Hey! I'm still here.

Sunday, July 6, 2014--From  Tom,

Hey! I'm still here. 
It seems like I've been forgotten over here. Ronna is now home and settled into our temporary rental. She had a somewhat rough trip home but is recovering. I'm knocking around in this lonely box. Every so often I drive down the lane and honk at the little Bedouin goat herder, just for company.

So if anyone gets this, send me a note on my email--tjensen@archnexus.com

Happy 4th of July--There's not too much of a celebration here, obviously. I was invited to go to the US Embassy to watch the fireworks but decided against it. My legs and knees are hurting and there would be a lot of standing and it's a 45 minute drive.

So, I'm going to look at the videos of fireworks that I took on my i-phone at the Logan Freedom Fire a year or two ago. I'll get some patriotic music on U-Tube and have a party. Whoo-hoo.

Classes for Summer Semester are intensive. I teach three classes with about 90 students straight through from 8:30 AM to almost 1 PM. My legs are beat but the kids are terrific. I have assignments due in all three classes tomorrow morning. The Appreciation of Art is doing a "blind contour" drawing of a friend or family member without looking at their paper. It's a way to learn to really see things. My Cultural Development is coming up with projects to get involved with in the community. If it has any effect it would be incredible. Most Jordanians are pretty passive about their communities. But these kids seem quite bright and altruistic. One girl wanted to solve "honor killings." A big task. There were over 839 in Pakistan last year.There are not too many in Jordan but it happens.

For the Architectural Design class, the students need to start from scratch. Like how do you draw a line and do lettering. They have said that after just 2 classes that I taught them more than they learned the whole previous semester.

The most fun is the Appreciation of Art. We're studying the sketching of Leonardo di Vinci and Picasso, the painting of Rembrandt and Van Gogh and the sculpture of Michelangelo. I'm preparing lectures the night before and it's a lot of work but the kids are opening up. I have kids from Nigeria, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Malaysia and, of course, Jordan. The room is packed and they are responding. Some examples of artwork that we discussed are……

"Guernica" by Picasso--Our discussion on this almost had us all in tears. Look it up.

"The Milkmaid" by Jan Vermeer

"Nefertiti"--Reminds me of my Queen

"The Judgement" in the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo--(remember, he painted this on wet plaster so there no erasing if there would be any mistakes. And Michelangelo didn't like to paint!!)

How would you like to be teaching about these? It's wonderful. 

Our New Wall:

Our landlord finally finished the wall around the property, including a barb wire fence on the top.

What's amazing is that it's all done my hand by two Egyptian workers. They get less than a dollar per square foot of wall and work all day in 90-100 heat. They don't order a truck load of concrete. Instead they mix it on the site and carry the buckets on their shoulders. They lift the big boulders and crack them with a large sledge. Jordanians don't do this kind of work. It's all done by Egyptians. There is broken glass on top of the wall, and then the gate has a big gap in it so even a fat terrorist could just slide under. And there is no lock on the gate. So what is the point of putting it up? At least it's keeping the wild dog packs and goat herds out.