That's Why Jordan

College students don’t read. At least not on my campus. I would spend hours in the library freshman year, thanks to my job and the computer station they had there so I do feel I’m qualified to speak somewhat authoritatively on this issue. No one reads for the sake of reading, for learning. Our college lives are too strenuous, we barely manage to read for class, intellectualism threatens to shroud our youth and why would you want to read Virgil in your free time anyway?

I miss reading. I don’t do enough and I wish I had the strength of character to not watch Grey’s Anatomy on a Thursday night and read Jimmy Carter’s ‘Endangered Values’ instead. There are too many distractions in college, you live with friends you’d rather talk to, watch a movie with, read fiction at the most and your semester reading list is pushed to the back of your mind. It doesn’t mean we don’t want to. It means we don’t have the time, energy or inclination to immerse in a tome of knowledge in our only time off from the intellectualism that envelops us on liberal art college campuses.

But when you come to Jordan to study abroad, you realize there is so much you don’t know about and there is so much to learn and for the first time you have the time to actually learn beyond the classroom. The classes aren’t as strenuous as they would be on a college campus and we’re left with oodles of time to do as we may. Families here don’t read as much so your only source of literature is the library in school which primarily has books on Jordanian history, culture, politics, foreign policy, women, religion, et al. you came to Jordan because you were interested in these topics and here you are, immersed in the culture, surrounded by the issues you’ve read about in classes but never really comprehended till now. You realize there is so much to learn, so much to absorb, so much to do that you actually begin to crave the learning you had no patience for back in school. So when you get half an hour between classes, you read. Whatever book you can get your hands on. An ethnography, a study on women, a book detailing the Israel-Palestinian conflict or even a Saudi Arabian take on Sex and the City (yes it exists.. I read it). You’re game for it all. And the best part is reading becomes a communal activity once again. You’re not the lone geeky kid in the corner reading anymore. Everyone reads. At some point or the other, you’ll find them with a book in their hand, a book they don’t have to read but want to. And that’s why we came to Jordan. We all want to learn, we crave it and that’s why Jordan. Because you learn everyday. It’s all around you. So we read. To learn. To know. To appreciate.