susan doyle

I dreamed a dream

Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies

Website: Institute of Traditional Islamic Arts and Architecture

Yes, I did the tourist thingy today

I rode a camel at Petra.

madaba and petra

Here is a link to National Geographic's Petra pic site.  This link will provide you with more of the scope of the place.  Just think, only archeologists say that only about 30% of Petra has been discovered.

Meeting Sana, Head, Fine Arts Program, King's Academy -- Amman

King's Academy is an interesting high school that is modeled after the one HM King Abdullah II attended in the United States, Deerfield Academy. I met with the lovely Sana Madadha who is in charge of the fine arts program in the academy and her husband, Maa'n Hayek, who operates a large farm in the Jordanian valley.  Their home shows the couple's beautiful tastes: mostly blank cream-colored walls with a few family portraits, expensive rugs on marble floors.   The centerpiece of the office is an elaborately inlaid desk that was given to his grandfather by the king.  I've never touched a piece of furniture so intricately crafted and wonderfully proportioned as this desk and its equally sophisticated chair. 

From the first few words it was easy to tell that Sana is an outstanding and passionate instructor-- she knows what it takes to activate students.  Although every student at King's Academy must take a least one year of humanities electives, her classes are full, she said, "because students really enjoy working with their hands, especially in ceramics."  We shared enough to realize that she deals with the same creative dilemmas as I do in her students.  She wants them to think bigger, to move with beyond personal doubts in order to be ready for an adventurous life.

University of Jordan

Fulbright House, Amman, Jordan

Alain McNamara is the Executive Director of the Jordanian-American Commission for Educational Exchange, the Fulbright that is led by a board of four Americans and four Jordanians.  McNamara complemented Earlham as an outstanding college with exceptionally substantive grant.  He looks forward to learning how our contact with this region is applied both when we get home and when the contacts Middle Eastern contacts we've made continue looking to the commission for educational exchange.
Fulbright in Jordan website

Hamam -- should I try it?

Another of our group has been working on getting to a turkish bath for a traditional hammam.  There are several in Jordan. She's done it in Morocco and loves how it feels.  Last evening, a Legacy staff member told me he used to go with his dad and didn't like it.  I don't know if I like the idea of being scrubbed with something as rough as a Brillo pad, but why not?

M. Mahler -- are you home?

Yesterday after noon, Margorie M. left us to travel back to Richmond, Indiana.  I hope she made it okay, but having traveled this part of the world for most of her adult life, she added such spice to the mix of our group.  Whether insisting on chocolate or sneaking in more subtle suggestions about sensorial clues, Margorie knows how to enrich the experience of newbies.

Sunrise in Jerusalem -- Frontloaded Melancholy

Sindbad Tours takes us to the Jordanian border tomorrow morning.

We all have to be packed up and ready to go tomorrow morning at 8am.  Our regular driver from Sindbad tours is picking us up from the hotel and delivering us an hour and a half later to the checkpoint at the northern border.  Once there we get our luggage and walk through the border and wait to have our luggage inspected.  Once that's done, we board another bus for the trip to Amman.