shway shway: little by little
So this post is long overdue: I suppose I can officially say that I’m in tune with the Arab lifestyle here in Amman where 1 hour really means 3, and when someone says “I’ll be back in 10 minutes”, it really means “see you in an hour.”
Hi everyone. My name is Leila Dal Santo, I’m a rising junior and I’m currently in Amman, Jordan working with the Jordan River Foundation (JRF), a non-profit founded by Queen Rania in 1995. JRF seeks to empower women and children and improve the general well-being of all Jordanians. There are two main target areas: The Community Empowerment Program helps community members realize their economic capabilities and participate in their potential economic opportunities (one such project, the Bani Hamida project is truly amazing: the handicrafts the women make are stunning). The JRF Children Program tackles the growing issue of child abuse in Jordan. I work at the Queen Rania Family and Child Center (part of the JRF Children Program), which is located in Jabal Al-Naser, one of the most destitute areas in Amman. The mission of the center is multifaceted: to raise awareness about child abuse through activities with the children, to reinforce proper parenting skills through informational sessions for parents, and to cultivate healthy relationships (family, friends, personal, etc.) in the children’s daily lives.
Needless to say, I was extremely eager to begin working at the center. As I mentally prepared for my DukeEngage experience, I was feeling pretty confident in my Arabic abilities. I had just completed two years of Arabic at Duke, and after all, I was going to be working with children…hopefully you caught the foreshadowing. Before I continue on let me explain something about the Arabic language (hopefully I won’t confuse too many of you in the process): the Arabic taught at Duke, or at any university for that matter, is called Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), or “fusha”. It is universal in the sense that it is used for reading and writing (any newspaper, whether Moroccan or Jordanian is written in MSA), television (Al-Jazeera), radio, plays, etc. HOWEVER, each Arab nation has its own dialect, so that someone from Jordan would not be able to understand someone from Morocco. In short, although any Arab understands MSA, he never uses it in normal conversation: It would sort of be like saying “How art thou today”: yeah, it’s that formal. Naturally then, I had a rude awakening when I first arrived to Amman. And it wasn’t so much that I couldn’t communicate. Everyone here understands what I’m saying, they just chuckle when I talk. And aside from the adults at the center who will reply to me in fusha just for kicks, the kids always respond in the Jordanian dialect. The first couple weeks were rough, but it’s mind-boggling how much I’ve picked up since I’ve started volunteering.
I’m guessing you’re asking what exactly it is that I do at the center. When it comes to activities for the children, the goal is to prevent child-abuse by raising awareness; however, this is not something that can be addressed openly. Many of the activities (drama, arts and crafts, interactive library, computer lab, etc) the trainers have implemented indirectly touch on this issue by emphasizing the sanctity of one’s body, freedom of expression, the power of the voice, etc. As an accomplished pianist (12 years and counting) and decent singer (4 years of chorus in high school), I use music to reinforce this idea of an individual’s vocal power and to encourage the children to express themselves through song when it may be hard to do so in words. I still remember the first day I started my “music lessons.” In an attempt to simplify music theory as much as possible, I consolidated it all into one song: have you guessed it? Do Re Mi. The children loved it; it’s all they wanted to do for that entire week. And this is one of the aspects of my work here that I find so fascinating and so refreshing: the children I work with are so grateful and so eager to learn anything new. They relish every opportunity they are given, every lesson, every story or piece of advice. Inspiring…