India, Here We Come!

After months of planning, budgeting, and waiting, our trip to India is here!  Our flight leaves this evening, and after a short layover in Bahrain, we will arrive in Delhi tomorrow morning.  Our destinations in India include Delhi, the Corbett Tiger Preserve, and Agra.  We will be sure to tell you all about it and post lots of pictures when we return in a week.  Wish us luck!

And now, back to packing...

Mid-Winter Update

Nothing really new to report…not yet anyway.  It’s amazing how time flies once you get into a routine, even in a foreign country.  It’s hard to believe that we have already been here for almost 5 months.  It’s even harder to believe that December is already over!  First, the weather is so warm that it still feels like October (with the exception of one short snow-day).  Second, nothing that comes along with Christmas to drag the month out.

With December, Darren’s 27th birthday slipped by, and now we are half way through January.  The only thing interesting so far in January is that we saw a shepherd herding his sheep up a footbridge and over the highway – sure wouldn’t see that at home!  January should go out with a bang, however! We have a visitor scheduled to arrive shortly, and after that comes our midwinter break and our trip to India.  We’ll be sure to fill you in after we get back.

With all the people we’ve met, places we’ve been, and events we’ve attended, it’s hard to believe it could all be crammed into so little time.  This is shaping up to be one quick year!

Day to Day at the YMWA

Here’s the post we know many of you have been waiting for!

We have been here in Jordan for about 4 months now, and now that we have our routine down, we thought we would share it with you.  Here’s a run-down of our average day working at the YMWA Center for Special Education:

5:30am -  Our alarm goes off for the first time and, depending on how tired we are, we hit snooze 2 or 3 times.  We finally get up and ready, and we are out the door by 6:20am.

Our view for 3 hours a day

6:25am -  The bus arrives at our building, except when it’s late (which is often).  Then begins our 1 ½ hour bus ride to work.  After our stop, we wind through west Amman, picking up about 25 students and 10 teachers.  When we are almost finished with the route, some of the teachers get off the bus and pick up falafel sandwiches for breakfast (including us most days).  We arrive at our final destination around 7:55am.

8:00am -  School begins!  Amber heads to the art class in the school section, and Darren heads to the woodshop in the vocational section.

Working in the art room

Amber’s day -  After arriving, I head straight to the art room in the school section, where I lay out the materials for the first class.  We have done so many projects!  Here are a few: drawing, finger painting, egg carton creations, paper mosaics, play dough sculptures, and using dirt/sawdust/leaves to make textured pictures.  Which children come to art class depends on the time and day of the week – each day we get a different grade level from the school section or the preschool section, six grades in all.  From 8:20 to 10:00, I have three different groups of children (in 30 minute classes), all from the same grade.  From 10:00 to 11:00 is my lunch break.  Three days a week, I have recess duty, so from 11:00 to 11:20 I keep an eye on the kids while they play.  From 11:25 to 12:50, two more groups come in for art class.  The days go by fast when you have so many different groups of kids coming in.  

Working in the shop room

Darren’s day -  My typical morning starts off in the shop office, eating a bit of bread and falafel and having a glass or two of tea with the guys.  After we’re finished, we split up to get at our individual work.  So far, I’ve worked on wooden toddler toys, cooking utensils, weaving looms, and tea server sets.  Projects I have not worked on include chairs, tables, picture frames, cutting boards, and more children’s toys. In the shop class, there are about 10 students (all boys) who help out where they can: carrying and stacking, sanding and clamping, assisting with machinery… anything that’s not complicated or dangerous.  At about 11:00, everyone finishes what they’re doing, gets cleaned up, and heads to the cafeteria for “breakfast.”  For the students it may be breakfast, but for me it’s lunch.  The meal period is pretty short, about 15 or 20 minutes, and then we head back to the shop.  School is over in a couple hours, so the rest of the day goes by pretty quickly.

KG kids sleeping on the bus

1:00pm -  School's out!  Like the bus ride to school, the bus ride home is well over an hour.  The kids can be pretty wound up, so it’s a constant battle to keep them somewhat quiet and in their seats.  After a while, though, some get dropped off and others fall asleep.  Most days we get home between 2:30 and 3:00.

This is pretty much our routine, Sunday through Thursday, with the following exceptions:  On Tuesdays we have our Group 1 English class, which consists of 6 of the vocational students who have some knowledge of English, but not much.  With these students we work on numbers and letters, basic greetings, colors, animals, etc. On Wednesday, Darren takes Group 2 English class, which is 3 of the more advanced students.  With this class, we work on vocabulary, as well as reading and writing skills.  Also on Wednesday, Amber goes with the school section to the city sports complex, where she instructs a few students in tennis, which she played in high school.  Thursdays are also slightly different, in that the vocational students get an hour of free time after lunch, and everybody gets off at about noon.

We love the staff that we work with and enjoy our jobs, but what really makes the difference is the students: they are always there, smiling and laughing, even though they have no idea what we are talking about.  When we come in, they are always happy to see us and ready to great us with whatever English they know.  Several of them ask about past volunteers (Lena, Emily, Kelly, and Jamie) daily. We know that when we leave the school, we will leave behind an imprint on the student’s lives, and next year they will ask where we are, too.