It still hasn’t hit me. I keep saying and explaining to people that “I’m leaving for Jordan in a couple of weeks…yeah, I’ll be there for 3 1\/2 months studying Arabic…” but I haven’t yet assimilated that I’m little over a week away from going thousands of miles away to learn a language I know only the basics of and live with a family I know absolutely nothing about. I’m not scared, and I’ve no apprehension; I’m excited for this challenge! The best way to learn a language is to jump into the lake without floaties and force yourself to swim.<\/p>\n
An essential part of learning a language is learning the culture that bred it. I am an International Relations Major at Rollins with an emphasis in the Middle East and North Africa; as such, I want to come back with the ability to help cure the rampant ignorance, fear, and misconceptions that surround Arab culture and Islam. When people learn I am traveling to Jordan, I get “oh my god! Be safe! Aren’t you scared?!” I also got “but…they kill Christians there!” and “How will you communicate with everyone back home? Do they have internet there?” Even a halfhearted google search reveals these three concerns are absurd concerning Jordan. I want to be able to share from experience that one can travel to and learn about the Middle East without needing a bulletproof vest, abandoning or entrenching oneself in one’s faith, or carrying Western technology with you.<\/p>\n
I originally intended to title my series of blog posts “An Atheist Abroad” because I want to learn about Islam on my trip and experience the interaction between Jordan’s Muslim majority and it’s Christian minority. I do not intend to adopt Islam or hide behind my Catholic \/upbringing\/ (not faith); I want to be a polite observer, learning, taking note, and–when possible and permissible–discussing. I decided to go with the title you see above because it will allow me to encompass more, and it will help me stay on top of my real objective as I travel and blog: learning the Arabic language and its Levantine dialect.<\/p>\n
–A<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It still hasn’t hit me. I keep saying and explaining to people that “I’m leaving for Jordan in a couple of weeks…yeah, I’ll be there for 3 1\/2 months studying Arabic…” but I haven’t yet assimilated that I’m little over a week away from going thousands of miles away to learn a language I know…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19751,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250\/revisions\/19751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}