Fighting Fit

Last weekend was my second-last sojourn with the army: there’s gap between phases over December and January such that by the time they restart in February I should be far, far away. I’d told my recruiting sergeant-major that this might happen, so he didn’t seem too fussed. In fact, his eyes positively lit up when [...]

Over the wall

I’ve found it hard to know how to continue this blog, whether as a random collection of my thoughts or as more of an outside perspective into my time away from Carolina, and rather busier than expected has made it easy for me to delay posting. Still, I’ve rediscovered my camera from under my UNC [...]

Back in the warm

It was odd to be back at Christ’s Hospital (old school) last week, though hearing the National Anthem near the end of the end-of-term program turn out to be “God Save Our Gracious Queen… [et al]” certainly was a welcome change.
Wales was a welcome change to Jordan in many ways – everyone spoke English, for [...]

So long…

Coming back to Amman was an odd feeling, in that I knew I only had four days in Jordan. Going back to the foundation, the preschool, and the library. An Arab-Canadian lady and her two daughters (10 and 14) were interested in Ruwwad’s work and volunteering, and I ended explaining some of my experiences to [...]

Back in Amman, and work as usual. Today I had my English class again, but a little more drama than normal because the normal library admin person was out. First they gave me a group of 20 kids from 4 to 16 (and varying levels of English), and a corner of the (noisy) main library [...]

School in the sun

Well, the view definitely beats anything in Chapel Hill… I went along with one of the Ruwwad scholarship students to his university today. I admit, I wasn’t expecting it to be a 45 minute bus ride from town, but then again, I wasn’t expect this to be the view out from the main entrance! Universities [...]