As Many As 6 Impossible Things Before Breakfast

The last couple of days have been affected by the first thing that occurred on Saturday morning. Shadi and I more than often sleep on the roof as it is the coolest part of the house while the sun is below the noon. Saturday is the last weekend day in Jordan (as opposed to Sat/Sun in the West, it is Fri/Sat in Jordan) but since Shadi has taken off both the last 10 days of Ramadan and a week after our wedding for our mini-break in Irbid, getting up early was not a priority. We had planned to mayhaps do some shopping with his mother in town that day after Dhuhr prayer. Shadi had already gone downstairs to make wudu and attend prayer at the local masjid, and at 12:45 it was baking on the roof, so I decided to join the family in the second coolest part of the house, the living room. There is a painted over stone staircase that climbs unevenly to the roof, and on Friday I had slid a bit and bashed my arm on the stone "railing". Today was different.

Readers, I fell. I use the word "fell" to describe what happened although ferociously slid might also work in this instance. The top stair is 1.5 inches higher and longer, and on a slant, than the corresponding step below it. Sliding on this, I pitched backwards and slammed into the next stair, left calf first, then right butt-cheek and slid on my wrists all the way down, screaming as I went. No sooner had I landed at the bottom than my Father-in-Law and brother Thamer came racing up from the living room to help me. Shadi came seconds later and would carry me to the floor cushion despite my protests (the unorthodox way he carried me, which was underneath my butt, caused me considerable pain). Momma Aicha brought an ice pack and began assessing my injuries as I had fallen on my ankle. In the end we determined I'd sustained 4 contusions (according to future doctor brother, level 3-4 respectively) and a few abrasions. My wrist swelled slightly as did my left ankle. It was incredible luck or last-minute forward thinking that I'd leaned backwards when I felt myself falling or Momma Aicha said I could have broken my ankle. 11 days before my wedding was no time to do myself such an injury. I'd escaped a hospital visit, but I haven't had bruises this painful since I crashed into my Aunt's truckbed on my bike (my knee was black and blue for a week and stiff, hard to move). I've been praying on a chair for the past few days as coming up from sujood caused me considerable pain. The plate-sized bruises still in residence had better be gone from my sight by the time my "rehearsal dinner" comes around.

The meal Momma Aicha made that night more than cheered me from missing shopping that day. Look below:

3 of the dishes present I have already introduced you to; the bottle at the top right is Mazola, a mayo.

I declined Tarawee that night for obvious reasons, and I slept early that night. Yesterday we went to Irbid to run errands, starting of course at 8:30 since Babba Hassan was to drop Rakan off at King Hussein Hospital for some outpatient surgery. When we arrived at the police station to report my arrival in town, despite the mass presence of police officers we were informed that they probably wouldn't open till 10:30 or 11am, and would close at 2pm. I miss American beaurocracy; at least you can count on the boys in blue (ones here wear blue too) to be open 24 hours. So we hailed a cab (only having around 40 dinar on us for errands since Shadi didn't get paid until the end of the month; 36 of it being mine and all I had in the world since I had to use my emergency fund to take my 3rd baggage with me aboard the flight) Our first stop was a favorite place of mine, the office of the official documents translator. In a previous post, on my first visit to Jordan, I mentioned that his office was something straight out of a Rudyard Kipling novel. Except the addition of a tv to replace government radio, it was exactly how I'd remembered it.

The patio that overlooked the Market street; note the sulhaffa.

My favorite shot

Left wall of the outer office; parakeets, canaries, and a lovebird.

The sulhaffa! Came right up to me when I stepped on the porch

Canaries and 3 infant blue budgies

The man informed us it would take an hour to translate our marriage contract/niqaa, so we decided to window shop in the interim. After 3 stores of women's clothing and accessories (not much choice, that was the scene of this particular street) we found a store that sold what I was looking for (solid color, non-fru fru looking hijab scarves) An amira set (the easy pull-over kind; Mine looks like this ) another long flowered scarf and a blue headcap to match only set us back 5 dinar (the US$ equivalent of $7) and I'm over the moon. The amira alone both online and at the hijab store the girls and I used to frequent typically runs $9-10, a cap from $3-5, and a scarf $12-15. I walk out with a value of over $30 for 23% of that. Needless to say I will be shopping again very soon. We return to the office, help finish off the translation and verify it, then catch a cab to the Irbid Plaza Hotel. Our relatives had suggested Aphamia, which after my extensive expat review search yielded very little to say and only an archived facebook page rather than a fully functional webpage, I had declined. Irbid only has 3 hotels, and the plaza is the best. Aphamia would be a mid-range, and Al-Juede would be a notorious motel in Western standards. We'll spend our wedding night and mini-break here. I'm pleased with the hotel and location, as it is surrounded by shops, and both western/jordanian eateries such as McD's, Papa Johns, Lee's, Pizza Hut, Subway, and KFC.

Afterwards we hit the local Safeway in search of ingredients to make biscuits and gravy for suhoor, and I am disappointed that very little Western items exist at this location. At the very least I find Tropicana Orange Juice I'd been craving as well as kool-aid which is now a hit at the Khazaaleh house. I also found what I'd come for in the first place, Meow Mix cat food for Firdaus. No more feeding her table scraps, and no more eating whenever she smells meat. Her feeding schedule starts today. We catch a cab back to Ramtha and home to store the cold items and to take a nap after being told by the police station we had to go back to Irbid, only to be told we had an appointment with cousin Mariam and Momma Aicha to go BACK to Irbid and set up my salon appointments for Aug 29 and Sept 1, respectively. Exhausted and starving we protest, and when Momma Aicha discovers that Babba Hassan had not told us this in advance she chews him out soundly in arabic. Prayer, a short nap and we are out again driven to Irbid by Ashraf. This is another instance where I witness other people plan my wedding. I cannot understand a word they say, also because I know nothing about beauty salons, especially the arab version. I return for a cleansing in a week, then on the day of my wedding I will spend 6 hours here being prepped. Shadi will join me afterwards for pictures, and then off to the hall he showed me which for standards of buildings around here is rather nice. Momma Aicha and Mariam then insist on traversing market street on foot, in several layers of clothing, to search for jewelry, wedding shoes, and to my horror, wedding "underwear". My facial expression is still causing Shadi random laughter. I tell you buying sexy lingerie to wear on your wedding night with your in-laws in something I won't readily forget. Shadi doesn't understand my horror, or the image I cannot get out of my head when Momma Aicha remarked that my choice in lingerie was her "favorite one". Also, the combustive laughter I couldn't contain when I read the translation of our marriage contract and saw next to Shadi's "single" status, my status was marked "virgin". I'm still laughing.

That day we get very little sleep as we are due at Mariam's mother Turkia's house for iftar. A massive spread of food including lamb, grape leaves, a meat dumpling and yogurt type gravy, and a variation of kusa awaits us. I am singularly interested in the beverages only as today's events left me dehydrated as never before. Tang, water, and pomegranate Shani satisfy me. I am to spend the evening with these women as the men are in another room and Shadi goes off to Tarawee at Masjid Hamza. In typical arab fashion, after dinner I am served mass amounts of tea, followed by coffee and katayef, then fruit which Momma Aicha bullies me into eating. In between servings I fall asleep and awake to find even more women talking over my head in arabic about my wedding. It is nearly 11 and Shadi is not back. I asked him to return to me after Tarawee to fetch me home as I was exhausted. I inquire Momma Aicha as to his location, and she says he's been back since 10. Adrenaline from anger wakes me at being forgotten by my fiance yet again, and he is summoned to my side to take me home. I berate him soundly all the way home, and we attempt to get some sleep before suhoor.

This little girl, named Sidra, is the bane of my existence.

Sandra however, was adorable.

Shadi wakes me for suhoor but I am not hungry I find. 2 glasses each of water and Tropicana satisfy me, and as I go to the roof once more, and Shadi is praying at masjid, I hear pitiful cries of a kitten. As I look to the street, I see a boy around Thamer's age or younger throwing stones at a cat that seems to keep putting itself in harms way. I yell to stop in arabic, but am unheeded. As I run outside to accost the child, Shadi catches me and I tell him my errand. We hurry to the scene and it makes me want to cry. A  2 month old kitten is at the bottom of a 7 foot wall wailing up at its mother at the top. The boy was throwing large stones at it as it tried to climb the wall back to its mother. The mother's attempt to fetch it herself were blocked by the stones. Shadi begins to shout at the boy to stop as I attempt to corral the poor kitten. It looks just like Firdaus. She is scared however and avoids me. The boy continues despite our anger to throw stones and Shadi stops him. A little girl who was watching comes up to stand beside me and stare at me while the baby finally makes it up the wall and to the safety of its mother. My fiance is redeemed of his earlier transgression by being a hero. :* We stay up awhile longer to watch on both Al-Jazeera and CNN as more and more of طرابلس or Tripoli's districts fall to the revolution. We are certain Qaddafi's days are numbered. :) It is great to watch a true revolution in the region experiencing it. We can only hope Syria is next. Viva La Revolucion!