Demolition day

Can ugly truths be beautiful? I wondered this as I watched a bulky Palestinian from Jenin, dressed in a white vest, combat pants and sandals, smack a small scale model building with a mallet all day long, until all that was left was a pile of grey rubble.

Three of us: the muscles from Jenin, a friend and I, spent the whole day in the studio room, working together to help create the piece which will one day be a work of art. The job I had in the process involved repetitive actions with a camera, and although I had to concentrate on technical accuracies, there were many seconds within half minute intervals where my mind could wander free. Perhaps the nearest thing to working on a production line in life experience to date.

I'm always surprised at the beauty to be found in the ugliness surrounding us. The beautiful faces of the gypsy girls I photographed, as they pitched their tent on a rubbish dump outside Amman, their colourful clothing matching other fragments in the trash. The soft contrast of a line of washing wafting against a background of mud buildings or white tents in a refugee camp. The washing line a small symbol of human survival and perseverance. The ugly skeleton of an unfinished office block reaching into the sky and framing the cityscape behind.

The day in the studio was no different. We were shut inside a dusty studio for most of the day watching an act of physical destruction take place. A model of a building decintegrated before our eyes, storey by storey. Even our conversations reflected the inescapable anguish in this patch of contested history and land. The muscles from Jenin had lost two of his brothers in the first Palestinian intifada, and 18 of his first cousins later on. One of the cousins was arrested and had all his fingernails pulled out in an Israeli prison, before he took his own life in a suicide strike. As I filmed him slowly destroy the building - I wondered what was running through his mind, and also the mind of the artist - his family also trapped within one of the world's most brutal conflicts.

But what surprised me most was the beauty in the day spent in this way. And the strange beauty to be found in the process of the frame by frame demolition of a grey-hued building against a white backdrop, and the even more surprising appeal of the pile of rubble at the end of it all.

I am yet to listen to Grayson Perry's Reith Lectures about what makes art good, but in a snippet of his I read in the FT, he says: Our idea of beauty is constructed, by family, friends, education, nationality, race, religion, politics, all these things.' It's not something that can ever be scientifically proven. Beauty is subjective.

But I wondered in that dusty studio, if beauty isn't almost always found in a place where someone is being completely honest and true to themselves - particularly when combined with skill and thought and a careful process behind it.

Certain truths ring truer to us as individuals at different stages of life, making our tastes and interpretations of beauty, change as we grow. It helps if you believe in it, of course.

And for me, this dusty day of demolition was another little glimpse of beauty in a surprising place. 

Mudarraj Romani

A trip with Abu Lucy to Amman's Roman theatre

Reem - the newest recruit to our rink

We got so used to the incongruity of little pieces of Grandpop and Grandma's lives about the place - their book or notebook perched on the arm of a chair; a pair of specs on a table - and we miss them now they've gone. Almost simultaneously, went Sayyad, for a well deserved 2 month trip to see his family in Egypt and I realised as he handed me the key to the little garden at the bottom of our house, smooth as a shell from its constant use in his calloused hands, that the garden is definitely not the garden without him. I explained my thoughts and he looked pleased. The Lozenge chirruped that he'd like to go with Sayyad to 'Eejit' and if not there then with Grandma and Grandpop to Scotland in their suitcase.

The week we had with Umm and Abu Lucy raced by too fast, but we packed in many an activity including a trip to Um Ar Rasas, south of Amman, where lies a complete mosaic floor of a church built in the 8th century. The dwarves love it, as it's in 'the desert' and there was so much excitement about going back to see the 'moseggs' that the Lozenge woke up at 5am and was to be found, with J, painting the sunrise and making sandwiches for our picnic by 6.30am.

As Umm and Abu Lucy departed, so did the power, and we spent most of the evening in darkness with two very excitable dwarves running about with wind-up torches. Rashimi saw the arrival of my Arabic teacher, and yelled: 'No class! No class!' as he knows it means I'll be occupied for 2 hours. His wish was granted as Arabic is hard enough in daylight, and Mohammad and I agreed we wouldn't continue with the lesson in the darkness. So instead, we lit candles, and lolled about the four of us, the boys watching various iparaphernalia in lieu of television, and J and I reminiscing about the week. It's the second time Umm and Abou Lucy have been to stay, and as with their first visit, I feel the benefit of an outsider's view on our lives. If we are the shell around the egg of our dwarves, then Umm and Abu Lucy are the secondary shell which surrounds us.

St Grace is also relieved to have found some 'surrounding protection' as she put it in the form of Reem, or 'Weem' as the dwarves call her, who happens to be the only Sri Lankan woman in the whole of Jordan, with a driving license. And she is now the personal chauffeur for Grace and the boys in the afternoons. We waved them off on Sunday, and I noticed Rashimi looking rather suspicious at the downgrade from the Glammy's golden Mercedes to Reem's navy blue Kia with complimentary dents. There was much laughter and chatting in Sinhalese from the front as the female Sri Lankan duo - one Christian, one Buddhist, rattled off with them to find some suitable fun.  The boys peeped out the back looking a little bovine and wondering what the fuss was about.

As they rounded the corner I thought to myself that the Lozenge and Rashimi are reminiscent of a pair of curling stones, their fledgling paths being swept and polished to olympian standards by many precious people, who seem happy to slide around on our rink with us, helping them to find their way smoothly forwards. 

Umm and Abu Lucy's second visit

The Glammy wrote little cards to the boys before she left, saying how much she loved them and how she would never forget their time together. It was a tearful day with an attempt at some cheer with a goodbye tea party with her favourite: banana cake.

But there was a brightly coloured band aid in the form of the arrival of Umm and Abu Lucy the following day, and their ability to adjust to most situations…

..and St Grace has stepped into the fray with the poise and calm she is named for. She is Grace personified. The only issue for her, and us, is she doesn't drive, and this week she had a bad experience with a taxi driver who was very rude, charged her too much and refused to come and collect her and the dwarves at the playground. We agreed we should perhaps find an alternative to the stereotypical money-grabbing male, and in her resourceful way, St Grace has found a Sri Lankan lady driver who will hopefully be their escort on wheels for their afternoon outings.

We have been galavanting with the Grandparents most of the week now, to places such as the stunning Roman site of Jerash,

where we had a rendition of Scotland the Brave from a Jordanian piper.

And despite the fact that the Lozenge was a little disappointed that Grandpop hadn't arrived on his red tractor, the week has been a tonic and an impromptu holiday in our own temporary home.

Rainbow

This is the last image the Glammy took before she left us. She showed us so much, including at the 11th hour, a rare Jordanian rainbow.

Caaaaake!

I walked into Rashimi's room yesterday morning and said: 'Happy Birthday.' And he responded: 'Caaaaaaaake!' Pavlovian dogs, I think is the phrase that fits this bill.

We had a riotous day, with a multinational contingent as always. The Lozenge's friend, 'Faisthal' came along with his mother and the Lozenge and he spent the entire party wrestling with each other. They are almost exactly the same size and weight, though Faisal is five, so neither of them got injured, unlike when the Lozenge takes on Rashimi…

Underneath, I was a little tainted with sadness. The Glammy's last day is Monday, and Sayyad the wonderful Egyptian janitor is leaving to see his family in Egypt for a couple of months so we may not see him before we leave here. They have been the loving cement for our first year in the Arab world, and as the Glammy admitted to me this morning, 'I look back on this year and it seems as unreal and wonderful as a film I watched, but one that I was actually playing a part in.'

I've finished my book on Gaza and have moved onto 'A Life of Montaigne in one question and twenty attempts at an answer,' by Sarah Bakewell. It's a fascinating insight into a life lived and documented in 16th Century France. Montaigne's parents made the extraordinary decision to send him to live in the house of his wet nurse until he was between one and two years old, so he would always be imbued with the sense of how the real people (read: peasants) lived, and would be in touch with this. Then, when he returned to his own family's household, they spoke only Latin to him, learning the language as they went along themselves, to ensure he would also have the highest educational level of speech at the same time as understanding the real world.

Though we cannot claim to have gone to this extreme with our own children, the presence of personalities like Sayyad, Abu Mohammad, the Glammy, and now St Grace, will I'm sure have an impact in a significant way, on how our dwarves see the world. Being here, and absorbing all of this, will stay in a small part of their souls forever - even if they never know it themselves. It's something I'm extremely grateful for, and will never forget.

Some sad realities

J and I often talk about the fact that living here, things are often not as they seem. And though we have known the Glammy for nearly a year, her home life will always be something that comes a surprise, even though when she's with us and the boys, you would never know what lay beneath.

The dwarves, Grace and I, turned up at her flat where she lives with her Mum and sister, for her 'Xotbe' the engagment party, which had been hastily organised after her uncle, the head of the family since her father died, decreed that she would need to marry this week.

We could hear the pumping bass beat from outside on the street as we drew up in the darkness at 6pm. We went in the door and between huge pedestals of flowers, surrounded by rows of chairs occupied by female family members, sat the Glammy, on her own, in a coral pink gown with hair and makeup that must have taken at least 4 hours. The boys didn't recognise her, and wouldn't say hello, making off in the direction of her bedroom and her wide screen TV.

I mingled a bit with the ladies, and tried to talk over the thumping music. The Glammy told me how sad she was, that it had to be like this. She told me how her uncle had made her mother,  her fiancé and herself go around for a meeting, to hear if he'd given his approval for the marriage. 'Get me my gun,' the uncle said to her. And the Glammy brought it for him, wondering in the back of her head if he was going to do something crazy. Instead it seemed, he was just wielding his power. He told them they had to marry this week. So the Glammy had to get dolled up and sign the wedding papers and have an engagement party all on the same day. She said her mother had no say in it, being a woman, and in any case has been wanting the Glammy married off since she was 17 when her father died - despite the fact that the Glammy has supported the family financially for all this time.

My heart was in my red high heeled shoes as I tiptoed around the carpeted apartment, trying to talk to the cousins and aunts and great aunts and sisters. How can the Glammy's power to run her life be taken from her like this, I thought, by some bone headed uncle who has no concern for her welfare?

What was most upsetting was the reaction of the dwarves who obviously smelled an enormous rat - and refused to be involved at all. The atmosphere was not a happy one, and we left after an hour with St Grace, after the boys had been pulling and pulling both my arms to drag me out of the door and go home.

Tears pricked in my eyes as we drove to drop St Grace at her flat. We love the Glammy and we want the best for her. But we, too, are powerless.

The thing that keeps me hopeful is that the fiancé, it seems, is gentle and kind, and despite the family pressure, has promised the Glammy she can decide in her own time what she wants. In her words, 'And if it doesn't turn out right, then I can always run away. No one can catch me.'

A sad reality of so many female lives in this world in the 21st century.

An impromptu 'xotbe'

J arrived back with us on Monday night and is here 'to stay and stay and stay and stay for a day and another day and another day and another and another…', so the Lozenge squealed as he squeezed the breath from J by the door, stark naked, accompanied by Rashimi who hung off J's right leg, in nothing but his slipper socks.

Rashimi is 2 on Saturday and arrangements are afoot. I asked the Lozenge if he wanted to invite any of his friends from school to the party and he said: 'I'd like to have Faisthal. There's 2 Faisthalth, but one  Faisthal is 'absit'. He's twavelling.' So I will ask the Faisal who is not currently absent to come along. They are not in the Lozenge's class, but it seems he's made friends with them on the little orange school bus.

We have only a few more days left of the Glammy's company. She will leave for Bahrain where she has a highly paid job which will enable her to save a bit of money. Recently she's been feeling the pressure, since she supports most of her family financially, and she lamented to St Grace and I the other day: 'I wish I was from Sri Lanka or somewhere I could actually afford to buy or build a house. I don't know how I will survive here in Jordan, either with or without a man.'

She's also feeling the family pressure about getting married, and a man she's known for a while has just asked her mother if he could have the Glammy's hand. Because the Glammy's father died 15 years ago, her uncle is the head of the family and in charge of these decisions. They trooped around to his house to ask him and he said: 'I want 5,000 dinars (about £5,000) in jewellery, and 5,000 dinars worth of furniture, and another 5,000 as a kind of 'deposit' should the Glammy be stranded by this man. Then he announced they needed to be engaged by the end of the week. So they had to rush around doing paper work and having blood tests in the hospital. This is a legal requirement here in Jordan, so that people too closely related will not marry and have children, as it can mean babies are born with deformities. 'consanguinity' it's called, and is a big problem in many parts of the Arab world where it's traditional to marry a close relation.

St Grace, the dwarves and I will attend her 'xotbe' engagement party, tonight. J is not invited as it's just for women. It seems so rushed and sudden, and I can see our wonderful Glammy is having to tow the line just to keep her family quiet. We are all hoping and praying that this man will be good to her, and will understand if she decides at some point during the engagement, that he is not the one for her after all.

So St Grace is gradually stepping further into the melee of our lives, and is a complete wonder, Rashimi and I agreed as we strummed 'Amazing Grace' on the eukelele this morning before she arrived, followed by a warm up Happy Birthday for Saturday at which point Rashimi shouted, 'CAAAAAAKE!' There's a bit of baking to be done before then.

This week I interviewed a fascinating Jordanian architect, Ammar Khammash, who was in charge of the renovations of some of the buildings at the gallery. He's a man of great modesty and enormous talent, and is going against the shiny, new and shocking designs of other Arab architecture, and bringing things back to their roots through his designs.

J and I drove through cool November darkness to a party last night, hardly believing that we have only just over 2 months left here in Jordan. This little bubble of home containing all the people that have shared it with us, will soon be popped and we'll have to start inflating the next one.

They found us

They found us: family 'reunited' after super-typhoon - video
Nothing to do with the Arab world for a change - but the most heart warming tale from Channel 4 about a family found in the Philippines post-Typhoon.

Life on the outside

After a week of filming the artists and other goings on at the gallery I walked back in the door of our flat to squeals of happiness and a tangle of small male limbs gripping to my waist and shoulders. 'Off! Off!' Rashiimi said as he peeled off my cardigan and ripped the sunglasses from my face with a tanned and sticky hand. Just to be sure that I was not going out again. Then the Lozenge dragged me, Rashimi and the Glammy onto the balcony to watch his 'thcooter thuntth' which involved very slow wheeling around the dusty marble floor, and even more careful turns around furniture, in nothing but his turquoise pants from H&M.

It was quite a relief, I thought to myself, as we settled on beanbags that evening, the boys eating pretzels, and me drinking a glass of beer, to be back in the soft and innocent land of dwarfdom, far from the sophisticated thinking behind the art and installations I'd been filming all week. It's hard not to feel a little like an outsider at times when dealing with artists born in Beirut: 1983, Kuwait: 1980, Damascus: 1973, Johannesburg: 1984.

Swindon: 1975 doesn't exactly meld neatly with the rest. And let's just say, I was glad it was me with the camera asking the questions, not the other way around. As I read in a recent review about Malcolm Gladwell's book, ' David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants', there is proof that difficult experiences in life can lead people to be higher achievers with a lot more to say, if the chemistry is right. I am yet to experience true grit and here in the Arab world right now, in certain company, that can set you as the outsider. But to be an outsider is still an important experience in itself for a white, middle class, heterosexual mother of 2. And as a diplomatic 'spouse' as the strapline goes, an experience which you need to get used to since you're either feeling like an outsider in a new place, or like the outsider when you finally get back home.

Had J, the resident shrink, been here, we would have spent the evening talking about it. But instead I consoled myself with the Amstel and dwarves and had a good night's sleep despite dreaming about camera angles and  metal welding. Before I fell asleep I watched an extraordinary film called: 'The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu.' It's a film made by Eric Baudelaire on a Super 8 camera, about the daughter of the founder of the Japanese Red Army (Shigenobu) and the activist film-maker Adachi Masao. May, the daughter spent the first 27 years of her life in hiding in Lebanon, assuming a different identity every couple of months as a young child. It's beautiful, thought provoking, and all based around audio interviews combined with grainy visuals of landscapes around Beirut and Tokyo, which is a technique I'm interested in, albeit not as masterful of the art as Eric Baudelaire. But good to have examples to learn from.

After a weekend with the dwarves, the apartment looks like the aftermath of a typhoon. I noticed all my hairclips are missing as the Lozenge has been fishing with them with his little magnetic rod, and some carrots which he half peeled leaving the peel strewn at intervals over the kitchen floor.  There is a half drunk bottle of 'weewee juice' (kiwi juice in Rashimi language) on my side of my bed and the bedroom floor is littered with pillows, teddies, plastic fruit and vegetables and a frisbee.

I had a quick glance at the news and saw that the Swiss investigation team has decreed it is very possible that Yasser Arafat was indeed poisoned by polonium. Then I received a  message from Detta Reagan, the woman who organised the bike ride from Beirut to Amman that I flimed nearly 10 years ago. She met Arafat a few times, and on one of these occasions he gave her some documents about polonium and Israel's use of it against their enemies, insisting she read about it. She did read about it, but then discarded the documents, which she now deeply regrets.

On Saturday the dwarves and I watched an Arab horse show with Duke Mamdouh, or 'Mamnouh' as Rashimi calls him, which amusingly means, 'forbidden' in Arabic. The boys enjoyed it and the event inspired the Lozenge to create his own jump course with the beige sausage cushions in our sitting room when we got home, and he wouldn't go to bed until he had performed it several times when the Duke came around for dinner last night. As I was cooking dinner, luckily before anyone arrived, I came into our bedroom after hearing squeals of what could have been positive or negative hysteria, and watched the dwarves, with my floury pinny on, yet again merely a bystander, as the Lozenge and Rashimi had a 15 minute naked wrestle on our bed.

I made and had dinner with the Duke and two lovely ladies visiting from UK, and went to bed at 12.30am to be awoken by the Lozenge wanting to continue his pyjama clad show jumping at 5.30am. After the dwarves had inhaled a strawberry yoghurt each for breakfast, spreading most of it on the already fur-lined plastic table cloth, they disappeared to the playroom. I found myself in a room on my own for the first time in about 7 days, listening to someone talking on radio 4 about palaeontology. I felt quite like a close relation to the subjects of the programme.

I have a night filming tonight, then more tomorrow, but J returns on Monday and then Umm and Abou Lucy arrive for a week's holiday next Sunday, when I will be very much the insider and intend to make the absolute most of it.

Anniversaries

Today is our 7th wedding anniversary and the morning started at 6.30am with the Lozenge performing some contemporary dance, stark naked, with his new grade 1 hairdo, to the song about the animal fair. 'We went to the animal fair, the birds and beasts were there. The great baboon by the light of the moon, sat combing his auburn hair...' I joined him, fully clothed, having not had my hair cut since July. And as I watched him prancing about I wondered how we'd got here in only 7 years. I definitely don't feel qualified at times.

I spent the day at the gallery interviewing and filming some inspiring Arab artists in their 30s who are taking part in the residency programme which is part of the 25th anniversary celebrations of the gallery this weekend. Each of the artists is educated and passionate about the history and the politics of this region - and having been raised here, they have a deep understanding of the customs, language and subtleties of the here, right now in all its complexity. They have all trained as architects, sculptors, painters or photographers, and are combining their skills to raise important questions about what's going on. And you can imagine, right now in history, how many questions there are to ask.

I filmed one Lebanese artist painting three huge shards of polystyrene with mud from the Dead Sea, representing its division between Jordan, Israel and Palestine in 1947; I filmed a Palestinian raised in Jerusalem weld huge metal frames into the shape of a caravan which he will balance on four oil barrels; and another Palestinian/Jordanian, raised in Kuwait, stencil borders onto a wall, with Arabic and English text raising the question of 'dwelling' and 'stillness' which come from the same root word in Arabic. I am truly grateful for this immersion in the intellectual and creative side of Arab culture right now. But again, I don't feel that qualified to be part of it. But being a bystander with camera and sound equipment is an honour in itself.

The question of living, and loving

There's a special Arabic phrase for when someone's had a new haircut. 'Nai'man' you say. And after a trip to the hairdresser with the Glammy, the Lozenge and Rashimi look like G.I. dwarves. I nearly cried when I came in from a day's filming at the gallery, to see the Lozenge racing up to me in pyjamas with a grade 1. I prefered his former, wooly self. As I had a shower this morning, he gazed into the mirror and said: 'But I want to be LauwiLion again.' I assured him he was still the same man with a crew cut.

J returned late last Thursday and we stayed up until about 1.30am with the help of some Tempranillo from the embassy shop, realising how much of the day to day detail is missed when you spend time apart. We made up for this time, and the dwarves were much calmer while he was around. When he's not there, I manage fine, but I find myself reacting to things in a way I wish I wouldn't, including becoming a playdoh-Nazi, and getting cross when the boys mix up the colours as you can't buy the real stuff here. And getting the Lozenge from bed to bus in the mornings reminds me of trying to pull a reluctant donkey forwards - where the feet stay rooted to the ground and the neck just seems to get longer and longer. Many such mole hills turn into hillocks, to the extent that the Lozenge asks me about 5 times a day: 'Are you 'appy Mummy?' He didn't ask it once in the 3 days J was with us, and thankfully J's Nablus episode will be over on Monday and as the Lozenge shrieked excitedly: 'he's going to stay and stay and stay and stay and stay.'

3 boys hanging out

We were talking to Sayyad, the beloved Egyptian janitor downstairs, and he welcomed J back with a warm hug. J thanked him for looking after me and the boys while he was away, and Sayyad replied: 'Hadihi ukhti: she is my sister.' He and St Grace and the Glammy have become like a replacement family to us over the last 10 months, and I can hardly imagine what life will be like when the Glammy leaves, and Sayyad goes back to Egypt for a much deserved visit after 1.5 years away from his family. These economic decisions which so many people around us make, to enable a decent life in their own country one day, come at such an enormous cost. But Rashimi is as happy in Arabic as English as a result of these people - and we never know which language is going to come from his mouth. I thought he was talking about Santa the other day, and wondered how he knew about him, only to realise he was pointing at a bag, which is 'shanta' in Arabic. He shouts: 'Nafaq!' when we go through a tunnel, and 'Jesr!' when we go over a bridge. If only we could keep this up in the natural way it has begun. Though St Grace, for all her positive attributes, has Sinalese as a first language, and finding good schools in Jerusalem that also provide Arabic tuition from an early age, is apparently a challenge.

We had a taste of Sri Lanka over the weekend, as St Grace invited us all to her house for tea. We all clustered into her and her husband's small apartment near the centre of town, where she had laid out a table full of Sri Lankan food followed by an enormous cheesecake and Rashimi's favourite: 'Kamew' (creme caramel). The room was full of all of us, the Glammy, her sister and her Mum, and all through the afternoon various Sri Lankan friends of Grace came in with doe eyed babies on their hips to join the fun. We had a wonderful afternoon, realising that whatever the boys said or did would be loved and understood, and J and I reflected that water can be nearly as thick as blood when you have no blood near by.

Sri Lankan party time

St Grace has opened up a little since gradually taking over some of the Glammy's work before the Glammy leaves us in 2 weeks time. She told me how when she was 16, she wanted to join the army, and her mother was so worried about her doing this, she sent her to Jordan with her two sisters to get a job. Quite extreme, you might say. St Grace worked for an Arab family here and was treated so badly she lost the skin on her hands from the Clorex. Her employers wouldn't listen when her sister protested, so her sister bought her a ticket back to Sri Lanka again after 6 months. Then she met Suranji, in the church they used to go to. Everyone thought they were lovers but they were just very good friends, she said. Then one day Suranji asked her: 'Can we be lovers?' And so it began. Now they too are separated from their one son, Jonathan, who lives in Sri Lanka with his grandmother. When I see St Grace with our boys, I wonder if there's any part of her that wishes she'd had as much time with her own son. They left for Jordan when he was Rashimi's age and see him once a year at the very most.

The poor Glammy is having a trial by Arab tribe, and being emotionally pushed and pummelled by her mother and other female relations with remarks such as: 'You will never bear children now at your age (she's not yet 30); when are you going to find yourself a husband?; take the job in Bahrain not the US - we don't want you to be far away (she supports her family financially and buys everything for her Mum, including her cigarettes); and so on…Over the time we've known each other, I've always tried to remind her that there should be no pressure, and a marriage won't be a happy one if she feels she's giving up her independence or values just for the sake of having a family. And we have giggled a lot about her family's behaviour towards her. This weekend her Mum took her to see a 'Sheikh' over the weekend, for which she paid about £20 of the Glammy's own money, to try and magic away her faults and negative energy which surely must be standing in the way of her finding a husband. This city can seem to have a developed veneer, particularly as you drive down streets lined with shiny apartment blocks and villas, but zoom through any of the tinted glass windows, and you will find vestiges of family dynamics that are very far from matching the designer bathroom and the Mercedes parked out the front.

We love the Glammy so, and we wish her well, but she's going to need nerves of reinforced iron to sit out this next decade without being pressured into a life for herself that her heart did not choose.