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.