ABOUT FULBRIGHT

My Fulbright Life

Transcript For: Current Fulbrighter Jessica Tibbets in Jordan.

Fulbrighter to Jordan, Jessica Tibbets, discusses her experience in Jordan.

Schuyler: Welcome to My Fulbright Life. I’m Schuyler Allen and today I’m joined with Jess Tibbets, who is currently in Jordan on her Fulbright grant, and she’s going to share with us some of her experiences while she’s been in Jordan. Jess, thanks for joining us today.

Jess: Thank you for the call. I am currently in Jordan although my initial Fulbright project was supposed to be in Yemen. I arrived in Yemen in August on a CLEA (Critical Language Enhancement Award). I studied Arabic in Yemen for six months and then would go in [inaudible] stages of research before we were evacuated to Jordan. So sadly I had to be uprooted from my research there in Yemen. I’ve been working with the deaf community.

Schuyler: And what does your research involve?

Jess: While living in Yemen, I’ll just give you a day to day scenario of my life there, I lived with a Yemenis family in the old city in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. Every morning at 7:00 I would walk to a major street in the old city and a bus would pick me up. The bus was full of just students and their teachers. We’d take the hour long bus ride up to the deaf school, which was just outside of the city. I would spend the day there filming a lot of the classes for the students and interviewing maybe individual students or teachers or the staff there. This is how I spent most of my day. In the afternoon we would take the same bus home and then I would go home and have lunch and dinner with my host family. My research was specifically on the deaf community in Yemen. I was filming the classes, like I mentioned, in order to make a documentary. That was my overall goal that unfortunately with such small amount of time I’m probably not going to be able to do.

Schuyler: This is fascinating. Going back a bit, backtracking a little bit here, could you describe for us what languages you studied under the Critical Language Enhancement Award and for how long?

Jess: Absolutely. Under the Critical Language Enhancement Award I studied Arabic. I studied Arabic four hours a day with a private tutor five days a week. I studied at the Yemen Language Center, and that’s in Sanaa. In the evenings I went to a deaf association where I studied Yemenis Sign Language. That was not part of the CLEA. That was just on my own, and actually it was offered free to the community.

Schuyler: That’s amazing. So did you know American Sign Language before undertaking this grant or did you learn it and then decide to learn Yemenis? There’s a lot of different layers to your language acquisition here for your grant.

Jess: Yeah, absolutely. Honestly, growing up I learned quite a bit of what’s called SEE, S-E-E, Signing Exact English, with a few friends of mine. That’s really what got me interested in the deaf community in general. I taught English in Yemen about two years ago and it was just kind of a community service project; I wanted to get involved with the deaf community there. I was introduced to them, and welcomed them, and they taught me some Yemenis sign language, and that’s really where my interest in the Fulbright research project started. It took me a good five months, six months, to actually get together my application for Fulbright. It’s a very long, long, tedious process. But it’s doable and I definitely have [inaudible] if you want me to offer it.

Schuyler: Oh, absolutely. We’ll get to that a little bit later. But I’m really fascinated to hear more about what your life has been like, particularly not only since you had a Critical Language Enhancement Award, but also since your original country that you decided to do your program in ended up not being the country that you did your program in. Could you tell us a little bit what it’s like to switch gears like that, from Yemen to Jordan?

Jess: So I was in Samaa, in the capital, doing my language training. I did one and a half months of research there but my heart was really in Aden. Aden is the southern port city, which is where I used to teach English. So I had deaf friends there and I had been waiting for almost two years to go back to this community. In the day I packed up all of my bags and got my permit to travel to Aden. There was a small bombing at a residential complex for I think a Canadian oil company. I knew that this would make the travel down to Aden difficult, so instead of traveling by myself as a woman in regular Western clothes I wore the traditional Yemeni naqab and hejab and abaya, which is all black head to toe, so no one could tell if I were American or Yemeni or anything. It made the eight hour bus ride by local transportation easy. The military checkpoints didn’t need to see my paperwork, even though I had it all in case they wanted to see it. It made my trip nice and simple and smooth. I arrived into Aden at around 10:30, 11 at night. All of my deaf friends and all of my students came in a big bus to welcome me, and they were so excited and we signed frantically about how happy we were to see each other and how excited we were to go apartment shopping for me the next week. So that night they took me and all of my bags to one of my dear friend’s house. She’s a hearing teacher for the deaf. She and I talked deep into the night about shopping for apartments and finally getting to live together in the same city again. The next morning at 8 a.m. I was woken up by a telephone call by the U.S. Embassy saying that I had 48 hours to evacuate. So my excitement about living in Aden, about being in Yemen and doing this research that I had been dreaming about and been planning for for about two years was slightly crushed. At first I just told him no, I can’t leave, you can’t make me leave. I said I just got to Aden not even ten hours ago and he said, “Well, at least you’re packed.” So I swiftly said one big hand motion to all my deaf friends: hello and goodbye. I got on a plane and I was actually evacuated to Cairo. I spent three weeks there and then came to Jordan. I’ve been in Jordan for about two weeks. It’s very different. I find myself idealizing Yemen and just thinking about how much I want to be in Yemen where I know people, where I know the dialect, where I am comfortable there. But instead I’m in a country that is very different, more focused on materialistic things. The men here, they holler in the streets at me, and it’s so different from my experience in Yemen. Right now I’m in a very difficult situation trying to adapt, but luckily the Fulbrighters here in Jordan have been very welcoming and opened their doors for us and the commission here in Jordan has bent over backwards for us and tried to give us new affiliations for our projects and they’re trying to help us adapt our projects that were in Yemen to now be focused on Jordan. So even though it’s very difficult and it was a move I did not want to take, I’m trying to make the most of it and I’m having a lot of support here. Very soon I’m going to fall in love with this country too and things will work out and things will be great and I’m sure my research here will be just as good as it would have been in Yemen.

Schuyler: Probably just as you’re ready to come back home. That’s usually how things go; things tend to be all perfect at the very end when you have to pick up and go home.

Jess: But I just don’t have enough time; I only have six and a half months left of my research. I research project under Fulbright is supposed to be a year, nine months, and so I’m dumped into Jordan and I only have six months to do this project. So that is a little bit difficult, the time management. But also for Fulbright you can apply for an extension up to three months, and if there are funds available I’m sure that I’ll be allotted that time if there’re funds available. So we’ll see.

Schuyler: Well given your unexpected circumstances I’m sure that your request will be taken under serious consideration. I think obviously, clearly, right off the bat I’m sure that you’re thinking advice for Fulbrighters or candidates to Fulbright, flexibility.

Jess: Yeah, absolutely. Flexibility is a huge part of just living abroad and living in a place that you’re not familiar with. Flexibility really makes a difference in a good day and a really frustrating day. Just day to day in Yemen things might go not how I wanted and nine times out of ten if you just say, okay, it’s not what I wanted, but just keep going here, something spectacular would happen. Somebody would invite you in for tea and then you would get to meet their family and then you’d find out their daughter was getting married this week and then you’d get invited to a wedding. I think if you stay flexible you’ll find that your experience abroad is enhanced.

Schuyler: Wow, I was going to ask you about your challenges but it sounds like you had them pretty upfront in terms of your grant. So that said, what have been some of the highlights of your program thus far in terms of your day to day and things that you’ve been able to you’ve been able to feel some academic satisfaction from?

Jess: Yeah, academic and professional satisfaction would first and foremost go to Arabic. I feel very strong in my language, which could not have happened without the CLEA. I’m very, very thankful for the CLEA and suggest every Fulbrighter to apply for that and make the most of it. It’s six months and it’s hard and it’s every day and it’s all day but it’s absolutely worth it. My language skills really improved and I have that to thank for it. Also I’m still, like I said, at the beginning of my research, but already I’m meeting a lot of people who have research ideas for me, research methodology, help, and that’s really going to improve my research skills. Being here on a Fulbright research grant is giving me research skills, both qualitative and quantitative, that I can take with me to grad school. That’s going to be really helpful to me.

Schuyler: Great. So given all these unique and unexpected experiences that you’ve had on Fulbright and the language skills that you’ve been able to establish, I should point out that the Critical Language Enhancement Award is available for those students who’ve had a year of the specific languages that are offered under their belt already. So if you’re thinking about the Critical Language Enhancement Award be sure to read all the details about eligibility for it and how it fits in with the Fulbright program full grant. But, yes, absolutely we would love to see more applications to the Critical Language Enhancement Award. So Jess, thanks for being someone in the field who’s experienced it to say it’s been useful to you.

Jess: Absolutely.

Schuyler: So what are your next steps after you Fulbright program? Are you thinking about going to grad school, or what are the next steps for you?

Jess: I’ve actually applied to a few grad schools. I’m thinking about going into public policy with definitely a focus on development in the Middle East. We’ll see. I think that I’m probably going to do a small unpaid internship at the United Nations Development Program here in Jordan in their disabilities office. I think that will give me some real, hands on experience and a good look at the developing world and seeing if that’s what I want to do.

Schuyler: Right, right. So you’re basically going to take some of the things that you’ve learned on Fulbright and employ them right after? Is that the goal?

Jess: Yeah, absolutely. Being on a Fulbright research scholarship in the Middle East has reinforced that I want to continue my studies and my career path in the Middle East. Absolutely. But also my project is on deafness and I think that I would also really like to continue in the disabilities track. So moreover policies that have to do with disabilities, policies that have to do with the Middle East, that’s really were my interest lies in public policy. I absolutely have my Fulbright experience to thank for that. If I had not enjoyed my Fulbright experience then I would want to get out of the Middle East or I would want to get out of policy.

Schuyler: What’s some excellent advice that you would offer to Fulbright candidates for the 2009-2010 cycle?

Jess: The best advice that I can give which I’m sure everyone else has been giving is don’t rush this. Write letters to those people who you want to sponsor you. Write those letters way in advance. Don’t rush them, write your statement of purpose again and again, get as many people to read them as possible, and don’t be afraid to edit it a million times. Get it to be exactly how you want it to be. I took about six months to put together my application, and I was really proud of it by the time it was finished. It was definitely a part time job for those six months.

Schuyler: Right. What about just you being you in the application. How did you get that to come through? Because I think a lot of people have all of their mechanical pieces, like finding their affiliation, but how did your voice come through in all of that after so many edits?

Jess: Well I think that the applications for Fulbright asked a lot of questions, asked about pretty much every part of your life. In the personal statement they ask about your personal goals and your personal history. I think that was a really important part of my application, to really let my personality come through.

Schuyler: So if you could summarize then, in one word or a phrase or a sentence, what your Fulbright program has been like and what qualities a Fulbrighter has. Those two pieces.

Jess: Okay. Well, the latter question I would probably just have to say to be a Fulbright you need to be flexible. And the first one, enhancing? It’s been challenging but rewarding at the same time.

Schuyler: So if you’re up for a challenge and you like getting rewards for your challenge, the Fulbright’s for you?

Jess: Yeah. I think it also gives you a lot of confidence. I think that I would really rather focus on that. This Fulbright was really difficult. Being in a foreign country, being in Yemen, was very difficult. But it also established a lot of independence and confidence in myself. If I can do this independent research given very little support other than money, which was very helpful, I did it and I feel a lot more confident in myself and what I can do in my future because of it.

Schuyler: Well that’s excellent, probably a way to finish this interview. Thank you very much for describing your phenomenal Fulbright experiences. Thank you so much, Jess.

Jess: Absolutely. Thank you so much for this opportunity to share my experience. I really appreciate it.

Schuyler: It’s our pleasure.