Week 9: Time
I stood up and slowly placed the three towering stacks of fifty flash drives into the white USAID gift bag. Ghaida and I exchanged a smirking look.
“I told you to go slower,” she joked, eyebrows raised with a grin still on her face. We laughed in unison.
I was done—at least nearly done. The comparative legislative table summarizing decentralization across the Arab world was color-coded, translated, formatted, and neatly organized; the draft table of contents for a future desk reference to be used by the next generation of newly elected officials spanned eleven pages and was ready to be passed onto an official drafting team to be hired after my departure; the community awareness reports from across the Kingdom were synthesized, compiled, and organized by governorate; and, finally, a compilation of the region’s decentralization laws were neatly filed and placed onto fifty USAID CITIES branded flashdrives, ready to be gifted to Jordanian ministry officials and council members alike.
I dropped the bag on Lamar’s desk. He looked up as he packed his things, ready to exit the office for the day. We exchanged the same look Ghaida and I had a moment ago.
“You’re done?” he asked. Before I responded, he added, “Do you have anything left to do next week?”
“A few loose ends to tie up,” I responded.
And it is true, I do have a few things to check off my to do list before I board my plane on Friday evening. I still need to finish my PowerPoint tutorial for users of the comparative table and have Ghaida review the Community Awareness Report tables. I do however ultimately enter this last week with the ability to stop and smell the Jordanian humus a little bit more and perhaps for the last time for a long time.
***
Mark asked me a few weeks ago if I was getting what I wanted out of my internship and of course the answer was: “Way more.” That has always been crystal clear and unquestionable. But with one week left, I think to myself: Have I gotten what I wanted out of Jordan itself?
I think back to the girl I was at Week 1—unable to open the black, iron barred gate that leads to the first floor of my apartment building, unable to explain to Uber drivers how to get to my office in the morning or get home at night, and struggling through the new experience of Ramadan.
Here I am ten weeks later and I have conquered opening that gate (you have to push it forward and then back after it clicks); I have nearly perfected grocery shopping in Arabic (minus that time I wanted chives and no one seemed to know what I was saying or what chives were); I have mastered the way to get around the city, now giving Uber drivers and friends directions to not only the office, but other destination points around the city; and I now go out in public and see the familiar faces of co-workers and friends outside the office in the store or even on the street.
Maybe this is exactly what I wanted from Jordan—a list of accomplishments that illustrate that in the midst of this first real experience in the field, outside the comfort of Lebanon or America’s familiar streets and faces and all by myself, I proved I can do this—this life of a human rights and development worker in the field who can live anywhere in the world doing the work I love while doing okay all by myself.
There has not always been success of course. There were hardships and challenges that made me doubt myself and my ability to prosper in this line of work.
First, for example, Jordan showed me the bitter reality of seclusion and isolation that can exist in this line of work anywhere in the world. At times I felt that loneliness engulf and overwhelm me, especially during Ramadan. Sitting alone in my apartment or at a café, I do not think I had ever spent so much time by myself in my entire life. Am I doing something wrong? Should I be doing more to meet people and get out there? I kept thinking to myself. Moreover, that loneliness juxtaposed with my absolute adoration for the work I was doing and the people I was doing that work with left me so confused about what this meant in terms of my future in this field.
Second, women in Amman, expatriates, tourists, and local women alike, face harassment in the streets of the city in the form of excessive catcalling, whistling, and staring by boys and men. It is not an occurrence unfamiliar to any woman—it happens every day on the streets of Williamsburg, too. However, at times, it is a different variety of street harassment all in itself. You always have to be “on,” as a co-worker described it, always looking around, being careful. It does not even matter what you have on—a niqab or a mini skirt—you are equally susceptible based on your gender alone.
That brings me to the third and final example of challenges faced here: the Jordanian dress code. There is a fine line between respect for a conservative culture and society on the one hand and societal and patriarchal shaming of women into dressing a certain way on the other. I fear Jordan may have crossed that line ever so slightly. Morning after morning as I get dressed for work, I see myself start to doubt every piece of clothing I put on. Is this too short? Is there too much skin? Part of me cannot even imagine putting on shorts back in the states and I have only experienced this for ten weeks—not my entire life as Jordanian women do.
But in the face of these challenges, here I am ten weeks later and I have overcome these struggles in one sense or another. I have found a group of three amazing women to spend time with after work, eradicating all signs of loneliness. They have conquered this city and lead me to do the same. A pair of pink headphones and a loud, strong voice to yell “تركني” (trikni, the Arabic phrase for leave me alone) or, when they really deserve it, a poignant Arabic curse, as my mom overheard on the phone one afternoon, shows the men I am not willing to take their sexism.
It takes time. That is what I learned from the past ten weeks. Not everything will magically make sense and you may not fit in right away—it takes time. I learned all this with time.
Moving from country to country and place to place, taking time to adjust continuously to the new environments, culture and customs may always be hard. But, if I can keep the feelings of excitement, happiness and love that I experience every day I go to work, I think that, all of a sudden, those challenges become not so big and worth the fight to overcome.