by JOMANA SHDEFAT
Jomana Shdefat, left, with Salah Khalil, a philanthropist who works in the Arab World.
A girl born into a Bedouin tribe in the middle of the Jordanian desert does not start life with her family expecting her to earn a Ph.D. My loving, but traditional, parents raised me to be a good girl so that I would someday be a good wife and a good mother. That was all they knew to do with a girl.
Thirty-three years later I am still in the desert, but to the consternation of my family and tribe, I am neither a wife nor a mother. I am a Ph.D. and an assistant professor of education at Al al-Bayt University, in Jordan.
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Until this month when I attended the annual meeting of the European Association for International Education in Copenhagen, I had never been out of the Middle East. With more than 4,000 attendees, the conference was the largest event I had ever been to. As near as I could tell, I was the only woman there with a hijab, or headscarf.
Imagine what Copenhagen looked like to a woman born and raised in the desert: green, trains, bicycles, rain, color, traffic lights, boats, cool, water. . . freedom. Everything reminded me of the magical feelings I felt as a child when I first saw images of Europe on television and in the movies.
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From my experiences in Copenhagen and at the conference, I have taken back experiences and contacts that have the potential to transform my little desert university. I have contracts in hand from universities in France, Italy, and the United States who want to partner with my university for teaching and student exchanges. Many more suggested I contact them upon my return so that I can make similar arrangements. I am sorting through those contacts now and planning follow-up proposals.
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(Thanks to reader)