If we could only imagine what they've seen

Two of the greatest things about working freelance are that no day is ever the same; and you have the excuse to go and meet anyone you think might have something interesting to tell you. We've been in this country for three months now, and the small professional lobster pots I've been tentatively putting out since we arrived, are starting to come back up with offerings in them, which is exciting, and a little butterfly inducing, all at once.

One such offering was a call from an inspiring British woman I met a while back. She used to live in Syria, and now lives here in Jordan with her husband and three children. When the first refugees started to arrive here a couple of years ago, in her spare time she started collecting second hand clothes and money to help them buy essentials like nappies and food. She became steadily better known as 'the person to go to' if you wanted to help the cause in some way, and since December last year, she has provided £100,000 worth of money and goods in-kind, for these people who are arriving with only the dusty clothes on their backs, and if they're lucky, their families. She stores all the stuff she's given in her garage, has co-ordinated a vast network of Jordanian and expat men, women and children to collect, wash and sort; has established a network of local producers and suppliers downtown that allow her to buy stuff - from nappies and milk powder, to crutches, wheelchairs and clothing, at cost price. She knows everyone, and everyone knows her, and so many of the NGOs use her as a kind of gap filler for anything they haven't got. She uses the Mercycorps trucks to take the stuff to the camps and border towns from her house, and the NGOs distribute everything on her behalf - as it's a skilled job not to allow distribution to turn into a desperate bun fight.

On Saturday, she invited to me to go along with her to photograph the distribution of children's packages she'd put together, with a boy scout from Kuwait who'd made nearly 2,000 sock puppets with his team, to give to the children.

I explained to the Lozenge what I was doing, and that he was going to have a boys day with J and Rashimi, and he seemed to understand exactly why I needed to miss a day of the weekend. We went into Rashimi's room at 7.30 to wake him up as he was still curled up sleeping soundly on his side and I wanted to say goodbye. The Lozenge and I looked at him through the bars of his cot, and L said: 'Oh Mummy, look at Rashimi. Ithn't he thooo beautiful. Can I touch him?' and poked a chubby digit towards his cheek. Could it be that brotherly love is beginning? I left the nest and set off in a 4 x 4 with the woman, the scout and his friend, and hundreds of bags of toys for children. It was a good chance to interview her about how she does it all, and I hope a British magazine or paper might be interested in her story. It would certainly help dispel the myth of the sloth-like, gin-quaffing expat wives…

As we drew closer to the Syrian border, she said: 'I always worry I've over shot the turning to Mafraq, as from here you need to be in an armoured vehicle because of the missiles.' But the empty road and desert town to the north west still seemed far from the terror we are reading about every day. And when we met with some of the families in the host communities, coordinated by the head of the Christian community, Father Nour, literally 'Father Light' (whose flock is currently 98% Islamic), that's what struck me most. You can meet these people,  and see where they are scraping a life, and shake their hands and sit on their floor and talk all day, but you still feel so far from the terror we read about, because it's all hidden behind the facade of a human face. How do you ever get to understand what that terror is like?

This morning, radio 4 broadcast a very good programme made by Edward Sturton all about the aid agencies struggling to meet demands in this crisis, here in Jordan, with camps getting ever more crowded and violent. One of the children said to him: 'If you could only imagine what I've seen.'

How can we, until we've seen it ourselves? Yet our imaginations are key to keeping the help coming.

Ummayads, dinner with the Duke and a monster

Al Jabal al-Qal'a

As you approach the Citadel, or 'Al Jabal al Qal'a' overlooking Amman there are three or four standing stones, inscribed with all the different dynasties and people who've inhabited this region since the Paleolithic age (18,000 years ago). The problem with graduating in modern languages, is that I have been left with huge holes in historical understanding. In my life so far, I think I've been more of a presentorian rather than a historian, which means I'm playing catch up now. And with the help of these useful stones, framing the Roman ruins at the top of the hill, I now feel more confident about how the early Islamic 'ad and 'id (Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Ayyubid…) dynasties fit in with the rest of world history, through helpful dates, and how they all lead up to the Ottoman period which lasted an astonishing length of time from 1516 to 1917 AD when their sickly and latterly brutal reign was squashed by the Arabs and allies during WW1.

There were school children all over the place, and we marvelled at the opportunity to be able to wander, on a school break, over the ruins, into the temples and through the museum to look at wild horse teeth and ancient skulls with evidence of frightening looking early skull-drilling surgery.

A McSheikh

From the Citadel, we could see across to the Duke's house, nestled above the amphitheatre where we were going that night for dinner. The dinner was a fascinating time warp of old-school Jordanians all full of fascinating and entertaining tales of their lives here. Through the smoke of Marlboro reds, and a tunes from a lone Iraqi violinist, as glasses were filled and refilled by Adam from Sudan, we listened to how the country has changed since their youth - their sadness at how the children of wealthier Arabs don't want to learn Arabic anymore; how the identity of the country is at risk; the education system no longer any good; the young no longer interested in their history or culture - searching out the veneer of glamour in malls, and searching for posh cars and gadgets rather than knowledge. It was nothing we hadn't noticed, or heard about, before, but because they were all such a cultured and intelligent bunch, perched on a hill in a 1920's house being squeezed and squeezed by the burgeoning city, it was yet another glimpse of reality, at least as they saw it.

I wonder if, when J and I are old, we will be less trusting and less hopeful, as they seem to be, despite still carrying on with their working efforts. Is it a prerequisite for being old? Or can you still be a realistic optimist in your 70's?

During dinner I sat next to an architect, whose parents are Palestinian. He studied at Cambridge, and when I told him about my project, he took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and said: 'I find it so incredible that we are sitting here having this conversation when 30 years ago, to talk about how we should go back and better understand the Palestine crisis would have been unheard of.' He told me about his very good friend from university who was Jewish. They had never talked about 'it' at all during their friendship - carefully steering away from the subject to avoid falling out. Yet his friend had met up with him a year ago in a London pub, put his head in his hands, and said: 'Only now am I realising what my people have done to yours. And I feel ashamed.' Their friendship has reached another level.

The evening was late and they were generous with the Harrods claret. We jiggled back home in the minibus getting to bed late. After an hour, at about 2am there was a shivering little person by our bed. The Lozenge had a problem. Monsters. 'There'th a monthter in my bed, Mummy, and he won't go away.' So he and I had rather an uncomfortable, wriggling 2 hours in his bed while I convinced him they really, truly didn't exist, then salvaged another hour or so of sleep until our alarm went at 6.30. When one phase ends another begins, it seems.

Bunny ears and a sixth century mosaic

Most evenings, as the final call to prayer of the day resounds over the seven hills of Amman, the Lozenge and I say prayers too before he goes to sleep. There's a limit to what you can explain to a three year old, in a region which is ripping itself from the seams over differences of religion, which is perhaps only a veiled excuse for basic human greed and fear. And there has never been a point in my life where I've thought more about what faith is, or what it means to us in our lives. I've never doubted religion, yet needed some sort of faith, as much.

So I guess all it is, is trying to help the Lozenge get into the habit of reflecting on his day: things to say thank you for; things to say sorry for; accepting that things sometimes don't go exactly how you'd like; and people to think about and pray for. This week has been a good week, and most nights he's said: 'Ooh, Mummy, I don't think there'th anything to thay thorry for today!' But we still haven't managed to get to a church, talk about what Easter means beyond chocolate, or read any of the Bible stories, despite living smack in the heart of where it all began. It's orthodox Easter here this week, and he came back from school with some bunny ears he'd made, but I couldn't remember the significance of the bunny anyway. So at some point we'll need some help, from a school or someone else. Anyone?

But for adults, Madaba a town 30km south west of Amman, is a good start. Spread out on the floor of an orthodox church, is a sixth century mosaic map of the holy land - not entirely complete, but deciphrable nonetheless (particularly when you go with someone who can read ancient Greek…thank you Grandfather of Lozenge and Rashimi - please can you also teach them one day). It was uncovered in 1884 during clearance work for a new church, and is mysterious and beautiful with all the place names we'd recognise, Jerusalem, Philadelphia (Amman), Nablus and Hebron, all written in Greek, in their appropriate places. And as you wander around peeping into old Ottoman houses, it feels like a friendly town. It's 95 per cent Christian, but with a growing Muslim population due to continuous urbanisation. Yet you don't feel that either is jostling each other, at least from the surface. And long may it stay that way.

We managed to get the handbrake jammed as we cruised, in the minibus, through the one way system in the centre of the town. As the line of cars grew longer and longer behind us, and the tooting got louder, a gang of men gathered jesticulating through the window. Before we knew it, men were taking it in turns to hop into the driver's seat to try and unclench it. After a purposeful wallop on the handbrake, one man eventually managed and there was a resounding, 'Hooray!!!!' and clapping from the group of onlookers.

We were invited to a party this week and the invitation read: 'Take inspiration from  Dubai, Yemen, Canada, Switzerland, England, Scotland, Russia, Holland, Georgia, Nigeria and Siberia and amazing, wonderful, beautiful, Jordan. Life is juicy.' So dressed in a long piece of cloth from Niger with a huge head-dress to match (me), a Jordanian keffieh (J) and a long Afghan Karzai-style coat (J's Mum) we set off in the minibus. It was the moment when I longed to be stopped by the police, but to no avail…
The party was brilliant though. Almost all Jordanians gathered in a big white room with white sofas, overlooking the  twinkling lights of the old city of Amman. The editor of the magazine I've been writing for was there, though understandably it took her a little while to recognise me. Her daughter, in her mid 20's was also there, and I talked to for a long while as I'd seen some of her work in the National Gallery here. She's an impressive girl who has just walked up to Everest base camp with friends to raise money for cancer research. Educated in Canada, she's an artist, photographer and yoga teacher. But the thing that most impressed me about her, was her desire to come back and settle in Jordan, to work here, live here, and share the educational opportunities she's gained from outside. So many other young people her age leave here never to return, causing the 'brain drain' of talented people which leaves a country deserted of juicy human talent like pulling up trees, and never planting new ones.

Coincidences and tea with a Joke

J learned in one of his Arabic classes this week, that the root of the verb, 'to sideline', is hamisha. But Rashimi is doing almost everything in his power for this not to happen. I'd forgotten about the burgeoning of a personality that happens at around 18 months. He's turned into a diminutive ball of power - and seems to understand a lot of conversation in both Arabic and English thanks to the daily chattering of the Glammy. There are no flies on Rashimi these days.

I'm a little further behind, but still enjoying my classes and am getting braver about meeting people, conversationally diving in there, massacring the language, and emerging with at least a new word and a few corrections to remember.

Last week, Rashimi and I went to play in the old part of the town, with a little girl around his age and her parents. We hung out in a tiny little garden at the back of a crumbling Ottoman style house. It was created by a couple for their child, and other local children to use. While a little venture like this would be nothing remarkable in London, here it stands out, as most families are more intent on taking their tinies to the Mall. Rashimi and his little friend tottered about amongst the pistacchio and almond trees, picking up bits of broken ceramic and digging in the tiny sandpit. I chatted with the parents and they showed me their local area, the flat bread bakery, the Syrian store which sells delicious Shanklish, Syrian salty cheese with a herb crust, and home made jams and preserved fruit. Rashimi fell fast asleep as we wove our way to the Lozenge's school to collect him after what I felt was one of my best mornings here. I even dared to admit to myself as I manoevred the Chevy into Thursday midday traffic, with an accompaniment of angry car horns and piercing police whistles, that I have begun to love this complicated country that hasn't even existed for a century.

J's parents have come to visit and since the weather has been more reminiscent of the west coast of Scotland, we've been allowing plans to fall into our time here. As ever, when you dare to leave empty space, precious things often fall into it. Such as, an invitation to tea with a Duke. We'd been given details of a man called Mamdouh Bisharat by a family friend before we left, and in the chaos of settling in, hadn't contacted him until recently. We'd also heard from others here about a wonderful sounding man called the Duke of Mukhaibeh, the first and only Duke of Jordan. What I hadn't realised, until I received an email from him saying: 'I'm waiting for your call!' that this was one and the same person.

The Lozenge got very excited about the iminent tea party and as he organised his monkey back pack, he said: 'and now I'm off to get ready for the Joke!'

So J, the Lozenge, Rashimi, J's parents and I, wound our way in the minibus (a replacment for the Chevy so we can go on masse everywhere) up the steep roads behind the Roman amphitheatre and arrived at his old-style Jordanian house, behind some green gates, overlooking the wadi of Amman. He came out to greet us, an elegant man in his late seventies with soft brown eyes, dressed in a cream rain jacket and red suede shoes. 'Ahlan Wasahlan,' (the formal greeting here, meaning welcome, but with roots from the Arabic words for 'tribe/family' and 'peace'), he said shaking us all warmly by the hand. 'Good afternoon, Your Grathe,' the Lozenge managed to squeeze out thanks to the practise beforehand.

His house is crammed with sculpture, carved stone busts, artefacts, paintings and little bits of pottery, glassware, wooden objects, and installations he's created himself. You could spend a year in there and still find new things. The boys were in heaven, and we spent a very happy couple of hours there with the Duke and his nephew. Although I spent most of my time on the floor trying to stop Rashimi from smashing something, or being squashed himself, as he cruised around hugging stone busts and picking up delicate objects. After about three bits of cake each the boys turned into dervishes, culminating in the Lozenge falling face down in a puddle outside, soaking his trousers. So he whipped them off to reveal pants the same colour as the Duke's shoes and carried on scampering around. No one batted an eyelid and we've been invited back for dinner this week - luckily when the boys will be safely in bed so I might get to hear a little more about the life of the man himself.

The legend goes that this cultural philantrhopist, archaeology enthusiast, historian and conservationalist, was made a Duke by the late King Hussein in the 70's, who liked him very much, and formalised the nickname Mamdouh had always had because of his number of farms and estates in the Golan area. Either way - he's a fascinating, humble and generous man. And he and his wife seem to spend their energies on introducing people to their country, its history and culture, in a laid back and gracious way. They have no children of their own, yet in some respects it feels like they treat everyone as such. A gentle man, and a gentle woman. Their hearts seem very near the surface.

A Rashimi's eye view of the kindly Joke

Another bizarre coincidence happened over a Palestinian project I've just begun working on. On our second week here I met a charming elderly Palestinian man in the fruit shop round the corner, got talking to him, and took his card. Then another contact back in London sent me the details this week of a man I must speak to about my project, as apparently he knows everyone and everything and could help me a lot…And it's the very same guy I was nattering to over the shelves of pomegranates in February.

Sometimes, when you arrive in a new place, the space in your life that back home is jam packed with friends, family and fun, plans and schedules, can seem so empty and un-nerving. Yet we're seeing that if you can hold that nerve, the space is there for a reason, and reserved for wonderful people like these - who seem somehow destined to come your way, if you only allow them time.

This one's for the girls

In a brilliant quote on the Channel 4 website this week, Lindsey Hilsum described a moment in a remote village in India, when a man said to her: "Your Queen is a woman. Your Prime Minister is a woman. And you, standing here talking to me in my village, are also a woman. So what exactly do the men do in your country?"

So Maggie has departed, and although some people in the UK wanted to sing: 'Ding dong the witch is dead!', when you look at the chances of leadership as a woman in this part of the world, you want to celebrate Maggie, despite her fearsome reputation.

And as I flicked through the Jordan Times this week I read, not far from an article about Thatcher's resistance of the feminist label, illustrated with a 1970's picture of her in a pinny chopping onions, that Saudi Arabia has registered its first female lawyer: "paving the way for women to practise as lawyers in the kingdom."  It's sobering to think what our daughters would be offered as a lifestyle there. Let alone the Mums. Imagine how many potential Maggies there could be under those black abbayas.

And snuggled between these two articles was Angelina Jolie with her new sidekick, William Hague. (I wonder if Ffion and Brad are hanging out behind the scenes). Agreed, her anti rape campaign cannot be too strong, when you read that over 250,000 women have been raped in DRC over the last 20 years, not to mention 11 babies raped there last year. Thanks to the campaign, G8 nations have pledged £23 million towards measures to prevent sexual violence. But you can't help wondering why it takes Angelina in her pearls to make nations take action.

J and I also came across an impressive woman ourselves this week - in the form of the head of one of the nursery schools we've been looking at for the Lozenge next year. She's an Aussie, married to a Jordanian, who has lived here 30 years, yet has not an ounce of the fatigue you sometimes find in expats, (the 'Jordan coma' as one uninspiring woman I met once described it). Describing her love of Jordan, her eyes sparkled as she relayed a conversation she'd had at a dinner party with an Aussie back in her home town. "What's it like living next to Iraq?" he asked her. "Similar to what it's like to live next to Indonesia," she replied. She's broadminded and sparky and seems to run a colourful and happy school with an onus on keeping things local, and keeping children learning both Arabic and English well enough to fit into educational institutions here, or anywhere, from 6 years old. J and I agreed that we rely on this kind of influence on our children's lives, when living away from home. She ensures the children celebrate every festival - whether it's Islamic, Christian or National. She gets both sides, so more than bridging a gap, she unifies little people from an early age so they don't see differences.

Since the 'Arab awakening' that was triggered by the Arab Spring two years ago, although the fall of several corrupt and authoritarian regimes from Tunisia to Egypt via Libya, was well overdue, in its place there is an equally serious sectarianism creeping in - such as Muslims and Christians in Egypt, and among various Muslim sects, especially in Syria. So multicultural schools must be a good way to begin in this region. In his column in the same paper, George Hishmeh wrote: 'Sectarianism and religious prejudice is a curse and the best way to overcome it is through education…encouraging children to peacefully exist.'

This past weekend, Rashimi, the Lozenge, J and I had one of our happiest weekends since we arrived, doing not much apart from hanging out in our funny little neighbourhood. We visited a place which the Glammy's family won't let her go to because they say it's rough. But to us it seemed more like a shabby fairground frequented by local families who meander around nibbling on fried chickpeas and corn. If a combination between Blackpool and Iraq existed, it would be about here. The Lozenge and I had a ride on a bumper car and we meandered with the other families, though forgoing the neon pink candy floss. The sad thing is, that it was obviously built with high ideals, but has not lived up to these and has been left to crumble meaning only the poorest families go. But visually, it's a ready made film set. Brighton Rock in Amman, or something. I must go back there with my real camera. Though the iphone didn't do a bad job...

Goodbyes, Gertrude and a flapping rib eye

It was a wrench to wave goodbye to Umm and Abu Lucy a few days ago. I had to squeeze onto the bulk of Rashimi, who was clamped to my right hip, and run inside so Sayyad didn't see me sob. But the rip of the plaster is the worst, and since they left, it seems we've been strenghened by the time spent together. It's like we have more elasticity, suddenly, to deal with the little vomits life spits at you from time to time - which you notice more when you're far from home.

The Lozenge, particularly, is much more of the sunny little boy we used to know. We received a letter from his school saying he was going on an outing to the 'traffic park' (don't ask - I have no idea what it is) and that 'sweets were allowed on that day'. He was very excited as we packed his first junk food picnic, but while we were trying to cram salt and vinegar crisps into his lunchbox without crunching them all, he said: 'Mummy, I hope I come back from my trip.' I guess, since this trip from London to Jordan is still ongoing, he was worried 'a trip' might always be a bit more permanent than he'd like. Unfortunately he didn't go on the trip at all, as the weather was bad, so instead, he went for his first cinema outing with the Glammy to see a movie (3D, no less) called Croods. Apparently he was transfixed for 98 minutes.

We had a less successful outing to a birthday party of one of the Lozenge's class mates which was like a junior-beauty-pageant meets teenage-disco, in a mall, where lots of under 4's ran around doing the dreaded parallel play, supervised by bored looking Philippina nannies. And in the other corner of the room, sat a huddle of Mums with big hair chatting in Arabic and not really saying hello. Luckily J and I went together, so we stood there trying not to giggle, feeling like we were also part of the teenage disco with no one to dance with, but luckily standing with each other. The Lozenge coped well for the first half hour, eating an average of one jelly worm a minute,  but he got very shy when it came to sitting down to a congealed sandwich on a long table of tots. The birthday girl (4 years old) also had a hair do and was up on a stage with a cake with a huge indoor firework sparkler on top. Happy birthday music pumped very loudly out of the speakers and when a balloon popped in L's ear, the jelly worm-fatigue-disappointment must have crashed into themselves and he clung to us, sobbing.  We lasted another half hour, managing to make friends with a lovely lady with a smaller hairdo at the end, and then limped home with a sticky-fingered, green-tongued Lozenge.

I swallowed my pride on Thursday, and ventured with Rashimi to our first ex-pat coffee morning. I've said no to most as they will never be up my street, and I'm normally working in the mornings, but I have to admit, I had some good chats, and if anything it reminded me of how lucky I was to already have what might be described as a life here. One or two ladies I spoke to told me how bored they were here, reminding me of another expat's moan that this country is sometimes known as the 'Royal Hashemite Kingdom of Boredom'. It's sad that someone could spend time here and miss all that there is, not that far beneath the surface.

And although the supermarket isn't the place where you might find it - I have actually come to know and love the aisles of mismatched sundries - from Betty Crocker's pancake mix to pots of Za'atar, the Palestinian thyme seasoning, from where the Za'atari refugee camp gets its name. I ventured there after the coffee morning with both the Lozenge and Rashimi. The Lozenge likes it becuase they have mini trolleys there, which I thought were specially for children, until I saw a diminutive Philippina maid pushing one happily past us. Rashimi was in the basket of my big trolley and the Lozenge on the loose with his own. As you can imagine, it was carnage, and the familiar faces behind the meat counter and elsewhere laughed at us as L screeched around the aisles like a dervish, filling our trolleys with all sorts of random things. As I was ordering some slices of ham for L's pack lunches, the man at the deli counter started to giggle and point at Rashimi who had ripped open the plastic of a 'Rib Eiey Steik Local' which the Lozenge must have snuck into the trolley, and was waving it around, yelling with excitement as the raw meat slapped against his chubby arm, and chewing on the end of it. I couldn't then put it back, so the man repackaged it and it's now in the fridge, with complimentary teeth marks.

The Jordan Times, the country's English language newspaper, is almost 30 per cent full of stories about Syria at the moment. The refugee camps on this side of the border are getting fuller and conditions are hard to maintain in one of the water-poorest countries in the world. The summer approaches, with its own share of problems. There were demonstrations this week by Islamists from Jordan, who want to cross the border into Syria, which has been closed for a while, to join the fight against Al Assad's army.  No one seems to know who the opposition forces are any more, and Al Qaeda has apparently teamed up with at least one of the groups. We had dinner this week with a Syrian artist, whose elderly parents, and brother's family, are still holding out in the centre of Damascus. He told us hideous stories about members of the Free Syrian Army and other opposition groups, who seem to use exactly the same tactics on their enemy, and on civilians, as the government forces. Killing, threatening, raping, demolishing. They're all doing it. He said to us sadly: 'The ones who always get the worst of it are those who are not fighting. The country's civilian people. I feel geographically so close to home, and yet my reality couldn't be further from theirs.' As he spoke to us, I could see everyone was finding the food sticking in their throats as we sat around the table trying to eat. Damascus is a 2 hour car journey from here, yet he can't risk going to check on his family in case he's grabbed and conscripted for Al Assad's army.

While this current horror is played out nearby, I'm reading about the beginning of the chapter we're still witnessing in a fascinating biography of Getrude Bell, by Georgina Howell. Daughter of the Desert digs into the dusty life of this brave female polymath, who it seems did as much (maybe even more?) for the Arab cause at the beginnging of the 20th Century, than even the likes of T E Lawrence whose life has been much more heartily covered. The book is brilliant and I am gripped. As J said, it's written by a journalist, not a historian. The colour and detail in the writing brings her to life. And to see her meandering journeys between the Black Sea and the Persian Gulf, with many little dotted lines around  the region where we are now living, makes it more meaningful still.

The author has used a beautiful quote by Rabindranath Tagore at the beginning of the book. I love his writing, and J and I used one of his poems in our wedding service.

'We are all the more one because we are many
For we have made ample room for love in the gap where we are sundered.
Our unlikeness reveals its breath of beauty radiant with one common life,
Like mountain peaks in the morning sun.'

This is so true of the way Gertrude Bell lived her life, but I can't help thinking we're fairly far from this benevolent view right now.

Petra

Abou and Umm Lucy, J and I set off to Petra on another windy day last week. As the dust storm grew more and more fierce I wondered whether our trip to the ancient capital of the Nabatean kingdom had also been mistimed.

We were pulled off the road at one point, and asked to sit in a police hut - Umm Lucy and I in the ladies' room, Abu Lucy and J with the men - while the storm passed. We were relieved we'd left the Lozenge and Rashimi in our flat with the Glammy for a couple of nights, with the promise of pyjama parties and the rest (the Lozenge saying before we left: 'there will be miuthic and pyjamas and we'll danth and danth and danth, Mummy!')

We left the police cabin after a while and emerged from the dust cloud luckier than others, as we passed jackknifed lorries and crumpled cars, and stopped for a plate of Jordanain mansaf in Abu Mohammed's brother's Caravanserai restaurant on the roadside and were given free boxes of biscuits and dates through the 'wasta' or connection custom that seems to be at the basis of how this region works.

One of the best/worst things about having children is that often, you have no time to mentally prepare for things. Petra is one of the 7 wonders of the modern world, and is well documented and photographed. So you might presume the first impression would be dulled as a result. But I wasn't prepared for its orange-red impact as we crept, hunched in thin summer clothes, through the stone corridor of the 'Siq' at 7am on a freezing cold, windy morning. The first glimpse of the Treasury, or 'Khazna' through the opening of rock, must be an unrivalled rocky revelation.

And as we climbed around the site all day, up carefully hewn stone steps to places of sacrifice and temples, immaculately designed by some of the first Arabic people over 1000 years ago, we forgot the cold as we were transported to another time. And how good it felt to walk and climb, non-stop for 9 hours, with a short intermission on four 'ships of the desert' as someone once described a camel, who carried us the last couple of kilometres back to the entrance.

The follwing day we went off the beaten track, and were guided by a mute local man up a narrow, red rock couloir, called Wadi Muthlim, carved out by crashing flood water and strewn with boulders, and smaller rocks which had been carried down by it. It was dry enough for us to pick our way through and ended a perfect, peaceful and contemplative break from an urban family life. For J and I to be able to do this with my parents and without our children, was a gift.

As we walked around, I considered the concept of humility. Visiting a place like this can remind you   how small and insignificant you are, and allows you to marvel at the skill employed by humans all those years back. How much more could I be capable of in my life, I thought, if these people could do this?

Then I read this extract by Paul Vallely from the Independent the day we got back:

"Humility:
True humility is not stooping in order to look smaller than you are. It is standing at your real height next to something bigger than you which brings home your smallness. For the religious, that is God. For others, it might be the perspective described by the father of modern science, Sir Isaac Newton: 'If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants. The meek are self-conscious, but the truly humble are other-conscious.'"

And giants they were.

Finding Nebo

The boys, Abu and Umm Lucy and I went on a day trip to Mount Nebo. It's the mountain from where Moses first saw the promised land, and aged 120, his mission in life fulfilled, finally died, never reaching the promised land himself. But beginning the story of a promised land for a people, which we are still uncomfortably living out today.

The Lozenge's first question on the way there was, 'Will there be bumper carth?' followed by another: 'Is it the thame as Finding Nebo?' Sadly for all of us, Moses hadn't thought of bumper cars, and there were no little orange fish to be seen. And after gangs of teenage girls had squeaked and giggled and pinched and stroked the Lozenge's cheeks and hair in amazement at his white skin and blue eyes, he had had enough, and zoomed off on his scooter in a rage and wanted to go home. Rashimi is more tolerant with the general pummeling from over-loving Jordanian girls...

 but for the Lozenge, it's purgatory.

We'd also chosen one of the haziest days of the year to go there, so the promised land was shrouded in a dusty fug and the church covered in scaffolding. Fortunately Umm and Abou Lucy are easy going tourists, so after eating a cheese sandwich on an old wall, surrounded by the same girls' school groups staring at us, we headed back to Amman.

The following day, J and I went to speak to the Lozenge's teachers about how he's getting on at school. It must be hard being the odd one out, but they said he was getting braver about making friends with people in his class, that having resisted learning Arabic initially, he was coping better and they hadn't noticed any adverse behaviour at all. At least this means he must be saving it all up for us. And I also caught him counting easily to ten in Arabic as we climbed the stairs the other day, so some of it must be sinking in despite his resistance.  I hope he'll forgive us for all of this one day.

Abu Lucy was invited for a drink with our Palestinian landlord who lives downstairs, and is a true gent. They got on well. He was down there for hours as they talked about Jordan, power (both political and electric) and he came back up saying how much he'd learned about the Zionist lobby in the US, their origins in the UK, and the reason for the fact there are 80% Palestinian people in this country.

We nipped to the bird park to discover that the Jordanian man in the Mickey Mouse outfit who sells balloons to children, and often welcomes us with the odd free one, had had his outfit stolen. He was furious. 'If I find him, I'll kill him with my bare hands,' he said.

Even Mickey has his moments, I guess.

The Dead Sea and a trip to the Arab Medical Centre

As we ventured towards the Dead Sea in a convoy of the vermillion Chevy and the Glammy's 4 x 4, the temperature crept up as we snaked down to the lowest place on earth. The Glammy had roped her charming and dashing Palestinian boyfriend into chauffering the mini sheikhs and the Glammy down there, as she's nervous of the mad driving on the roads here. The Movenpick hotel was recommended to us as one of the best places to stay, so we checked in there. The Lozenge wasn't sure about it all to start with, and as we sat waiting in the heat for our room key he piped up over a bright green drink: 'I don't want to be thitting here with all the flies drinking apple jooth.' But he rallied as he, Rashimi and the Glammy piled into one room, with us next door. It was a luxury to hear all the squeaking and shrieking and pattering about from next door and to be able to leave it all in her capable hands.

The dead sea spreads like a pool of blue oil between the banks of Jordan and the West Bank. Its level has been in decline for the last 30 years because water supplies in this region are at such a premium, the Jordan River is no longer the fast flowing and wide resource you read about in the bible. Environmentalists and the Jordanian government are in discussion about how to save the sea - one idea being a canal from the Red Sea to resupply the Dead Sea. But no one can decide how hazardous this intervention would be. So as yet, nothing is being done.

To sit and watch the twinkling lights of Jerusalem on top of the hill on the other side of the water is beautiful yet un-nerving - so close and yet as good as inaccessible for most Palestinians living here in Jordan. We spent the time messing about in the swimming pools, covering ourselves in grey mud from the sea bottom, allowing it to dry, then washing it off to reveal skin as smooth as Rashimi's inner thigh; and trying to swim on our tummies only to be flipped back over onto our backs as the salt content is so high you are an equivalent human cork on the water surface. We wondered if that was the reality behind Jesus walking on the water.

Within the grounds of the hotel there is an olive tree which is 2000 years old, and we stood by it as we watched a Jordanian wedding party dance to a band of local bagpipes. I wondered what the tree had seen and heard in all this time, and how many people were managing to have wedding parties in Syria right now.

On the second morning, we got a call from the Glammy at 6am from the next door room saying the Lozenge had fallen out of bed and was bleeding. I went round to find his pillow looking like a sheep had been butchered on it halal-style. He'd split open his chin on the hard floor when he fell. So the Glammy called the doctor and a small incident turned into a kind of comedy crime scene. If it hadn't involved Laurie and all the blood I'd have howling with laughter. The Glammy was wearing pyjamas with a yellow cat's eye on each bosom and nose and whiskers around the tummy area, so Rashimi was clambering all over her making miaowing noises. My pyjamas were a little more sensible, but still not the best attire to sit in a room with a Jordanian male doctor and two security guards who were trying to make me sign forms about the accident to cover themselves in case we took them to court. The doctor put on some squeaky latex gloves and tried to approach the Lozenge to look at the chin. The Lozenge screamed and wailed and clambered all over me, clinging to my neck and covering me in blood. I don't think the doctor had had much experience with children as he started to make little kissing noises as you might to get your cat in the box at the vet. This approach was not going to wash with the Lozenge and we'd have been there all morning, so instead, having used Rashimi's squidgy knee as the stunt limb, I managed to put a plaster on L's chin to stop the bleeding and the Doctor advised us to go to hospital in Amman and get it stitched.

The Arab Medical Centre in Amman has got to be the cleanest and most efficient hospital I've ever been to. Within 5 minutes of arriving, the poor Lozenge was being swaddled for the first time since he was 4 months old. It took me, a hairy, gruff male nurse and a less hairy Philipina assistant to hold him down as the doctor injected the gash a few times with anaesthetic and deftly sewed five immaculate stitches. The Lozenge was thrashing and howling and the gruff male nurse was shouting 'khalas!' (enough!). Meanwhile, I remembered it was Easter Day and spoke in a contintuous monologue with practically no breaths taken, that we would have an easter egg hunt when we got back to the house and I described in increasingly shrill tones, all the different types of bunnies and chocolate we would hide and find. It was horrible, but within 15 minutes the Lozenge had a neatly stitched chin, and we were able to go home and begin the choccy eating marathon…

Later, J and I took the boys for a juice at the ice cream parlour, feeling relieved that this had all happened while Umm and Abu Lucy were in town. It has been a much needed cushion sharing our lives with them, and now they've seen a bit of our reality, it's like a cork has been put in our little bottle of life, and we feel we're afloat all of a sudden, after a couple of months of what felt like sinking and bobbing to the surface at alternate intervals.

On the way back home we got talking to some men and women with their children, sitting around outside a large, barracks-like building near our street. As we had suspected they are Syrian, camping out in a disused UN building. We've been watching them for the last few weeks as they've moved mattresses in there, and hung washing lines on the balconies which flap in the wind, bowed with children's clothes. As the camps on the border are filling up, many Syrian refugees are coming into the city to camp in empty buildings with their families.