We're all moved into our home stays here in Amman and things couldn't be any better. The family I'm living with is fabulous. I live with a girl named Nour that went to Kivu a couple summers in a row and also happens to play for the national Jordanian soccer team which is kinda sick! She has the best sense of humor and is probably one of the coolest people you will ever meet!

Nour and I have had some interesting conversation thus far particularly one that I want to focus on that came us at dinner tonight was how ignorant Americans really are. This realization has been a long time coming for me since Rwanda probably. Nour told us that Luke had warned her not to be offended that when we came we would probably think that they live in tents and ride camels around everywhere.While I didn't quite expect that I did realize the only thing I really knew about the middle east prior to coming here were the numerous books and movies written around the 9/11 tragedy. I don't want to speak for all Americans so I'll just so far me personally at least this was true: When you say the middle east the names Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden do come to mind. If you have ever watched the prime time T.V. show Homeland

    ( for those of you that don't know its a TV show based on the Isarali series Prisoners of War that is about a U.S. marine that was a POW for 8 years and then turned into a terrorist and sent back to America and poses a possible threat for United States now because the Muslims who are apart of Al Queda have turned him against his own country)

Anyways this T.V. show paints the middle east in such a bad light a light which is so different from the reality here in Jordan.  The tv show paints the picture that muslims= al queda which is so far from the truth it's not funny but people back home don't think that way. To be honest the way the media portrays this frustrates me to no end that the media specifically prime time television is adding fuel to an already roaring fire.


Luke asked us earlier this week to write down our fears before moving into this particular culture and almost all of my fears had to do with the stereotypes that have been thrusted upon me so these were the major ones that I wrote.

                       Fears

• Women are not respected 
• anti American attitudes present? 

The list went on and on  but those were the main concerns. In addition to these already emerging fears I had family and friends back home that were afraid for me to come here. All I wanted to ask was "have YOU ever been THERE?"

While I realize it's naive to think that all of the middle east is as peaceful and tolerant as Jordan is with Americans I  know that it isn't I watch CNN for gods sake . I do believe it is ignorant on our parts to reinforce the stereotypes present to us in the media within our own hearts. It's really sad because there are some pretty awesome people that I've met here and I've only been here for 6 days. Earlier this month it was posed by Luke or Andy while having dinner with our Jordanian friends among who are Muslim, christian and atheist that this must be what heaven tastes like coming together despite our different beliefs and cultures and enjoying one another's company and I couldn't agree more.