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.
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