An unexpected day in China

About 3 weeks ago, one of my friends asked me to help him to prepare for a presentation which he was going to deliver in China. The presentation was for the global conference of the Chinese manufacturer which supplies the air-conditioning units that he distributes. Over 200 distributors from around the world were coming, and he was one of only three selected to deliver a presentation about the keys of his success. There were several important messages he wanted the Chinese company to understand through the presentation prior to his meeting with them, so we worked hard on the best way to get these points across without causing them to publicly lose face. Three days before he was scheduled to fly to China, he changed his thinking and asked me if I could come with him to China and deliver the presentation on his behalf.

"Why do you need to ask your wife?"

“Errr, maybe.” I replied, “Let me just ask my wife.”

“Why do you need to ask your wife?” he asked.

“Because we are not a one-man-show but we believe in teamwork.” I answered. He laughed because I was repeating one of the points from the presentation.

 

My hotel - The Ocean Spring Resort

This was how I found myself waking up in a Chinese hotel, about to give a presentation to a company which makes $20 billion per year along with its distributors from all over the world.

I was amazed to be given a VIP badge but then found that everyone had one!

Tiring journey

I still felt pretty tired when I woke up, since I had spent the previous night on planes followed by a three hour drive from the airport. I skipped the unusual-looking items at breakfast, not wanting to get an upset stomach before my presentation. Then the morning's session consisted of some of the senior Chinese management delivering presentations designed to make their distributors feel appreciated and inspired to improve their performance.

After lunch, we gathered for a group photo and then went back to the conference room to hear a speech from the president of the company. After she had finished, the distributors presentations began and I was second in line.

Group photo

If you want to fly with Eagles, don't spend time with Chickens.

After the distributor from Saudi Arabia finished his presentation I was announced as the PR Manager of my friend's company. I walked up to the lectern, but found that there was not enough space for my notes because of all the flowers. However, after removing the water, they just about fitted. The presentation went very well and was, in my humble opinion, much more interesting than the other presentations. Our final slide contained a proverb, 'If you want to fly with Eagles, don't spend time with Chickens.', to which I added, “that's why we chose to fly with such a great company as yours.”

Delivering my presentation, half-obscured by flowers

China's got talent

In the evening, we were treated to an 'appreciation banquet' with many different courses and a talent show from the employees of the company which consisted of various dances, music, songs and a very long poem about the company which was hilarious but was not intended to be. I sat on a table with the distribution team from Oman, and had a good time with them while we ate snails, oysters, prawns, crab and lots of strange but delicious Chinese vegetables. The Chinese people complimented me on my chopstick skills.

Appreciation banquet

Heroic wife!

That night I slept solidly until 9.30am and had a few hours to enjoy the hotel hot springs before spending another night on a plane flying home. My friend bought Kate a very expensive bottle of perfume to say thank you for allowing me to come with him. It was hard for her to manage all the kids by herself, with Jenson still only 9 months old and waking up most nights, in addition to all of them having coughs and colds, but she did a great job.

Ethan's third birthday, my first gig

Ethan opening his presents

We all got up at 6.30am so that Kira and Isaiah could see Ethan open his presents before Kira and Isaiah went to school. 

Ethan's new scooter

A few days earlier, a friend of mine, Mohammed, had been visiting and noticed my guitar standing in the corner so asked me to play a song. He loved the song and videoed me with his phone. I later learnt that he had sent the video to lots of friends who were amazed and wanted to hear more. He asked if he could organise an event where I would play for his friends in a cafe. I said 'maybe', but he went ahead and organised it anyway! He arranged the event for the same day as Ethan's birthday so, while Kira and Isaiah were out at school, I was practising my songs, since I wanted to sing in Arabic.

Ethan's party

 

Pass the parcel 

Ethan doesn't really have any local friends of his age yet, since he hasn't started school and none of our friends have kids his age. We invited a few of our friends with kids of different ages to come to a party for him and they had a lot of fun playing various games and eating the amazing birthday cake which Kate made. I had to leave just before the end to go to the cafe where I was supposed to play guitar and sing.

Playing at the cafe

Mohammed brought about 20 of his friends and I enjoyed meeting them all. He had not made any prior arrangements with the cafe owner who had already lined up an act for the evening so he only wanted me to do one song. Mohammed's friends loved the song and they're all keen to learn the guitar in the future as well as English, so I joined their group on Facebook to keep in touch with them about this possibility in the future.

A Day in the Life ... Eid Al Adha

Eid Al-Adha is the Muslim religious festival where a sheep or goat is sacrificed in memory of the story of Abraham's obedience when God asked him to sacrifice his son and God's subsequent provision of a ram to sacrifice instead of his son. This year, Eid fell on 24^th September which was the date of the first sighting of the new moon. It is a very social time which involves lots of visits to family and friends.

This sheep wouldn't look so happy if he knew what was coming

Visitors

The day before Eid, some local friends came to visit. They noticed Paul's guitar on its stand and asked if he would play something. We sang some Arabic songs which we know, and also spent time discussing the significance of the story of Abraham.

God stopping Abraham from sacrificing his son

Sick kids

Unfortunately, Kira fell sick with fever and vomiting for four days and meant that we could not visit all the people we would have liked to visit over Eid. The day after Eid, Paul visited the family who had visited us and Kate tried her best to visit some of the ladies who live in the apartments above us, although some of them were out visiting their family and friends. Just as Kira was recovering, Jenson fell sick with a fever, cough and cold.

Jordanians bake millions of date biscuits for Eid which are then given to all their Eid visitors.

Despite this, we still managed to visit another family, the day before the father of the family had to fly back to Saudi Arabia, where he works as a mechanic. Kate has made friends with his wife and this was our first opportunity to meet her husband. He explained to us that he has no choice but to work in Saudi Arabia in order to provide for his family and support his children through university. This is the situation for many people in Jordan, where work opportunities can be hard to find.

Our friends appreciated the fact that we visited them during Eid and will probably make sure they come and visit us in return during our Christmas holiday.

Day in the Life ... My First Day at Big School - by Isaiah

I started in Grade 1 at the big National Orthodox School (the same as Year 2 in UK). Now I have to wear uniform and I really like my new "minions" bag.

I had to get up early and leave home at 7:20am because we start school at 7:40am. There was lots of traffic and we waited in a traffic jam for 10 minutes to get to the school gate.

I met my teacher, Miss Zain, and did some colouring. I sat next to my friends Yasmeen and Adam. I am with the children from my class last year so I know everyone except there are 2 new girls and some of the naughty boys are in another class.

I have a cubby hole to put my books in and I am sitting on table 3. We got a tick for our table because we were good but table 1 and table 2 got crosses because they didn't listen to the teacher.

I really like my school and it is so much fun.

Day in the Life ... of Parties

Two House Number Five
Kira was invited to a school friend's birthday party and the mother gave me directions to their house, number 5. We arrived on the right street and got to the house on the cross roads that the mother had directed me to, but this was between house numbers 15 and 19 so I guessed it was house number 17. We went back down the street to house number 5. However the mother couldn't see us standing outside and said we must be at the wrong house, that there were two houses number 5 on this road!! So we went back to what should have been house 17 and walking around the corner it had a number 5 on it. So we finally arrived at the right place.

Fashionably Early
The birthday party was from 5pm - 9pm. We arrived about 10 minutes after 5pm but this was still very early compared to most Jordanians who arrived about 6pm or afterwards. Generally people turn up late to parties so the host often tells people a time earlier than they plan, so that everyone is actually there for the time that they want. Unfortunately she didn't factor in our Britishness and that we would arrive close to the time she told us!

Fun and Games
Kira and only 3 other school friends had been invited to the birthday party since the birthday girl, Dareen, had over a dozen cousins that they were obliged to invite! But Dareen seemed happiest playing with her school friends. They danced, played freeze dance, egg and spoon race, pass the parcel and find hidden objects. Another Mum offered to drop Kira home, so I left her to enjoy the cake and food whilst I returned home to join in another party ....

Hooray, they're leaving!
The family who live above us have had some relatives visiting from America, and decided to throw a big party on their last evening in Jordan, which sounds to us a bit like celebrating the fact that they were leaving!

Syrian barbecue
We were invited to join them for a barbecue in the garden. It seemed to us that it was going to be no ordinary barbecue when lots of posh tables and chairs started arriving and were set up in the garden. The appearance was like a wedding reception meal. Later, some cooks from a local Syrian restaurant arrived and started setting up a huge barbecue in our garden.

Large family
We went out to the tables and gradually the guests started arriving. They invited the whole extended family and about 40 people came. We were the only non-family members at the party, and we spent the evening on separate tables since most of the men gathered together around one table and the women occupied the other tables.

Hot food 
The barbecue consisted of delicious barbecued lamb and kebab meat along with various salads and traditional Syrian side dishes. One of the dishes had a name which means 'burnt his fingers'.

Hot topics
Paul did his best to join in discussions about the troubles going on in the region, but thought it best to keep quiet on some topics about the political and religious causes of the problems, which sparked some heated debates.

Early exit 

'Kanafa' for dessert

After coffee and dessert, we made an early exit just after 11pm, since we'd had several disturbed nights sleep during the previous week due to the kids being rather unsettled in the first week after our summer trip to England.

Isaiah's graduation

We arrived at Isaiah's kindergarten school for his graduation ceremony at about 10.30am. Isaiah went to his class to get ready while we sat in our allotted seats in the school courtyard.

Last on stage

The ceremony was supposed to start at 11am so the graduates made their grand entrance at 11.15. We've never been to any Jordanian ceremony or performance that started on time. Isaiah was the last to take his place on stage, since they were lined up in reverse alphabetical order, and the first letter of his name is at the start of the Arabic alphabet.

Long boring speeches but great songs

The honoured guests gave the obligatory long boring speeches which nobody seemed to be listening to and then the children started their graduation performance, which was a mixture of English and Arabic songs. At the end of the ceremony, the children were presented with their graduation certificates.

'He's the best!'

We are so proud of how well Isaiah has done at school. His teachers told us that he was their favourite pupil and that all the other children love him as well. His Arabic pronunciation, they said, is better than some of the Jordanian children. Next year he will will start grade 1 in the big school with Kira, who has also done really well in grade 2 and she will start grade 3 in September.

Isaiah with his KG2 teachers

Translation of the song Isaiah was singing in the above video

God God God God God God God
Protect King Abdullah

Lift your head and don't kneel to anyone except God
With King Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom

Jordanian Jordanian
Hashemite Kingdom

How high (great) is our country, and God, the highest, made it

God is happy and pleased with Jordan

Day in the Life ... Various Visits

After dropping the children at school, Paul took Ethan, Jenson and me in the car to the Royal Cultural Centre. I breastfed Jenson in the car and then Paul took the boys off for a few hours whilst I attended the prize giving ceremony for the Prince El Hassan Prize for Academic Excellence. My work at the Clinical Skills Center at the Hashemite University had won first place with a prize of 7000 Dinars for the University.

There was a lot of security around the Cultural Center but I was let in when I showed the gold embossed invitation card. There were bagpipes from the military band playing to welcome visitors and I was shown into the ceremony hall.

 Bagpipes!

An attendant asked who I was and initially I was shown to the seating area for diplomats and ambassadors! I think they thought anyone who was non-Jordanian was from an embassy. However I explained that I was working for the Hashemite University and directed to another, even better seat!

 Awards

Surprisingly, for this culture, the Prince and his wife arrived early for the ceremony and I was one of the people with whom he shook hands as he walked through the hall. As is customary for any ceremony here, it began with the national anthem and then a reading from the Quran. After various speeches, the prizes were awarded to the different university presidents. Photos were taken and that concluded the ceremony. The military band played whilst people left the hall, however it took a long time to leave since the Prince was personally greeting every visitor as they left the hall for the reception and there must have been over 300 people attending!

Paul came to collect me and Jenson was ready for another feed!

Jenson - a growing boy!

In the afternoon I visited our new neighbours upstairs with Kira and Jenson. It was fun to chat together with the older aunties, drink sweet black tea and try some homemade sticky sweet pastries. I was given some on a dish to bring home, which meant that I would have to think of something to take back when I returned the dish. We were also given presents as "house warming" gifts, a beautiful tea tray for me, necklace for Kira and keyrings for the boys. The elderly grandmother has taken a shine to Kira and given her a few little gifts (to which Isaiah says "where is my present?") Usually here it is boys who are favoured and given more gifts than girls!

Later the children helped me to prepare our new guest room and also Kira's room for friends from Cambridge who were coming to visit us. Paul had gone out the day before to buy 3 single beds (one for Kira and 2 for guests). It has been blessing to have a bigger house and have visitors to stay.

Ethan playing with our friends' son Isaac

The Miles Family moves to Mogadishu

Don't panic! We haven't moved to Somalia, but to Mogadishu Street in Amman.

Mogadishu in Iraq?

Most of the other streets near our new house are named after places in Iraq- (Mosul St, Karbala St., Babel St., Basra St.) But for some reason our road is named after the capital of Somalia. There is a nice group of shops on the corner of our street which has most things that we need.

 

 Mogadishu St from the front door

Time to move

After so many problems in our house with water leaks we had been wondering about whether or not to move to a new house. Even though the water leaks into our house had stopped, there was a lot of mould on the ceilings which came back very quickly whenever we cleaned it off. The rent for our house was due at the end of March, and we pay once every 6 months, so we knew that if we wanted to move, now was the time, even though it seems a bit of a crazy thing to do with a one month old baby.

Our new house

A house in high demand

The first house we looked at was amazing and perfect for our needs, but it was a bit too expensive for our budget. We looked at a few other houses but they were more expensive and not as good, so we decided to try and bring the price down for the first house. Lots of other people had wanted the house but the owners had turned them all down because they had been waiting for a family they liked. Apparently, they like us, because they reduced the rent down to what we wanted and, less than a week after starting to look at houses, we signed the contract.

 

Our new lounge area

Jordanian version of Pickford's

We decided to use a removal company which we heard about through one of the parents of Isaiah's classmate at school. They had promised to handle everything except for our clothes, which we should pack and transport ourselves.

Miscommunication 

After dropping the kids at school, I started packing a few of the more delicate things into our cars, before the removal guys arrived. When they arrived with their truck, they were surprised at the amount of stuff we were expecting them to pack in addition to the furniture and had not brought any boxes. It seems there had been some miscommunication between them and our initial contact. One of them went off to get boxes while the others started dismantling our big wardbrobes. Even when they brought the boxes, they were not enough, so I had to get some bin bags from the supermarket.

 

Ethan brumming his car around our new garden

Making the wardrobe fit our bedroom

When we arrived at the new house and, as we had anticipated, our big wardrobe was too tall for the ceiling in our new bedroom, so they cut off the decorative layer on the top, which meant that it would just fit with a couple of centimetres to spare. The removal guys worked very quickly and we were a bit concerned about things getting broken, but they did a good job and the only damage was a dent in the side of the cooker.

 The local shops

Our new house has just been renovated and is bigger than the old house, which is good for our new family size. There is quite a big lounge so that we can have lots of visitors, it has a nice garden for the kids to play in, and is located much closer to most of the places that we go to regularly. We feel so blessed to have found such a nice house in such a good place.

Three days in the life of the Miles Family

Leaky house

For the last few weeks we had been experiencing a variety of water problems in our house. Some of the problems had been fixed but there was still a lot of water coming through the roof of both of our bathrooms and in the hallway. Some of this water was dripping through the light fixture and had caused the light bulb to blow.

The plumbers were coming in and out of our house, the flat above us and up and down from the roof, trying to diagnose the problem. Were concerned that the house was a rather unhealthy and unsafe environment for our family and not quite ready for Kate to give birth in, but we also knew that the birth was imminent.

Good timing

The next morning we managed to have a bit of a lie in because it had been declared a national holiday on account of the snow forecast. Shortly after waking up, Kate's waters broke and so we called the midwife who made her way to our house, and we also called a friend of ours to come round and play with the kids while the birth took place.

 

Labour pains started a short while later and we put the gas heater on full blast to try and get the bedroom warm enough for giving birth. In the winter, we normally only keep the lounge warm and the bedrooms can get as low as 8 C. I was aiming for 18 C, but only managed 16 C. Fortunately, the midwife was busy warming up towels by the heater and laying them over Kate's shoulders. After two hours of labour, the baby was born. We still hadn't settled on our final name choice, and the midwife suggested 'Thelgy', which is Arabic for 'Snowy', on account of the imminent snow. In the end, we agreed on Jenson, which means 'God is gracious' and 'God protects'. We were thinking particularly about the time when Kate had a threatened miscarriage after 4 months of pregnancy but God, by his grace, protected both her and the baby.

A couple of hours later, the snow started and I gave the midwife a lift home before she would become stranded at our house. Travel in Jordan in the snow is very dangerous because there are no gritters and a lot of steep hills. Last time it snowed there were 100 accidents in the first hour of snow and a further 500 accidents over the next two days despite the 6pm curfew.

Snow baby

The following morning, we woke to find a foot of snow and I managed to take the kids out to do some tea tray sledging and make a snow man while Kate stayed home with Jenson.

In retrospect, it's amazing that Jenson came into this world the day after all the plumbers were coming in and out, and just a couple of hours before the snow would have forced me to be the midwife. The plumbing problems upstairs are still not diagnosed but at least the water has stopped coming through after they closed off one of the upstairs bathrooms.

The village which is not on the map

I left home at 7.30 am to drop the kids at school and carry on to the village of Qastal. It was my first time in the village, but the first of many as I am starting my village English teaching project. I am starting an English class, which I can use later for coaching the English teachers from different schools in the area. Today I was going to do level testing for the local children who would like to take part in the class.

What village?

The village does not exist according to the gps app on my phone, so I had to use the satellite view to find the village library, where our training will be taking place. Kate has been there before for the village playgroup, so she put a star on my phone map and I followed it like the three wise men.

Follow the star

Village time keeping

The local children had been told to arrive at 9am but only two of them were there at 9am. I was not surprised at this and felt confident that a lot more would drift along later. Over the course of the next two hours, 35 local children came to have their level assessed.

What is your name?

I had a page full of questions to ask them in order to determine their English level. The first question was 'What's your name?' which received a blank look from the majority of the children. When I repeated the question very slowly I still had a blank look from most of them. If I said it in a very strong Jordanian accent, some of them understood. Out of 35 children, I considered 8 of them good enough to start a beginner class and the others need to start with some literacy work to learn the English alphabet.

What do they learn in their English classes?

All of these children have been receiving English lessons at school but the lessons consist of learning grammar rules and memorising huge dictation paragraphs. Even those who get full marks in their English classes are hardly able to utter a word in English. One lady explained to me that her son's English teacher gives them a ball and tells them to go outside to play football.

Speaking focussed lessons

My aim is to model and then coach the English teachers in teaching speaking-focused lessons, but first, I suspect that I will need to help the teachers to improve their own English level and pronunciation.

The village of Qastal

Day in the Life of ... Isaiah's 6th Birthday

I got up and I opened some presents from my family. Then I had to go to school. I got given a party hat at school to wear. 

I invited friends from school to my birthday party in the afternoon. But Daddy picked up some of my friends with me from school earlier so they came to play.

When my party started, we drew stuff that are for space, like rockets, planets and the moon. We stuck them on a black piece of paper and stuck stars on to make a space picture.

We played games - finding the planets, obstacle course, pass the parcel, space freeze, space dancing. We had lots of fun. The girl who won pass the parcel tried to give me the prize (which is a Jordanian thing to do - give the birthday person the prizes!!) but I told her to keep it.

I got lots of presents, like spy binoculars, lego and cars. My friends tried to help me open the birthday presents (which again is a Jordanian thing!) but I didn't want them to.

We had party food and a space rocket cake that Mummy made. It was yummy.

We all had a good time.