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.