July 21st (a post by Jason)
Saturday, our first schedule day! The kids and I were excited to try out the
schedule that we penned on Thursday.
But, the schedule was kind of like creating a course syllabus. It all seems like a good idea when you are
making it, but sometimes when you get into it you discover all does not work as
well as you had originally envisioned.
Eva had set two alarms on her phone for her and Eli. And, they have different alarms depending on
whether they have to take a shower that day or not. The children feel strongly about helping
Amman conserve water :) (footnote* Jordan is one of the most water-deprived
countries in the world and water only flows through the city pipes in Amman once
a week. All residences, hotels, and
industry have various types of cisterns to store water and use it throughout
the week. But, one broken toilet can consume
all of a family’s water supply for the week!
You can purchase more water from a water truck, but it is very expensive
for most residents). Back to the
schedule....Eli wakes up to ‘The Lazy Song’ by Bruno Mars, and Eva wakes up to
‘Glad You Came’ by The Wanted. Eli gets
up a little earlier (at least according to the schedule) to have some extra
play time--or maybe so Eva can have some extra sleeping time.
Eva and Eli woke up on time, had breakfast, and were all
ready for our first scheduled activity from 10:00-11:00, ‘Coloring time.’ Alysia got some really cool coloring books
before they left. I worked on a history
of European castles from the 11th Century to the 18th
Century. This allowed me to make use of
all of the earth tone and gray colored pencils.
Eva worked on ‘Colored Tile Designs’, while Eli first colored fashion
models and then helped me with the castle.
The first coloring time was a big success. Alysia worked on catching up on the blog a
bit after our Jerusalem trip.
Next up, 30 minutes of sports time.
I brought over a soccer ball, an American
football, and a whiffle ball, bat, and glove (sized for Eli).
The kids chose whiffle ball today.
Batter up!
Eli had a hard time hitting the ball at first, but after a little while
he got some solid hits.
Eva got some
great hits as well, and fortunately I did not have to run too far down the hill
to get the ball.
After sports time, Eva gets to practice guitar
for 30 minutes (we rented a guitar for her for 1 month while we are here) and I
have reading time with Eli. I started
reading Bunnicula to Eli, the classic story of a vampire bunny who sucks the
juice out of vegetables, with the story told by the dog Harold. The
book was written by Deborah and James Howe.
A really funny book. A little
over Eli’s comprehension level, but we talked through the really funny
points. After reading, Eva has an hour
of alone down time while Eli has Arts and Crafts. Eli found a new girl who just got to the
Institute, Yaffa who is 6 years old, and they did Arts and Crafts together
using sharpies to color ‘blank’ cars we brought and did some drawing. Eli said that his car (on the right) has a plus on it, not a cross, but I'm detecting some lingering effects of the Jerusalem trip. After Arts and Crafts time, Eli continued to
play with Yaffa. (As a footnote--our
schedule indicates that opportunities to play with other kids trump other items
on the schedule).
After lunch and some screen time, our schedule has 2 hours
of ‘get out and do something’ time from 4:00-6:00.
Today we decided to go to City Mall, which
has an amusement park.
Just inside the
mall entrance there was a woman making traditional bread (shrak).
I tried taking a photo for our friend Jennie,
who will be working with women and bread making in Jordan, but I didn’t take a
very good one.
I hate being an obvious
tourist so I tried to be subtle about taking the photo, and ended up with a not
very good photo.
We go to the top floor of the mall where the amusement park
is, but unfortunately it is closed.
For
Ramadan?
Not sure why it’s closed, but
the kids are pretty bummed.
They are
also hungry, but all of the food places in the mall are also closed for Ramadan.
Walking around with two bummed kids, I passed
a candy store that was open, so I let them each get a little candy.
But, as soon as I let them eat a piece I
remembered that it is Ramadan and they should not be eating candy in front of
other people in the mall, so I took it away :(
Obviously they were not happy.
We
then headed back home after a not-so-successful outing.
Fortunately, Alysia had gotten a lot of work
done in our absence. Eli enjoyed finally getting to eat his candy:
We ended the day back at the Institute just relaxing, well,
Eli also did a bit of sneaking around...
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