I officially have a less than a month left here in Jordan.

As I begin to countdown the days until I go home to sunny Arizona, I also begin the season of final papers and exams. My stress level is quickly increasing, as this is the busiest I have been all semester.

Back in America, this week is taken as a break for Thanksgiving for my friends back at Syracuse University and people all over the U.S. With the beginning of the holiday season, I am feeling a little more homesick than usual.

I really enjoy living in Jordan and experiencing all of the cultural differences that come with studying here. However, there are some things back home in the U.S. that I really miss. Of course, my family and friends are at the top of my list.

I haven’t seen some of my best friends in more than six months and it can feel like eternity when I have spent most of my college experience with them. It’s taken some getting used to, learning to live without a support group of close friends and family around.

With that being said, I have learned how to be more OK with living by myself and, in general, learning how to live outside of a college campus for more than a summer.

Amman is a big city, and like any big city, it may be densely populated but sometimes it does a good job of making me feel pretty lonely if I have nothing particularly important to do in a day.

Learning how to live in a café culture has been interesting and fun when choosing my favorite place to do work. The concrete, or rather limestone, jungle has pushed public parks pretty much off of the map in Amman and I have had to get used to not seeing any green anywhere around.

Free spaces like libraries and parks are hard to come by, and while I would prefer to have some of the infrastructural comforts I can find in Phoenix or Syracuse, it’s just a different culture.

I have found a theme that some of the things I miss the most are so arbitrary and un-important in the grand scheme of things. Living in Jordan has offered me so much insight into the region.

In writing this column, it’s hard to seriously talk about comforts I miss from home because the cultures, needs and issues in the U.S. and Jordan are so different in many aspects. It’s hard to criticize a country like Jordan when it is widely-regarded as a sanctuary in the middle of so much instability, though this doesn’t mean I don’t do it from time to time. 

I’d be lying if I didn’t say it’s hard to remember what lies less than three hours north from Amman when I am thinking about what I wish I had here in Jordan. I’m surrounded by a culture of people who pray every day for the security of the country over many other things they may immediately want or need.

I think this has been a huge factor in learning to check my privilege more than I ever have before in my life. It’s helped me experience my time abroad with a different lens, which I think is a valuable tool for anyone to practice using.

Published on November 23, 2016 at 4:40 pm