flashback: dave’s visit & the neighbor’s wedding 2010

We know this is super late, but we have some great pictures and videos we want to share from a huge village wedding. I think we've finally figured out the best times to upload to blogger (middle of the night) so hopefully we can catch up soon! Also, video embedding has been rough so I just linked to my vimeo account. Thanks for following our blog. 

During training, Dave came to visit and attend a wedding in Anne’s first village. There was quite a bit of activity there. Within the first month, Anne attended a wedding, a three-day family funeral, and a birth party- where women sit around the bed, adoring the new mother and her child, while drinking cinnamon tea with chopped walnuts on top. (Which is a delicious winter drink, by the way!)

Dave stayed with the two male trainees in the village. The wedding was gender segregated as well, but we were able to look at each other before the wedding and Dave was able to attend our class in the village the following day, as well as eat a delicious lunch with my host family and visit at the grandmother’s house- in fancy guest rooms Anne rarely sees. It was wonderful. Our teachers went above and beyond to help us figure out logistics.

{dave looking dapper in his dish dash}

The wedding tents and decorations were being set up a few days in advance and most of the village attends. There were at least several hundred people in attendance. The women welcome the bride and groom and then they have a short ceremony inside with cheering. The groom meets the men and people continue to celebrate within their gender, except for the young children who all stay with the women. We all drink Arabic coffee, eat Mansef, and dance. We were told the women did not dance at this wedding only because the boombox broke. Sad face. But women grabbed Anne by the hand, and led her to watch the men dance while the women talked with each other. There was a lot of happy energy, music, quite a bit of gunfire, kids spraying canned snow, and fireworks. It was interesting to compare the two sides later. 

Although we did not attend it, there is traditionally a large engagement party where the woman wears what we can only describe as a Quinceañera dress. The women also have a henna night before the wedding where there is merriment and (obviously) henna application. From what we saw, and from all the wedding pictures Anne has seen, the woman is covered while exiting the car and entering the wedding but then sheds a cocoon-like covering to reveal a white, Western-like wedding gown, fabulous hair, and lots of makeup. Village weddings usually take place within the home of a relative and the party extends to tents.

Mabrook! Congratulations to the beautiful couple! Being married is a very special accomplishment in Jordanian village culture, as well as having children. One of the first things Anne is always asked is if she is married, if she has children, and why not. Woman in the village are generally perplexed as to why Peace Corps would separate couples during training (it was difficult) and not allow children to come along on our assignments. 

We are very grateful the family extended the hand-delivered wedding invitations to trainees in the village! Usually, it is just word-of-mouth invites. We have quite a bit of photos and some video from the wedding. Enjoy!

From the women’s side:

{the couple arriving at the house}

{groom helping his bride out of the car}

{all the children and women rush out to greet them}

{here come the bride video: click}

{the videographer is ready}

{women carry expensive, sweet smelling incense, while singing traditional songs}

{this kid has the best job}

{the ceremony}

{don’t come if you’re claustrophobic}

{trainees and teacher}

{traditional wedding decor}

{host sister on the left, amazing teacher on right}

{anne’s flowers and the children who gave them}

{dancing video from women’s side: click}

{fireworks}

And now from the men’s side:

{as usual, cute friendly kids}

{decor}

{dancing}

click here to see all the videos of:

{adorable dish dash dabka kid}

{solo dancer}

{dabka tutorial}

{toot. toot. it’s a flute!}

{groom, dancing, sword, and gun blast}

{the end?}

After a while Dave and the male volunteers continued dancing, eating seconds of Mansef, and cake, Anne and the women sat freezing whilst eating hard candies. She eventually pulled him away so he could walk her home. 

{next day role play in anne’s class}

{walking back to anne’s for lunch}

So, what do you do there? Part I: YD, Generally

The front room of my center.

Great question. I’m going to try and post a little more about my actual job as a Youth Development volunteer, as I learn it a little bit more every day inshallah.

Peace Corps is a firm believer in “experiential learning” which, despite what some snarky PCVs may tell you, is emphatically not the same thing as “making it up as you go along.” It really just means observing things, participating in them, and taking the time afterwards to reflect on what you’ve done, where things might be headed and what action you can take to nudge things in a positive direction.

As I’ve been experientially learning my job these past almost six months, it’s best summed up in the unofficial Peace Corps Jordan credo, “be flexible.”

Peter & Christa have an awesome roof, mashallah.

Anyways, in Peace Corps “youth development” work falls somewhere on the border between the education and community development sectors. YD volunteers work with young people at various levels of the educational system, sometimes all at once (as when local university students volunteer to help put on a program for local middle- and high-school-age students, something we’re hoping to pull off later this summer). But we also work with local people and groups organized to help their neighbors and themselves.

Ideally, a Peace Corps volunteer working in youth development will be helping build the skills of the young beneficiaries of the program as well as the local actors implementing the program. In a country as young as Jordan (70% of the population is under 30), pretty much every development issue (education, jobs, the environment) affects young people. “Youth development” work starts to seem pretty broad.

Worldwide, Peace Corps focuses it by organizing it into three (again, broad) themes: family life, working, and citizenship. I’m paraphrasing a lot of Peace Corps documents and manuals but that’s the gist of it. Family life encompasses things that help young people become healthy adults, including physical health, mental and emotional health, and learning to communicate and make decisions. Basically everything that UNICEF calls “life skills.”

I hear you asking, “but Dave, how are you supposed to give good advice to kids about this stuff?” Shut up.

If you click on that life skills link you’ll notice that in the development world these things are often associated with a particular public health issue that Peace Corps doesn’t work on here, but that’s a story for another post.

The second theme, working, is pretty straightforward: programs that build practical skills for participation in economic life. Here in Jordan, that has typically meant doing stuff like teaching English, but this summer we’re also rolling out a pretty impressive program developed by two of our volunteer colleagues for teaching critical thinking and problem solving skills. More on that after a successful field run next month, inshallah.

The last theme, citizenship, is stuff like promoting civic engagement and volunteerism, stuff that falls under the category of service learning in the States. Here in Jordan it also covers interesting efforts around girls’ empowerment and brings up a lot of complicated issues related to the heavily youth-involved character of recent events in the region. When young people make up 70% of the population, a society has a vital interest in making sure that they are constructively engaged in community life.

As guests in this country we only touch lightly around the edges of these matters. But the meaning and practice of citizenship is great fodder for the cultural exchange that is the heart of our work here, especially once we have the Arabic skills to talk about it! As always, more on that later.

This is an overview of youth development work in Peace Corps generally, as I understand it. The next post in this series will give more detail about how we go about actually developing these here youths in Jordan. Until then, الله يسلمك !

the holiday wrap-up part three: the nature reserve and the resurrected squat toilet

And then there was Easter. Dave spent most of this week at the National Youth Games. He is on the committee that works with the Higher Council for Youth, and will help plan for next year’s event and transition. Hopefully he can post pictures later. 

During this time, Anne planned a two-day hike in the nearby Dana (pronounced “Donna”) Nature Reserve which turned into a painful but gorgeous one-day hike, extremely fun overnight camping, and long but beautiful, sometimes frightening (curving mountains without seat belts) three hour ride back to civilization. Apparently the hiking boots were a tad too small and the pack too heavy. Thank you, Andrea for taping my feet! Anne went home with lots of bruises and gross blisters. Was it worth it? Heck yeah! Just wish those expensive boots could have made it to another volunteer instead of one flying out the back of the truck, lost to a wadi forever. 

{dana village}

{we ♥ dann + andrea}

{the women}

{we walked down into the wadi/valley}

{lookin’ shebtastic- shebob means unmarried man*}

*two of them are married but i just like to say shebtastic!

{rocky + beautiful}

{ comin’ around the mountain- just sunny, not grumpy. yet}

{gorgeous weather}

{about an hour or so later}

{crazy millipede thingy why do you need so many legs?}

{goats keepin it real}

{nature lookin good}

{huge spider lookin scary}

{first spot of fuchsia oleanders}

{oasis}

{my dogs were barkin- notice how far back i am}

{caves!}

{amazing tree}

{GORP rock}

{wandering along}

{oleander bonanza}

{don’t know what this is but i like it}

{oleander + goat looking pretendy}

{camel smiling even tho his feet are tied}

{dropped off outside reserve so we can camp}

{rocks}

{jesus sky}

{a very peace corps photo*}

*the kid's dad came over to tell us that we might not want to set up our tents on the grave sites... one which was a too-good-to-be-true step down bathroom. hindsight 20/20. i apologize.

{hoping it rains after we set up our tents}

{d.i.y. tent}

{drizzly coffee}

{rainy dinner}

{the morning from my tent}

{the tent- one of our most loved wedding gifts}

{those who will go on hiking}

It was hard to take pictures from the car but we were down around the Petra area and it was gorgeous. There were a bunch of tall cedars and many hawks perched on top of them. I fell in love with hawks in San Francisco. They would hang out on top of eucalyptus trees and street poles in the panhandle.

{my truck buddy}

{along the road}

The easter bunny sent us a package via Austin (thank you, easter bunny!) and on Easter Monday, as Dave entered our bathroom, he was treated to some more magic... or was it something more?! There are several biblical sites in Jordan. We will always remember this day and The Resurrected Squat Toilet.

{is it a sign?}

{what does it mean? its so intense}

Thanks for checking in on us! We hope to post more, and more often. Time is a little funny here. Come visit!