A few weeks ago, our cohort spent a day traveling around different refugee camps in the Amman area, visiting a number of community based organizations that work with ILearn, the organization for which we are working this summer. Our first stop was the Jerash Women’s Association in Jerash camp. When we stepped off of the bus, among my fellow cohort members, our leaders, and the staff at ILearn, there was one face that I did not recognize accompanying us. I didn’t think much of it at the moment, and we continued into the office of the CEO of the organization. As we began to sit down, the CEO, Heba, began to speak to us in Arabic, and a slight panic filled me as I thought I may not be able to be involved in this conversation. However, as soon as Heba finished speaking, the man I didn’t recognize from the bus began to speak in English to us, sharing the history of the organization obviously relayed by Heba.
Throughout our stay in Jordan, Rajj has served as a translator for our group multiple times, often floating around the ILearn office where his friend Omar is our supervisor. Our interactions with Rajj are only a few examples of how as an American who cannot speak Arabic, I have constantly found myself being the one accommodated by others with language. The stereotype that Americans do not know any other language, and that they expect everyone they meet in the world to speak English has felt somewhat accurate to me on this trip. The examples of my language needs being the ones accommodated range from discussions about our work on trips to Jerash all the way to ordering a simple sandwich on our first day in Amman.
As the person on the trip with likely the least amount of Arabic practice compared to my fellow cohort members, I am constantly aware of my language limitations and the fact that I am extremely frequently having them met by Jordanians. Duke Engage is a program where Duke students are meant to go into a community and practice and learn skills of service, working to provide support to local communities while knowing our place as servants. This view of the program has some tension when someone like me comes into Jordan not knowing the language of the people I am working with, expecting myself to be accommodated. Shouldn’t someone going into an international community be the one making strides to meet that community on their plane with language, and not vice versa?
I have thought about this question a lot while here in Jordan, and I would like to be able to arrive at a place where my language barriers do not have to be addressed as much by others, but I realize that I will not magically learn Arabic in the last couple weeks of our program. For now, I have to settle for being grateful to the Rajj’s of Jordan, making it possible for communication to exist between the leader of an organization in Jerash and a nerdy computer science student from North Carolina, working together to create a website to sell dresses made by refugee women.
