Sunday school
Today, Sunday, we begain our school week with a discussion of our final essays. We were supposed to leave to tour a public health care facility at 10:30, but apperently someone forgot to arrange the trip so we didn’t end up leaving until 12:15. Curtis told us we shouldn’t get mad, because this is just “how things are” in Jordan and that getting impatient won’t do anything to help the situation. So we wondered around for a while on the UJ Campus and eventually Jessica and I decided to get some food at the Milk Bar. The Bar was apparently being rennovated and so there was no pizza and no french fries. The man at the cashier also told me that there was no jubna (cheese) but the guy next to him said, yes, there was cheese, but it was yellow cheese. So I settled on a cheese sandwhich (it turned out to be mozzerella cheese) with pickles, tomatoes, and green peppers. The man making sandwhiches claimed there was no ketchup when I asked for it, but the man waiting next to me was kind enough to point out that there was ketchup a few yards away. I always dread eating at the Milk Bar because no one there speaks English and they get impatient with my Arabic when I can’t understand what they’re saying. Also, the food I get is consistently not what I order; for example if I order french fries and a sandwhich they insist on putting the fries in the sandwhich and refuse to put them separately.
We eventually made it to the clinic, which turned out to be a majorly disappointing field trip that related to nothing that we have studied. The doctors who we met with seemed as baffled as we were about why we were there. One of the female doctors emphatically denied that smoking causes lung cancer and instead attributed lung cancer in Jordan to radiation. The gynologist we met with said that she had seen only two cases of STDs in twenty years of work, and that they were both foreigners, but we found this rather unlikely. We did learn, however that Jordanians have better health coverage than Americans and that if you have insurance and go to this clinic you can be seen by a GP for around 50 cents and by a specialist for around $2.
Tags: Amman, Jordan
Katelyn
Hey, it was really good catching up with you this morning. That was a nice surprise! Here’s a link to my blog for future reference: http://auslaenderin.blogspot.com/. Hopefully it will get more entertaining. Keep having fun and take care!
Hey Katelyn your blog is awesome. I could never get is so detailed and keep it up so well. I hadn’t read it for awhile and really got lost in reading your narratives and seeing the photos. You really look great and happy. I’ve sent it to lots of people. I’m sure they’re enjoying it. How would you compare the educational system in Jordan? Anyone homeschooling, or could you imagine them doing that?
Dad
Becca,
It was great to hear from you to! I loved your blog – its definitely less boring than mine. I can’t wait to see you in August, I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time in Austria and everywhere else.
Dad,
Creating a blog has been a great way to remember what I’m doing and to make sure I take lots of photos. I’m having a wonderful time and am either always doing school work, sleeping, or out with people. Jordan is amazing but far more complex than we in America imagine.
About the educational system, I don’t really know that much about primary and secondary school, but I imagine that homeschooling would be pretty nonexistant. I don’t know, so this might not be true, but since public education has become compulsory and free, I can’t imagine there would be enough parents here with the time, will AND education level to homeschool their children. Jordan is estimated to have up to 30% of its population living in poverty, and women who live in rural areas have an average of over 6 kids each. Even in urban areas this number is still over 4, so homeschooling becomes a significantly more difficult task. So I don’t know, but I’ll try to ask some of my friends and see what they say.