A pile of laundry, waiting to be hand washed and strung up on a line to dry, can control the weather. As soon as that pile of laundry is large enough that you think you might run out of line, or patience, when the time comes to let the sun do it's job, there is a thunderclap and suddenly, rain. Rain in the desert will only happen when you run out of clean underwear.
We are settling into our new house. As one might expect, the desert lacks wood, and as such the houses are uniformly constructed of concrete. It will take a few carpets to soften the edges of this new life, and as we pass through the forty days of unbearable cold, we are finding warm corners.
Construction in Jordan is a symbol of hope. Hope that a son will be born, and that son will move into the a second story add on. Hope that one day you will be able to afford to turn your house into an extensive complex for all your sons' families and their families, and the families of those families, until you've created generational strong hold family houses. The result of all this hope is that most houses have the tail ends of rebar exposed, protruding proudly out of the roof of each house, casting shadows on the one or two piles of building materials that wait, with baited brick breath, to be one day built into a second story for the unborn son and his unborn sons. Walking down our street, looking at unfinished home after unfinished home, the tension between the rebar, the pile of concrete, and the expectation to produce male progeny is palpable.
We live in the bottom floor of a three family home. The second floor is divided between our landlord's sister's family, and our landlord's cousin's family. Our house has a formal living room and sunroom, which we have shut and forgotten about until more furnishings come our way, two bedrooms (one of which we will turn into a work out room), a living room, intimidatingly large kitchen, and a bathroom.
Up two flights of stairs to the roof the rebar pokes out of the second floor and stretches to the sky, living silently in a constant state of anticipation.
We are settling into our new house. As one might expect, the desert lacks wood, and as such the houses are uniformly constructed of concrete. It will take a few carpets to soften the edges of this new life, and as we pass through the forty days of unbearable cold, we are finding warm corners.
Construction in Jordan is a symbol of hope. Hope that a son will be born, and that son will move into the a second story add on. Hope that one day you will be able to afford to turn your house into an extensive complex for all your sons' families and their families, and the families of those families, until you've created generational strong hold family houses. The result of all this hope is that most houses have the tail ends of rebar exposed, protruding proudly out of the roof of each house, casting shadows on the one or two piles of building materials that wait, with baited brick breath, to be one day built into a second story for the unborn son and his unborn sons. Walking down our street, looking at unfinished home after unfinished home, the tension between the rebar, the pile of concrete, and the expectation to produce male progeny is palpable.
We live in the bottom floor of a three family home. The second floor is divided between our landlord's sister's family, and our landlord's cousin's family. Our house has a formal living room and sunroom, which we have shut and forgotten about until more furnishings come our way, two bedrooms (one of which we will turn into a work out room), a living room, intimidatingly large kitchen, and a bathroom.
Up two flights of stairs to the roof the rebar pokes out of the second floor and stretches to the sky, living silently in a constant state of anticipation.
