a word about work

As I was thinking about setting up this blog, I decided that I wasn't going to write about work. I wanted to try to capture impressions of daily life - walking on a sidewalk, grocery shopping, weekend adventures, tips on curing olives (which, by the way, I got a lot of this week from my colleagues - apparently December is the season for picking, curing and pressing olives).

But I thought I should mention that work is, indeed, a big part of daily life.

So a word about what I am doing: I am part of a project that brings together a joint team of the Jordan Ministry of Municipal Affairs, the Amman Institute for Urban Development (which I am working with), the Canadian consulting firm Planning Alliance, and a number of local municipalities in northern Jordan. The focus is to develop plans for use by the municipalities and national government to manage urban development better so that less agricultural and natural heritage land is paved over and, on the other hand, existing city centres and built up areas become a focus for investment and revitalization. The mandate is not entirely different from the work I was doing in the GTA. The context is radically different, however. Some pictures to give you a sense of the state of the downtown in a city called Rusayfa, and, on the other hand, the nature of the scattered residential sprawl happening outside of town on agricultural land. These rural outskirts of Rusayfa are in the biblical 'hills of Gilead'.

So far, one week in, I can testify that work is hectic. Any colleagues from MEI who might be reading this blog might be astounded to learn that I have been at the office at 8:15am every morning (jetlag turned me into a morning person!) and am there til 6pm or so, with plenty of catch-up reading in the evening. The work involves quite a lot of travel to the partner municipalities, which has been a great way to start to understand the landscape. It is one giant learning experience, fascinating, and intimidating.

So that's work. I just thought I would mention it in case anyone thinks my life is just one long stroll in the streets over the next couple of months!