Sophomore Sadeel Batineh traveled out of the country this past summer. She was able to go back to Jordan, her birthplace. Batineh traveled to Irbid, which is a city in north Jordan and the capital of the Irbid governorate. She went there from May 17 to July 30, and she stayed there with her immediate family in some apartments that they own.
Although they went for her brothers’ weddings, she said that she enjoyed being with her old friends the most. “My favorite thing was being with my friends and seeing how they’d grown,” Batineh said. She then went on to explain that they would routinely stay up late playing in the streets and getting snacks from the corner store. She also revealed that she found the food there much better than the food here.
There were things that took her off guard too. The main thing being that the most followed religion there is Islam, which, while she is Muslim, was something she wasn’t used to. The bells that would ring for the call to prayer five times a day surprised her, as it isn’t commonplace here. Batineh was also able to go to masjid there, which she said is similar to church.
The heat was another problem. She mentioned that it would get up to 102°F and said that it was not pleasant. She said that it would mess with her hair, make it frizz up, so she often had it in a braid.
Even with the culture shock of being in a country she hadn’t been to since 2017, she enjoyed it very much and would love to return.
