Domesticity (14 October and the Eve of Poppy’s first birthday)

It was a difficult week. Kevin’s was the worse but he will tell his part. It was hot and my teaching is hard, requiring much preparation. I love the poetry and novels class but the Oral Skills is a mystery. I have no idea how to teach a conversation class and the graduate level class is difficult because it covers so much and there is no precedent for it that I can find. The sociology professor who usually teaches it is out of the country and his syllabus and text are nowhere to be found.

Class roles are my nemesis. Before every class I make a new one with corrections from the last class and every one I make is wrong. Students come up and tell me I did not call their name or students come up and tell me that I called their name twice! One problem is that I think the drop/ add period goes on indefinitely. Another is that Arab names have many different spellings—they just don’t go into English well. And, my students have so many names that their names on the official roles in Arabic but translated for me may not look the same when students sign their name. One student explained to me that she wrote her name one way but that it was written another different way on her passport. Anyway it’s an ongoing muddle.

On Thursday (my busiest day), we were both exhausted and went to bed feeling pretty homesick.  However, Friday has been so much better. A change of routine and cooler weather has helped. We got up early and I experimented in the kitchen making chicken curry. Cooking here is experimental. The main problem has been mastery of the wonky stove. However, the chicken tasted pretty good so we called Gita and Aron and told them to come for dinner.

Then we went to C Town which is supposed to be open 24 hours. It took awhile to get a cab and we got there and were shopping when the lights began dimming and people started lining up to check out. We finally found out that the store closes for one hour on Friday for prayer! So we had to leave without some things on our list. We hurried out in order to get a taxi as we knew the taxis might not be running also. It took awhile.

At 12:00 Ayda picked me up and took me to her beauty salon!  What a treat! The salon was very nice and Samia, the hair stylist was as good as Til, Columbia’s best! He spent a long time, clearly trying hard to please me, and I got a cut and a blow dry for 15 JDs (about $21). While waiting for Ayda, I looked at glossy fashion magazines in Arabic, turning the pages from the back. One of the helpers asked me if I read Arabic!

Then I was back at home, happily cooking away for our dinner tonight—besides the curry, I’m making red peppers stuffed with vegetables, leeks, and green apple Betty (simple recipe from our days in Krakow). I only wish I had some candles and flowers.

Kevin: Well, it’s never as hard for me as for Becky (see above) and her experience so far makes me happy I did not agree (two weeks into the semester, when I was asked) to teach. But when we taxied over to get flu shots from the Fulbright-recommended family doctor, he looked at my calf and foot and sent me for an MRI-type procedure in an x-ray lab a taxi-ride away. Lab results: deep venous occlusion (read thrombosis) in the calf. So I got sent to a vascular specialist at a clinic another taxi-ride away, who has set me up with a six-day regimen of self-administered Heparin injections, and tablets to thin blood and spruce up veins. This should befall me the exercise addict! No one knows what happened to me or when, including me. But that’s the story, I’m under treatment, I’m ambulatory and basically feel fine, except for being annoyed and embarrassed. (Oh, and Paul has been most helpful advising me what treatments to ask for when a phalanx of Jordanian medics approach speaking Arabic among themselves and their spokesman slowly and professionally translating for me into English medical terms with I am not familiar even under North American accented English.)

Our house has a beautiful garden with many flowers, herbs, and fruits.
Our apartment makes up the basement floor.

The is the Egyptian (we can't remember his name) who takes care of the garden.
He is very friendly.

Ayda and Samir at the Beauty Salon.