The WASP has landed!

I am here!

I arrived last night in Amman, promptly got picked up by a friendly driver named Sam who whisked me to King’s Academy; I carried my suitcases to my new apartment, then joined a birthday party for a new colleague, and finally went to bed about 11 P.M.

However, a full night’s sleep did not seem in the plan! I awakened about 2:45 a.m. and never went back to sleep. You know it’s so odd when that happens, because you never know you aren’t going to be awake all that time—if I did I would have unpacked my suitcases, or read a textbook more closely, or planned a new course. But instead, I paged through a magazine or three, yawned toward the mountains, and hoped sleep would find me again in my new abode.

But in the middle of the night it is certainly interesting to see what you make of new surroundings. The campus of King’s Academy is a series of limestone buildings, and they are subtly lit at night, much like at an airport. I heard a couple prairie dogs (so I learned they were such animals this morning—they sounded like roosters to my Midwestern yet non-rural ears) howl in the distance, and around 4 a.m. the sprinklers came on outside my window to water the newly landscaped trees and bushes. Around 5 a.m. I heard some chanting in the distance, and I guessed it must be a muzzein calling Muslims to early morning prayers. (That was also confirmed this morning). Very subdued, very interesting sounds to process as I looked around this new apartment for the first time.

My apartment feels spacious—especially if you have ever spent time in the digs of regular people in Manhattan. There is a living room with 3 sofas, TV, and coffee tables, a dining room, with table and chairs for 6, a kitchen with automatic dishwasher, a bathroom with commode and bidet, a washing machine/dryer closet, a spare bedroom with bunk beds, two desks and two wardrobes, and the main bedroom with a Queen size bed and two more wardrobes.

Why I didn’t unpack last night I have no idea! I had the time. I was to meet faculty around 8 a.m. for breakfast, followed by campus tours, and a trip to the Kosmo grocery store/mini-mall in Amman. I had all that time to unpack, but, hey, after the so-so magazines, and the persistant wideawake-ness. I decided to read from the memoirs of Queen Noor.

Queen Noor is the one person many Americans know in Jordan. Queen Noor had been born in America, educated at Princeton, and then as a twentysomething spent time in Amman where she met then-King Hussein. He wooed her, proposed to her, and they were husband and wife from 1978 until his death in 1999. With her stunning looks, Americans thought they saw a replay of Princess Grace Kelley from the 1950s. Anyway, I started the book, and on page 2 she recalled her first impressions of Jordan: “from the window of my aircraft, I had found myself spellbound by the serene expanse of desert landscape washed golden by the retreating sun at dusk. I was overwhelmed by an extraordinary sensation of belonging, an almost mystical sense of peace.” Wow.

Just a few hours earlier, I had had some similar sensations—I had arrived at dusk and I had noted a serenity in the play of changing of light on the mountains. But, as I entered the airport, as friendly as everyone was, I did not feel a sense of belonging. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t very nice coming through passport control and customs (the controller wished me “good luck” in my new venture—I almost had a lump in my throat!) and then seeing many families greeting dear family members with hugs and kisses, but I don’t think one can feel a sense of belonging that quickly. But, here was the important part to me in the previous 18 hours of my journey from Cincinnati to Amman—I agreed with Queen Noor (we haven’t met yet, but maybe we’ll have tea sometime) I had had a sense of peace. Indeed, when my dad and I left for the airport (20 minutes early since I was packed, and what else should we do??) I had a sense of peace. As we made small talk about the burgeoning business community in Northern Kentucky, I did not feel any sense of real dread. Of course I had wondered what this moment would feel like. From the moment I accepted the job at King’s Academy at the end of February I wondered—would it feel natural? Would I be jumping up and down? Would we weep and wail at the airport? Instead, it was how I had felt the morning after I emailed headmaster Eric Widmer accepting the job—a sense of peace. Maybe even, like Queen Noor, an almost mystical sense of peace.

Okay, so now it is almost time to attend the first of many receptions celebrating the opening of King’s Academy (thank goodness I did pack a suit in my suitcase and not just wait for the shipped boxes with most of my clothes!) and I am a little sleep-deprived…oh yes, I am fighting taking a nap, hoping that tonight I will sleep 8 hours and get on the right sleep cycle!

I had asked last night what the dress code was today around school, and was told, “oh be as casual as you like.” Well. I wore shorts, sandals, a shirt—summery wear. And between the morning at the school, the afternoon at the mini-mall, I have made my first great insight about life in Jordan: THERE ARE NO MEN HERE WEARING SHORTS. Hmmm…yes, it is hot—although I gotta tell you, the dry heat song-and-dance is true, it is okay (and no, my apartment is not air-conditioned, nor my classroom—I may limit movements in this country!) and breezy and, hey, tolerable. But the shorts thing—back to my first insight—no one wears them. Men everywhere I looked wear nice, dark pants.
Well…none of those kinds of pants are in the suitcases I brought—I hope I packed more than a couple in the boxes shipped! No shorts! So I haven’t decided if I will wear them while we are still jacket-and-tie-less casual. I can wait to make that decision.

Anyway, the real mood today in my head is that I have moved here, committed myself to this new school, and taken a leap of faith. Why not? Faith has always richly rewarded me.


--John Leistler