondary school for the town.

Basically, the school is in such poor condition boys don't want to go to school, or ditch school and jump the wall to escape during the school day.

This is a picture of the classroom I helped clean. Each classroom has about ten chairs and one table that if they were not falling apart or completely broken could possibly be used in a first grade classroom. Mind you, this is meant for high school classes with up to 25 students in each classroom. So we have a lot to work to do.

Following our time at the school we enjoyed a traditional Jordanian lunch where a local family took us to their home, all 30 of us, and fed us. Can't remember what it was called, but it was zaky, or delicious.

And of course by the end we were all stuffed and happily content with a nice cup of tea.
Following our tea we took our bus to the local Soap house where local women make organic soap from the olive. We got to experience the process of soap making.

And now that I have just started, it is time for me to log off. I am leaving in about three minutes to go catch a taxi that will take me to the University where I will meet a bus which will be taking me on an adventure through Southern Jordan.
I have much more to add, and following this weekend, I will have even more.