Nine months!!!

I am not going to make any lame excuses about why I haven’t written, I’m just going to dive in – promise you lots of photos and hopefully some meaningful commentary about what has been keeping me busy for the last few months!

What I’ve been up to: Once Jillian left in July, I started my new job at USAID (United States Agency for International Development) in the Education and Youth Office as a Project Management Assistant. What does that entail? Well, I am definitely getting to put my Knowledge Management skills to work and I am loving it – not a Microsoft shop so I am figuring out the G-Suite of productivity tools and it hasn’t been too bad. I do miss my SharePoint but I’ve tinkered around and found a pretty slick way of organizing my new teams’ knowledge into a useful knowledge base, at least the start of one. I have gotten to travel around Jordan with my co-workers to a USAID school where I met some pre-1st graders who had not attended kindergarten and were getting a crash course so that they could transition into 1st grade smoothly. They were so cute, as soon as we entered the classroom they jumped up to show us the artwork they had done, the letters they had learned to write and a cute little ‘fishing’ activity that I am sure was building up that hand-eye coordination. Their enthusiasm and smiles were heart-melting! Next trip, a youth center that was about 2 hours away from Amman in Tafilah for a visit to a YouthPower Facilitator event, where groups of youth (aged 15-30 in Jordan, I think “youth” is 15-24 in the US) met to learn how to be agents of change in their communities from YouthPower trained facilitators. We were able to talk to a few of the participants and see them working in groups to solve problems and present their proposed solutions. I attended an International Youth Day event, and participated in the Jordan Economic Forum – by participated I mean I was a member of the audience LOL. I really love the work that I am doing to help Jordan.

We attended a cultural event – the Jerash Festival with a group of friends. You might remember Jerash from my post in January, it is to the north of Amman and has well preserved Roman ruins of the ancient city that included a large amphitheater – we sat in that theater with a whole lotta other people to watch the Circassian dance! I didn’t know much about the Circassian’s until I came home afterward and did some research, their costumes were so interesting and I learned so much going down the Wikipedia rabbit hole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassians.

So, I worked at my new job for two weeks and then went on vacation! After 10 months for Mike and 7 months for me, we returned to the US in August to see our girls, our friends and our families, so I’m including a few favorite shots from the visit(s).

Shortly after returning from our trip home, we turned around and drove (actually our friend drove!) to Jerusalem with three of our friends. We got picked up at 7am and drove about 40 minutes or so to the border crossing where we got out and stood at a couple of windows to have passports looked at and then on to the next border crossing where we waited around, were whisked through security, waited to buy car insurance (yes, you have to buy days worth of car insurance) and then back in the car and onward to our destination. The crossing was a little north of the Dead Sea so it was hot but as we ascended towards Jerusalem the air cooled a little and we arrived just in time for lunch. We went to the famous market – Mahane Yehuda and enjoyed taking in all of the sights and sounds. We settled on Hatch for lunch and it was absolutely perfect; beer, slushie alcohol drinks, omnivore and vegan fare and lots and lots of people watching (and chatting). Our AirBnB was ready for an early check in so we all hiked over and chilled a bit in the AC before we headed back out to the Old City. We spent two FULL days walking and exploring – day one on our own and day two with our friends’ AirBnb host. I’d never really had a desire to go to Jerusalem, could be because I am not a religious person but I have to say – it was an experience of a lifetime and I would love to go back. We had some wonderful meals, some great laughs and walked about 20 miles (with a killer set of stairs up to where we rested in my last photo) all in all, a fabulous trip with stellar travel buddies!

Back home to Amman; back to the pets, work and friends. One of whom had her 4th baby; a little girl after three sons – so a group of ladies showered her and her daughter with gifts. I just loved this dress my friend Kimberly made out of a traditional Bedouin kaffiyeh to present diapers to mama and baby. One of the ladies from work had her father visit and after they toured all of the sites she invited everyone back to Carakale Brewery to show her ol Irish dad a good time. A couple of our gal pals decided they wanted to throw an Oktoberfest party and with that, had them on the hunt for German food, decorations and best of all – German beer. Our hero Kelly scored us some fresh tasty German brews that we all enjoyed along with homemade pretzels, bakery pretzels, german potato salad and brats.

Since Mike and I hadn’t had much chance to get out and explore we decided to head to Jabal al – Weibdeh for breakfast one weekend morning. We wanted to go to a traditional place and stumbled upon Rakwet Arab Cafe just off of Paris Square. It was a stunningly ornate space with delicious Jordanian dishes.

We walked around a bit so I could try to retrace my steps from my evening with Margaret during our Foodie Walk and snapped this photo as we passed by the Petra National Trust. You can see the nighttime version from my post in May. Such a glorious color of stone, I can’t wait to see Petra where this building material was mined from!

As we strolled to Bunni Roasters Coffee to get some coffee for our French Press, we walked by this VW Bug that I’ve walked past before and regretted not taking a photo – so in honor of my very first car that I (kinda) bought on my own (with help from my Oma)… cheers and r.i.p. to my 1974 (dark blue) SuperBeetle. I love seeing all of the old cars around Amman.

Mike had an old buddy come into town with his lovely wife in tow so we had to go out to dinner and thanks to the recommendation of some of his co-workers went to this amazing place., Tal Pine. It felt like Jordanian Swiss Family Robinson – up in the pine treetops, dining on delicious food with great company. I had so much fun meeting someone that I’d been hearing stories about for years and he did not disappoint!

This next section of the blog is dedicated to the animals, my first story is about a light colored pup that showed up one day near the embassy. Mike saw the dog one morning, I saw it the next and then we didn’t see it again until our friend said he saw the dog farther away and darting in and out of traffic. The dog was so pretty we couldn’t imagine that it didn’t belong to someone and needed to be returned. Our friend tried to catch it, and got a couple of photos and we shared it on the Facebook page for the embassy. A bunch of people recognized it but no one knew who the dog belonged to.

After seeing some kids throwing rocks and cornering the dog, our friend was able to catch it and get it to his place. Other friends provided dog accoutrement and SHE slept for hours in a big dog crate in an air conditioned room. She was filthy and scared but she gradually got used to being inside, and being loved by a guy who didn’t really think he had time for a dog but look at her now…

Speaking of friends, Finn and Iris are inseparable. She loves being a part of our family and he could not be more thrilled to have a playmate at the ready. They snuggle and snooze, they battle and bite – they are the ultimate entertainment.

What I’ve been listening to: new Opeth in Swedish, and new Lana Del Rey And watching: Fleabag (OMG).

Next up – heading to Aqaba and Wadi Rum this weekend and I’m looking forward to taking photos and having some more things to share about Jordan with you next month, then a trip to Egypt in November! I was asked at work by a lovely lady, Luma if I wanted to do a Language Exchange with her and I’m excited to share more about that, too. Meeting with her three times a week and taking my Arabic language class two times a week – I’ll be fluent in no time haha. I love being able to help her, too. I joined the recently reinvigorated Green Initiative at the Embassy and started a Recycle and Waste Reduction Workgroup in the hopes that we can raise awareness about recycling and reducing our waste both in the embassy and at our residences – a group of 10 signed up and I think we already have plenty of ideas that are easily implementable!

Let me leave you with this happy group of guys, riding in the back of a pickup truck on a Thursday afternoon (the weekend is Friday and Saturday here in Jordan) sitting in traffic and seemingly enjoying themselves (well, maybe not all of them LOL). Look for the joy in life – in this day and age we really need the optimists. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, bye for now.