Prologue

Hi there.

Welcome to the blog/journal/rant/picture post for my next fifteen months in Irbid, Jordan.

Thanks for reading.

I guess any good prologue does some setting of the scene, and even an informal blog deserves no less. Be forewarned it’s a touch boring and more than a touch long:

This whole trip has come together (or is most of the way together) in under a month’s time, but that’s life. I had applied for a Fulbright scholarship to study in Jordan way back in November of 2006, in the fall of my last year at the University of Virginia. I figured it was a reach but a risk-free application in any case.

The Fulbright program, funded in large part by the U.S. State Department, seeks to bridge cultural differences and foster long-term bi-national relationships by sending post-graduate Americans abroad to study and conduct original research projects in participating host countries. Or something like that. It also fully funds awardees in their travels, residence, and research overseas by the way.

So ok the appeal of a prestigious, unique, and free! experience abroad was sort of self-evident, but why Jordan?

Part of the answer to that question (which I get frequently) lies with my experience in the Arabic Program at UVa. Along with a foreign affairs major with a regional concentration in the Middle East, I minored—almost double majored—in MidEast Studies (Arabic). I have always been interested in the history and politics of the MidEast, and luckily I found a university where I could shape my degree around that interest, and add in the study of its (predominant) language.

Alongside that I also held down a part-time job helping to manage UVa’s study abroad program in Jordan, the UVa-Yarmouk Program. My mentor in both Arabic coursework and the UVa-Yarmouk Program, Mohammed Sawaie, is a native of Jordan and has always encouraged me to accompany the summer abroad program to the northern city of Irbid.

My commitment to Virginia Cross Country and Track & Field ruled out any study abroad experience while I was still competing, however. The close of my fourth year presented a real opportunity to pursue an expatriate experience before the reality of the workplace and or even graduate school tethered me stateside. So in debating my possible escape destinations in the Middle East, Jordan already had a leg up on the competition from my time at Virginia.

The other half of the answer to why Jordan? can be found in my research proposal, submitted in conjunction with the Fulbright application…

[Hopefully I can also do some post-facto justification for my choice of Jordan with stories and pictures I may eventually get around to uploading from this summer, insh’allah…]

Unfortunately, after being told I was a finalist for a Fulbright scholarship in February, by mid-March I had been waitlisted pending further program funding. At that point I pursued applications to grad schools and ended up accepting admission to the School of International Service at American University in Washington, DC. I went through the orientation process, signed up for courses, and prepped myself mentally (ugh) for another 2 years of academics.

I had also committed to finally accompanying the UVa-Yarmouk Program after 2+ years of support work for it. I figured a summer abroad—June through August—was still a unique opportunity to broaden my horizons before grad work and internships boxed me up in DC.

Thence the change of plans. On May 15 I got confirmation of the Fulbright award and proceeded to scramble around trying to finalize medical clearance, transcript, and orientation details. I also accepted a Critical Language Enhancement Award (CLEA), a three-month fully funded immersion program preceding the nine-month Fulbright research grant that is designed to increase fluency with critical ‘hard-target’ languages like Arabic.

After resolving some initial conflicts between the summer program and the Language Award and tentatively deferring AU, I am looking forward to about fifteen months abroad: two for UVa-Yarmouk + three for the CLEA + nine for the Fulbright, all of it based out of Yarmouk University in Iribd, Jordan.