Christmas Eve

We woke up, excited about Christmas Eve, for two reasons. Kate was going to the police station armed with her residence permit to finally get it stamped into her passport, then later, we were having a  Christmas party for all our friends.

Kate arrived at the police station, which was quite crowded and, after some time managed to speak to the right person about the visa. She was very disappointed to be told that first she must go to the  ministry of interior to get the work permit, despite being told by the  university that the residence permit she had been issued should be enough to get the residence visa stamped into her passport.

This process has been frustrating for Kate, who normally likes to know exactly is going to happen, in what order and what she needs to bring, but no one has been able to tell her these things. The communication & organisation at the university is not very good and Kate will need to learn to adapt, if she is to avoid pulling all her hair out!

Kate came back and we began preparations for the party. Kate's mum had made lots of mince pies, with homemade mincemeat, since it is not available here. We also had mulled fruit juice, not wine, since some of the party guests would be Muslims. Kate made some amazing penguins with olives, cream cheese and carrots, which a friend of ours had spotted on a Facebook page. Isaiah went around telling everyone, "These penguins are from Facebook.", even though he has no idea what Facebook is.

We had invited about 30 people to the party but, sadly, some of our friends were unable to come. In the end, about 20 people came, which was about the right amount for the size of our lounge.

We had a lot of fun playing "pin the nose on the snowman", "guess how many sweets are in the kettle", "guess what's in the socks" and of  course, the chocolate game. All of these games were new to our Jordanian friends.

It was a great opportunity for us to strengthen our friendships, and also, some of our friends met each other for the first time.

Ladies swimming morning

After 2 "service" rides (set-route taxis) and walking through a few back streets we arrived at our destination - "The World of Exercise"! I had come with my neighbour to the swimming baths that she has frequented for the past 20 years. Apparently it is one of the oldest swimming baths in Amman. We descended the steps and were greeted by a rather large lady in a rather ill-fitting swimming costume! This was the first of a range of attire I encountered- bikinis, cycling shorts over swimming costumes, cycling shorts under swimming costumes, t-shirts and leggings, and a set that looked like pyjamas plus swimming caps!!

Ladies' sink or swim session

From 9am - 1pm was for ladies only, girls were also allowed but not boys. After changing we headed for the main pool which was about 25 m long. My neighbour was very proud that she could swim, although my breaststroke was faster than her attempted front crawl! But she was much better than the other ladies we saw splashing around. There was a Ukrainian lady giving a swimming lesson to 5 of the ladies.

Luxurious but scruffy at the same time

Everyone was very friendly and we chatted to all the other ladies there, either in the very hot jacuzzi, lovely warm power shower pool, sauna or steam room. It sounds like a luxurious place but it needed a bit of touching up to the paint work and I was a little horrified to see 2 big dead cockroaches in the power shower pool!!

Holy Massage

The large lady in the ill-fitting swimming costume was the masseur and I had a very relaxing back massage for only 5 pounds! It was the first time I've ever had a massage begin with the lady saying "In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful"!

By 1pm we quickly changed and were shooed out before the men arrived for their time slot.

Tact vs Principles

In the afternoon, after visiting a local friend with the children, a doctor telephoned me. She works at the university and was going to send my CV to any relevant people at the university. She explained that she needed to have a telephone interview for a university fellowship in 2 weeks and bluntly asked if I could do the interview for her! I was amazed at her request and tried to answer tactfully "no". In this culture, people expect you to help them in anyway that you can, especially if they are helping you. Therefore to say "no" can be very rude. So I explained that I could help her with her English before the interview but couldn't pretend to be her!

A day in Jordan, compared with Yemen

More People Speak English in Jordan

"Clap, clap and shout hooray, Kira's here today!" - everyone was made to feel welcome as we sang all the children's names at playgroup. We'd helped to set up all the toys beforehand together with2 other foreign mums and then enjoyed meeting 8 local mums and their children. The children loved playing with the different things, singing songs, making coloured pasta necklaces for craft and had a snack time, whilst the mums relaxed a bit with a cup of tea and lemon drizzle cake that I'd made! It was good to talk with the Jordanian mums, mostly in English as they like an opportunity to practise.

Kira and Isaiah at playgroup

Working Mums

Playgroups are a new concept in Jordan, with few groups, but in Yemen they are non-existent. This one was on Saturday morning which is the 2nd day of the weekend here and interestingly most of the mums were middle class and working during the week. They valued the opportunity to spend time with their children in a fun, creative and safe environment. In contrast, most Yemeni women stay at home to look after the (many) children, clean the house and spend about 3 hours cooking lunch.

Driving Standards are Better than Yemen, but that's not saying much!

We jumped into a taxi home which was driven by a slightly crazy taxi driver. When we came to Jordan back in 2003 we thought the driving was very crazy compared to UK but, this time round, we think it's quite good compared to Yemen. We've been amazed to see people giving way at roundabouts and using their indicators.




Timekeeping is just as bad in Jordan as in Yemen

We waited and waited and wondered what to do! We'd invited our neighbour for dinner at 6pm but at 6:20pm she texted to say that she was sorry she was late and would be with us in 20 minutes. By 7pm the children were getting hungry so I telephoned her and she said she was 10 minutes away. She thought we would have started eating without her, rather than waiting! Finally over an hour and 15 minutes late, she arrived for dinner!

People have pets in Jordan

It was a wonderful time with our neighbour and worth the wait. The children were able to pop next door and stroke the neighbour's cat. It isn't so strange to have pets in Jordan and there's quite a few pet shops, near our house, selling birds and fish. In Yemen, cats and dogs are considered too dirty to allow in the house.

Health and Safety is Just as Bad as Yemen

Paul left dinner early to go out to watch the Champions League final with friends at one of the hotels. Just as in Yemen, everyone in Jordan seems to support Barcelona, so were very pleased with the result. The standard of technical competence amongst the hotel staff and the level of health and safety standards were all too familiar to Paul in comparison to Yemen. One of the projectors was not getting the TV signal, so they turned the screen round to enable all the spectators to see the other one. There was quite a high wind, which threatened to blow the screen over and knock the projector into the swimming pool. The spectators sat on the other side of the pool - perilously close to it. We hoped that no-one would leap up to celebrate too enthusiastically and fall into the pool, and that this would not happen at the same time as the projector falling in. Thankfully, the match finished with no electrocutions and everyone except the few Man Utd supporters went home happy.

Building a team

Most Thursdays, I speak to our teachers at the Canadian Institutes teacher training mornings. On this Thursday, I had been asked to speak about teamwork & conflict. This had been prompted by a few arguments between the manager and the staff during the week, which had gotten quite heated. Heated arguments are quite a common occurrence amongst people in this culture.




One of the arguments had led us to think of some ways to improve our English courses, even though we disagreed with the suggestions being brought by the teacher.

Conflict is an opportunity

I told them that conflict is not necessarily a bad thing- a team which has no conflict is a team which has no ideas. If we see conflict as an opportunity to hear new ideas from others, then we will listen respectfully to what they are saying and stay calm. A team makes better decisions than an individual because more than one person's ideas are being considered.

Reconciliation

The staff and the manager then started discussing some of the issues which they had been arguing about during the week. I was impressed with how they managed to stay calm and friendly this time around.

These teacher training sessions are a great opportunity to impart new values which are not normally part of the culture here. In the future, we plan to offer the same training sessions to teachers of other colleges around Aden.

No, it's not our new car. It's a picture I doctored to advertise our new course- English for taxi drivers.

At a Workshop

I was rather surprised when I turned up at 8am to see one of the participants sitting outside the training room waiting. Yemenis are not the most punctual of people and rarely arrive early! As I set up the laptop to show presentations, other participants began to arrive, so that by 8:30am about 80% of the teachers and participants were present.

Time keeping is not a strength!

Practice what you teach

The teaching style here is usually didactic with the lecturer giving a lecture and the students writing notes, however the aim of the workshop was training other members of the Medical School staff in Communication Skills. Therefore we were using a learner-centred approach with role-plays, small group work, video clips and mini lectures.

The usual teaching style

Your mother's dead

Clutching a mobile, I hurried past an anxious relative and briskly told them that their mother had died! Thankfully this was a role play of the way not to share bad news! All the participants laughed and contributed ideas for how to share bad news properly, but unfortunately the role play was very close to the truth of how bad news is given in the hospitals here. Participants then practised these new skills themselves in role plays and it was encouraging to see how quickly they grasped new ideas and began to use them to change their attitudes and behaviours.

Practising new skills

Relational skills are much more prevalent than organisational skills in the culture here, which is why the certificates for completing the workshop had yet to be printed, an hour before the workshop was due to finish! The secretary was at the wedding of a relative, and no-one else knew where the card for the certificates was kept. So someone was sent to buy card and quickly the replacement secretary was busy typing names for the certificates. Meanwhile the doctor organising the workshop was whispering to me to keep the teaching session going whilst the administrative details were being sorted out!

People love collections of certificates!

More than just a certificate

Great importance is placed on gathering certificates from different courses and so the participants were pleased to receive a signed and stamped certificate for their attendance and participation in the 3 day workshop. However, of more importance, was that they had learnt new skills in communicating with patients and were beginning to put these into practice.