Noticing the cracks

The air up here is dry and crackly and we all woke up looking like pompoms with static hair. Our hands are dry and our lips crack when we smile. The Lozenge says 'I want to go home' every hour or so, so we went to a place up the road called the Prince Hashem Gardens, otherwise known as the Bird Park because of all the caged birds there - from peacocks and pheasants to red hens and ducks. There's even a monkey and a baboon. It was full of Jordanian families as it's a Friday and it seemed to take the Lozenge's mind off going home.

It took us about an hour and a half to walk to the park, to the supermarket and back and all he could say was, 'Look at the crackth, Mummy! Look at the crackth!' The road is covered in cracks, like our lips and hands, and he was fixated.

It's true. And you notice the cracks everywhere. Despite there being all the obvious signs of modernity each way we look out of our second floor windows - satellite dishes, cranes, mirrored glass buildings and Mercedes Sports, you can't ignore the basis of arid poverty. There's a chronic water shortage and the country is almost entirely dependent on aid. The cityscape is bland, and as beige as the interior of our flat. On top of this flaking canvas, the modern stuff seems stuck on top like a band aid - and fails to cover up what's below.

We finally made it to the Supermarket  and tried hard to buy Jordanian food but the only garlic on offer was from China and about 70 per cent of the stuff on the shelves was imported, with a little red sticker saying just that. 60 per cent of the population here is also imported, since this country didn't even exist until the 1920s when Churchill drew a few straight lines on the map and created Trans-Jordan after the Arab revolt. This place only begins to make sense when you start reading all about this relative recent history - and it really brings it all to life.

What big curbs you have

The supermarket doesn't, however - as anywhere else in the world. And after trawling around for 40 minutes we emerged, the boys with pink cheeks from having been pinched and stroked by many hands in the aisles, with a motley mixture of stuff. I only realised when we got home that we didn't get any salt so everything tastes like baby food.

The Lozenge has been taking off all his clothes most of the day long and getting into bed with his teddies, the laudry basket, my belt and the sandbag to hold the door open. Saeed found it most amusing to see a naked Lozenge cavorting around when he popped in to look at the electrics.

I know about first days in strange places. It's when your eyes and soul are at their most keen and most judgemental and yet you're also at your most vulnerable and exhausted. This day is no different but I know I'll look back after months and think what a funny little day that was. You can't cut corners - you just have to go straight through it and wade on.

I once read an interview with the actress Salma Hayek who when asked if she was going to feel like a fish out of water in her new life in Paris, she said, 'I'll make my own water'. This, I guess is what we're aiming for.