When the Questions Change

When you live overseas with children, children who are beginning to process life and ask questions, the questions begin to change.

As I was cooking this morning, Emily came in with this one:

"Mommy, my friends, Rachel and Kelsie,  (names changed) are wearing tarhas, and I want to wear one. Can I wear a tarha, Mommy?"

At 6, the question is not one of religious identity, it is a question of fitting in and being like her friends. If we were in the States, she would be wanting a Hannah Montana t-shirt. Now that I think about it, I can say "yes" to the tarha easier than I could Hannah Montana. At least she would be identifying herself with women who are keeping themselves pure instead of a teen pop idol.

And can I really resort to the lame question concerning cliffs and friends and jumping that parents have been copping out on for years? Is that really a good answer for this question?

In my mind, that sort of answer is a cop out. I'm not answering the question or addressing the issues.

Ask me about where babies come from, I've read a book about how to answer that!

Um Qais, Jordan

On February 21, we visited Um Qais, the ruins of an ancient Roman city.

The amphitheater

Byzantine Church

Um Qais is on the left, straight ahead is the Sea of Galilee and on the right hand side is Israel.

I unashamedly stole this picture idea from my husband. But it was a good idea: the girls walking on the Roman Road.

Savannah on a pillar

This is at the top of the stairs to an underground Mausoleum. I loved this... but sadly, there was a bolt on the door and we couldn't go inside.

I wish I knew more of the history of this city. The Wikipedia article was interesting if you are interested.

Balls and Donuts

I'm not normally the biggest fan of donuts. But when we got to Jordan, after seeing donuts everywhere we go, I felt like we needed to eat some. This morning Brian woke me up saying we were out of cereal and it was a morning for donuts! I think he loves me :) or something...

 The girls and I really enjoyed our breakfast! They had blueberry glazed donuts which were my favorite. I had really been wanting a chocolate donut, but Brian kept telling me that they were not very good. I didn't believe him until my first bite. Why does he always have to be right?!!? Makes me crazy sometimes! But it was dry and the chocolate was dry and waxy. The glazed donuts were so much better... just like he said they would be. At some point, maybe I'll learn to listen :)

After breakfast, we walked over to the other side of the mall where there was a large play area for the kids. They had a huge ball pit with three slides. This was the best picture of all three of the girls I could manage.

Petra: the Monastery and the Camels

The donkeys took us 800 rocky steps to the top of the mountain to the monastery.

After climbing inside and seeing the big empty stone room, Brian hiked on a little further, but the girls and I sat at the top. I had a diet coke and the girls built a sand castle.

After a terrifying donkey ride back down the mountain, we changed to camels. I like camels. They are big and seem more confident about where they place their feet.

Emily did marvelously on her own camel.

When we reached the Treasury, our guide took a picture of us all on the camels. Cute, huh? Too bad he got his finger in the picture...

Petra: the Treasury and the Donkeys

February 15, 2011

The Treasury

The weather was gorgeous. It was cool enough that we weren't too hot for all the of the walking, but warm enough that we weren't freezing. It was a long way back through the canyon to get to any of the major sites. But our little girls are troopers and there were things to look at all through the canyon.

The buildings that were carved in the rocks were just amazing.

As was the amphitheater

 I took the picture of the amphitheater from the inside of this cave. Sadly, the patterns and colors of the rock were much more stunning than in the picture. 

This is the "Roman" part of Petra and also where we decided to ride the donkeys.

The smile on my face is very deceptive.

The donkey ride terrified me. Well, it wasn't the donkey's persay. It was the 800 rock steps up the side of the mountain and then the 800 rock steps back down the side of the mountain that terrified me.

"Keep in the middle, madam." Our guide would tell me every time my weight slightly shifted, which was a lot! 

I was so scared that the donkey would slip and that I would break my baby and smash my camera as we tumbled down the mountain. But Emily and Savannah, who were on their own donkey, were laughing and talking and being much braver than their mommy.

So I just squeezed my eyes shut and hung on tight and was surprised to find at the end, that we all arrived safely at the monastery and then back down to the bottom of the mountain.

The Castle of Ajlun

On February 14, 2011 we visited the Castle of Ajlun.
It was a beautiful castle on the highest mountain in the area.

However, this is the only picture I was able to take at the Castle.

 

 Adorable? Yes.
Castley? No.

Apparently, cold weather kills my camera batteries.

After we toured and got back to my extra battery... I did get a picture from far away to show you.

See those blocks on top of that mountain? Yep. That's the castle. It was huge. And beautiful. And apparently, you can get married there for a mere 200 J.D. How crazy is that?

While we were touring, our tour guide asked if all of our children were girls. (In Arab cultures, baby girls have their ears pierced as newborns, and because Sophie doesn't, everyone assumes she is a he until I correct them. Even when she is dressed in pink, wearing a pink hat.)

When we told him that yes, all three children are girls, he told me that I was still young enough to bear my husband a son. "You are what, 25? 28? Yes. You are still young enough. Number four will be a boy, insha'allah."

Haha. Thank you so much.

Children's Museum of Amman

February 13, 2011

Today we visited the Children's Museum.

There were all sorts of fun things to do. Emily, Savannah and Brian had wheelchair races.

Then we played with this giant pin cushion type thing. The girls really loved it and Brian would pick them up and hold them against it.

Now, I do realize that the rest of the world is wearing skinny jeans. But a friend just gave me this pair of bell bottoms and I.love.them.so.much. that I don't even care. 

The girls loved playing in the store. They loved pushing around the carts and picking out food to buy. 

It was cute to watch Sophie push the cart around :)

And there was a plane that the girls enjoyed playing in. 

We had a really nice day. It was good to just play and hang out with the girls.

 This was probably one of my favorite things that we did. Because we talked about having a keystone and then the next day when we went and toured a Castle, we saw several keystone arches. Awesome!

Citadel, Amman

Today we visited the Citadel in Amman.

This is said to be Hercules Temple. The basis upon which they base this title is that there were three fingers and an elbow found near this Temple that were huge. Based on these pieces, they estimate the statue to be 15 meters tall. I don't know how accurate this is... but there you have it.

This is Savannah's "Take this picture of me, Mommy" picture inside the Museum. The museum was more interesting than I expected. There were sarcophagi, remnants of the Dead Sea Scrolls, statues... mostly headless. I don't understand why the majority of stone statues are headless. Lots of pottery. But it was interesting.

This was one of the buildings on the property. It is probably significant, but to be honest with you, I can't remember what it was. It was impressive on the inside, they have done some reconstructive work, but you can see that original carvings were beautiful. 

Out the backdoor of the big building in the previous picture, there was a maze of ruins. The girls had so much fun running through them. There were plaques every so often with short descriptions of the major buildings and the girls ran from one to the next talking about finding "clues." It was really cute.

As we were walking out, I put Sophie down to give my arms a break and Emily held her hand and walked with her. It was sweet.

After we left, we went to a kunafa shop and for about 0.75 we had a good sized portion of really good kunafa. Yummy!

Jerash

Today we visited Jerash, a large Roman city that is still has been well preserved. I don't know much about the city. (Arab "tourist sites" are devoid of informational plaques) But I did get some cute pictures of the girls.

 Emily and Savannah had a great time walking around all the ruins and jumping on the rocks. Sophie, not so much.

This is inside the amphitheater.

Part of the Roman Road

About 15 minutes after Emily took this photo, dark clouds rolled in, the temperature dropped and it began to pour down rain. We ran, but we were still soaking wet by the time we made it back to the front entrance.

If you ever have the chance to come to Jordan, Jerash should be on the top of your list to visit. It is well worth the walk and an impressive visit.

February 4, 2011

My last post left us in the airport around 3:00 yesterday. I think around 4 we got in line to check our bags and receive boarding passes. Then on to get our visa's stamped and then finally we were into the airport part. Thankfully, there were a couple of coffee shops, and Cinnabon open so we were able to get some food and some caffeine.

Poor Sophie was so tired and by this point so was Savannah. Sophie took a couple of 30 minute naps during the day, but when she was awakened against her will at 6:45am, that makes for a long day. When we finally got on the airplane at 7:45, I expected to feed her and then for her to sleep in my arms the whole flight. To my surprise, when they dimmed the lights for take-off, Savannah fell asleep on her backpack and slept the whole flight, but Sophie slept not a wink.

By 10:30 we were off the plane, changed money, gotten our visa's and found all of our baggage. When we walked out there was a crowd of people waiting for us. A short trip and we were finally done with our long journey.

We have our own apartment in a small apartment building owned by some friends and many of our friends that came with us are here too. When we got here, it was obvious that many people had been anticipating our arrival. There is a baby bed and a high chair for Sophie.

There are groceries and home baked goodies. A huge batch of brownies, blueberry muffins, oatmeal muffins, and chocolate cookies. There was a big pot of home made chicken chili smelling up the house along with chips and cheese. There milk, juice and coke in the fridge.

Emily was most excited to see Trix cereal on the counter. After checking out all the groceries, Emily came to me and said, "Mommy, I think these are going to be our best friends ever! Look at all the food they gave us!"

February 3, 2011

February 3, 2011
Day 7 - the airport

At 5:45 this morning we got a call saying that Anderson Cooper had
been beaten up in a riot and that it was recommended that we go to the
airport early in case there was any anti-American sentiment that was
about to be expressed. A driver picked us up as soon as curfew was
lifted at 7am.

The ride to the airport was fairly uneventful, save for two road
blocks where men demanded to see identification from the driver and
one stop to add a few more to our number to our exodus.

We arrived at the airport and made it past the first security
checkpoint with all bag and baggage accounted for.

It was then 9:30 am. A mere 10 hours until our flight leaves.

We staked out a vacant corner and piled our luggage around us in a
half circle. I will spare you the details, but luckily we had brought
movies, snacks, books, drawing supplies and juice boxes. Those helped
a little.

I took sophie to the bathroom to feed her and while we were there, a
little boy came in with his little sister and mother.
He walked up and said: "esme Mohammad" (my name is Mohammad)
I said, "esme Christy"

He then said something else that I couldn't understand, but then his
mother used words I know. He was wanting to know what the babies name
is.

"esmaha Sophia, " I said (her name is Sophia)
"Ana behab Sophia," he said (I love Sophia)
And then he leaned over and kissed her square on the mouth.

It is currently 2:10 in the afternoon, and as I type the Egyptian Red
Crescent  just stopped by and dropped off little bags containing
juice, crackers, and a bottle of water.

I've heard that at 3:00 we can check our baggage and proceed through
security to the gates. There are restaurants after that point, but we
have no way of knowing if they are serving food to hungry people.

February 2, 2011

February 2, 2011 – Day 6

It is the end of day 6. Six whole days of being in one house with a bunch of people. But tomorrow is coming, my friends.

Tomorrow we are hopping on an airplane to Jordan to visit some friends. We hope to come back to Egypt soon, but we want to give them some time to figure out and adjust to the new normal, before we jump back in the middle of it.

I am packed. 4 suitcases, 2 carry-on suitcases, and 2 backpacks. It is still a little crazy to me, even after 6 days of this as reality, that there are tanks and army men with big guns just around the corner.

But, tonight we have baked a bunch of cookies to take to the airport and now the kids are watching Mary Poppins and Sophie is screaming in her bed. Apparently, she is not ready to sleep. Poor kid.

We leave the house around 11am tomorrow and should arrive at the airport around noon, if all goes well. Our flight isn’t until after 7 in the evening. It is going to be a long day. A long, long day.

January 30, 2011

As we had no internet for all of last week, I was unable to post to the blog, but I did write and saved them and will post them for you. Just cause I'm awesome like that.

January 30, 2011

Day 3

The grocery store this morning was just weird. There were huge gaps of items that were missing from the shelves. They were completely out of milk and bread, but at the large store where we started, most other items were available. Brian bought the last piece of beef and 4 whole chickens.

We drove to another store, Metro Market, hoping to find milk and bread, but they were out of more things than Alfa was and their check-out line wrapped around the store. We found milk at a small kiosk and vegetables at our local souk.

The amount of groceries we carried in was staggering, but we know that because there are a bunch of people who are eating, they will disappear quickly.

After grocery shopping, we drove around for a short time just looking at our city. We drove by Carrefour and checked out the devastation left by the looters. And we drove by a couple of our friends houses to be sure they were still standing. They were.

Everywhere we drove, streets were blockaded and men were standing near their homes with various clubs and weaponry. Evidently, yesterday the Egyptian government issued  a statement to the people to use whatever they had to defend and protect their homes from the looters. We saw 12 year old boys carrying broom handles and clubs. Men with machetes, a samurai sword, b-b guns, a chain, all types of metal and wooden clubs fashioned from anything that looked like it could be used as a weapon.

The ends of streets were barricaded with everything from light poles, tree branches, trash barrels, sand bags, an old couch, chunks of rock, concrete blocks, and even a few piles of trash. Men stand guard and approve or turn away each car that drives through. It is a little awesome to see everyone owning their piece of ground and ready to defend it.

It is difficult living in a small space with a bunch of people. 6 of these people are ages 6 and under. Poor Savannah asked me last night if we could “please just go home. I really miss my home, Mommy.” And Sophie has such a hard time getting a decent nap. Understandably, she is both in a new bed and it is hard to keep 13 people quiet.

There is an upside, tonight I gave the girls bathes and 3 other ladies cleaned up the kitchen. There are always game players and movie-watching buddies. Any time you need a wii buddy, there are at least 2 who are interested in playing.

Many of my local friends have called to check on us and saying goodbye to my friends upstairs was harder than I expected.

It was weird today, after we packed up our suitcases, to look around the house at all the extra things that would be left behind and think that maybe it would be the last time to see it. I keep thinking of things I should have put in the suitcase. Particularly the vase Emily made for me. Insha’allah it will be there when I get to go back home to it.

One of our buddies just related a funny Savannah story:

He said that Savannah told him today, “My mama is really mean.” He said, “Really?” And she said, “Yes, ‘cause she won’t let me eat snacks whenever I want to.”

Yes, I am mean like that. Even during an Egyptian coup.