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Making their way to the Middle East

Cassidy Pazniak

In 2001, if a group of six Miami University students had said they wanted to organize a trip to the Middle East, their parents might have laughed in their face, the administration may have denied them and everyone else would have simply muttered "crazy."

Six years later, six Miami students did just that, and ended up singing along to the Beatles in a bar in Israel.

From June 14 to Aug. 15, a group composed of students Ethan Evans, Emily Koenig, Jigisha Patel, Chris Chisom, Matt Woody and William Schwartz studied abroad at the University of Jordan in Amman, Jordan. This wasn't an already established program at Miami though; the students involved organized the entire trip.

The typical study abroad experience for most students includes going through a Miami-sponsored program, something co-sponsored by another university or an affiliated program. While Miami doesn't currently sponsor programs in the Middle East, the destinations are becoming more and more popular.

"If you are interested in a country that isn't yet listed on our program selection page, then we can usually work with (students) to find a provider there," said Sarah McNitt, a study abroad counselor at Miami.

Locations that McNitt didn't know that had strong, established programs were the countries of Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria or Yemen, but she did point out that students with a very high language level in Arabic could enroll directly in universities in these countries.

Destinations that have a study abroad presence in the Middle East include Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Oman, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey. In the 2006-07 school year, Egypt was the 13th ranked country among Miami students studying abroad for a semester or more and Israel was tied for 23.

Yet McNitt pointed out that despite initial interest among students looking to study in the Middle East, there are hindrances.

"Parental concerns play a big role in that, a lot of students start out wanting to go to the Middle East and then end up going to Germany instead; I'm not sure if that is the students that are as concerned as parents," McNitt said. "I don't think it is the university that is blocking that in any way, and I think there is a lot of student interest. When it comes down to actually putting down the money to send your child to the Middle East, I think there is some hesitation."

Still, the six students decided not to be part of the 50 percent at Miami who study with outside providers, and made their own path that they hope other students will continue on for summers to come.

Putting dreams into reality

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In late April the group of students approached their Miami Arabic professor, Saleh Yousef, with their interest in going abroad. They began talking about options, and by May the group was holding informational meetings covering how much money to bring and the price of plane tickets, and by June they were boarding a plane off to the Middle East.

The short notice didn't seem to bother the students as much as it did their parents, as junior William Schwartz explained.

"My parents were flipping out," Schwartz said. "They said, 'You're going to the Middle East? Not through the school? Are you getting credit?'"

The students did earn six credits toward a language requirement on the trip. The University of Jordan is an accredited university, so Miami accepted it as a legal transcript. The students who traveled now have a year of Arabic as credit.

The group attended class five days a week for three hours a day, and took a total of 15 hours a week.

Despite only taking language classes while in Jordan, Schwartz felt the trip offered much more than simple linguistic practice.

"It was a one-subject course, but it was a multiple-course trip ... being there was a class in itself ... being outside it was culture, religion and language," Schwartz said.

The intensive language study did pay off for these six students. Having taken the classes they did, they tested out of 200-level Arabic courses, and due to the demand from these students who studied abroad and numerous others, Miami's curriculum added 300-level Arabic classes this year.

"Some of the programs at Miami require three years of language, and the demand was there and the number of students who wanted to take it was there," said Arabic language instructor Saleh. "It was feasible to do it."

Currently there are two instructors teaching six classes for Arabic. Saleh doesn't feel that he could add any addition classes, but he is pleased that the enrollment is high and that the program seems to be expanding.

Experiences in the Middle East

Even with all the language practice the students received at the University of Jordan they found the English language to be present in the Middle Eastern countries.

"Most everyone knows English since it is the business language-they know numbers, 'thank you,' and 'hello,'" Schwartz said. "You'd be surprised in a Middle Eastern country how many people know the language. There was the standard comment given by taxi drivers: 'America good, Bush bad.' You just have to go with that, they tried to argue-they love to talk."

Overall the students found everyone abroad to be talkative and hospitable. The citizens constantly invited them for tea or back to their homes, but at times they got a little too friendly.

As Emily Koenig explained the girls received daily pick-up lines and longing glances.

"For them, being a blonde hair and blue eyed (girl)-it's like magnificent," Koenig said. "What we consider exotic here is not exotic to them. Even though we dressed conservatively, my head wasn't covered. My favorite phrase (the men would say) translated to, 'I would hang myself for you.'"

The males on the trip, on the other hand, didn't have as much a problem with the pick-up artists as they did with keeping the peace.

Schwartz recalls a conversation with a few neighbors across the street where the between their broken English and Arabic the conversation took a dramatic turn. Their Arabic neighbors began to question Schwartz and his roommate as to why they hated half the Arabs and liked the other.

"From there it stemmed to if you were in Iraq right now they'd kill you," Schwartz said. "And then he said, and right now if you were in military I'd kill you. I decided I was going to leave out that my roommate was a marine."

The boys saved the conversation by declaring their dislike for Bush, and then dodged the conversation that accused them of being Democrats who liked Israel.

Not everything was as serious along their journey though. Once in Golan Heights, one of the most debated land regions located on the border of Israel, a group of four of the students went to a karaoke establishment. The American students brought down the walls singing the Beatles.

"It was just hysterical and everyone loved them," Koenig said. "Anything American they absolutely loved, they hate us as a country but the things that we have they absolutely love and they want. I was walking down the street towards the class and I saw a man ride by with my sorority letters on his shirt. They will wear anything with English; I didn't expect him to be wearing 'born to be a Chi Omega.'"

Aside from traveling to Israel, the students spent their weekends traveling to places such as Beirut, Lebanon, Damascus, Syria and Cairo, Egypt.

To travel to places in the country the students took taxis that cost about $3 in American terms and they soon discovered that hitchhiking is very popular. Crossing the border into other countries was slightly more difficult, but the group managed to travel basically every weekend.

"We even traveled during the day to other places that were significant," Schwartz said. "Some people skipped class, but you're in college-what's a class day?"

During the day they would visit mosques or go to a variety of hist orical sites. At night the popular thing to do was to go to a place that is equivalent to a hookah bar here, smoke the hookah or drink tea and coffee.

Despite the nights out being similar to America, one of the main lifestyle differences in their lifestyle was in the morning light.

At 3:45 a.m. the first of five calls to prayer rang. The place where the students stayed in the first month was right near the mosque and Schwartz explained it felt as if someone was yelling into their room.

Once they adjusted to the wakeup call, the hotel-style apartments they initially stayed provided a comfortable living situation. Located right down the street from the university, they cost approximately $300, or 450 Jordanian dinar (which are exchanged at a rate of .7085 dollars per dinar.) After a month though, the group moved to a neighborhood nearby that allowed them to interact with the people more and was about $175 less expensive.

Schwartz explained that most everything was inexpensive for the students though in the Middle East. A full traditional meal could be under $2. Yet to find a traditional meal such as hummus or falafel the group had to hunt, since most of those restaurants were small shops located in the nooks of buildings.

"If you saw people wearing traditional garb, I would say 'where's that guy eating, I'm going there,'" Schwartz said. "We saw McDonalds and Pizza Hut ... they butchered (Western-style restaurants) so badly, I steered away from it after the first two weeks ... but I wish I could have (the traditional food) right now... it was great."

Once back at Miami, Koenig even made a seven-course meal for friends so they could see what she had eaten and to taste it all.

Their taste buds aren't the only things with a lingering sense for the Middle East. Schwartz couldn't express enough the experiences as well as the important lessons he took from the trip.

"It definitely made me a lot more empathetic to how Arabs, Middle Easterners, and Muslims are perceived by the world, what stereotyped they have to go under and also how people see myself, what people think of Americans, what they stand for," Schwartz said. "Sure people don't like America, some Americans don't like Americans ... it showed me both worlds of what culture is really like."

In retrospect, the trip doesn't seem all that crazy.

"If you were (to speak like) a grandmother, she would say it's a very 'hip' modern country adapting well to the changing environment of the world," Schwartz said. "But it's still incorporating its rich heritage and culture into its everyday life."

The students also plan to incorporate lessons from the trip into their everyday lives, and hopefully the lives of future Miami students.

As Schwartz returns to diplomacy and foreign affairs studies at Miami he hopes that future Miami students will be able to flip through a study abroad brochure about the trip. "We were the test group to show that can work and what product can come from this," Schwartz said. "Now we're in direct contact with the University of Jordan for future students."

There is currently one Miami student studying at the university.

"It is our hope that we keep this on a yearly basis and we continue to take students there," Yousef said. "The more students we have the better. I have an agreement with (the University of Jordan that when) we go there, we don't have to pay way ahead of time ...We have a good relationship there, (the students) take it seriously, it pays off in the long run."

Koenig, who is also a diplomacy and foreign affairs major, sees this payoff at Miami by better understanding the situation between the United States and the Middle East, but plans to take her experience well beyond college.

"Due to the strength of my Arabic language skills now post-Jordan, it has opened up many doors for me job-wise." Koenig said. "I am hoping to use my Arabic and go into counterterrorism and intelligence for one of the federal agencies upon graduation in May."


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