Sometimes Life Comes Full Circle

So, last week I got about as lucky as a person possibly can when my friends Siham and Leah came for a visit.  It was only a bit more than a week, but we managed to pack it with all sorts of activities, including meeting all the students in both my classes as well as many of my Fulbright friends.  We also went to Petra (completing my goal of Visiting Petra Three Ways), Wadi Rum and Aqaba (where I was able to cross snorkeling in the Red Sea off my list). 

With the women of my Pressure Groups class during our end of the year dinner: Feda'a, Amani, Leah, Siham, Rola, Heba and Areej (Abdulazeez missed the photo op by thoughtfully rushing to the pharmacy for medicine for an emergency burned hand)

Enjoying the excellent night view at Books@ Cafe with Fulbrighter friends: Grace, Christina, Leah, Elizabeth, Siham, Jayme, Cooper and Kelsey

At Al-Quds restaurant sampling mensaf: Cooper, Mike, Leah and Siham

Posing with my Health, Environment and Human Rights class students after they completed their presentations: Siham, Mary, Noura and Leah

I plan to do some separate posts on some of these activities, but I also just wanted to take a minute to reflect on the fact that it was Leah and Siham who co-originated the idea of 52 New Things that started this blog and Siham who came with me to Jordan two years on my first trip here. (And while I'm thanking people, I should also point out that another close friend of all three of us, Jamila, set up our original connections here in Jordan for us, and would have been here too, had she not been racing a deadline to complete her PhD at Oxford.) As my adventure in Jordan draws closer to its conclusion -- I have less than a month left here now -- I'm so grateful to them both for helping me to create the path that led me here for this year, and for coming to explore the results of my time in Jordan together.

Siham and Leah (hiding out here in Wadi Rum): hard to imagine a better pair of travellers, explorers or all-around friends!