Two years ago, I did an internship in Jordan, and I got to visit an EcoPark. The EcoPark promotes recycling and composting, hiking and camping, fishing and picnicking. And best of all, I found a flower field guide that goes with the park, so I took it along and we tried to identify the plants.
On that visit, I was at the EcoPark as part of a training for recently graduated high schoolers. They hailed from rural areas. When they were 15 and 16, these youths worked as "water trustees" in their schools. They took the lead in organizing water-awareness and water-saving projects with their classmates. Now that they are entering adulthood, the training course was designed to help the youths pivot from being leaders in school to being leaders in a community.
At one point, the course leaders impersonated bad body language and bad speech patterns that a community leader should NOT exhibit. All the youth just about died laughing watching their long-trusted mentors make such exaggerated gestures. It reminded me exactly of how my friends and I in the U.S. would have laughed seeing similar things at that age.
One of the mentors even said: you should never be ashamed of asking a question, you should only be ashamed of leaving without understanding. Now, my teachers and mentors told me this countless times as I was growing up. It gave me a strange, homesick feeling to hear the exact same words, but in a different country and in a different language.
We talked about the qualities — patience, honesty, respect, morality, curiosity — that a person should nurture in order to be a good community leader. One of the mentors asked: Who do you know who has these qualities, who affected your life greatly? Some of the youths said their parents, and some said King Hussein bin Talal of Jordan and the Pope. One young lady said Edgar Allan Poe! Upon reading his short stories, their uniqueness and eeriness made her see the world in a whole different light.
At one point, a group of foreign tourists showed up. They were invited into our classroom, and everyone paired up to give the tourists a chance to practice Arabic with the Jordanian youths. Afterwards, one of the mentors said he welcomed interactions like this, because it leaves the tourists with a strong impression. They will always remember meeting the Jordanian youths who respect and care for the environment.
He went on to say that an environmental steward's job is to welcome and teach all people, whether they are Muslim, Christian, Jewish or Buddhist. One of the youths piped up: "We are all from one creation". These were such uplifting words.
Later that day as we ate our lunch of seasoned rice, roasted potatoes, yogurt and chicken, some of the youths asked me if I was Muslim. I told them yes. Then a girl asked, "Sunni or Shia?" and I said I never answer that question because it is so ugly and divisive these days. The boy next to me even admonished his peer, saying, "That's right, it's is a rude question, why did you ask it?" Then turning to me, he continued, "But! I hope that you are Sunni! I think it's a rude question, but in my heart I really hope you are Sunni!"
We all laughed at the irony of what he was saying, but that moment really saddened me. These Jordanian youths are so smart and full of energy and hope. They are dedicating themselves to environmental causes. It is so disappointing that a kid with so much promise would be all hung up over Sunni-Shia-Muslim-Christian, right after the morning's discussion of "we are all one creation."
