“Seeing” with New Eyes

by Julianne Amundson

"IH Family" is a quarterly publication for alumnae, parents and friends of Immaculate Heart High School and Middle School, Fall 2010

(Editor’s Note: Immaculate Heart alumna Julianne Viani Amundson, Class of 1960, serves as a Peace Corps volunteer in Jordan, where she teaches young girls and also helps Bedouin women create and sell their handicrafts. She shares her story of service in her own words.)

The toasted marshmallow-colored acreage surrounding me here in central Jordan is a long, long way from my memories of Immaculate Heart celebrations. It may be quiet here, but the sense of history adds a deep resonance to the area.

My village of Umm ar Rasas is noted in the Bible (Joshua 13:21, 21:37, and Jeremiah 48:21.) At that time it was known as Misbor Moab, or Kastron Mafa’a. It was a Levitical city of refuge in the territory of the tribe of Reuben. From my kitchen window I can see the walls of a Roman fortified city, within which are the excavated remains of Byzantine mosaic church floors dating to the 8th century. St. Stephen’s church has the largest (and most amazing) floor mosaic in Jordan, and it tells a story of the cities on the east and west banks of the Jordan River.

The new mosque that my neighbor’s father is building is a new addition to the area. Besides the nearby five homes, this is my neighborhood. Yesterday, for the first time, a large herd of sheep grazed at my wall. I realized what an ideal species sheep are in this terrain: the sheep, and even their shepherds, are often indistinguishable from their surroundings. Sometimes I wonder if an acre of “mounds” is really rock or living beings!

Across the street from the old walls is the Secondary School for Girls, where I volunteer as a Peace Corps teacher. I am one of seven female Peace Corps volunteers here – with six of us over age 60, we call ourselves “matures” – instructing English and working in special education and youth development. I just celebrated my one-year arrival here and will complete my service in December of 2011.

With its ruins from early civilizations, Umm ar Rasas was designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, and, as a result, it has a visitor’s center. Here I am involved in a secondary project supporting a local society of Bedouin women. They are being retrained in their traditional embroidery and jewelry-making skills. We have established a “workroom” for them, and they are busy creating new items that they can sell in the shop that is part of the center. Along with the center, the entire village consists of a chicken shop, two small dukkans or stores, a car repair business, and a new restaurant that offers hummus and falafel.

So here I am, living amidst Bedouins who have called this desert “home” for centuries; walking in the hills of early Christians, and those before; and listening to the call to prayer from a faith that came here in 600 A.D. When it is very quiet at the ruins, I can find pottery shards and even minuscule pieces of ancient glass.

How did I come to Jordan and to the Peace Corps so late in my life? As a student of the 1960s, the Peace Corps has been in the background wallpaper of my mind. Although my husband and I had discussed joining the Peace Corps, simple life events and four sons kept our path focused in other directions. After my husband passed away in 2000, my process of accessing life as an individual slowly unfolded. After seven years, I thought it was time to take a leap in the “chapters” of my life, so I studied the Peace Corps website.

The Peace Corps actively recruits seniors, finding the 50- plus age group with abundant energy and experience to share. I remember the evening that I pushed the “submit” button on the Corps website, feeling like a high school senior sending a final college application. More than seeking an adventure in the Peace Corps, I was curious about whether at age 66 I could challenge myself to a totally new endeavor.

The process of applying to the Peace Corps included a personal interview and extensive medical and dental checks. When an applicant is cleared along each step, the matching of country needs and volunteer skills takes place. I was contacted in the late spring of 2009 and asked if I would consider Jordan as a placement. The country intrigued me, and it offered an appropriate job description. Jordan is the only country in the Middle East with Peace Corps volunteers, and hence we play a crucial role as representatives of the United States.

The Peace Corps provides a remarkably intense, two- and-a-half month training program, in-country, with a village family, for its Jordan volunteers. I was placed with a family with five children, including a newborn. The challenge of language acquisition was, and continues to be, difficult. As the months have passed, the essentials of language became easier, yet adapting to the Arabic alphabet and pronunciation continue to cause frustration. Sometimes my meager Italian comes out instead of Arabic!

Gender segregation has also been a new experience for me. It is part of everyday life in both Bedouin villages and larger communities. After nearly three months of living in the arid desert highlands, I was able to put training into practice: Riding buses like a Jordanian woman, with eyes down, never sitting with men; always being home at dark; and dressing appropriately, meaning with loose-fitting clothing that covers my body from my collarbone, down to my wrists and to my ankles.

I have had to adjust to other new experiences, too. Shopping requires a bus ride of 35 minutes to an hour long, depending on the route taken. I have had to adapt to distinct seasons with either never-ceasing cold or extreme heat; hours alone without radio, television or Internet; being the object of intense stares from other women; adapting to work within an Islamic community, a school and a country as a Christian; and the list goes on and on.

My village has about 400 residents within a two-mile radius, but is “home” to 22 surrounding villages that my local bus services. I rent my home from a 24-year- old man, one of the 11 children of my neighbor. The family connection is amazing and continues to surprise me: My neighbors, about a quarter mile apart on all sides, are brothers. Children remain a center part of their parents’ lives regardless of age, especially in Bedouin villages.The first thing that the villagers told me about themselves is that they are Bedouin and of the Bani Sakhr tribe. Everyone is quick to educate me about what the Koran teaches about family, dress, behavior, and more. And they ask me many questions: How is Jordan different from the U.S.? Are my teeth my own? Am I engaged? (This last question came from a 22-year-old man selling telephone cards in a shop!)

The Umm ar Rasas Secondary School serves boys and girls in kindergarten through third grade, and then is segregated to only girls from the fourth through 12th grades. The boys are next door in their own school. English is required in all grades by the Ministry of Education, and the English curriculum is a British program. My school has about 180 students in all, and the class sizes are small – only eight girls in the seventh grade and 11 in the ninth grade.

The students are delightful and happy Muslims, quick to teach me correct pronunciation, history and common courtesies. The Jordanian system relies heavily on writing in notebooks, so we Peace Corps teachers can be effective in the speaking and listening sectors of language acquisition. We also try to use innovative methods, such as involving the girls in movement and song. Slowly, very slowly, I see them relaxing and initiating conversations.

I work beside a Jordanian teacher as her assistant. Planning time is at a premium as the teachers move from room to room. Support materials are lacking, too. The blackboards are old, many scratched beyond repair, and chalk is the only teaching tool provided. Without world maps, globes or pictures, teaching can be a challenge, especially when students ask about items that are completely foreign to them – like seashells. Recently, the seventh grade studied home styles, including tents, wood homes in Poland, and igloos. Imagine explaining what an igloo is to a child when snow and ice here are rare, and every window’s view is of miles of amber desert and rock!

The Ministry of Education has difficulty finding teachers to come to villages such as mine with limited transportation. About 20 teachers take a 40-minute bus trip each morning from Madaba to our school, and some connect to other villages from there. As a group of women, these teachers are fun-loving. They have invited me to spend nights with their families and have also taught me how to make a few local dishes.

When the Peace Corps volunteers get together, we enjoy sharing stories, especially about weddings! They are happy, music-filled events – completely separated by gender – and occur with as little as three or four weeks planning. Wedding stories alone are worthy of a book. The women will be in one tent, and the men in another. Often times the tents are the original beit shaar (goat hair) tents traditional of the Bedouin. Some of my students live in these tents currently, and they move along with the grazing sheep, goats, and, yes, camels!

This area has traditionally been a pocket of poverty, where women are responsible for the home, their children, and often their sheep and goats. They must also strictly follow any decisions made by their husbands. Our workshop program brings these women together to share their skills in an ideal outlet for their creativity. A skilled designer now comes to the village twice a week for four hours, and about 10 women sew and do traditional cross-stitch. In turn, their crafts earn money to help their families.

It’s been rewarding for me to work with these students and women. When I think about my background in relation to who I am and what I am doing now, I realize my experiences that engaged me during the Immaculate Heart years simply have given me a broader sense of acceptance.

The key to living within a diverse culture is to remain objective and to always see with new eyes. What I try to do is simply look at old Jordan and new Jordan with new eyes. I am here to learn and share with Jordanians and friends in the U.S. about the deep history that binds us all.