Snippets and it's only Day 2 اليوم الاحد و اليوم الثانيا

Teaching:

- The students are genuinely passionate about issues relating to Jordan. Some popular mentions: aging infrastructure, lack of public spaces, water, corruption, refugee crisis, overpopulation.

- Might have bored them a little with topics they already covered in class, but they were engaged during the biodiversity lesson and the "Can you guess if this animal lives in Jordan?" game. Many were surprised when they found that yes, Jordan has wetlands, and that rhinos used to live in these wetlands 250,000 years ago: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/08/09/this-250000-year-old-tool-was-used-to-butcher-a-rhinoceros/

- Went through the topics too quickly. Already started on the water lesson--but most of these topics seem to be familiar to the students already. We had a discussion on how to share the Jordan River responsibly with neighboring countries, but I should have more background information. Generating new content regarding urban development to cater to the students' interests.

- "Miss! Miss!" Never thought the day would come when I would be called that by high school students.

Random daily life:

- Picking up croissants for breakfast from "Hot Cup Cafe" at 6:30 AM.

- Trying to eat genuine Italian cuisine in Amman while an extended Happy Birthday song for a 7 year-old's birthday party blared in the background. Shortly followed by a loud song consisting mainly of "Mabrouk"

- Buying groceries with parents at Carrefour and coming across:

- Trying to give directions in broken Arabic to taxi drivers who speak broken English.

"Youmeen!" "Shamal!" "Dughri!" "Mish a3raf!" "Sorry no English!" "No, not Swefieh, I mean Um Uthaynah!"

- Getting ripped off by the same taxi drivers. Really need to review Arabic.

- Having to track down missing luggage without a working cellphone.

- Keeping an eye out for Lucy and An's flights. Luckily they arrived.