Meeting with Obama

That's right, I "met with" AKA "saw very closely" President Obama. When he came to Jordan at the end of last month, he invited all American personnel to come to a short "meet and greet" in this hotel. However, only a few of us actually got to reach his hand and shake it on his speedy pass through the crowd post-speech. I didn't get to actually "meet" or "greet" the president, but it was cool to see him up close. Sadly, my camera died in the middle of his speech, so I'll have to get the photos/videos from other volunteers. In the meantime, here are some shots of the meeting with one blurry photo of Obama, Kerry, and the ambassador to Jordan Stuart Jones:

The bummer, in addition to the fact that we didn't get the "meet and greet" we were promised is that Obama didn't mention one thing about the Peace Corps presence and work in Jordan, especially when we made up probably a fourth of the people in the room. He just said thanks to all the military and governmental foreign service workers, and we all looked at each other like, "OK, but who actually lives with the people, learns the language and the culture, and forges connections that are arguably more important than those of the government or military? That would be us." Pretty ridiculous, Obama. C'mon. Anyway, cool to be invited, if not explicitly recognized.

Gettin' Professional

That's right--I facilitated my first teacher training seminar in Jordan. With Jamal as my counterpart and 15 local teachers in attendance, I think the seminar went over quite well. We focused on techniques for teaching listening and speaking in the language classroom. The seminar took place in the UNICEF-funded computer lab at my school--as you can see, the lab is beautiful and has a lot of technological resources. Here are some shots of the seminar (since, we have put on another seminar in Jamal's village and are slated to work with Hussein Faqeer, the supervisor of English, to put on 2 seminars a month):

Also, Jamal and I are now working at Tafila Technical University two days a week as a secondary project. We each teach a conversational English course for the students in the English program. Here are some shots of us in the classroom:

 Life is sure getting busier...but, the university classes are really a lifesaver psychologically.