This is in stark contrast to how we felt as we neared the end of our time in both Brazil and India. We had to be pulled kicking and screaming from those two posts. Brazil had truly become home. Clementine was born there. Our house — for all its fault, roofs leaks and all — was our first and best home to our family of five. I still remember Elise and I sitting in lawn chairs in our carport — all the cars sold and the carport now empty — holding hands, Clementine beside us in the car seat bucket, Peter and Sam already in their pajamas for the redeye back to the States, playing in the front yard, hanging on the driveway gate, waiting for the van from my office to pick us up and whisk us off to the airport.
In India, we actually tried to extend our stay by two months, but was turned down by my office who said they needed my visa for my successor. We would have had to move into a hotel if we had stayed, so a confluence if events forced out handsaws forced us to leave which actually proved fortuitous as devastating rains and floods which followed tore through the entire first floor of our house as the Adyar river broke its banks and rushed through our yard. It actually would have been nothing shy of a disaster had we stayed; our next door neighbor had to commandeer the use of a box truck to extract his family from their home, carrying them all from the house piggyback through the flood waters.
Sadly, we don’t feel the same sense of lost — at least not yet — knowing we will soon be leaving Jordan. Perhaps, those sentiments will change over the next five months. The kids still do have a whole half year of school left. But I think it is safe to say we never were allowed to feel wholly at home here. It is a deeply complicated region, and there are likely deeply complicated reasons Elise and I feel the way we do. Is there ever really an easy time to be an American in the Middle East. Probably not. But these two years seems harder than most.
At some point during our two year stint in Jordan, my work decided it necessary to install a point of entry water filter into our apartment. I was never completely convinced the water in Jordan was ever unsafe. I mean...this wasn’t India, after all. But the decision was made to install the filter, nonetheless, and who was I to disagree. But the water pressure in our building wasn’t sufficient to force water through the filter, so they installed a pump to force water through the filter. Since we are on the ground level, we can hear everything going on in the basement through our floor, including the noise generated by — not only this pump — but everyone else’s. (In Amman, there are no water mains or towers. All water is delivered by truck to reservoirs in the basements of all the buildings. Each apartment has its own water tank in the basement of the building, but in order to obtain water pressure the water has to be pumped from the basement to a storage tank on the roof, so each apartment also has a pump in the basement below our apartment to achieve this.)
At first, I either didn’t notice the noise of the pumps or it didn’t bother me, but gradually, every time I ran the water...washing dishes...washing my hands...turning on the shower doe he kids...I would hear the pump. But once I started noticing the noise from the pump, I couldn’t unnotice it. It was similar to when I strarted to learn how to read Arabic.
For the last year and a half, I’ve been taking an Arabic class at work two hours a week. Eventually, I learned the alphabet and began deciphering everything I saw. I remember driving out to the airport from downtown Amman blissfully ignorant of what the highway signs said, but once I learned the Arabic alphabet, I couldn’t stop trying to translate every sign. Even if I couldn’t read the sign, that didn’t stop me from trying to identify the letters. I wouldn’t be able to see a sign written in Arabic again without trying to read it. The same thing happens when we go to the movies here and I see the Arabic subtitles. I can never again see them as meaningless scrawl; I must try to read them.
It’s also similar to how I became aware of politics. I don’t exactly remember when it happened. But I do distinctly remember a time in my life where I didn’t think about politics or political parties; they had no bearing on my life...and, again, I went about my day blissfully ignorant of the partisan struggle going on in Washington. But once you gain an awareness of the struggle and an appreciation of what is at stake (or at least the perception as promoted in the media and on social media as to what may he at stake), you can never go back to a place where you just don’t give a shit. Unless you abscond yourself to a cabin in the woods in the Alaskan wilderness. Even then.
We have a very nice apartment. Don’t get me wrong. Even if only half of it seems useable at any given time. Or, at least, according to the kids. Who refuse to go “back there” without escort.
The back half of the apartment holds the four bedrooms. The kids REFUSE to enter that part of the house alone and I have no idea why.
No one has ever given name or reason that their completely unreasonable reluctance to “back there” without parental escort. You can only imagine how exhausting and frustrating this might be.
Elise or I: “Clementine, go get your socks.”
Clementine: “Will you come with me?”
Elise or I: “Peter, go brush your teeth.”
Peter: “Will you come with me?”
Elise or I: “Sam, go get in the shower.”
Sam: “Will you come sit with me.”
You get the picture.
I hate to think that somehow I contributed to this condition that would persist through the entirety of our two years here.
Early on, Sam’s friend from school, Isam, came over for a play date. Sam, Isam, Peter, and Clem were playing together in their room (they were all in the same room at the time). I don’t exactly know what I was thinking and likely didn’t think anything it or give it much forethought at all, but I remember finding myself on the patio outside the open window of their room and hearing them talking together, so I made few ghostly sounds through the open window.
I don’t think I actually scared anyone. As I recall, they hardly registered I was there at all. But it does seem that ever since that event, they’ve been disinclined to go “back there” by themselves at all.
It could just be my imagination the two events are linked at all: that afternoon when Isam came over for a play date and the kids reluctance to go to the back part of the house without parental escort. I hope so anyway.
Yes, things aren’t perfect in our apartment, but there is more right with it than there is wrong with it. And the reasons we may be ready to move on go beyond our living accommodations.
For me, work in the Middle East is hard. Work takes on a tenor of urgency I didn’t even experience working in Washington. Even something as seemingly routine and quotidian as replacing a refrigerator must be done NOW!! It is an EMERGENCY!! When everything is an emergency, nothing becomes truly an emergency, but nonetheless become trying and draining over a two year period. Not to say anything about the visits, work furloughs, embassy moves, etc etc.
I know Elise has her own reasons, too, but part of it is we could just all be looking forward to this summer in the Pacific Northwest and our next assignment in Sri Lanka.
I’ve said it before here. The best thing about the kids is they keep us in the moment. There is no burying our heads in the said for the next five months until we leave. We will be forced to live and experience every minute of it. For better and for worse. Sam will still play tennis. Peter may still try out for the lead in a huge school production and not tell us about it. Clementine may start ballet again. Life goes on. That’s the best part of being ready to leave.
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