Fellows' Reflections: Hannah Rosenwinkel

Upon moving to Amman eight months ago, I knew I wanted to start blogging, journaling, or documenting my experience in some way. I’ve never been great at journaling — growing up, I would constantly get notebooks where I would start writing down my thoughts and then forget or get bored about a week after. Despite previous failed attempts, I started bullet journaling (writing down what I did each day in bullet-point format) the week after my move to Amman.

A few months after my arrival, I was reminded that MENAR has a partnership with Reach the World (RTW), a global education non-profit organization that seeks to make the benefits of travel and study abroad accessible to K-12 classrooms in the United States. With this opportunity, I could share my journey living in Jordan and inspire students to be curious about the world. This opportunity immediately sparked my interest; I could continue documenting my experience, hone my writing skills and share my stories. I applied to RTW and was accepted as a Volunteer Traveler last August. And, to my pleasant surprise, the classroom I was matched with was a middle-school classroom in my home state of Minnesota!

As a RTW Volunteer Traveler, I had a few requirements: take as many pictures as possible for blog post content, keep up with my weekly blog post submissions, and schedule a few video calls with my matched classroom. My blogs ranged in topic from the geography of Jordan to Jordanian birthday celebrations. After my posts were published, the classroom teacher, Tanya, read the blogs and created quizzes for the students to complete at home. The students loved this! Our video calls were a RTW volunteer highlight for me. At one point, the students created a fictional Ancient Egyptian Museum as part of a history project. During our video call, they asked about my trip to Dahab, a small coastal city on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. I shared about my experience scuba diving in Dahab and many students decided to locate their museum in Dahab! The combination of blog posts and video calls provided a great opportunity for students to learn and ask questions, and established a personal connection to the Middle East.

After four months of submitting weekly RTW blog posts, my time as a Volunteer Traveler has come to a close. Not only was blog creation a great way to document my experience in Jordan and the broader Middle East, but I was also able to share these posts with students who may or may not have the opportunity to travel, study abroad, or work abroad in the future. Some of the blogs were about basic topics such as food or transportation, but it was the posts about simple aspects of life that sparked deeper questions about Jordanian culture, history, who I share my meals with, and who I travel with. The blogs provided the opportunity to do much more than bullet-journal my daily tasks; they were an opportunity to share my experiences and begin simple conversations that gave way to deeper discussions.

I hope that my RTW partnership with a Minnesota classroom cultivated their sense of curiosity about the world, and helped build positive awareness of the Middle East among young Americans. I look forward to seeing future MENAR Fellows share their journeys through Reach the World!