The turbulence of living with a three year old in a foreign land make the times when you break through the clouds into blue skies more valuable than ever. Last week J and I were hunched over the kitchen table thinking, 'Do we need to talk about Kevin?' (After the film with Tilda Swinton where her boy becomes a psycho). But as if the Lozenge had heard us through his slumber, the next day dawned and we woke to a little voice singing in the room next door: 'De thun hath got hith hat on. Hip hip hip hoooway.' And I found him dancing about in his pyjamas in a little shard of sunlight entering his bedroom through the iron shutter. The night before we'd had some people round for dinner (it's still a bit dial-a-friend, but I suppose this is how you start) and the 5 hours' sleep and faint sore head dispersed as I saw the Lozenge's cheeky smile again, rather than the 10 day bottom lip which would be comfortable enough to sit on.
We sat around the kitchen table with flaking croissants from the rip-off parlour, still in our pyjamas on a Friday morning, and I realised that slowly we are getting used to things, together - the sounds and smells and everything else - and feeling in just a small way, that we belong. From the little tune that the gas van plays on the street outside, that for weeks we thought might mean ice cream; the resonant call to prayer at 5am; the bird calls from the tree outside that once were foreign and are now as familiar as the Arabic consonants and vowels; the smell of the cupboard when we open the door to find the ever growing stack of spices on the shelf; and the delicious taste of labneh and mint with some drips of olive oil. And at the same time it seemed that the little boy who belly laughs while fighting with his brother over a pair of inflatable bath boobs had come back to us. I had to include this video from before we left the UK, as it makes me laugh. Grandma gave these to Duncan to rest his head on in the bath at least 15 years ago and they're still on the go...
With your oldest child it seems you're a bit blind and always behind. Every so often I realise the Lozenge's needs have changed since I last looked, and I need to ramp up my act. And although he's back to himself, it still doesn't stop the odd gnarly moment. Every Sunday and Tuesday I have an Arabic class at home with a lovely Jordanian/Iranian man from the university. The Lozenge doesn't like the fact I'm there, but not there, and his latest decoy technique is to come skipping into our lesson with a bare bottom yelling: 'Mummy I need a poo poo!" So I have to down my books and sprint to the loo with him. Invariably it's a "falth alarm" but you can never be sure and I'd rather not scare the teacher off for good. He doesn't have children and after a few bi-weekly visits to our flat, it doesn't look like he will any time soon.
We all went to one of J's language teachers house to have the Jordanian national dish, mansaf, last weekend. It's a Bedouin spiced rice and lamb creation which you all eat from one plate with your hands. Rashimi was right in there with his chubby hands, and spent the afternoon cruising around with the younger girls in his usual fashion, tidying up all the tea cups on the low tables. Everywhere he goes, people call him 'Habibi' which means dear or darling, so it's now his favourite word. 'Habeeebeeee.'
We went to the beautiful Darat al Funun gallery one evening this week which is in old Amman where we originally tried to find a house. The gallery is built on and around the ruins of a Byzantine church. The event was an opening exhibition of a Syrian photographer with Armenian roots who has photographed the descendants of Armenians who converted to Islam during the Ottoman genocide of Armenian Christians in 1915. Other photographs he exhibited were of city squares where people are executed just before dawn, looking chillingly normal in the blue morning light. But one of his most moving photographs was a simple interior shot of his father's photography studio in Damascus, forced to close in 2010. I stood staring at it for minutes, wondering what has become of it now, and what this photographer, now based in Jordan and London, must be carrying about in his heart.
This afternoon I'm going to the magazine to hand my two articles and all the photos over, and I'm a bit nervous they might say the style isn't want they wanted at all, or the photos aren't what they imagined - a bit like handing in your essay at school or university - I'm not sure this feeling is something you ever grow out of.
We sat around the kitchen table with flaking croissants from the rip-off parlour, still in our pyjamas on a Friday morning, and I realised that slowly we are getting used to things, together - the sounds and smells and everything else - and feeling in just a small way, that we belong. From the little tune that the gas van plays on the street outside, that for weeks we thought might mean ice cream; the resonant call to prayer at 5am; the bird calls from the tree outside that once were foreign and are now as familiar as the Arabic consonants and vowels; the smell of the cupboard when we open the door to find the ever growing stack of spices on the shelf; and the delicious taste of labneh and mint with some drips of olive oil. And at the same time it seemed that the little boy who belly laughs while fighting with his brother over a pair of inflatable bath boobs had come back to us. I had to include this video from before we left the UK, as it makes me laugh. Grandma gave these to Duncan to rest his head on in the bath at least 15 years ago and they're still on the go...
With your oldest child it seems you're a bit blind and always behind. Every so often I realise the Lozenge's needs have changed since I last looked, and I need to ramp up my act. And although he's back to himself, it still doesn't stop the odd gnarly moment. Every Sunday and Tuesday I have an Arabic class at home with a lovely Jordanian/Iranian man from the university. The Lozenge doesn't like the fact I'm there, but not there, and his latest decoy technique is to come skipping into our lesson with a bare bottom yelling: 'Mummy I need a poo poo!" So I have to down my books and sprint to the loo with him. Invariably it's a "falth alarm" but you can never be sure and I'd rather not scare the teacher off for good. He doesn't have children and after a few bi-weekly visits to our flat, it doesn't look like he will any time soon.
We all went to one of J's language teachers house to have the Jordanian national dish, mansaf, last weekend. It's a Bedouin spiced rice and lamb creation which you all eat from one plate with your hands. Rashimi was right in there with his chubby hands, and spent the afternoon cruising around with the younger girls in his usual fashion, tidying up all the tea cups on the low tables. Everywhere he goes, people call him 'Habibi' which means dear or darling, so it's now his favourite word. 'Habeeebeeee.'
We went to the beautiful Darat al Funun gallery one evening this week which is in old Amman where we originally tried to find a house. The gallery is built on and around the ruins of a Byzantine church. The event was an opening exhibition of a Syrian photographer with Armenian roots who has photographed the descendants of Armenians who converted to Islam during the Ottoman genocide of Armenian Christians in 1915. Other photographs he exhibited were of city squares where people are executed just before dawn, looking chillingly normal in the blue morning light. But one of his most moving photographs was a simple interior shot of his father's photography studio in Damascus, forced to close in 2010. I stood staring at it for minutes, wondering what has become of it now, and what this photographer, now based in Jordan and London, must be carrying about in his heart.
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| Darat al Funun |
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