Marhaba wa Aloha: ساكن في عمان

Showing posts with label ساكن في عمان. Show all posts

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Ramadan Drummer

Here's audio of al-misharaty, the drummer that wakes the neighborhood up before dawn so that they can eat the pre-fast meal of SuHuur during Ramadan. It is a tradition that dates back to the Ottoman Empire. The Syrian tradition is to blast a large cannon, but cities have grown too large for that. Some would say that the cities also have outgrown the drummer, but I'm glad some of the old traditions still survive.

I believe he is saying the traditional chant of "Es ha ya nayem…Wahed el dayem...", or "awake, oh sleeper, and praise Allah".

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This post concludes my regular blogging from Amman, up next, The Credits, a little thank you to those who made my two months in Jordan so enriching.

Graffiti

Here are some shots of graffiti that I took during my trip. Most graffiti in Amman are advertisements, but some had more artistic content or social commentary.

The Hash

Here are some pictures from the Hashemite Hash House Harriers run from last Monday, which took place south of Amman around the YMCA.

Among the notable moments were a traffic accident at the beginning of our run (not pictured), and running through some beduin camps.

Last Night in Amman

Thursday was Matt's and my last day in Amman, and the evening was spent with family and friends.

We ate a special dinner that Sittii prepared for us, مقلوبة (maqluuba), or "upside-down" dish, a special casserole of chicken, eggplant, cauliflower, rice, and spices, that is cooked with the chicken at the bottom, so that it is served upside-down (with the chicken on top):

Then we took some pictures with the family, before scrambling off to Jabal Hussein. I needed to buy an extra suitcase, and Matt was on a mission to find a bottle of mango juice. We managed to find both, as well as some additional fireworks (small roman candles) and one last bottle of tamar hindi.

The fireworks were pretty cool. Some of them made the car alarms go off in the neighborhood. The last one, called "Super Blitz", or "Magic Blitz", was shaped like a large ground bloom flower. It started by acting like one, until it suddenly zoomed 20 feet into the air and exploded into an aerial display. Quite the finale.

Matt in action

Then it was time for packing. At around 12:30, my language exchange partner Aziz and his brother Maen dropped by to present me with a kuffiyeh and say farewell.

Aziz and I

Maen and I

After they left, there wasn't too much time left for packing before Matt's airport taxi showed up at 3 am, the Ramadan drummer began waking people for SuHur at 3:30 am, and my taxi arrived around 6:30 am.

Desserts

Some dessert pics:

Umm Ali - kind of like a bread pudding, made with condensed milk and nuts

Sahel and I enjoyed this at Mecca Mall

Fresh كنافة (knaafeh) at Habibeh's downtown

Knaafeh is basically a dessert made up of cheese or creme,

topped with bits of puff pastry, pistachios and sugar syrup.

Yes, it's as good as it sounds.

Here's the knaafeh

Around the House

Here are a few photos I took of my home in Amman.

View from out front

Swingset in the courtyard

Around the house, there is an orchard of fruit trees and herbs - here's a sage bush

View of the backstretch

Plum tree

Mint

The front yard

Sometimes, you have to stop to smell the rosemary

Strays

Amman would not be Bob Barker's favorite city.

There are a lot of stray cats that live in the streets. The residents often put food out for them.

Here's the black cat that kept running into the house, much to our housekeeper's dismay

One thing that I did note is that there are not a lot of dogs in Amman. I think that dogs are considered to be "dirty" animals, as opposed to cats.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Jabal Hussein

Last Friday night, I went to Jabal Hussein, the neighborhood/hill located to the north of Abdali, in order to look for a backpack for my trip to Wadi Hassa (previously blogged).

Jabal Hussein is known as a shopping district for regular Jordanians, especially for clothes.

I left around 8:30 pm, so the streets were still pretty empty as everyone was celebrating Iftar. After joking around with the local cops, I walked towards Jabal Hussein.