It's the end of another long day in a series of long days. But not the end of the series of long days. Those will end, I hope, when Katie and I really feel landed. Experts say that can take about three months. It’s like getting used to a new job, I guess.
We've landed an apartment and we love the location. This neighborhood is called Shmeisani. The Fulbright House is a few blocks away. There's a garden with roosters, hens and ducks across the street. They seem to sing constantly. They call along with the muethen in the two mosques nearby. They call when it's night and when it's morn. The rooster crows all day long; the ducks seem to prefer dinnertime.
Ours is a four-floor walk-up. We chose it for the breeze, for the view of Amman, for the privacy: there’s no one above us and no one next door. It's got a lovely little sunroom off the main space that is dining room and two living rooms. We chose this place over an adorable two-bedroom garden apartment with a fabulous kitchen and cozy living room. This kitchen is not so well appointed. But we have three bedrooms so when the family comes there will be room for all. There’s plenty of storage space. We have a brand new five burner stove that you have to light with a match every time. The gas tank sits right next to it. The refrigerator sings almost as loudly as the rooster but at least it works. The washing machine works; the drier does not. All the light bulbs hanging from the ceiling are bare. On Saturday Mr. Jalil, our landlord, is taking Katie and me shopping to buy covers for those and for the exposed sconce bulbs, for another frying pan and cooking pot, for a slotted spoon and toilet paper holders for the bathrooms (one and a half). He had a double bed built for me -- instead of two singles pushed together. Katie pushed the two singles in her room together so she has a giant place to sleep, too. For the first time in my life I have a vanity, with a mirror and chair and my make up is laid out to use. Not in a carry case. My make up brushes are in an open container, waiting to be useful. I like all that.
Whoever repainted this place left chips and drops everywhere. The paint in the carpet isn't coming out. But when the man came to clean the windows I insisted he scrape the paint, too. Unfortunately where I didn't point out the paint he didn't scrape it. So I'm going to buy a scraper and shweiyah shweiyah, little by little, I'll clear those surfaces. The dining room table can extend to seat 16! And there are chairs for ten. All the chairs are too low for the height of the table so we'll look like the dwarfs without Snow White when we dine together here. There's a fine food market a few blocks away and Katie and I have shopped for dinner there both of our nights here so far. The guys at the counter don't know what to make of us when we show up with our own bags for the groceries.
I haven't had any "real work" since I got here. Alain McNamara, director of the Bi-National Fulbright Commission in Jordan, says my first job is to get settled in so I'm doing that. Got Katie organized at the Modern American School. We taxied over there the first couple of days. Now the school bus picks her up outside our front door at 7:15 am and brings her back about 2:45 pm. She's taking Chemistry, Algebra II, Ancient World History, English, Arabic, Religion (Islam), IT, and PE/Health. So far she's finding it all really easy. It's nice to know that Maplewood’s Columbia High School has prepared her so well for private school abroad. She's making friends. She's got a desk in her bedroom and books that weigh hundreds of pounds. It seems. We look for cats when we walk together. There aren't as many strays as in Cairo. But there are enough to pull our heartstrings. None look sickly that we've seen. But we resist patting them anyway. I wonder if they think the same about the birds as I do. With a different end in mind.
On Monday night Dr. Younes Assad, the brother of my father’s dear friend Dawud Assad of Edison, NJ, took us out for ice cream at Gerard's in Abdoun Circle. He told us that once Ramadan is over, Abdoun Circle is the exclusive terrain of high school students on Thursday nights. I hope Katie and her friends will go there from time to time. The vanilla ice cream with pistacios was wonderful.
I'm beginning to call the people I know and the people others have recommended I call. After our Fulbright Orientation, September 6-10, I'll begin the real working part of this gig. (You mean I'm not here simply to set up house and see my daughter off to school?) We're having dinner tomorrow evening with a colleague of my “Inside Mecca” cameraman Yasir Khan who's now teaching at American University of Cairo. He'll be coming here this fall to run a training program.
I'm getting tired now. Four am, when we rise to eat our pre-dawn breakfast, comes early. But I will say the days, full as they are, go quickly and the fast is not uncomfortable. Katie says lost of the kids at school are fasting too, as is she. But between the time change and the fasting we are tired.
The weather is beautiful.
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