Returning Travellers

My friend telephoned and merrily greeted me “Al hamdallah, ala as salama” (Praise God for peace/safety) which is the standard greeting when someone returns from travelling. And I replied with the standard reply “Allah yusalamik” (God give you peace/safety). My friend then asked when I had returned to Jordan and why hadn’t I told her earlier that I was back! She had found out from her husband’s brother’s wife that I had visited her the day before for breakfast, and so was berating me for not letting her also know of my safe return.

After suitable apologies and explaining that I had been busy with guests visiting and also saying goodbye to friends who were traveling, my friend was keen to invite me to visit her. It is customary for friends to visit those who have returned from traveling or invite them to visit. In summer it is rather hot in the daytime, so she suggested that I come about 6pm so that we could sit outside in the cooler evening air.

Uninvited guest

Another custom with visiting people here is that it is acceptable (and even expected) that you will bring along a friend or family member with you, often without asking the host. So I also invited my friend Hannah to come with me.

We spent a lovely time sitting outside under the shade of a vine, chatting with my friend and her 3 daughters and being brought various refreshments. The mother caught the eye of her eldest daughter and whispered instructions of when to bring things and clear things away. We drank juice and then we were given plates of fruit, followed by coffee and chocolates. Being served coffee is usually a signal to leave, but they implored us to stay and drink tea and eat cake too. Topics of conversation ranged from the health of family members, studying language, climate change, breakdown in traditional family relationships and the challenges of social media. We also talked about neighbours and the meaning of “neighbour” with the story of the good Samaritan.

Jealousy management

I plan to invite my friend to visit, with women from her extended family, for lunch at my house soon. There does seem to be an element of jealousy if I spend more time with one or other member of the family, so hopefully extending the invitation to all will reduce this, even if it will be a lot of work cooking for everyone!

Lunch in Salt by Kira Miles

At 2pm, Isaiah and I were picked up from school by Mum & Dad, after they picked up Ethan from his school. Then, we drove to Salt (a town near Amman) , which was a long car ride because there was a lot of traffic. We arrived at about 3.15pm at the house of a family which had invited us to come for lunch.

While we were waiting for lunch to be ready, I was reading a book and the adults were talking. One of the adults asked me a question but I was too shy to answer in Arabic, so I just shrugged my shoulders.

Then we ate lunch, which was really yummy - Diwali (rice wrapped in grape leaves), stuffed courgettes and chicken. They were always keeping our plates full and trying to get us to eat more, even though we said that we had had enough.

After lunch we went into the garden and one of the girls (about 12 years old) asked me if I wanted to come with her to explore around the house, so we went walking on the road in the local village. While we were walking, she told me all about the weather in Salt (in Arabic) and then she asked me what the weather was like in England. So I told her that it was cold and rainy most of the year.

Then her twin sister joined us and we chatted about school before going to the shop together to get some ice cream and crisps. When we got back, we played piggy-in-the-middle but they call it 'birdie' because pigs are forbidden in Islam. Lots of different relatives came to say hello while we sat in the garden. One of them did a magic trick which Ethan really enjoyed (see video)

When we were leaving, the 2 twins asked me to come back soon. That day was the most Arabic I've spoken in my life because I'm usually shy to speak Arabic even though I know a lot.

Teaching at the women's military academy

It was the first day of my new course at the Jordan military training school for women. Along with 3 other teachers and one of my managers from the British Council teaching centre, we traveled from Amman to the Army base in a city called Zarqa. It has about 1 million people and is about an hour away.

 Paul's class

Blind leading the blind

We left early so that we would not arrive late on the first day, but after a while we realised that our driver was heading for the wrong location on his phone and we were on the wrong side of the city. After obtaining the correct placemark from our office, we ended up arriving 15 minutes late, but no one seemed too concerned.

When we arrived, our first task was to divide up the students into 4 classes. I had been there the previous month to do English level tests, so we knew which classes to put them into. There are 67 women in the course which will last for the next 2 months.

In our first lesson, the main aim was to get to know one another to check that everyone is in the right level by doing lots of different writing and speaking activities. I found out all about their army training programmes and about how some of them manage to fit it around being mothers of small children.

Chasing a cat with a parrot in its mouth

One of my ice-breaker questions was, 'Tell a funny story from your childhood' and the funniest story was, 'When I was a little girl, we had a pet cat and a pet parrot. One day the cat caught the parrot in its mouth and ran out of the house. We all ran after it and the neighbours were all laughing, watching us chase a cat, carrying a parrot, down the road.'

The lesson was two hours and forty five minutes, which is quite a long time for a lesson, but it passed by quickly and we had a lot of fun.

This course was paid for by the Canadian government, as part of its 'Empowering Women' aid programme. It's a really great opportunity for these women, who don't normally get a chance to receive good quality English language education in Jordan.

Lunch in the village

We set off at 11am and headed north out of Amman for about an hour and a half. We were visiting the family of one of our Jordanian friends, up near the Syrian border. We had been there once before so we did not need to use the map, because Kate (AKA - the human GPS) was telling me the way.

In the middle of nowhere, is a sign to 'CyberCity' which Kate remembered was the place to turn off the main road. Driving past it, it did not look much like a cyber city, but appearances can be deceiving. The road deteriorated significantly, and the last few kilometres were slow going as we negotiated our way around the massive potholes.

Average size family

The family live in a small village and, since our friend's mother had 16 children, almost everyone in the village seems to be a relative of some sort. This is quite a normal size for village families in Jordan and many old people have lost count of how many grandchildren they have.

Upside down lunch

For lunch we had a delicious Jordanian dish of rice, nuts, chicken and various spices, known as Maghlouba. This literally translates as 'upside down' because the food is served onto a massive central plate by turning the pan upside down. It was delicious and Isaiah, in particular, had eyes bigger than his stomach and struggled to move after eating so much.

Unusual foreigners

After lunch, they took us to their uncle's farm, which has sheep and horses. They were in the process of building a new house with stables for the horses on the ground floor and living quarters upstairs. We sat with them on cushions on the roof to chat, drink tea and eat dates. We overheard his cousin saying to the others,

'These are not like normal foreigners. They are like one of us - relaxed and not proud.'

At about 5pm, we said goodbye and headed back home. It seemed a shame to leave so soon because we had such a nice time with them and felt so welcome.

Visiting a Local Hospital

Escape from a warzone

Our Yemeni friend has just arrived in Jordan with her sister who is 36 weeks pregnant. They were so glad to manage to get out of their city, where bombs are frequently falling in random residential areas. One of the first priorities was to find a doctor and hospital for the upcoming birth. Also she had a previous c-section when her son was born and so was planning for a c-section again.

Chaotic hospital

Our friend had a doctor contact at Al Basheer Hospital, which is a large government hospital, and so we turned up as arranged at 8am. We called the doctor but he didn't answer. The maternity unit was crowded and had a confusing system with women lining up in different queues. Since we couldn't contact the doctor, I (Kate) stood in one of the queues to start saving a place in case we needed it.

Skipping the queue

Finally after 20 minutes the doctor answered our calls and came to the maternity unit. He told us that we didn't need to queue and took us through an area that was "guarded" by strict ladies who prevented the general public going into that area. After visiting various offices, our pregnant friend was taken for an ultrasound whilst we waited in a reception area.

A quick scan

Eventually she returned and said that after a quick scan she was told the baby was fine and head was down. It seems that they didn't do a very thorough scan and didn't take any measurements of the baby. After more waiting the doctor gave us a paper and told us to go to the outpatients department to get a stamp then take the paperwork to the Yemeni Embassy and they would authorise free treatment.

Wasta

The only problem was that the doctor left and we needed to go back the way we came through the area with the strict ladies! So I took the lead and told the women guarding the door that we needed to go through. Since I was a foreigner they let me (with my friends) through! Sometimes it can be beneficial to be a foreigner as people treat them with more respect.

We went to the outpatients clinic which was even more crowded than the maternity unit! After pushing our way through to the reception we asked for the correct office for the paperwork. We found our way to the office of the head of the department and again being a foreigner, I took the paperwork and walked straight in and got it stamped! My Yemeni friend said "You're our 'wasta' mediator". Wasta is an important concept here which is when you have people who have connections or the respect of others so that they are able to help you get things done.

We finally left the hospital and went to the Yemeni Embassy only to be told that they couldn't offer any free health-care. My friend was very disappointed but I talked to some of my old work colleagues from the University and they recommended paying for the c-section at a private hospital as it would be better and cheaper than the busy Al Basheer Hospital.

Everything worked out in the end

Thankfully a few days later we had a very different experience at the clinic of one of the University doctors who was very caring and helpful and has arranged to do the c-section on 3rd March at a cheap private hospital.

Contextualised Christmas Dinner

Our friends arrived at 4.30pm, which is still lunch time in Jordanian culture, so we told them that is was Christmas lunch, not dinner. This year we decided to do a full Christmas meal for our local friends, since we are trying to grow more in sharing food and hospitality with people.

There were 14 people, including our family, so we had brought the breakfast room table into the main area of the house to join with the dining table. This was the third Christmas meal we had cooked for our local friends, and the third turkey we had roasted in our oven.

In Jordan, lunch is not lunch unless there is rice. Food without rice is considered snack food, no matter how much of any other staple food is eaten. Therefore, we decided to cook some Jordanian style rice instead of roast potatoes. We cooked a Jordanian rice dish called 'Maglooba', which means 'upside down'. This is because the rice and vegetables are cooked together in a big pan and then turned upside down onto the serving plate. Turning such a big pan over is not easy, and needs 2 people to do it.

They thought the bread sauce and cranberry sauce were a bit strange but enjoyed the turkey meat and the mince pies and Chocolate log roll for dessert.

After the meal we served mint tea and espresso coffee, which always goes down well with Jordanians who normally drink small cups of very strong coffee, rather than large cups of coffee like most people in the UK.

We had a discussion about the Christmas traditions which relate to faith and the ones which are just secular. They saw the guitar in the corner of the room and asked if Paul could play something, so we sang a couple of Arabic songs that we know before they left.

1001 inventions by Isaiah

We went to the 1001 inventions exhibition in the Jordan museum. It about lots of inventions that were discovered in the Middle East in ‘The Golden Age.’, which were the Dark Ages in Europe.

This is Ibn Haytham, he worked out how the eye works and did lots of experiments with lenses and mirrors hundreds of years before any other scientists did similar things.

Abbas ibn Firnas was the world’s first pilot. He found out how birds fly and tried to become a bird himself by attaching feathers to his body and two wings that he could flap. Then he jumped off a tower and succeeded in gliding to the ground. On this simulator we had to flap our arms as fast and as long as we could to see how far we could go.

Many rock formation on the moon are named after Golden Age inventors and scientists.

Surgery was invented in the Middle East

This section was to show that many inventions and discoveries from the Golden Age are still used today, such as drinking coffee, studying at university, algebra, the toothbrush, the crank and hospitals.