My Happy Place

Growing up, I never really knew who I was or where I belonged, always feeling out of place, a bit awkward in my own skin.  Clumsy, all jittery elbows and thumbs.  But somewhere in the heart of Fourways, Johannesburg, in a lush, round garden I have found my happy place.

In the centre of this garden stands a round birdbath surrounded by lavender plants.  Bordering the lavender is a circular brickwork path and around that curls another, bigger circle.  In that big circle stands two beautiful, big trees, one with a red bougainvillea slowly climbing up the tree trunk, reaching for the stars.  In this garden stands two fragrant gardenias, faithfully offering up sweet, snowy white saucer-size flowers that lift the spirits on a sunny afternoon.  One half of the circle around the birdbath-garden is covered in creeping ivy, solid green glossy leaves that cover an assortment of bugs and slugs. 

Slightly off to the right stands a proud blood lemon that produces lovely orange coloured lemons that’s slightly sweet, slightly bitter and makes a marvellous lemon curd.  Its companions, a baby lime tree, one standard lemon and one cumquat tree that produces huge egg-shaped fruit, year after year.  The sentinel of the far right corner is the Lulu-tree, more commonly known as a bottlebrush, planted in honour of a much loved little purple Lulu-cat, taken from us too soon.

Three orange hibiscus trees and one yellow one, as well as a red camellia add a splash of colour and four huge jasmines sends the sweet smell of summer through the air, perfectly complemented by a riotous purple and white yesterday-today-and-tomorrow.  A multitude of ferns, clivias and giant arum lilies round off this perfect picture.

A feast for the senses, indeed, but... what I love most about that circle-garden is the bubble of belonging it creates.  When you go outside at night and you stand as close to the birdbath as the lavenders will allow, you are aware of feelings of solitude, peace and complete calm.

Close your eyes.  Yes, at first you hear the ever-moving traffic on the William Nicol, but wait.  Listen.  The constant drone of cars disappear.  You may still hear sirens of a police car or ambulance heading off in the Diepsloot direction, but stay, listen closer.  Soon all those noises fall away completely and all you are left with is the night:  crickets here and there, serenading one another with hope and joy, the gentle sound of the wind dancing through the leaves and then, if you are very lucky, the croaking of frogs to round off the picture!

Silence.  Utter calm.  Total peace.  The sounds of home, the warmth of love.  The sense that you completely belong to this place, in this moment.  Skin surrounding bone, elbows and thumbs behaving, heart beating steadily.  Love surpassing all.

 

Mila having a drink of water. 
This picture was taken in the summer of 2006, after the trees have been severely trimmed and the lavenders were still babies.

May the Force be with them

Got myself some herbs for the kitchen. Andre reckoned it would be too cruel to get (any) more than two plants, so I got basil and parsley.

Day four and they are still alive, although my darling husband pointed out that cut flowers can perform the same trick, so I am cautiously optimistic.

I just have one question: do I need to water these more than twice a month, or what?

Monday, Monday

I love living in Jordan.  This plucky little country I now call home had itself quite the week last week. The hills of Amman have turned green, almond trees have started blooming and roadside vendors are selling heaps and heaps of blood red, super-sweet strawberries.  Spring has finally sprung and brought with it not only President Barack Obama, who visited Jordan for 4 days last week, but also the Khamsin, a sure sign that winter is over and serious heat is on the way! 

The Khamsin (khamsin means "50" in Arabic) blows in from both the Sahara and the Negev deserts and lasts for approximately, yes, fifty days.  If you've ever seen that wonderful movie, The English Patient, you may recall the scenes where Count Almasy and Katharine were trapped in a vehicle, caught in a terrible sandstorm?  Well, that was the Khamsin, or the more fluid name for it used in Egypt and Libya, the Ghibli.  Sounds like water slipping over smooth rocks, doesn't it?  Gee-blee...

We had our own mini-brush with the Khamsin on Friday when we joined our friends Andrew and Emily for lunch at (can you guess?)... Haret Jdoudna in Madaba!  Yes, I know, we really should try different restaurants, but I reckon, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!  Friday morning was lovely and warm and showed a lot of promise, so we set off to Madaba at around one o'clock, only armed with light sweaters and a shared positive attitude towards life.  As we approached Madaba, however, we realised that we picked the wrong day for a scenic drive as it became darker and more ominous looking by the minute. 

Sat down for lunch, ordered the usual, plus a couple of extras but almost as soon as the food arrived, so did the Khamsin!  The wind was so strong that it blew a huge outdoors umbrella right out of its stand and here I must applaud the resilience of kids, as one of the littlies at the table next to ours was hit on the head with the wooden edge of the umbrella, twice, and other than a brief look of shock on her face, recovered rather quickly from her ordeal!  (Had it been me, with my constant fear of things falling on my head à la Asterix and Obelix, I would still be in therapy, but that's a story for another day). 

It was the weirdest sensation, this sandstorm.  The skies turned completely dark and it initially felt like raindrops, but instead of water, we were being pelted by millions of "drops" of sand!  Pretty soon there was a fine powdery sand covering on everything and we wisely decided to head off to the Dead Sea, determined to continue with our scenic tour for the day.  Things went downhill from there, literally, as the road from Madaba down to the Dead Sea is a very steep, twisty-turny road that almost made me car sick! On a clear day this would be a wonderful drive, but with very little visibility, sand flying everywhere, not to mention sheep, goats and rabid-looking dogs in the road, this was not a pleasant drive.  We will have to revisit this one, me thinks.

And that was the week that was.  Woke up to bright, clear skies this morning. Let's hope it lasts until the weekend!  I want to drive up North and e-x-p-l-o-r-e...

The week that was

Well, it is Monday and time to reflect on the week past.  The pressure system that has caused freezing conditions in Europe brought a heat wave to Jordan and the warm weather made a wonderful, if short, change.  Temperatures positively soared on Friday, reaching a high of 31˚C in both Amman and Aqaba! 

 

With the brief, almost balmy weather came an invasion of sorts, with some of the local Bedouins bringing their sheep to our back yard to snack on patches of green grass and plastic bags of all colours!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This weekend also meant the last of the Wadi Rum Adventure Skydives/Paradrenilín skydiving for March.  I wonder if my darling husband will cope without dashing off to Wadi Rum and Aqaba early every Friday morning?  Unfortunately, the unseasonal hot weather, poor visibility and the Khamsin, the fierce fifty-day winds, made jumping very difficult, with André only managing one jump on Friday and, sadly, no jumps for anyone on Saturday. 

 

 

On Friday, the skydiving club hosted the Kingdom of Jordan chapter of the Harley Owners Group, or HOGs.  A group of about fifteen very keen HOGs showed up, ready to tandem, but was very disappointed when they were told that weather conditions made it too dangerous for them to jump.  The club tried their best, though, sending up full loads of hopeful bikers strapped to tandem masters, only to have some very grumpy HOGs land in the midst of horrible sandstorms.  Twice! 

 

As all the drama with the weather unfolded, I decided to inspect the motorbikes instead and fell in love with a lovely black and chrome number.  As I broke my nose the last time I was on the back of a motorbike (not nearly as snazzy as this one), I just sat there and looked, uhm... pretty?

 

 

 

Weather conditions briefly stabilised on Friday afternoon, enough to allow the Royal Jordanian Falcons to proceed with their airshow.  Here is the YouTube link, if you want to go check it out:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DE_tKO1SGdc&noredirect=1

 

 Not quite as... elaborate as the airshows we are used to seeing in South Africa, with a lot of to-and-fro-repetition, but good nonetheless.  I was fully expecting to witness a mid-air crash (watch from around 5:10 to 5:16 minutes into the video clip and you will see what I mean) but luckily that did not happen! 

 

No jumping on Saturday, which meant that we left Wadi Rum relatively early.  Now we were faced with two choices:  take the more scenic, but much longer route home past the Dead Sea, or take the faster, boring road home and stop off at Haret Jdoudna in Madaba for a much needed lunch.  Of course, food won!  As it turns out it was the better choice, as there was a huge accident on the Dead Sea highway just southwest of Amman, killing 17 and injuring 38 more when a passenger bus collided with a car and a truck/trailer. 

 

Totally oblivious to the carnage, André and I thoroughly enjoyed the food at Haret, as always, although the ambiance was a bit more frantic than usual.  In addition to the usual suspects we normally order, we tried the lamb cutlets - delish!  Will definately be on the menu next time.

And finally, home to the surviving 3 potted plants and a slightly peeved Mila-cat.  While I loved our trips to Wadi Rum and Aqaba, it is good to know that the skydiving is over for at least the next couple of months, so I can breathe normally... until next time! 

 

California Dreamin'?

I wish!

 

I had the most horrific nightmares last night.  I went from being pushed off buildings, to falling into raging rivers, to Krav Maga combat with serial killers.  I eventually had to force myself to get up and walk around the apartment, just to try and wake up enough to get out of the nightmare-funk!

But... just before the first call to prayer this morning, I had the most wonderful dream that my sister came over to Jordan for a visit.  I woke up with the Mullah's song still slashing through the morning silence, thinking "I wonder if Carina will wake up from the singing and will she also think it is as beautiful as I do?"  My dream felt so real, I actually got up and checked the guest bedroom... Obviously, the only things sleeping on the guest bed, was last week's laundry! 

 

So, which of the two sets of dreams upset me the most?   I'll leave it up to you to decide...

 



 

I love Grumpy Cat
Don't tell Mila!

Restore to factory settings

Someone has stolen my mojo.  Again.  Bad news from home and just plain had-enough-of-winter syndrome seem to have robbed me of every ounce of creativity and all I want to do is hide under the two duvets, two woolly blankets and one winter sheet until it is much warmer and things look up in general.  Even a trip to Wadi Rum this past weekend could not cure the blues, and that says a lot! 

Back home in South Africa, on days like these, I would get in my much beloved black mini-monster Suzi (My Suzuki Jimny that I loved more than any human being should probably love a car) and head out to the Hartebeespoort Dam.  The drive from our house to the dam was just far enough to clear the cobwebs and by the time I reached the dam wall I would find myself slap-bang in the middle of a happy cliché where the mood would be lifted, the spirits high and all would be right with the world. 

Currently an Ammonite, however, tells a different story!  I find myself without transport, so if I want to go anywhere, I have to either wait for André to come home, or I have to put my life in the nicotine stained hands of the insane Amman taxi drivers.  Being a woman, society predicts that I sit in the back, where there is invariably no seatbelt to be found.   The majority of taxi drivers here appears to be chain-smoking caffeine addicts with a penchant for talking on their cellphones while driving.  Doing all this simultaneously unfortunately does not leave a lot of senses (Or sense, for that matter) left to drive properly and I have been unceremoniously thrown about in the back seat on many occasions as the taximan viciously tackles the various Amman traffic circles.

So I find myself longing not only for summer, but for the freedom that having your own transport brings.  If I had a car of my own, I would be in it right now, heading off to the Dead Sea, maybe drive up to the bridge at Wadi Mujib, turn around and head off to the Marriott Hotel, where I would have an Arabic coffee, shisha and maybe a slice of pizza before heading home with my usual happy mood restored to factory settings.  Oh, if only...

 


My little wannabe Jeep, Suzi in front, with Andre's (then) real Jeep behind. 

Valley of the Moon

Andre and I visited some of our favourite spots in Jordan this past weekend, Wadi Rum and Aqaba.  I fell in love with Wadi Rum on our very first visit in 2005 and that hasn't changed one bit. 

When you look at these pictures it is not difficult to understand why the sandstone and granite landscape is sometimes referred to as the Valley of the Moon.  This UNESCO World Heritage Site had been inhabited since prehistoric times, with today's inhabitants being bedouins in their black and white goat-hair tents.  This remote spot just crawls deeper into my heart with every visit.  See if you can tell why:

 

This is how Andre spent the weekend...

 

 



... While I was left standing in the sun, taking pictures of the jumpers.  Unfortunately for them, I am easily distracted...

 

 

 

Friday night was spent in Aqaba in a... erhm... hotel... I can only describe as Arab chic (or is that kitch?).  At least it was clean and we can forgive the broken fridge and the weird shower because of that!  For supper we visited the Royal Jordanian Yacht Club, where I was absolutely fascinated by the various rich man's toys.

 

Well, we'll be off to Wadi Rum again this coming weekend.  Hopefully I can get some more pictures to share with you, Insha'Allah, as they say in these parts.