Birthdays and Books

We celebrated J's birthday on the balcony this week with 2 cakes - one carrot made by me, and one chocolate made by the Glammy and the dwarves. The guests were ourselves, the Glammy, the Glammy's friend, and our Sri Lankan cleaner (aka. St Grace, Saving Grace or Amazing Grace - she is each and every one of these). The Lozenge wasn't that impressed by the turn out. 'Where are all the other people?' J had asked for one of those novels which has English on one page and a translation in Arabic on the other, but the only such book I could find in the Books Cafe was a Qura'n. So I bought him one. It's no bad thing to have one on the shelf, since for the last 6 years of our lives we've worked only in Islamic countries. And it's looking like the next 6 are heading that way too - and we've never read it. So it's perched next to the bible we were given on our wedding day by Robin Barbour, who did our address. 'Here are the lively oracles of God,' he wrote inside. Meanwhile the Glammy is wrestling with what to do about ramadan during her holiday in the US. I suggested Allah might not mind if she relocated her ramadan fast for a time when she's not supposed to be having fun with her sister in Philadelphia.

I may have an informal role as the Duke's ghost writer, and have just spent another interesting few hours at his house helping him write a couple of pages he's been asked to contribute for a book on one of the art galleries here. We sat in his study talking, and I typed as he spoke about patronage and the crucial role of culture.

He helped me find a cab when I left after a lunch around his table with his nephew, a fruit and vegetable farmer who sells to most of the larger hotels here, and a gang of young students who turned up. His house is situated in a district called Joffe, above the Roman amphitheatre, in one of the poorest parts of town, yet his doors are still wide open. He gave me another huge tray of courgette flowers, cucumbers and glistening red and green peppers, and as he helped me hail a cab he said: 'By spending time in this sad, arid region, you grow up much more quickly than you would if you stayed somewhere like Paris or Copenhagen. In just 5 months, think of who you've met and who you've talked to.'

I can almost feel the indent that each person we've met here has made on our psyches. By knowing them, we can start to understand how they battle with life in this brittle and complicated place, busily sowing their own little patch which might one day become verdant, if conditions allow. There's a reason why people talk so much about 'Inshall'ah' in these parts. So little is certain.

Fatima

https://vimeo.com/69147171

Here's the photo film I made about Fatima for UNICEF.

Um Fares

The UK and US have agreed to start officially arming forces opposing the Syrian government. In some respects, my heart sank when I heard this, as I can only imagine the repercussions of more weapons in a country where the opposition is as divided into subsets, each group self-labelling as the heroes. And my memories of watching footage of factional fighting in Afghanistan's civil war in the 1980's come back at me in vivid, chilling, clarity.

But this week I met Um Fares, part of the team of reporters at Syria Direct, an organisation that aims to put the real stories from Syria out there, via its networks of Syrian citizens-turned-journalists based in Jordan and Syria. The woman who runs it, says that western news agencies are behind the curve as they don't have much representation in the country.

Um Fares, or 'Nonna' as her family call her, ran a school for children with mental and physical disabilities in Damascus before the war started. Al Asad's wife was one of her main supporters. She is tall and strikingly beautiful, with hazel/green eyes, accentuated further by her emerald headscarf. As well as running the school of 65 pupils and her household, she also brought up her two sons and her daughter with her own principles - those of integrity and the courage to stand up for what you believe in despite the consequences. It is this strength of spirit that perhaps cost her the life of her second son, Qutaiba, who was killed 2 weeks ago, fighting against the governement army in the hills surrounding Damascus. His obituary is here. This is the calibre of man the West should certainly be supporting.

http://syriadirect.org/sas/30-reports/511-in-memoriam-qutaiba-shabaan

She is heartbroken, and terrified she'll lose her older son, who is also fighting his government back home. She struggles to contain her anger about the suffering of Syrian women at home and in surrounding countries. But since Um Fares arrived in Amman over a year ago with her daughter, she's been using this anger in a positive way by reporting for Syria Direct and other agencies. I can imagine she would be vital tool in any such outfit.

We sat in the late afternoon sun as she smoked cigarette after cigarette, and conversation swung from bringing up boys to losing sons.

I've always felt a certain responsibility bringing two men-to-be into the world. The Jesuits say: 'Give me a boy before he is seven, and I will make him a man.' Um Fares obviously made good men from her boys. But she has paid the highest price for encouraging them to stand up and fight for what they believe to be their truth.

Coffeegate

Considering we don't have our own garden, the boys aren't too bad at entertaining themselves. And the Lozenge's latest favourite activity has been his 'forest camp' on the balcony. Plus I managed to pick up some second hand Playmobil toys a Greek woman was selling from her palatial residence in the expat district. So there has been plenty to get on with when the Glammy is taking her well-earned three day break.

But lately, the weekends have been feeling a bit long, with rising temperatures and either one of the dwarves not in the mood for whichever of the small selection of things to do within the city. When they're inside, they maraud through the flat, leaving a trail blaze of carnage behind their black feet and sticky hands, and corpses of teddy bears floating face down in the turtle tank. Most days it looks like we've just been burgled. Rarely does a day go by when I don't slip on a train or embed a bit of lego in the bottom of my foot; and cooking is near impossible if I'm alone with both boys in the flat. Rashimi is normally to be found either feverishly fighting with the Lozenge, hanging off my t-shirt, gripped to my leg under a pot of something boiling, or climbing from a stool onto the unit and sauntering towards me with a whisk or the bread knife in his hand. The constant talking and squeaking and wailing all weekend reminds me what an effective form of torture noise can be, next to sleep deprivation. And sometimes I realise it's only my four full, intense days of work, that keep me on an even keel. 

Fridays are the trickiest as Sayyad has a day off which means no key to the grassy patch downstairs. So we decided to go on a trip to a village on the outskirts of Amman, called Fuhais. It's a Christian enclave, and apparently has a good restaurant. The Lozenge had been up since 5.30 so by the time we hit the road, decibel levels were already competing with the muezzin heralding the third prayer of the day. 

With tourism in Jordan, as you read the guide book, you have to try not to let your imagination use European standards - particularly in towns and cities. Because although this region is full of fascinating remains, they are normally built upon and surrounded by, an awful lot of tat, yet I never remember that when we embark on an outing. So we parked up the chevy, tumbled out of its red, furnace-like insides, and wandered down a sweltering steep slope, with a soundtrack of moaning and whining, and found a church that seemed worth a look before lunch. As we walked in, we were warmly greeted by a bunch of men drinking Arabic coffee with cardamom out of tiny plastic cups. They offered us a coffee which J and I took. The Lozenge walked right in front of one of the men, who tripped and spilt his cup of coffee on top of the Lozenge's thick thatch of hair. Fortunately, it wasn't hot enough to do any serious damage. But never has there been a greater humiliation or annoyance in his 3 and half years on the planet. Hair soaked and sticky, and shirt covered in thick, black, syrupy coffee, the Lozenge opened his mouth, turned the colour of cochineal, and howled at the volume the church might never have known, after a century of worship within its walls. The little man was incandescent with rage. The men looked a bit surprised as we staggered out of the door we'd come in through 3 minutes earlier. The din continued for at least another 20 minutes, when the howling dulled to a whimper, and J and I made the executive decision to forget lunch in the restaurant and head home. Within 5 minutes the Lozenge was sleep, infusing the car with a heavy scent of cardamom.

We regrouped in the flat, with its two feet of spare floor space from the morning's marauding, and put both exhausted dwarves in bed where they slept off the morning's trauma for 3 hours. 

When the Lozenge woke up at 3pm, he ate an enormous cheese sandwich and said: 'That wath not a good day. Now my hot hair hath gone. But I don't want to go to that plathe ever, never again.'

Lurid green grass

I spent all of last Sunday with a 10 year old Syrian girl in the town of Mafraq, near the border. She lives in a room on a roof with her two parents, who are mute. I just made a short film about her for Unicef. She's an only child, and extraordinarily resilient as she takes responsibility for all communication in her family. Yet the conditions she lives in would challenge even the most robust of humans, and there is a certain vulnerability and honesty about her, which made the process of interviewing and photographing her and her parents, a lovely one. They are extraordinary people and you can see how the three of them take care of each other.

Fatima was yawning all the way through the interview and losing her train of thought. I realised she must be hungry and there wasn't a sign of food in the tiny room. Luckily the Egyptian girl, who was translating for me, had a chocolate bar in her bag, so we gave her that, and then I took Fatima to the supermarket for a mega shop after we'd finished. Her father let her go with us, and she ran about filling the trolley. When we returned he took the bags, put them down on the ground, then raised his hands heavenwards. And this is one, small, family among the estimated three million Syrians who will be scraping a living in Jordan by the end of the year. The food prices here make J and I balk, so I can't imagine how the new arrivals cope. I've just met a great American woman, fluent in Arabic, who just set up her own website called Syria Direct, full of the real news from Syria, via Syrian reporters she trains and works with here. The coverage of the crisis always seems so incomplete when I read about it, and we're here witnessing story after story the likes of which you rarely see in the Western press. I think I'll be doing some work with her as she needs writers to put the reports from the Syrians to paper, plus video and photographs.

I edited Fatima's film this week, and the Glammy helped me translate the interview at my computer while the dwarves had their siesta. I don't think she's seen that side of Jordan before, and she was moved to tears when she heard Fatima's story. The Lozenge wanted to be with us as we worked but we told him not to speak as we deciphered Fatima's Syrian accent, so he sat opposite us at my desk, drawing and letting out the occasional loud, bored, sigh.

We're down to the last sausage from the huge pack I brought back from Macdonald's butchers in Pitlochry. I've been carving them off one by one from the frozen chunk, snapping off the sharp ends of all the knives as I do it, so it must be time to go home for a re-stock. The Lozenge is already on his way…

After an intense week of work, I realised that the 'tootoo' as Rashimi says, or turtles in our water tank on the balcony had not been fed for a week and the landlord keeps asking after them, so the boys and I trudged to the posh supermarket on Thursday, which is the only place you can get pet supplies. We went, for the first time, to a toddler group after that. Never again. Whenever either of our dwarves sniffs a group activity they run in the other direction, so as all the other Mums and cherubs were happily singing and clapping in a circle in a cool air conditioned room of toys, I was outside wrangling an exhausted Lozenge and Rashimi on melting plastic slides in the blazing sun. So we escaped back to our landlord's shady garden downstairs, which has a lawn the colour and consistency of the plastic grass in the butcher's window which has the lamb chops nestling in it. I hate to think of the amount of water required to keep it like that - but I was beyond caring by that stage. Rashimi roared with delight and hurled himself face down, and lay there with legs flapping, as the Lozenge kicked off his crocs and said: 'Ithn't it nithe to be in the thunshine in the cold wet grath.'

A morning moon

There's a dearth of fun places to go with children in this city without risking severe sunstroke in summer. This is why so many parents and children hang out in the kids zones in shopping malls. But I refuse to buy into all that on Thursdays, my precious day with wall-to-wall boy time, since I generally feel like I'm about to become epileptic when I'm inside one, and if not that, then certainly a het-up-and-horrible-human. So Alhamdull'ilah, the Lord be praised and everyone else besides, when we met a lovely couple of boys roughly our boys ages, who not only have the coolest garden, but also an Irish Mummy to match (double hoorah). It was dwarf paradise, as you can see here. The Lozenge and Rashimi were so excited by the garden, plastic and water combo, they took off all their clothes.

Tragically I had to pay up for the DHL/customs racket in order not to lose my very expensive camera that I cannot work without, and more lessons have been learned in that arena. I took J and the dwarves with me for moral support and the only thing that could make me smile is that the Arabic word for package is 'turrd' and we had all fingers crossed that Rashimi might leave something similar in their glassy, air conditioned lobby. But sadly to no avail. 

Having ranted about the way this country is run, rip off customs, manic malls, and the illegal pesticide spray they use on the cucumbers and strawberries, I think J was worried I was ready to pack up and leave. But we were saved, again, by our friendly neighbourhood Duke who nipped round to proof-read the obituary, and came in carrying the most enormous trays of organic fruit and vegetables from his farm. Our kitchen now looks a church altar at harvest festival and I'm no longer worrying about cancerous substances in the dwarves' micro-systems.

The Lozenge has taken to climbing into Rashimi's cot when he wakes up, and this morning he lay down beside him, sniffed his neck with a deep inhale, and said: 'You look nithe thith morning, Rashimi.'

Rashimi looked a bit surprised. He ignored the Lozenge's presence beyond a nervous sideways glance, pointed a sticky finger up at a whisper of a crescent moon in the morning sky, and said: 'MOOOOOON!'

Meditations on a life

J is away for a few nights and as I sit, trying to do something constructive in this quiet apartment, warmed by the presence of small, sleeping boys, I remember Grandma saying that when Grandpa was away she used to eat her food off newspaper to save on the washing up. I know what she means, but I managed to eek out the energy to pull a plate from a cupboard and give it a quick rinse before arriving here at my 'cucumber' (as the Lozenge used to call my computer).

This week my mainstay in communication has been the beloved Jordanian Duke, or 'Joke' as the Lozenge refers to him. We've seen quite a bit of him since we arrived here in Amman, and without this octogenarian piece of class, kindness and wisdom, this city would not mean half of what it does to us. We've spoken at least once a day over the last few days, because last week, he lost Ali, one of his dearest friends, who was only 55. The Duke rang me up to ask if I could give him a hand writing his obituary for the Jordan Times. It's not something I've ever done before - but I was pleased to be able to do something to help Mamdouh (the duke), for a change, since being a foreigner in a new place, it's so often the other way.

I drove up to his house last Wednesday and walked through the door - which normally seems to be wide open, through the hall lined with sculptures and ancient pieces of rock, and out onto the terrace from his drawing room, which looks across to the Citadel, with the best view of the Temple of Hercules. A light breeze wafted through the curtains with some sombre choral music coming from hidden speakers. Mamdouh appeared looking sad but well groomed as always, and we sat on the terrace talking about his friend, for an hour or so. Then his Sudanese cook appeared with some fried eggs from Mamdouh's farm, cooked with spicy tomato and onion, followed by bread, cheese, plum jam and the thyme and sesame 'za'atar' spice. His mind is still sharp as a nail, and conversation drifted from his friend, to Arab culture, the Syrian crisis, the world's lack of true statesmen, Palestinian history, and back to his friend again. I could have listened all week, and I realised - sitting opposite this elderly man, who spends most of his time creating, preserving culture, thinking of others, and always, always giving - that my most favourite new friends in this city are in their 80s.

Mamdouh talked about Ali for a couple of hours and I scribbled everything down as he spoke, to try and create something from it afterwards. We were in full obituary mode, when we heard a French voice calling, 'Bonjour, Mamdouh!' and in walked a French soldier with 'son Colonel' who was working in the French hospital at Za'atari refugee camp. Conversation quickly morphed into French (Mamdouh's is immaculate) and a second round of fried eggs appeared for the French military, who were very surprised and interested that I'd spent so much time in their ex-colonies of Chad and Niger; described their passion for 'le monde arabe' and explained excitedly that for the first time, the French army had been fighting alongside Algerians (rather than against) as they battled Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. We managed to finish the work after the French had gone, and at around 3pm I scurried home in the Chevy to try and sculpt everything Mamdouh had told me into a fitting obituary for his friend, who was by all accounts, one of Amman's greatest personalities.

Little did Mamdouh know how the meditation morphed into mayhem as I skated around the kitchen trying to whip up some tea from an empty fridge for the hungry dwarves at 5pm, having just finished a first draft of the obituary. But that is the joy of visiting someone else's temple, and the security of a 45 year age gap.

As I reminisced to J about my surprising and inspiring day, we concluded that the moral of the story was to try to keep enough slack in your life to drop everything and spend the day writing an obituary of a dear friend's friend.

Fitna

In classical arabic, the term 'fitna' has many meanings. Historically it was used to describe the process of refining metal, to separate it from the dross. But later it was commonly used to describe social upheaval, or civil war. The first civil war within Islam happened in 656AD. Aisha, Mohammed's sixth, and youngest wife, and her men battled it out with Ali, Mohammed's son in law. Ali led the first group of people who believed that the Islamic succession should run by bloodline from Mohammed. Today, this group is known as Shia, and the group who believe the leader of Islam should be elected, not hereditary, are Sunni. This all began because when Mohammed died, he had no sons, and didn't nominate a successor. His followers were left to sort it out amongst themselves.

I've reached a chilling part in my book, where Abu Musa, one of Mohammed's most faithful companions warns the Islamic society against fighting each other this first time. 

"Fitna rips the community apart like an ulcer," he said. "The winds fan it, from the north and the south, the East and the West, and it will be endless. It is blind and deaf, trampling its halter. It has come at you from a place where you were safe, and leaves the wise man as bewildered as the most inexperienced. He who sleeps through it is better off than he who is awake in it; he who is awake in it is better off than he who stands in it; he who stands in it is better off than he who rides into it. So be wise and sheathe your swords! Remove your spearheads and unstring your bows!"

It is all the more chilling reading his warning, from 656AD, as this rift was just beginning, as we watch the civil war in Syria playing out with the same fearsome velocity and intensity. And it appears to respect no deadlines nor boundaries.

But the Jordanian bandwagon seems to be hanging on, at least on a Bedouin thread, who are the mainstay of the King's support network. And all we can do is hope that the trouble doesn't cross further boundaries - although Lebanon is looking increasingly shaky, with its Hezbollah (Shia) presence who are supporting Al Asad. Western governments are also loathe to pipe aid money in through the Lebanese government because of its Hezbollah element, which means the country is even less equipped to handle the influx of refugees than Jordan.

Our boys know nothing of all this of course - galavanting by day with the Glammy in the golden Mercedes. A recent favourite activity has been going to her house. She gives them hot dog sausages, or the chicken or beef equivalent, and as Rashimi sleeps, the Lozenge is allowed to lounge on her bed and watch a bit of television. I have an image of him reclined on a heart shaped bed amid plumped pink cushions, with button nose pinned to plasma screen. (It appears my imagination wasn't far off as I heard her talk about the 32'' screen...)

Every morning I have a couple of hours with the boys before she arrives. This morning Rashimi took off his nappy and hopped into the bidet, where he started to give himself a full body wash. Hammams morphed into harmonies as we had a eukelele and drum session for about 10 minutes before the Lozenge got bored and went off to do something else. As he was assembling a puzzle, I was still strumming, and he said: 'Thtop the thinging, Mummy! You are inthturbing me.' Whoever said it was girls that were the bossy ones?

the dwarves

£££$$$

The UN has launched its biggest appeal in history to help Syria. You feel the crisis is already at fever pitch - yet whichever way you look, whether it's over the border to Damascus, north towards Lebanon, or internally here in Jordan - it seems the situation will inevitably get worse.

As the UN tries to raise £3.5 billion in this appeal - one of the front page stories in the papers last week laid out how much the war in Afghanistan has cost us in the UK. An eye watering £37 billion, with nothing significant to show for it, they said.

If only a tenth of that had been spared, it could have covered the UN's requirements in this appeal.

Yet the louder voices are discussing the possible distribution of more arms. Can more weapons in one of the most violent parts of the world, ever be a sensible solution?

Meanwhile, last week, as I was happily beginning my day, editing in my hot and airless den - but a room of my own nevertheless - the phone rang and it was someone from the UK papers asking if I could get the lowdown on Abu Qatada's return to Jordan from the UK. The lower house of the Jordanian parliament had just ratified a treaty meaning Jordan could start to bring back its criminals who are currently seeking refuge in the UK - which includes the now infamous Abu Q, and Walid Kurdi, the husband of one of the Jordanian royal family, Princess Basma, found guilty of corruption charges during his time as head of a phosphates company.

My entire day was consumed by the task - and although I now know a lot of helpful people in this city - it wasn't until 5pm that the calls started to come back in with information. And as I was trying to decipher details over the phone from thick Jordanian accents about legal and governmental moves afoot both here and back home, in capered our pet dwarves, exhausted, whining and screaming. Within minutes there were apples with bites taken out of them rolling around the floor,  bidets gushing water, and contents of all the kitchen drawers spread about the sitting room. I managed to make their tea with the phone under my chin, finally finished the calls, and spoke to the news desk who deemed there wasn't a story in it...yet, as we don't know how long this process will take. The Lozenge came and sat beside me as I collapsed onto the sofa. As he wiped his hand, covered in chocolate biscuit, on the beige fabric, he asked me: 'Mummy, are you croth?' 'Yes' I said. 'Very.' There was a silence, and then he said. 'Mummy, you're beautiful.'

The following day was worse, as I continued my furious wrangle with DHL which I fear I might be about to lose - since no one is willing or able to break the chain of corruption between customs and businesses like DHL, who ship here. I'm dependent on my camera for work, which has now been sitting in their store for 3 weeks (after I paid for a 4 day door to door delivery). I hate to think what's left of it - after it's been manhandled by customs officials, all the while calculating the spoils they can claim, based on 25% of its worth. I feel totally betrayed and I'm still over a barrel. The longer you stay in this country, the more rackets you witness. Poor St Grace, our cleaner, has been charged £1000 by the man who 'represents' her here, to get a one month visa for her 10 year old son to visit from Sri Lanka this year. We're victims in the same corrupt cycle - and it hurts.

Then J and I heard that the cucumbers and strawberries here are so covered in pesticides by farmers (to make them look prettier and sell more) they're unsafe to eat, and J said it feels like we're stuck in the middle of a furious human scramble to make money - off anything and anyone - at anyone's expense.

We had a sudden longing for freedom and open spaces. Particularly as we listened to a man talking on Radio 4 about 'wildifiation' in the UK, and panting as he scrambled up hills in Wales, explaining how he connects with himself as he gets back to his roots in nature. It felt a long way away from this place, which at times feels like it's retreating from many of its noble beginnings. And it hasn't got to the stage of development where humans go back on themselves and search for naked truths.  How we miss home at times.

J and I found ourselves eating a cheese and pickle sandwich for lunch.

Escape

After a hot week here, the boys and I and my lovely friend Hannah, who's visiting, escaped to the mountains with some others. We stayed in some woodland cabins near a town called Ajloun, north of Amman. I realised, as I watched the Lozenge and Rashimi on their knees, digging with their hands in the earth, and picking up leaves and stones, how important it is to escape our urban surrounds - and frolic in mounds of earth rather than malls. The Lozenge came running up to me waving a small rock, and shouted: 'Mummy, thith ith not just a thtone...itth a foththil!' I'm not sure it was a fossil, but he's evidently been swotting up on archaeology in some avenue of his life (probably the iPad...)

We visited a stunning Islamic castle, which overlooks the wooded land, and wandered within its cool, solid stone walls, and looked west, over to Israel when we reached the top.

When we got back to Amman, I took the day off with Hannah to wander about the city. It's important not to get so absorbed in life and work in a place, that you forget to wander and observe. And having a friend around is the perfect excuse. We left the Glammy dancing to ABC by the Jackson 5 with 2 overexcited dwarves, and walked...We visited the Citadel and had lunch in the street restaurant, Hashem. The best, and the cheapest, falafel and hummous, foul (beans) and tomato covered with sprigs of mint, followed by knafeh, the heart attack on a polystyrene plate of white cheese covered in honey and pistachio. 

As we were walking off the carbs up a steep slope to Jebel al Weibdeh, one of the older districts which overlooks the town centre, we saw an old wagon parked by the roadside, with women and children scrambling out of it into the arms of people on the street. The air was filled with the sound of wailing and kissing, and 'Al hamdallilahs'. A man standing nearby explained that they'd just arrived from Syria and were being reunited with their families. This is the kind of thing you witness as you wander around Amman. The Syrian reality is ever present. They begged us to take photographs and record the moment - just another event, in another minute, in a country bordering the chaos and hell. 

They greeted each other, and then processed slowly into a basement of a crumbling building, another makeshift home in the patchwork of human survival around this city.

Fatima

This is Fatima. She lives with her parents, who are both mute, in a small room on a roof in Mafraq town, near the border with Syria. She explains how they escaped from Homs in a bus at night with many others. They had to keep completely silent, and drive with all lights, including headlights, off. She and her parents have no bathroom and no running water on their roof. Her uncle's family live in the house below, but they get angry when they have to share their bathroom. Fatima and her mother cook on a small gas cooker which sits in the corner of the small room. Although they have enough food thanks to UN food vouchers, she pats her tiny upper arm. 'My bones feel weak,' she says.  At 10 years old, Fatima is fluent in sign language and is the spokesperson for her parents when they need to communicate. She doesn't go to school and spends most of the day on the street, playing with her cousins, and scavenging for anything useful. One of her toys is a plastic cup attached to a piece of string with a ping pong ball on the end - a home made toy, and one of her only ones. She loves drawing and has a set of crayons and one plain pad with a few blank pages left in it. The book is filled with her pictures of flowers, trees and houses. She misses her life in Syria, their house surrounded by farmland, her friends, and her school. 'I dream of my old life,' she says, as the hot wind screams in the door of their makeshift home, covering us all with a layer of dust.