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.