Crestview teacher enjoyed Jordan school

CINDY WOOD/independent feature writer

Crestview kindergarten teacher Colby Kuhn has a pretty impressive bucket list:

Vacation Bible School in Guatemala (at 16 years old) … check

Graduate from Parkway High School and the University of Toledo and acquire a teaching degree … check

Travel to Germany to coordinate a summer camp for the children of American troops … check

Visit Paris, Amsterdam, Austria, Italy, Czech Republic and Switzerland … check

Leave America and all its luxuries behind to teach English in a boys’ school in Amman, Jordan … check

Future … to be determined.

Undoubtedly, Kuhn isn’t quite finished with her list, but it certainly is an impressive start. Her most recent adventure teaching English to children in Amman, Jordan, had its ups and downs, but it’s a time of her life she wouldn’t trade for the world.

“It was really scary, but exciting at the same time,” Kuhn said. “My husband and I had to do a lot of praying about it, and we really felt that God was leading us in this path.” Kuhn and her husband, Derrin, had been married for only a year when they took what Kuhn described as a “leap of faith.”

“It was really a new page in both of our lives, but it was really hard getting on that airplane,” she said. “We wondered at times what in the world we were doing, but we just really felt God was pressing us to go. When some doors opened for us to speak at different churches, and both of us got jobs before we went over, we really felt like this was meant to be.”

Even though the couple had come to terms with their decision, they were in for overwhelming culture shock as they acclimated to their new surroundings. The food was different. The language was different, and the plumbing systems were challenging, to say the least. “Because the plumbing systems aren’t very good, you couldn’t flush your toilet paper down the toilet,” Kuhn said, adding that the couple adjusted and made the best of it. “And because we’re in a desert, water is obviously very precious, so there were water days on Wednesdays. So that entire day you would see water running through the streets because everyone was doing their laundry.”

While Americans have become accustomed to simply throwing a load of clothing in the washing machine, “doing laundry” in Jordan took on a whole new meaning. Washing machines in Jordan are not the high-energy, high-capacity models found in America, Kuhn said. “The washing machines were very different, sort of like old-fashioned washers,” Kuhn said, adding that the couple would fill buckets of water in the sink and dump them into the washer. “After the clothes would finish washing, we had to take a hose, hook it up to the washer, and drain the water from the washing machine into the floor.”

From there, clothes were placed in a spinner and hung out to dry on the flat rooftops. “Even in the winter, people hang-dry their clothes,” Kuhn said.

Despite the modern-day inconveniences, the couple made the best of their time there. Kuhn taught at Bishop School for Boys, which presented its own set of challenges. At the same time, Kuhn’s husband was working as a web designer for Avilla School for Girls, where he taught students how to put class projects in digital format, and also introduced them to Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.

Even though Kuhn was serving as a Christian missionary during her time in Jordan, the couple could not let that be known, as they would have been kicked out of the country, she said. “Ninety-eight percent of its citizens are Muslim, and only a few are not. And (Jordan) is not only male dominated, but also Muslim dominated,” Kuhn said. “In that country, your religion is on your identification card, and it’s illegal to become a Christian if you’re already a Muslim. But if you’re a Christian and want to become Muslim, they’re very open to that.”

Because Kuhn worked in a Christian school, however, she was welcomed and treated kindly by her peers, who shared her same Christian outlook on life. “I didn’t really feel scared at all,” she said. “They kind of treated me like a daughter, and were very friendly, warm and welcoming. I felt very loved when I was there.”

The Jordanian cuisine also represented a serious shock for the couple, as their bodies attempted to adjust to the foreign menu. The couple tended to stay away from meat products while there, but also fell in love with certain dishes. “We ate a lot of veggies there, and tried many different kinds of fruits, which were locally grown,” Kuhn said, adding that many people eat hummus for breakfast. “It’s actually very good, and while they have hummus here in the States, I’ve never found anything here that even tasted remotely close to what we had there.”

The language barrier was also a big hurdle, and even though the couple had taken Arabic classes before leaving America, they still found it difficult to keep up. “I’m sure the classes helped, and we were able to understand some words that were being spoken to us, but we never had fast-enough responses,” Kuhn said. “Even though we understood, by the time we could form a reply, the conversation had moved on. We actually learned how to write in Arabic much better than we could speak. But we always found a way to communicate when we needed to.”

Leaving Jordan was an emotional experience that Kuhn still gets choked up about today. While Americans fare fairly organized, important matters and deadlines can be overlooked in Jordan. “That was really hard for us to get used to,” Kuhn said. “In America, we tend to plan things out and have processes in place and we know what to expect and when to expect it, especially concerning legal matters. Over there, it’s kind of up in the air about everything.”

So the couple’s intention to stay in Jordan for two years was cut short when school officials neglected to turn in visa papers by the deadline. That lack of attention to detail resulted in the immediately leaving Jordan and coming back to the U.S., with heavy hearts in tow.

“Obviously, I was ready to see my family, but I wasn’t ready to leave yet either,” Kuhn said. “It was in the middle of the week when we found out our papers hadn’t been signed at all, so we just left, because we knew we weren’t going to take the chance of staying there illegally. But it came down to the very last day, and the school just didn’t get things taken care of, even though we had been telling them for months.”

Leaving so suddenly was difficult for Kuhn because she was not able to say goodbye to her students. “We were anticipating them coming to us that day with the paperwork signed, and we were both praying that we would be there the next day, but that just didn’t happen,” Kuhn said, adding that she was able to write a letter to her students, which was relayed to them by a fellow teacher.

Now that the couple has been back in America for awhile, they’re able to more fully appreciate the many things Americans might take for granted. “We have luxuries here and we don’t even realize they’re luxuries,” Kuhn said. “But the whole experience has brought my husband and me closer together, and strengthened our marriage in ways we didn’t even know. I also feel it’s made me a better teacher in many ways.”

The couple is happy and content … for now. “I’ve always had a passion for travel and for children around the world,” Kuhn said, adding that one of her dreams is to work in an African orphanage over the summer. “It would have to be something my husband and I both wanted, but we feel that if God ever leads our hearts again, we would go without thinking twice.”