Forgive the lack of posting... between being ridiculously sick for about a week and a half and then being swamped catching up with work it's been an interesting few weeks.

First of all, working with 5 year old's every morning does take its toll every so often. In this particular instance, the toll was created by the speed at which virulent disease spreads and although it may have a minimal impact on the kid, it will wipe out an adult who has much less time on their hands to sleep and get pampered by mom. Way to go kids you totally wiped me out!

The kids are great though and are a joy to teach. They have all warmed up to me now and so the highlight of my day is going and spending a couple hours at the pre-school and laughing and joking around practicing English with the kids. I think one of my favorite students is this small quiet boy who doesn't interact with many of the other kids. The other teachers relegated him as someone who could have some developmental problems as he hardly talked at all. He sat in my lessons where I was teaching simple words and phrases in English and I noticed he'd grin when I made small comments or jokes to myself (I hate to admit I do this but making funny comments I'm certain no one around me will understand is one of my simple pleasures here). I noticed this boy smiling and started to talk to him to see if he understood me but of course he ignored it. I continued to make jokes that a 5 year old boy couldn't resist laughing at and he finally started cracking up. As it turns out the reason he's so quiet is because he hasn't had much exposure to Arabic over the last few years. He has lived in Pakistan with his parents for the last few years and speaks fluent English and Urdu. After I finally got him to open up we sat outside eating some snacks and he told me about how he was living with his grandmother now and how he missed his parents in Pakistan. It was kind of heart wrenching to hear him talk about different experiences he's had in his life and how now he didn't know if he'll ever see his father again. He's had to grow up a lot for being 5 years old...

These days I spend the rest of my time after teaching working on putting together information, doing research, and editing various proposals that are being submitted by different organizations out here for funding. It is interesting to work with various groups and see what they are doing to enact economic and social change in the region. There are many people here who have some fantastic ideas and have an earnest desire to do good for the people in the Badia but unfortunately their endeavors are stymied by a lack of practical business knowledge (and the inherent corruption that exists in the world of NGOs). The problem that you see at times is that people who truly want to help lack the power or ability to get funding due to their gender, or lack of education, and instead have to appeal to other more connected or powerful people/organizations to get something done. These other organizations and people are not usually based here in the Badia and usually have different priorities. The problem is that apparently it is not uncommon to take a plan with a budget of 3,000JD to one of these larger groups or individuals and have them ramp the budget up to 30,000JD and pillage the difference. I'm sure that doesn't happen all the time and I hate to give anyone a bad impression but it's a dicey world so you have to do things a bit differently. JICA took an interesting approach after seeing two million JD disappear from an account in a matter of weeks, they don't give funds anymore but rather actual material goods that aren't easily liquidated. Regardless I'm learning some pretty valuable lessons about dealing with bureaucracies, grant writing, business plans, overcoming corruption, and encouraging mutual purpose to achieve goals. Combined with the skills in research and dealing with a foreign culture these skills should do me well by the time I'm done here and set me up to do something substantial out here.

I am seeing so much and learning a ton. I have attended some pretty neat weddings, learned to dance and sing like a Bedouin, and have finally discovered the real force of change and progress out here... I will have to catch you all up on some of my experiences here over the next few days.