Teaching in Aqaba part 1 (of 2, really :-)

Tuesday morning, 3:30 am.  My alarm goes off, and though my first instinct is to promptly smack the snooze button and close all avenues of escape for the warm air sandwiched between my body and my blankets, it hits me suddenly what I'm going to be doing today.  Having packed up everything I needed in the evening, I jump out of bed, jump into an unsatisfactorily lukewarm shower (since the showers are solar heated, mid-day is by far the best), get into my somewhat nicer clothes for teaching, and run out to the Arava highway just outside the kibbutz to catch the night bus from Tel Aviv as it barrels down the straight path at 150 kilometers an hour.  The bus I'm catching actually left Tel Aviv at midnight and I'm catching this one since the first morning bus to come by in the Eilat direction wouldn't get me to the school remotely near on time for my 8 o'clock lesson  We pull into Eilat, and it is nearly 5 am.  This is what Eilat looks like at 5 am.  We're looking here over the Jordan mountains, in the direction I'm headed:

The border doesn't open for another hour and a half, so I've got a little time to kill.  I find myself a 24 hour cafe/convenience store, buy some bland crisps and a pack of humus, and go over the lesson plan I've prepared.  Hanan, the professor in environmental education who set me up with this gig, assured me that I would be teaching 15 +, and that "their English is better than most of the Israelis".  As I go over the lesson plan, a pretty sophisticated discussion of humans and their relationships with the natural world, I start to get a little panicky.  What if they can't understand a word I'm saying?  What if they don't give a rat's ass? 

Oh well, I'll probably never see them again. 

At about 6:20 I grab a cab to the border to beat out the big tour buses which lumber through carrying hundreds of eager tourists in and out of Jordan for the day.  I covered crossing the border in a previous post, and now I know exactly where to go and what to do.  Only last time I had a cab there waiting for me and this time I'm planning to just be resourceful and figure out a way.  After all, I'll have about an hour to get there.  At the other side of the gate I see what looks vaguely like a couple of cabs with some somewhat sketchy looking drivers hanging out smoking.  I ask one of them how much it would be to take me to the rosary sisters school.  After conversing in rapid Arabic for about 20 seconds, one of them smiles a big, friendly smile and says:

"10 dinars for the hostel."

"Sorry, but I'm looking for the rosary sisters school"

more conversing

"8 dinars for the hostel"

"no, not a hostel, a school"

"what school?"

"the rosary sisters school.  Do you know where that is?"

"Sure, yes, yes.  I take you downtown and then someone take you to the school"

"Is the school downtown?"

"I take you downtown"

It was about this time I heard "pssssssst" from behind me.   The exit guard was beckoning for me to come over.  He led me to a friend of his, an oddly plain-clothed man, and the two spoke quickly in Arabic just like the other two men had done. 

"I'll take you to the school"

"The rosary sisters school?"

"yes, of course"

"you know where it is?"

"yes."

"how much?"

"don't worry about it my friend, no need to worry.  I'll get you there"

This guy was going to take me for free!  This seems to happen in Jordan quite frequently.  When I went to Egypt with my dad, everyone offered you a gift, only to say at the end "oh, well how about a little bit in exchange, you know, for a friend who gave you such a gift."  But this guy just drove me there.  We had a  nice ride and conversation about our families, where I'm from, what we're both doing, and a firm handshake and smile, then he dropped me off.  Amazing.

And this is what I saw in front of me:

Pretty snazzy, hey?  So I walked onto the premises and into the building, not really know what to expect.  Inside it was quite nice, with white stone floors, a black reception desk and simple decor.  One thing though, there was no one at the desk.  It was about 7:15.  I stood around for about ten minutes, and every now and then someone would pass by on their way through to something, and we would exchange a nice good morning smile and a SabaH il-Kheer (good morning in Arabic).  But I still had no idea what to do.  I decided to ask the next person to walk by if they would show me where Khalid was.

"Khalid?"

"ahhh...yeah Khalid Ali"

"who's that?"

"Khalid.....uh...Ali?"

"hmmmm..."

"Khalid?"

"Ahhhh, KHAlid!  Not in yet.  I'll take you to the sister.  The principle."

So I walked wearily down the hall after this man and entered a little office smelling sweetly of Arabic coffee, rich with cardamom.  At the desk was a tiny middle aged woman with a hijab (which, by the way, is the religious head covering of traditional Arab Christians as well as Muslims).  We sit down and she offers me some coffee, the strongest I've ever had, in the smallest cup I've ever held.

"So, you are here to teach.  How long will you be here for?"

"Just for the day"

"Not for longer?  We love having Americans come to teach for us.  It helps our students so much with their English.  Where are you from?"

I remembered that Hana has cautioned me to not mention Israel if I didn't have to.  Apparently the sister and he had a good relationship until the Gaza war, and so this operation was a little under the radar, just between Hanan and Khalid.

"Canada"

"ah, Canada!  It's beautiful, but it's very cold, is it not?"

"yeah...so, do you know where Khalid is?"

"Oh, you are teaching for Khalid's class.  Funny, he didn't mention anything about it to me.  He' will be here shortly"

Yes...funny.

"Oh, that's odd."

So we chatted away until Khalid showed up, and then he led me up into his office.  He basically told me that he didn't really care what I taught, and he just really wanted me to speak English with the kids, ask them questions, talk to them and get them into conversations.  I told him what my plan was and he frowned a little:

"hmmm....that is pretty complicated.  Many of the students don't have that good English.  Maybe you should just speak with them about whatever you'd like, but not so complicated"

Great.  The premise of this project is teaching environmental education.  I make up my mind to tough it out through my lesson plan and wing it out of my repertoire of Green Stuff if things start to head south.

"oh, and can you stay for a few lessons?  I have you filling in for teachers for most of the periods."

What could I say.  Why not?