'It's not just about the stones, it's about the people that make the history in the place, and about the people who are making the history for the future.' This is one of the lines from the founder of the gallery I'm making the documentary about. Someone was on my side, somewhere, and I managed to finish a first cut of the film to show her before we leave here tomorrow. We sat in one of the gallery's beautiful rooms as we watched the film together - she smoking Montecristo cigarillos, I feeling the heat, as for 40 whole minutes I wondered what on earth she was thinking. Editing a documentary feels like doing a jigsaw with no pattern to follow. No one will ever know about the mille feuille stack of decisions that goes into making it - and will judge it entirely differently. But the reaction was as good as it could have been, and after I've made a few nips and tucks we hope to show it here soon.
And she's right. This country is full of extraordinary stones - from Petra to the Byzantine mosaics and hand-hewn sandstone blocks that form that basis of much of the building here, but it's really not just about them, I thought, as the Lozenge, Rashimi, J and I spent our last couple of days together in this city which has only felt like home because of these rock like humans who have taken us on as their own.
Sayyad the Egyptian janitor of the building is back from his 2 month visit to his family. He will not return hime for another 2 years. J and I were eating lasagne at the kitchen table yesterday mid-packing, when he popped up to say hello. After much encouragement he agreed to have lunch with us, and we heard about his children in Egypt and how every dinar he earns in Jordan, which can't be much more than £150 per month, goes towards their education. His own country is in relative turmoil, but even as a staunch Muslim himself, he has more faith in the military than Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood. He has been like a surrogate uncle to the dwarves over this year, and we will miss him. I noticed yesterday that for the first time, he called me by my name, not 'Madam' or 'Umm Laurence'.
The Glammy popped around to have tea and to give the dwarves a bath. She isn't happy in her new job and doesn't know what she wants to do with her life, but she was the one who laid our stepping stones here and I will never forget that.
The packers have been and gone and the flat has been peeled from the inside removing all trace of colour. We are once again surrounded by eternal, chick pea beige.
Our last day seemed to dovetail in a miraculous way under a huge blue sky with time to spend with so many quality people. We escaped the beige, and went first to the gallery to see Suha, the founder, and some friends, to say goodbye, and for J to look at the exhibition Hiwar:Conversations which forms part of the documentary. The dwarves scuttled about with their little friend, the daughter of the artistic director and soaked each other in water from the fountains around the grounds. From there we went to the Duke's for lunch. Wondering what to give a man and his wife who have adopted us as extra family this year, I got them a mini iPod and charged it full of tunes that I knew he liked after I found him shimmying around to some Koffi Olomide one evening at our flat. He presented us with a Haitian painting which says everything that the 1,500 tracks on his new iPod say about living life, just like this little thing which he has hanging in the bathroom:
It was a happy and golden afternoon.
The dwarves ate lots of cake
and shimmied to his new tracks.
Rashimi had a 2 hour sleep and the Lozenge played in the sawdust in his yard of installations while J and I had lunch with the Duke, and chatted over mounds of makhlubeh to one of his friends, a professional Arabic calligrapher who wrote on the back of the Haitian painting for us.
We drove back home through the dusk via the same ice cream parlour where the dwarves had their tea on our first night in Amman, feeling so grateful for the discoveries of this year which back then we had no idea were in store.
There is nothing that compares to being accepted by wonderful people in a strange land.
And she's right. This country is full of extraordinary stones - from Petra to the Byzantine mosaics and hand-hewn sandstone blocks that form that basis of much of the building here, but it's really not just about them, I thought, as the Lozenge, Rashimi, J and I spent our last couple of days together in this city which has only felt like home because of these rock like humans who have taken us on as their own.
Sayyad the Egyptian janitor of the building is back from his 2 month visit to his family. He will not return hime for another 2 years. J and I were eating lasagne at the kitchen table yesterday mid-packing, when he popped up to say hello. After much encouragement he agreed to have lunch with us, and we heard about his children in Egypt and how every dinar he earns in Jordan, which can't be much more than £150 per month, goes towards their education. His own country is in relative turmoil, but even as a staunch Muslim himself, he has more faith in the military than Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood. He has been like a surrogate uncle to the dwarves over this year, and we will miss him. I noticed yesterday that for the first time, he called me by my name, not 'Madam' or 'Umm Laurence'.
The Glammy popped around to have tea and to give the dwarves a bath. She isn't happy in her new job and doesn't know what she wants to do with her life, but she was the one who laid our stepping stones here and I will never forget that.
The packers have been and gone and the flat has been peeled from the inside removing all trace of colour. We are once again surrounded by eternal, chick pea beige.
Our last day seemed to dovetail in a miraculous way under a huge blue sky with time to spend with so many quality people. We escaped the beige, and went first to the gallery to see Suha, the founder, and some friends, to say goodbye, and for J to look at the exhibition Hiwar:Conversations which forms part of the documentary. The dwarves scuttled about with their little friend, the daughter of the artistic director and soaked each other in water from the fountains around the grounds. From there we went to the Duke's for lunch. Wondering what to give a man and his wife who have adopted us as extra family this year, I got them a mini iPod and charged it full of tunes that I knew he liked after I found him shimmying around to some Koffi Olomide one evening at our flat. He presented us with a Haitian painting which says everything that the 1,500 tracks on his new iPod say about living life, just like this little thing which he has hanging in the bathroom:
It was a happy and golden afternoon.
The dwarves ate lots of cake
and shimmied to his new tracks.
Rashimi had a 2 hour sleep and the Lozenge played in the sawdust in his yard of installations while J and I had lunch with the Duke, and chatted over mounds of makhlubeh to one of his friends, a professional Arabic calligrapher who wrote on the back of the Haitian painting for us.
We drove back home through the dusk via the same ice cream parlour where the dwarves had their tea on our first night in Amman, feeling so grateful for the discoveries of this year which back then we had no idea were in store.
There is nothing that compares to being accepted by wonderful people in a strange land.
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