Baby Steps: School Bag Project

Friday and Saturday were days of organizing and giving. People had been coming by my house all week to drop off school supplies; one man showed up at my door and handed my husband a large bag, and I did not even recognize who he was, nor did I know who is wife was. By Thursday afternoon, I had collected and counted over 800 notebooks, hundreds of pencils, erasers, sharpeners, rulers, backpacks, and other necessary school supplies.

On Thursday I had dropped by the Amal School for the Deaf in Jabal al-Laweibdeh to deliver 11 of the backpacks. This school is a Ministry of Education-run school that has 400 deaf or hearing impaired students, some of whom are coming from as far as Na'ur. I was told that many of the families of these deaf children do not bother learning sign language, so the only chance these kids have to truly find their voices is during school hours. The facilities are deplorable. The kindergartners sit on "benches" in a room that I would never call a classroom. There is no beauty in that school, except that which comes from the light in the teachers' and students' faces. Remember, "amal" means hope. Hope is still alive and well there. Now we just need to make it beautiful for these kids' eyes to see.

On Friday the Action Committee members met to fill the backpacks, and on Saturday we met and followed one another in three vehicles to the Baqa'a Camp's UNRWA boys and girls schools to distribute half of them. The Jordan Times already has an article about this venture; read here.

Elementary school girls wait shyly to be given their filled backpacks.

At the boys' school, the students come in one by one to shake hands with our kids and receive a new filled backpack.

This young man is the same age as my son. I noticed a striking difference in these kids' height, in comparison to the children living in the more privileged areas of Amman. With orange lentils reaching nearly 2 JD per kilo, and the affordability of milk being a distant memory, the stunting of the growth of these kids' bodies is more than guaranteed.

Some of the boys pose with their new backpacks. These teachers and administrators are unsung heroes. This gentleman in the pink jokingly said, "I am a poor teacher, where is my new teacher's bag?" But, sadly, we know he is not joking.

One of the boys, after receiving his pack, had it snatched away by another student. We had another one to give him. I hope next year we can have one for all 1,200 students in this school, so that snatching and running will not be necessary.
Because I can never upload pictures in the correct order, here we are at Sara's house, filling the backpacks under her lovely grape vines on Friday afternoon.

This is a similar shot to the one featured in today's Jordan Times. Perhaps it was because I was standing right next to the reporter. Sara maneuvers this truck like a seasoned bus driver.

I never thought my son would be so willing to hold seven Barbie and Fulla backpacks. But he was.

UNRWA Girls' School, Baqa'a Camp.

Now here is something I will re-think for next time: girls 12 and older do not want cartoon characters on their packs. But they took them, and smiled, and thanked us, graciously.

After leaving the schools, we went to visit a family that has been being helped by the Action Committee. The house consisted of two tiny rooms with a tin roof, and an open area with water and sewage flowing in between. I did not take pictures because I was shy to flip out my camera like a tourist. I did not want to exploit this elderly gentleman who remembers a home in Tul Karam--in Palestine. I did not want to embarrass him, this man who came to this temporary UN-sponsored refugee camp in 1967, before I was born. Forty years he has lived in a makeshift, emergency "solution," waiting to go home. He tried to send someone out to buy us cola. My son bit his lip.

I used to poke fun at the "cave" where my mother-in-law lived in Wadi al-Haddadeh. We called it this because the only window was--oh wait, there were no windows, only a balcony. It smelled bad there. But it was a paradise compared to the homes in Baqa'a. A paradise.

One of the reasons I moved to Jordan was because I was fed up with the constant high that so many Americans need to be on. You know, this drive to find the ultimate happiness. I am not into new gadgets or self-help books. I am not striving for a 24/7 smile or a "my life rocks!" attitude. These things cannot sustain themselves. What can be sustained, however, is the satisfaction that comes from giving. Give, give, give.

I look forward to seeing these wonderful young givers again. We have much work to do.

Very special thanks to Sara of the Action Committee, and Naseem of the Black Iris, and all of the other energetic, beautiful volunteers who helped in this effort.