The City On The "Hill"

This past weekend was my 26th (shhhh) birthday. Islamically there is no precedent for celebrating the anniversary of one's birth, so many if not most people in the Middle East don't necessarily celebrate them after a person has reached maturity. However Western Culture has a large effect on Jordan and my family here being still rather cosmo for conservatives decided it was in my best interest to keep to my traditions. They attempted to surprise me with a cake, however my husband isn't the best liar and is usually none too subtle. I tested my theory by attempting to enter the kitchen and was called back hastily by aforementioned partner.

The cake tasted like packing foam, but its the thought that counts :)

Btw, do I look 26? Don't answer that. Shadi had promised me that he would do something special for my birthday since it was our first as a couple. So, the next day we took pubic transport to the city of Umm Qais to see the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Gadara. Our bus driver was a bit lazy and dropped us off on the wrong side of the hill instead of the entrance, so from there we hiked past abandoned and sacked roman tombs filled with donkey doo and food remnants. Im slightly appalled at the state of this historic site as residents seem to be using it as a midnight party hideout and the tourism board just up the hill completely ignores it. The only consideration I noticed was the choppy bricking up of one entrance within the tombs, presumably the one that belongs to the roman buried within it. Once we get to the hilltop we are lost as it seems to be deserted. We wander downhill through an abandoned Ottoman village. A veritable ghost town and one I should have been taking proper pictures of I think, but Shadi was convinced it was a recent area that was cleared out by the tourism board. (Ottoman Umm Qais) Once we got the entrance however we realized we'd made a complete circle but I wasn't upset; that Ottoman village was purdy cool. While waiting to purchase tickets we met a Mormon family from BYU who were studying abroad at a school in Irbid. They had their baby son with them and some humanitarian volunteers as well. Shadi and I helped them with their arabic questions and also discovered to our delight that residents and their spouses have free fare (explains the lack of respect for the area).

Road to the former temple of the Gods & a Byzantine Church

Warrior #1 at the amphitheater :D

Business district

My habibi

From the "hillside" the Palestinian Golan Heights and Lake Tiberius or Sea of Galilee

Along the way there were lizards of every variety scuttling along the ruins and, naturally, I attempted to catch one. No dice. At the entrance though we had found roadkill of a different kind; a yellow  European chameleon. While researching for this post, I discovered to my delight this website and organization within Jordan The Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature. Click there to see the flora and fauna of my new home :)  After an hour we were starving so we climbed the hill to the Umm Qais Resthouse, a well-placed restaurant that overlooked both the city and the valley below with the border of Jordan and Palestine just beneath our seats and Lake Tiberius in view, some 2 miles away and 700 feet below sea-level, the 2nd lowest lake on earth following the Dead Sea.

For those of you who are uneducated in the Biblical histories, this lake is the scene for many of the miracles that Prophet Jesus performed, including walking on water, healing the possessed man from Gadara

And He (Jesus) asked him (the man), "What is thy name?" And he answered, saying, "My name is Legion: for we are many." -Gospel of Mark 5:9, Luke 8:30 & Matthew 8:28-34.

recruiting 4 of his "Apostles" fishing in the sea


                 ¹⁷ Then Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”   
                                                                                                                 -Gospel of Mark 1:17


and his famous Sermon on the Mount was also reputed to be along the hillside overlooking the lake. Such events are also corroborated in the Qur'an. So, needless to say this was a very cool place to be having a birthday meal. Afterwards we discover the bill at 13 dinar is nearly doubled
due to an unmentioned taxation and now we know how they make their money on such a cheap menu. Food was good though, so hard to complain. We give our table to a Jordanian woman and her mother who just returned from living in Denver and say goodbye to our Mormon friends to head off to Irbid. We stopped by the Museum of Archaeology and Antiquities to see the recovered artifacts from Gadara along the way. The building itself, Beit Rousan, was the former home of the Ottoman Governor before the fall of the Empire and the subsequent abandoning of the town.

These babies are the great (50x) grandfruit of Roman pomegranates. Tasty, too.

The courtyard of the Ottoman Beit Rousan with Roman artifacts.

Ceres, the patron Goddess of Gadara.

After catching a bus back to Irbid, we arrange to meet an expat-lady named Sherri I met on a website for people living abroad Expat Blog: Jordan in her new apartment. She and her husband Ayman lived in the US for 15 years until moving here last spring. They have a pair of fraternal twins (Hanna and Zain) and a 6 year old girl named Layla. We only intended a short visit, but liked them so much we ended up staying 3 hours including dinner! We hope to see them again soon. Upon getting home we spoke to my parents via Skype, giving them the scoop on the day, my birthday the night before, and of meeting a supercool relative of Shadi's that past Tuesday, a man named Ahmed who'd married an American woman and lived in the States with her for 44 years until she passed 2 years ago. He's 78, remarried, and is now the father of 2 toddler girls. The Arab Charlie Chaplin. He once managed a restaurant inside the Watergate Hotel and his first day was when the scandal broke. He also knows Bob Dole pretty well, too. Yesterday was an engagement party for my cousin, another Ahmed, which was another different experience. I finally saw what the girls at the salon were getting all dolled up for. In Jordan, the women's party for engagement parties involves the bride dressed up in a barbie-doll type ball gown and her hair and makeup done up nearly resembling a drag queen while the guests sing and clap to folk songs. Candy was also thrown at me an everyone else in attendance.

Yes, its this bad, only without pink hair and Hello Kitty.

Salazen Grum

I know its been about a week since my last post, but its been a VERY long busy week for me. 2 days before my wedding, I spent nearly every waking hour either shopping with my Momma Aicha in Irbid, or in the car watching my family hand-deliver wedding invitations. This post will not be about the actual wedding day because I don't have any pictures or video yet, and I feel I cannot do the event justice without them. This particular post will be in regards to the night before and all 3 days of my honeymoon in Irbid, as well as the past 2 days. Will this satisfy you for the time being, Genny Lindner? ;)

2 days before the wedding Aicha, Ashraf, myself and my "cousin" Hamoode went to Irbid to buy the last of the required wedding attire. We still had not gotten anything for Momma Aicha to wear, nor a suit for the groom yet. Shadi had gone earlier to Amman to pick up his paycheck and speak to an apartment broker. He would be incredibly late that day getting to us in Irbid. We must have been to 6 shoe stores and a clothing retailer (from which Momma Aicha would purchase my Eid clothes, a cute shirt w/belt and a new hijab at a booth down the street) before I found shoes that would match my gown. Apparently, ivory or off-white is not a color found in Jordanian shoes, according to one shop owner. It is at this shop where I notice the multiple birdcages hanging from the ceiling. From here on I would notice them in every shoe store and menswear dept. When I would inquire to Shadi about it later, he would tell me that the store owners keep them for the ambiance. Huh. (btw as I write this I am jamming to Freddie Mercury; thanks Google Doodle!) Once Shadi got there it was nearly maghreb and the last day of Ramadan so we only had time to stop by one store as we were all too starving to go further and had missed 3 prayers by this time. The store we went to check for a suit was a typical menswear store, complete with pop culture t-shirts in the window displaying incredible acts of Engrish and lack of cultural awareness, such as this beauty:

Right... and wrong, on oh so many levels.

Momma Aicha and I found funnier engrish at the women's pajamas section of a store, but didn't have a camera at the time. The suits were in the back, and clearly not tuxedos and also clearly too big (despite being "made in america" oooh) were not suitable and so we booked it to the car to make it back to Ramtha by sundown. We broke our fast with water in the car since the athan sounded before we arrived, and was given kebob and kusa by Mariam and Turkia. That night we got roped into driving around Ramtha to deliver the rest of the invites. While driving through "downtown" Ramtha, all the power went out. Now if this happened in the states there would be screaming, pinching from strangers, groping, and the conceiving of blackout children. Here, since this happens around once a week anyway, the reaction was cheering in the streets. By the time we got to an obscure aunt's house to complete our delivery, our car broke down in front of it, which happened to be right beside Grandpa's house. A cadre of children who'd been watching the FCB game crowded around us to help push the car to a cousin waiting down the street. I watched him hotwire our car while the aforementioned obscure Aunt gifted us with a giant bowl of fresh figs. All of the children were Shadi's cousins. ALL OF THEM. It is here I will try to explain the family dynamic that baffles me and will continue to do so as I live and breathe. Shadi's parents are first cousins. Their parents were brothers. This makes Babba Hassan's father in law also his Uncle, and Momma Aicha's father in law HER Uncle. These would be Shadi's grandfathers, but also thanks to this his Great Uncle's as well. His 1st cousins are also now his 2nd cousins. The children of those relatives are his 2nd and 3rd cousins respectively. They all share the same great-grandfather. Lost yet? I will never know how our children will be related to whom. I guess this is why its so acceptable to marry cousins around here; you never know if they are actually related to you.

We get home and are exhausted, so as we sit at the table snacking and watching television KSA announces Eid and the next day becomes the day before the wedding. Good thing our reservations at the Union Hall and Hotel فندق held up. Shadi returns with his father from Ramtha proper having found a suit and I am aghast as it is a shiny silvery blue. I tell him he looks like a used car salesman, which he does. For the first time in a month we nearly all sleep in instead of getting up at 3 to eat suhoor, and have a nice breakfast of leftover goodies. The next day is chaos as relative upon relative would arrive for congratulations and prep. I would skiddadle after a quick nap to Khalto Fatimah's house for Faiza to complete my wedding henna on both arms and my left leg. It tickled :) My new friend and cousin-in law Aia came to translate to the henna artist and chill for awhile, but would leave after I was complete. Fatimah and I would watch Monk until Shadi arrived to help clean me off and take me home to prepare for the party that would begin after sundown. Around 20 people were already hanging around in the garden when I got there, covered in a sticky paste of lemon, sugar, and olive oil that would preserve and bring out the color of the henna design. I was not to shower till the next day, hours before my salon appointment.  By ishaa the party was in full swing, with around 40 women and their children stuffed into the patio/parking garage singing and clapping along to Hamoode and his arabic woodwind instrument (sort of like a buzzy flute; its that sound you always hear in arabic music) and an Aunt and Momma Aicha on the classic arabic drum. The men, numbering around 20 or so were in another part of the house until it came time for Shadi's henna treatment, which consisted of dyeing a single finger on his right hand and wrapping it in gauze and a 50 dinar note.

Hamoode plays his "flute" while the ladies sing folk songs

Large pile of mud is actually large pile of Henna

Habibi cleans off henna from my face

:)

The night was long and insane, ending with several attempts by relatives to make Shadi and I dance, Momma Aicha a madwoman on the drum, and Babba Hassan displaying his dancing "talent". After nearly falling asleep on Shadi, I would be allowed to retire as my salon appointment was very early the next morning. Best Eid I ever had. :)

The next day of course was the wedding and the wedding night, but as I mentioned previously I do not possess any photos or video of that day as of yet, so onto the wedding night and beyond. Naturally I cannot go into detail for a fair few parts of the evening ;) just rest assured a good time was had by all. Since our hotel (Plaza Irbid, the nicest one in town although that's still not comparable to "nice" in Amman) was prime location, center of the city and near just about everything by walk or a real short cab ride, we were in great shape. Although we wanted to spend our first dinner as husband and wife in a really nice place, for some odd reason we were both craving pizza like mad. To my delight, a Papa Johns was 1 minute from our hotel. Eager to have Shadi try American-style food, I steered him there though he didn't protest. The location was quiet and we were only 2 of maybe 8 patrons total. The interior looked like an Ikea catalogue. Menus were in english and arabic. Although the breadsticks let me down, we ordered a Halal Hawaiian pizza (smoked turkey replaced the ham but a learned taste bud couldn't have told the difference) and we were in Heaven (Jannat-al Firdaus).

Oh hells yea

Enjoying his first slice of Heaven (Hawaiian)

Afterwards we were too tired to do much wandering, so we headed back to our hotel to enjoy its amenities and make up our missed prayers. The next day we took a quick cab back to Ramtha for the traditional family breakfast the morning after the wedding night which consisted of tasty treats and همام (pigeon). It was today we found out why our wedding party was a lot smaller than we'd feared; around noon of the wedding day a relative in Amman had died. Half of the family went to comfort the surviving relatives instead, missing the wedding as some had feared that attending a party was in ill-taste when in mourning. Shadi attended the burial that afternoon, and after maghrib we returned to Irbid for dinner at another pizza location, that of Pizza Hut. I have to say I was incredibly disappointed, and so was Shadi. The pizza wasn't half of what it is in the States, unlike PJ's, and both the waiter and manager tried to pull a few fast ones on us regarding the menu items and the bill. Luckily for Shadi's wallet I picked up on the finkery, but we still left annoyed. That night we would walk down the main Uni street in Irbid, picking up some gifts for my family, and quite a few for me including a new ring, some hijab, a few shirts, and some Nina Ricci perfume that would have been 80 bucks in the US, came out to 45JD.

I would also discover my favorite shisha, Al Fakher Watermelon, at 5JD (7.50US) at a hookah store, which is nearly 1/3 of what I paid in the States for it. Again, a JD goes a whole lot further. We returned to our suite to snack and watch M*A*S*H, as well as other engagements. I am pleased to report how much Shadi enjoys my favorite show, and now he suggests it whenever we have downtime. The next day we caught a cab to Ajloun Castle.

This huge fortress was built by Izz al-Din Usama, a commander and nephew of Salah ad-Din al-Ayyubi (Saladin), in AD 1184-1185. Check these links :)

This town is the largest Christian community in Jordan, the tribes of Haddad and Rabadi. According to Shadi the communities here are big fans of Nordic beers :) Ajloun is also home to one of Jordan's oldest mosque's, dating back 600 years. For your viewing pleasure;

On a clear day, you can see all the way into Israel/Palestine

Entrance to main tower

Shadi at the drawbridge

Its only dangerous cuz I'M there ;)

Right guard tower

I discover to my chagrin that my mother in law was right about my white skirt; its too short. The wind blows and you can see Philly, so we waddle on the stairs to hide my underthings down to a lower turret to enjoy some Mirinda and a bag of Bugles. There are many foreign أجنبي tourists here, and while I am the only American, I am hardly the only "white" woman in attendance. After our tour we snag some fresh tea on the main stairs and sit next to a Christian priest with the largest, blingiest cross accessory ever. Shadi's phone battery had died earlier so we missed out on better pictures. He and the Priest attempted to swap phone batteries as he had a similar model but no dice; his was this much smaller. After finishing our tea, we start to head out and Shadi gets a wild hair and decides we should walk the 2 miles to town, steep hill the entire way. I am reminded of every old American male's whining about having to walk to school in 5 feet of snow uphill both ways as we inch our way down. Luckily a federal gold prospector on his way to his assignment in Wadi Rum picked us up and to my extreme gratitude drove us all the way back to Irbid for around 8JD. When we got back to our suite, we discovered this:

The hotel housekeeper had used what we'd left out to trick out our room.

Including using our new clean towels

We almost didn't want to remove it :)

The next day was check out and we returned home to a large lunch prepared by cousins and aunts, another tradition. That night we had endless guests come to both congratulate us and say goodbye to Rakan, Ashraf and Babba Hassan as the first two were returning to Uni in Russia (med school students) and Babba was going to Medina, KSA to teach. Yesterday the boys left, and we hung around mourning their loss. Today Shadi returned to work, and Thamer to school, so Momma Aicha and I were left to entertain up to 20 female relatives from Dhuhr to Maghrib.