Being my first day living with a Bedouin clan, a lifestyle completely opposite from the one I have lived for my whole life, it has been quite a momentous and eventful one.  The clan lives in the town of Maghdan in a district that is a bit south of the city of Ma’an in southern Jordan, the area where the film Lawrence of Arabia was shot.  The family I am living with is completely Bedouin as they live tents and are nomadic.  Getting to them entailed a three hour bus ride from Amman on the King’s Highway.  Emotionally, the bus ride was like going up the first incline of a rollercoaster you have never been on.  I along with four of my other program mates got out of the bus in U’droh where we were then picked up by a man who was hired to drive each of us to our respective families.  Once I stepped out of the bus, I knew I was in a setting completely different from that of a city.

A few houses and a mosque were the only signs of civilization; however, not only the look, but also the sound of the area was very different as the honking of car horns and the yelling of people’s voices were nowhere to be found.  Rather, the wind and a few faint sheep calls were the only noises in the air. 

Arriving at the camp was certainly an awkward experience for me.  Everyone, including the adults, were giggling and staring, with the children persisting for the rest of the day.  About 20 minutes after I arrived, I went out with two of my host brothers and their father to go meet their grandfather who was herding sheep.

The family dynamic that I have seen so far is quite interesting.  The children do all the maid work, such as making the tea, serving the food, and getting pillows and blankets.  When I say children, I mean the male children as I have not seen any females yet.  As you can imagine from the last comment I made, the camp is very segregated by gender.  In addition, the tent revolves around the father whom the children are very affectionate to and admiring of.

The tent is like a giant quilt of tarp and the material that grain bags are made out of.  It is about the size of a living room and smells like burnt wood.  A wall of tarp comes down the middle and divides the tent into two halves with one being for the men to lounge in, while the other half is for the women sit in and make food.  Surprisingly, the desert area surrounding the tent does not have sand like that on a beach.  Rather, the desert of this area in southern Jordan is made out of a soft dirt that then becomes harder in the areas where there is the most walking and driving.  Well sized stones also dot much of the landscape.  In other words, this was not a Sahara Desert-like landscape. 

As I go to sleep, I am not sure what challenges I will face; although, I am excited for those that will come about as I know that they will challenge me both personally and intellectually.