Muslim Christian Dialogue

Read all of Sara Brubacher's reflections: Dialogue 1, Dialogue 2, Dialogue 3, Bethlehem Reflections

Greetings from Amman, Jordan! I cannot believe that over one week has passed since I flew out of the Omaha Airport in Nebraska to land in the dry Jordan desert. This is the first of several emails you will be receiving from me while I am in Jordan for the East/West Dialogue and Peacebuilding Workshop and Palestine visiting different peace organizations and families. They will just be highlights and short reflections, since I do not have much time for the computer and it would be too much to share everything! You are receiving this email because you have expressed interest in hearing more about my experiences here, but if at anytime you wish to be removed from the list, just let me know.

Even though the actual workshop did not start not start until Monday, the dialogue between the East and West began the minute I boarded the plane to Amman and sat next to Muhammad. He is a Jordanian who has lived in the U.S. for the last thirty years, but who goes home to Amman every year to visit family. The ten and a half hour plane ride from NYC to Amman passed quickly learning Arabic, talking about everything from what it is like as a Muslim married to an American Christian living in the US, to Middle Eastern food, to what will bring peace in the Middle East.

I spent the first few days in Amman with Cassie Mathies, who is also a Peace and Conflict Studies major at my university and is attending the conference, and her friend Zamania. One day we visited a Palestinian refugee camp outside of Amman. (One of the results of the creation of the state of Israel and the continued occupation is that many Palestinians were turned out of their homes and land from the 1940's until the present. About 1/3 of Jordan's population is Palestinian, even though Jordan is already a struggling economically and is the fourth poorest nation for water resources in the world. However, Jordan has welcomed Palestinian, and more currently, Iraqi, refugees, more than any other country.) At the Refugee Camp we visited the United Nations Girls' School which was started around 1985 (although the camp has been there since 1967), It holds two sessions of school each day: one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Each session teaches about 1,300 students in a crowded compound, and this is only girls. The boys' school is just down the road.

I also had an unexpected trip to Petra when an American participant of the conference wanted a traveling companion. Petra is an ancient Nabetean city carved into the cliffs of the Jordanian desert (you may be interested to Google it for some beautiful pictures). While there I enjoyed the natural and manmade beauty, but the best part was having tea with a Bedouin woman named Noel. The Bedouin are the desert dwellers of the Middle East, and still practice the lifestyle of Abraham. Noel spoke very good English from talking to tourists, and it was wonderful for us to hear about her life in Petra, while she enjoyed hearing about some of my childhood memories from Palestine, since not many tourists she talked to could relate to her culture. Her offering of tea is a very typical experience of Middle Eastern hospitality, something I will touch more on later.

The Western participants of the conference (those from Canada and the US), arrived Friday and spent the weekend recovering from jetlag, getting to know each other, and being introduced to Middle Eastern culture so that the dialogue would not be too much of a shock.

One place we visited was The Holy Land Institute for the Deaf, a school for deaf children that Mennonite Central Committee has helped support for over thirty years. Brother Andrew, the man responsible for the success of the school, gave us a tour, although unfortunately it is summer break in August and so we did not get to see the place full of children like during most of the year. The school teaches Jordanian sign language, how to read and write English and Arabic, computer skills, and vocational skills to severely deaf children from poor families that cannot support their special needs. When the children first arrive, they have no way for communication, but within months are signing furiously with a newfound way to express their feelings and ideas. The school also has the only unit for deaf and blind children in the Middle East, and has successfully helped teach these children to relate to the world. The relationship between the mostly Muslim students with the Christian school testifies to the good relationship that is found between most Muslims and Christians in the Middle East (a common theme in the workshop, also).

I should now head to bed (it is past 2 am here), but I hope that this gives a taste for the beginnings of my experience here. The workshop has been a great learning experience that I will never forget, and I will tell you all about it in my next email!

Salaam (Peace),

Sara Brubacher