Jordan Jottings: 6 weeks in and we feel at home

First night in our new home. No baby

bath and no hot water leads to

saucepan bath!

Hubby, bubby and I arrived in Amman, Jordan on 22 February 2011. Six weeks in and I'm sitting in my pink flanelette PJs on my queen sized bed, belly full of felafel and hommus, baby asleep in the room next door, hubby out rock climbing, and completely and utterly content. I don't want to be anywhere else except right here, right now. Which is perfect, because we had been restless for a while. Hubby had been keen to get out of Sydney, so we moved to Darwin with a 6 week old newborn... I couldn't wait to get out of Darwin, and now, in the Middle East, in the midst of a revolution and volatility...in a country squeezed between Israel and the Palestinian West Bank (guaranteed nobel peace prize to the person who can negotiate a peace deal that lasts more than a few months), Lebanon (which after decades of civil war is currently without a government but it's likely that Hezbollah will form part of the next government's majority), Syria (its revolution is now in full swing), Egypt (post revolution, pre democratic government), Iraq (no weapons of mass destruction but still at war) and Saudi Arabia...we feel at home, at peace, settled.

Charlie in a much bigger and
more luxurious bath, catching up
on revolutions and a Gaddafi rant

Friendly Bedouin coffee vendor

As do the many people that call Jordan home. Its dawned on me that Jordan is the Switzerland of the Middle East, and for Sunni Muslims more broadly. The "Jordanian" population are descended from the Bedouin, who are essentially nomadic dessert people. We see plenty of modern Bedouin around Jordan who still wear their distinctive head scarves (keffiyeh), usually red and white checks. Jordan is also home to many Palestinians - in fact they make up 35% of the population (the statistic varies depending on who you to talk to, and some say it's as high as 50%). There are also approximately 1 million Iraqis here, who arrived as a result of the Iraq war, and Circassians who fled Russian persecution in the 1860s. The Circassions, also Muslim, are well respected, with an allocated seat in parliament and there has been a Circassion Prime Minister. In addition, Jordan is home to Chechens, Armenians, Kurds and Bosnians who have found refuge in Jordan following wars or religious persecution. Jordan is also host to hundreds of thousands of guest workers from Egypt, Syria, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Indonesia etc. And at the moment, the country is receiving Yemenis who are evacuating due to their current revolution. As Mohammed, my taxi driver tells me every day as he shuttles me through Amman's crazy traffic to and from work, "We in Jordan are open minded. We welcome everybody. You are welcome in Jordan. Everybody is welcome in Jordan." Mohammed is in fact so welcoming that he invited hubby, bubby and I to go to his village for the weekend, and stay with his family. So on Thursday evening we piled ourselves into Mohammed's taxi and made our way to the beautiful village of Ajloun, and to the home of Mohammed's family, where his wife and 5 children had prepared us the most delicious of meals to greet us. Nearly all of the food served came from their small farm.

A welcome dinner at Mohammed's home

On Friday morning, Mohammed's eldest daughter Samar showed us the view of Ajloun village from the roof of their house, and then we had some arabic coffee and fresh green almonds plucked off the trees in their garden. Mohammed made sure our respective babies' bonded...