Week 10: Til We Meet Again
I woke up thousands of miles away at the other end of the world in my suburban Richmond home to the continuous beeping sounds of incoming text messages. Still half asleep with my eyes barely open, I reached across my pillow to pick up the phone. There on the screen was a small envelop icon. I tapped it, revealing a message from my friend working for the UNHCR, still in Jordan for a month before retuning to D.C. to continue her studies at Georgetown. She had sent me a URL to the Jordan Times website with a caption below the blue hyperlinked text that read: “Look what was on the front page of the newspaper today!’
I clicked onto the blue text and an article popped onto the screen: “[Prime Minister] Razzaz vows to boost decentralisation councils’ role.”
I felt an immense sense of pride for the work the Advisory Unit had done to get Jordan to this point. I felt an immense sense of pride in the government for its willingness to be true and faithful to the people’s wants and desires. I felt an immense sense of pride in the Jordanian people for never giving up the good fight. And yet simultaneously, I felt the weight of a faint sensation of missing out on being with my team as they went forward from this point to what I can only imagine is a future of great successes.
I texted Ghaida asking what time their meeting with the Prime Minister was and if she had seen the article, too.
I was missing it all: getting to work in the morning, fixing up a cup of Nescafe, and awaiting for the flurry of excitement and stress that comes with a schedule packed with meetings and briefings.
I remember in the days before I left, the work plan for the IMC sat, sprawled out across Raed Al Adwan’s desk, covering piles of MOI papers. Ghaida stood beside the Secretary General and gave the speech she had repeated so many times that I am sure she could give it in her sleep. Her hands moved with her as she spoke, explaining the structure of the work plan, the way it could be used to generate quick reports, and its possible growth through the coordination with all decentralization donors. If all donor activities make their way into the chart, there will be a comprehensive three-year work plan for the IMC. Ghaida’s speech was critical as time was our enemy with the Executive Council’s first meeting under the new government set to take place on Wednesday, July 25 at 11:00 AM here in the Ministry where we stood. On the agenda for Wednesday was the UNDP’s Donor Map plan for Decentralization. We were here to ensure members knew there was an alternative: Our work plan. With a work plan locked, real progress and action could begin on the part of the IMC.
The past two weeks had been spent running from one meeting to the next, always with the 5’ x 3’ work plan poster in hand, which we have now began calling the “baby.” From MoICT, to MoPSD, to VNG, MOI, MOPIC, MoMA, MoPPA, Spanish Embassy, Canadian Embassy and far more places, the “baby” had been bent and creased and dented—an illustration of our efforts.
Remembering all this, I miss Jordan already—the work I was a part of and the people I met along the way.
On my last day I returned to the CITIES office late from a celebratory lunch. Over half of my co-workers had left for the weekend already. I was not able to say bye to them for thank them for their kindness or help during my ten weeks. So let this serve as a goodbye letter of sorts.
Goodbye to the uber drivers—the talkative and the quiet—who got me to and from the Ministry each day.
Goodbye to Amal at the front desk office in CITIES with her glowing, smiling face in the morning greeting every co-worker.
Goodbye to my Egyptian doorman who was always reminding me as I walked out of the building each morning that I could get my groceries from across the street delivered instead of struggling to cross the busy street through the chaotic Amman traffic.
Goodbye to the squeaky sounds of my heals walking through the CITIES office hallways or the ministry corridor, alarming everyone of my whereabouts. Whenever I walked into a room, its occupants’ heads would be facing the door with a smirk, “We heard you coming,” they’d joke.
Goodbye to the center left desk in the Ministry Office that I got to call mine for ten weeks, expect for the times our office was at capacity with consultants and Lamar present, and so I would take the rolling cabinet and move it to the center of the desk to act as a divide between our two sides. I remember the time Lamar sat in his chair with his laptop on his lap while I had the entire desk and I said, “This feels wrong—the intern has a desk and the boss doesn’t,” he laughed and said, “Don’t worry.”
Goodbye to all the faces I loved to see on Fridays at the CITIES office—to Fadi, Ala’a, Ghada, Summar, Mohammad, Ahmad, George, Khalil, Ban, Ruby, Hala, Keylee, Faris and Wisam—to name a few.
Goodbye to the kitchen where we would always congregate over free food and priceless company.
But of course the heaviest goodbye goes to my teammates, my Jordanian family: to Lamar for always believing not only in me but in all of us. He jokes he is just the facilitator but in reality it is his incredible vision for Jordan’s future that we all work by; to Ahmad for his unbelievable knowledge of decentralization and passionate dedication to its success; to Luna for always remembering that the answer to decentralization lies outside of Amman and in the periphery where she is always happy to get up and go to in search of answers; and of course, to Ghaida, the single person mentioned most in these blogs: a testament to her hard work and dedication not only to the project but to my ability to have a successful and fruitful summer. I called her my role model in the office once and that won’t ever cease to be true. Synonymously, she was my Jordanian mother, because so much like my mother, she sets an incredible example on how to be a strong, professional, and successful woman in the workplace.
And finally, goodbye to the man who makes all this possible and allowed me to be a part of it all for just a little, Mark. He does not need “just the intern” to tell him that the project he has built and the team he has assembled to carry it out is nothing short of amazing, but here I am saying it anyways.
So goodbye Jordan, or urdun, as we call you. I have the strangest feeling that we will meet again, though. So perhaps, more appropriately, I will say: see you soon, or ila liqa.
DISCLAIMER: This article reflects my own views and not those of USAID or USAID CITIES.