Happy New Year!

Amman, Jordan

New Years in Amman is expensive, a real upper-class endeavor. A New Years party can easily be over $100, and may only include one or two drinks in that price. Ester suggested we opt for a cheaper option, and we showed up early at Books@Cafe to grab ourselves a table for just the price of whatever we ordered.

From Christmas and New Years

Ryan and his friends came along.

From Christmas and New Years

We also brought along the newest edition to the Bell Amman Academic Team, soon to be our new roommate, Melanie.

From Christmas and New Years

By 2010, we were dancing on the tables!

From Christmas and New Years

Wedding Crasher

(just kidding, Andy!)

Amman, Jordan

Ever since we reconnected last summer, the day before he converted to Islam and signed his marriage contract with Noureen, Andy had been telling me that I was invited to his wedding in December. I waited and waited, and yet no invitation was forthcoming. Finally, I decided I'd just ask Nadia when and where the wedding was, and crash it!

Turns out, Nadia was exactly the right person to ask, since Andy actually spent the night before the wedding at the house she shares with so-much-more-than-an-LCF Ahmed.

From Andy & Noureen's Wedding

I got to be there for the whole thing, from one last trip to the barber's for hair gel...

From Andy & Noureen's Wedding

...to a long wait at Muad and Ali's place while the car was at the florist and Andy fulfilled a 21st Century obligation: changing his Facebook status...

From Andy & Noureen's Wedding

...to our own little faarida of 2 cars to pick up the bride...

From Andy & Noureen's Wedding

...to their grand entrance at the Palmyra Hotel where Noureen works, and where Andy met her during his Operation Smile Iraq missions as a Peace Corps Volunteer...

From Andy & Noureen's Wedding

...to all the fun of their fabulous reception.

From Andy & Noureen's Wedding

Christmas Foods, Old and New

Amman, Jordan

Christmas, for obvious reasons, isn't a real big deal here. I was thinking of going to Israel to experience it there, but this was also Martha's last week in Jordan, so I stayed home, and Martha and I did Christmas in style, starting with a morning at the Turkish Bath. While she was scrubbing me down, one attendant asked me why I wasn't out celebrating Christmas. "This is me celebrating!"

Then there was Christmas Day dinner with colleagues from work.

From Christmas and New Years

But, for my family, it's not Christmas without waffles with strawberries and whipped cream. The morning after Christmas, I got Eshrak and Zoe (visiting from Alexandria, Egypt) to go out to breakfast with me, and convinced the waiter to tweak the menu a bit to make it a real Converse Christmas!

From Christmas and New Years

Irish and Jewish Voices for Peace

Amman, Jordan

Oh, how I wish I'd had my camera this morning!
From the taxi down the Airport Road this morning, I saw a garishly amazing vehicle. It must have been an ambulance once; it still had "AMBULANCE" spelled backwards on the bonnet. It had rows of squares of colored reflective tape on all sides, and from either side of the back door flew Irish and Palestinian flags. Stamped across its sides were "Gaza Freedom March," "Viva Palestina" and "Derry Anti War Coalition."

Then I arrived at work and opened my email, and what should I find in my Inbox but a message from Jewish Voice for Peace to support their Gaza Freedom March through solidarity events and a petition urging the Egyptian government to let the convoy through. I've blogged about Jewish Voice for Peace before, and believe that this is the way peace in Israel/Palestine has to be achieved: through coalitions that include Palestinians, Israelis and voting citizens of Western governments with interests in the region.

But I was curious. I wanted a good picture of that crazy ambulance I'd seen on the Airport Road. I googled "Derry Anti War Coalition," and found something completely different from what I expected. DAWC made a big splash back in 2006 in response to Israel's attack on Lebanon, which was aided by bunker-buster missiles manufactured by an American company, Raytheon, in a plant in Derry, Ireland. Some coalition members, dubbed the "Raytheon 9," blockaded themselves inside the Raytheon facility for days, and were later tried under anti-terrorism laws. Last year, they were found not guilty. I have been unable, however to find anything about their ambulance travelling (presumably) to Gaza.

I did, however, learn a little more about Viva Palestina, under whose umbrella DAWC is sending its ambulance. There's been plenty of reporting on their caravan of ambulances, lorries and other vehicles making its way from London through Europe, Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Egypt to the Rafah Crossing into the Gaza Strip. They've been picking up participants all along the way, in addition to having the very public support of British Member of Parliament George Galloway.

And finally I found it. You can catch glimpses of the DAWC ambulance at the beginning and end of this video, as well as seeing many other fantabulous vehicles.

Wadi Dana Unshot

Wadi Dana, Kerak, Jordan

It turns out that I'm still not fully on board the digital revolution. With my old-fashioned film camera, I changed my battery not more than once a year, and then usually just because the battery had expired, not because it was used up. So I wasn't thinking about batteries when I chucked my new digital camera in my bag....

When I arrived at Dana Village, my camera had just enough juice to push out the lense ... but not quite enough to close it again! Much to my embarrassment, I'm back to stealing other people's photos from Facebook.

From Dana to Feynan

Not only that, but of course there were dozens of great shots I saw on my way down the valley that I just wish I could take.... But I guess that just gives me an excuse to do the hike again!

It's a longer route than I usually do in Jordan - 18km or so - but all downhill. From Dana Village to Feynan Ego-Lodge is a drop in altitude of about a kilometer, from Kerak Plateau above sea level to Wadi Araba below sea level. (Wadi Araba is the region between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea.) Wadi Dana is also a dry wadi, unlike the narrow, wet wadis that Tareef Cycling Club tends to prefer for hiking. Though still carved by water, Wadi Dana is less of a canyon and more of a valley, broad and U-shaped with gentle gravel slopes instead of steep rock walls. The vegetation was different, too, more widely scattered, with even some broad slopes of new grass peeking up among the scree.

From Dana to Feynan

Everywhere I turned, there were these stark, bare trees, as well.

We finished the trip with a good deed. Dr. Ramzi and his brother, who organize the trips for Walking Jordan, are very interested in getting the money and cast-offs of rich Jordanians in Amman out to the desperately poor who need them in the countryside, as well as doing other projects like trash pick-up in Orjan. One of the families they've recently hosted set up a Bedouin tent for us and served us mensef, the left-overs of which will feed them for days. Some hikers also brought along second-hand clothes and other things to give away.

From Dana to Feynan

The Forty

Amman, Jordan

Winter is here in earnest today. It's cold and rainy and blowing a gale. They call this wind al-marba3inia, which comes from the word for 40, because these winds are common in an approximately 40-day window in the fall and early winter. This is similar to the khamsin that is common over a 50-day period in the spring in Egypt.

This has kept me occupied for most of the evening thinking about the prevalence of the number 40 in this region. It shows up a lot in the Bible. Many Muslims, especially Shi'ites, and Orthodox Christians mark the 40th day after a person dies with special rites. The Egyptians took 40 days to embalm a body.

To understand a people, you must live among them for 40 days.
~Arabic proverb

The Jiffet Process

Amman, Jordan

It's that time of year when I've got olive trees on my mind, and all the uses to which they are put here in the Arab world. The felaheen, the Arab peasant class, invest in olives as they invest in their children, and an olive tree can produce benefit for the family for hundreds of years.

From Olives, Olives!

The obvious uses are for eating and as olive oil, but this is only the beginning. Olive oil is a popular cosmetic ingredient. It can be made into soap, as they do at the Orjan Soap Houseand many other places. It can also be used in lotions. Many young men use olive oil instead of hair gel, and Wijdan even said her son's doctor reccomended it as healthier for the hair and scalp.

From Orjan Soap House

After the olive harvest, the trees are trimmed, and the branches sit on the ground for a few days while the sheep and goats strip them of their leaves. Then the wood can be used for heating, but it's not the only way olive trees contribute to household heating. Many villages are heated by jiffet, what's left over from the pressing of olives for their oil.

From Olives, Olives!

If you take your own olives to the press, you can get a discount on buying a truckload of the leftovers to be dumped in your front yard.

From Olives, Olives!

This sludge is mixed with water and formed into balls, which are left for several days to dry in the sun, turned over, and left several more days to bake on the other side.

From Olives, Olives!

These balls, about the size of a softball, will burn for about 15 minutes each, and much hotter than wood because of the residual olive oil in the jiffet.

From Olives, Olives!

Altogether, a family can heat their home for the 4 months of the winter for about JD100, which is far less than if they used propane, kerosene or diesel, and with a much more pleasant smell, in my opinion. The government also pushes for more use of jiffet in communities where olives are grown, because it is an eminently renewable resource, making use of what would otherwise be a waste product of a major Jordanian industry.

Jiffet is also prevalent in the Palestinian territories, where olive trees and all their byproducts are similarly integral to the felaheen way of life. That's why images like these from Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem make me so angry and anguished.

كل عام وانتم بالف خير

May you and yours be well all year.

Eid al-Adha
Mshairfeh, Jerash, Jordan

This is the most important holiday on the Islamic calendar, when Muslims honor Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his first-born son (Ismail in Islamic tradition) to honor the one true God. Like Abraham, every Muslim household that is able sacrifices a sheep, goat, camel, cow, water buffalo or whatever it is that is husbanded locally. At least once in their lives, every able Muslim should try to go on Hajj and perform this sacrifice on Mount Arafat in Mecca, where Abraham is thought to have done so in Islamic tradition.

From Thanksgiving Weekend in Mshairfeh

It is also traditional to visit family and neighbors, and exchange the traditional blessing: kul 3am wa antum bikhair (May you be well all year). You usually get sweets, too, and the traditional Arab coffee, unsweetened and sharp with cardamom, served in small, bowl-like cups.

From Thanksgiving Weekend in Mshairfeh

It's generally very hot, but as the cups are shared, you must not blow your germs on it to cool it, but rather swirl the coffee in the cup. When you're done, return the cup, and if you don't want another, shake it as you give it back.

From Thanksgiving Weekend in Mshairfeh

Among others, we went to visit Nasri's oldest niece, Suha, to see her newborn son, Asil. Hadeel simply adored the little guy, and couldn't keep her little fingers off his face.

From Tareq Learns to Butcher

When we returned, Nasri was sacrificing one of their goats. Their oldest son Tareq is 17, almost a man himself, and Nasri used the occasion to teach his son how it's done, as Abraham taught Isaac and Ismail. To see it in detail, check out my web album, captioned with explanations.

Thanksgiving and Politics

Mshairfeh, Jerash, Jordan

Happy Thanksgiving! It happens this year that Eid al-Adha falls the day after Thanksgiving, so I've got a 5-day weekend, Thursday to Monday, just as if I'd never left Pennsylvania!

I'm spending my long weekend with my Jordanian family, dar Nasri, in Mshairfeh, and they have something particular to be thankful for this week. "Did you hear what the king did?" exclaimed Wijdan this evening. I waited for her to be more specific. "He dissolved the Parliament!" I had heard. It's his constitutional right. In the two years I was in Peace Corps, he dismissed the Prime Minister and his cabinet at least three times, though he hasn't interfered much with the government for several years; international aid donors frown on that sort of thing.... Wijdan and her husband, on the other hand, are quite pleased. Nasri explained:

From Thanksgiving Weekend in Mshairfeh

The Parliament is terribly corrupt, he says. All the money they get to help the people and lower prices and unemployment goes instead into the pockets of MPs and their families. They buy themselves nice Mercedes, send their sons to expensive schools and universities, give jobs to their cronies, and the situation never changes for the rest of Jordan. Look at my wife! Ranked first among English teachers in Jerash, and yet she can't get a job! But the king, God bless him, says Nasri, he cares about the people of Jordan. He's looking out for the little guy in his kingdom, and he kicked all those corrupt MPs out of office and called for new elections.

There's no guarantee, of course, that the same MPs won't get their positions back, elected by their extended families and tribes, not for their political platforms or tribes, or for promises of reform, but because they're family. Organizations like NDI are making some progress at teaching Jordanians to run on and vote for issues. Young journalists and activist bloggers tend to understand its importance. Still, those in power are reluctant to let it go, and it portends to be some time before Jordan's democracy looks like, say, Turkey's.

"It's Better To Pray Than To Sleep..."

Amman, Jordan

I can still remember very clearly the first time I heard it. It was the 8th of February, 2004. We had landed in Jordan at about 2am, and it was after 4am before we had been paired off and settled into our rooms at the Ayola Hotel in Madaba. My roommate was Audrey, and our suite-mates were Katja and Laura, who would both become good friends over the following months. We had just crawled into our beds, under wool blankets and extra duvets from the closet against the surprisingly cold winter night.

I don't know what was going through the other girls' heads, but mine was certainly swimming. What had I done, leaving the comfort of the Western world to come to this land of terrorists? Of course, it was just the strain of 26 hours of travel and being in an unknown place where I didn't know the language, and then a mini panic attack at the airport. Still, I wasn't sure I could ever be happy in this place.

And then we heard it. There was a new mosque going up just around the corner from the Queen Ayola, and it started the call to prayer first. Immediately Audrey and I were at the window, with Katja and Laura not far behind, as mosque after mosque picked up the call across the city of Madaba. Here, then, was the flip side of our long-conditioned Orientalism: scary terrorists, yes, but also the romantic harmonies of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.

"God is great. I affirm that there is no God but God, and Mohammad is the Messenger of God. It is better to pray than to sleep. Come to prayer. Come to prayer...."

I understood only bits of it then, but the melody of it, the beauty of it echoing across the Madaba skyline, has stayed with me. My experience of the call to prayer would change over time. It wasn't long before I didn't hear that pre-dawn call at all, or if I did, it was a sign that I'd had a very bad, sleepless night. The other four I'm more likely to notice, but they're more a sign of the hour than of faith for me. In the village, time was told in this way:
"Come back after the afternoon call, and I'll be ready to help you with your homework."
"My mother says you should come over after the sunset call."
"There's the last call to prayer. I'd better be getting home!"
On weekends like this one, when I have the opportunity to sleep in, it's often the noon prayer or the Friday khutba that wakes me at mid-day.

From My Amman Home

Recently, a new reaction has entered my repertoire. There's a new mosque going up just behind my house, which makes the call to prayer much louder through my window than it ever was before. My newest reaction is frequently annoyance! But I suppose that sooner or later I'll stop noticing it.

"How Are You With Pain?"

Amman, Jordan

That was what this doctor said the first time I met him, back in Peace Corps, when I thought I was just going in for a consultation, but instead got a baker's dozen Plantar's warts burned off my feet, ending with me passing out and the panicked doctor calling the Peace Corps Medical Officer to come and rescue me.

Why do medical people always freak out when you pass out? I know, it's not something they do themselves, but it has a perfectly clear physiological explanation. It's not that I'm afraid of pain, or of needles. It's a purely physiological reaction to trauma to my hands and feet. I can't control it. It runs in my family.

Anyway, when I went in to have an ingrown toenail looked at this morning, I knew there was a high likelihood I would pass out. In fact, as the doctor was starting to put the anesthetic in my big toe, I warned him that I might pass out. He gave me this look of utter disgust, as if he couldn't believe that I could be so weak of character as to even suggest such a thing. But of course, as he made the second injection, that's just what I did! Out like a light.

It's a little-known fact about passing out that you tend to dream while you're out. It's never anything I can remember, like most dreams, just a whirlwind of images. Every time, I'm reminded of an essay I once read by Henry James about Victorian women who would deliberately make themselves pass out because they believed their dreams revealed the secrets of the universe. I had one of those episodes once, but not this one. I don't remember much, except that it was chaotic and loud, and I was in America. So imagine my disorientation when I woke up in Jordan!

Good news is, I got the day off work, and my toe feels much better now!

ACOR Advanced Arabic!

Check us out in the ACOR newsletter, p. 4-7! May we live long and prosper!

Rain, Rain ... Come Again Another Day!

Amman, Jordan

We are in our third straight day of rain, alternating between drizzle and downpour, and I'm loving it!

I know you can't prove global climate change by anecdotal evidence of local trends, but as surely as the Sudan is feeling it, so is Jordan.

The very first time I arrived in Jordan was February 2004, and I don't remember much of that winter, except that "the desert" that I thought Jordan to be is surprisingly cold in February!

I do remember my first full winter in Jordan well, and I remember that it rained almost every day from November 2004 till April 2006. It would drizzle most of the time, but there'd be a good half hour of downpour at least once a day, and some days there'd be hours of steady rain. Neighbors assured me this was perfectly normal, the way that winters had always been.

In the subsequent four winters, I don't think there's been more than 15 days of rain a year.

Jordan is a country that struggles for water in a good year. There's not much left of the Jordan River once Syria and Israel are done with it, and the Azraq Aquifer is so severely depleted that there's serious danger of sinkholes east of Amman. Jordan just finalized a deal with Saudi for exclusive access to the aquifer the two countries share east of Wadi Rum, called the Disi Aquifer, but I heard that the water may be radioactive.

For decades, Jordan has relied on rainwater for half its water supply. Over 40 valleys across the country have been dammed to create reservoirs that catch rainwater all winter and store it through the summer. Jerash and Mujib are two of the largest. When it doesn't rain, though, there's nothing to fill those reservoirs.

I haven't spoken to a single Jordanian in these 3 days who wasn't glad of the rain.

May all the regional gods of rain keep it coming!

Red Rocks & Racing Camels

Zuwaideh Camp, Wadi Rum, Jordan

From Red Rocks & Camel Racing

Finally, we got the relaxation we were hoping for! It started with an incredibly tender zarb dinner in the traditional Bedouin style (baked in the sand, that is). There were a couple of adventure tourism groups there, mostly middle-aged Brits with a taste for hiking. One gentleman had worked for the UN most of his career, so we spent a lot of time brainstorming ideas for me to get into that exclusive club.

From Red Rocks & Camel Racing

This morning, the tour groups woke in the dark to take a camel ride out to see the sunrise. Jad and I took the car out instead for some nice pre-breakfast shots. One thing that I'd never seen before was galloping camels. There's a camel race track across the street from the Zuwaideh camp, and three young camels were being put through their paces this morning. As the camels were racing around the track, three 4X4 trucks were racing just outside the rail, cheering them on. Beside them came Jad and I playing tourist, trying to get a few good shots of racing camels:

From Red Rocks & Camel Racing

Then we hung around a bit for the morning, and headed back to Amman. Relaxing but not exhausting. Just what a vacation should be. And exactly what we needed to take the sting out of the hotel fiasco in Aqaba. Wadi Rum's much better, anyway, even if there's no ocean!

From Red Rocks & Camel Racing

Jordan Gladly Welcomes Tourists....

...But Jordanians? Not So Welcome!

Aqaba, Jordan

From Red Rocks & Camel Racing

Jad and I just wanted a relaxing weekend outside of Amman. After the week I had, I sure needed it! We both took Thursday off and headed south. We were going to stay in Aqaba tonight, and then tomorrow night in Wadi Rum. It's a very long drive, so we got sandwiches in Aqaba when we arrived, and then headed further south to the Darna Village hostel, just across the main drag from the beach. My brother had stayed in another campground in that area a few years back, and really enjoyed the area. Jad had tried to make a reservation there and been unsuccessful, but when I called to make a reservation for two people, I got one quite easily. It was when we handed over our IDs to register for the room that the trouble started.

The guy at registration asked what our relationship was, and we said we were friends. "You can't have a double!" he said angrily to Jad, in Arabic. "It's illegal." So we asked for two singles. That was when he started yelling, and eventually told us to get out. So we did.

Now, I know that this law exists. I had forgotten about it, but I know about it, and I don't think it's all that unreasonable. After all, if you aid and abet an illicit relationship in Jordan, you put yourself at risk of being victim to an honor killing. It's just good business practice to protect yourself from murder! But I don't think it's reasonable to deny us two single rooms.

In the end, neither did the owner when we reached him by phone. He offered us two singles, but by that time we had driven back to Aqaba city, and couldn't contemplate the idea of subjecting ourselves to that kind of attitude again.

From Red Rocks & Camel Racing

After a few hours of driving around, we managed to contact the camp in Wadi Rum and change our reservation, so we headed out of Aqaba and back north.

"ya rait-ni 3andi kombuter!"

["How I wish I had a computer!"]

Mshairfeh, Jerash, Jordan

I'd been at their house less than an hour when Ghadeer said this to me, and it was the perfect opening. I patted the fersha beside me. "Come sit next to me for a minute, Ghadeer." She gave me a funny look. "Just come here! I have a gift for you from my friends in Amman." So she sat down beside me, and I reached into my bag to pull out the second-hand laptop Jad sold me for a steal and handed it to her. I can't even describe how excited she was. In fact, it wasn't long till she'd run out of the room to express her excitement somewhere out of sight. I think perhaps she was running all around the yard getting her parents to come back to the house and see what she'd gotten.

From Laptop Surprise!

It wasn't long until the aunts started showing up with ICDL practice disks. The UN's International Computer Driving License is a pre-requisite for most jobs that village women can get in Jordan. For those of us who grew up with computers, it's ridiculously simplistic, but Mshairfeh has barely had computers for 6 or 7 years, so people need to start with the basics.

From Laptop Surprise!

I'll tell you who's going to be a technology whiz kid, though. I had brought along my laptop, too, and Hadeel wanted to know if I had any games she could play. I discovered that Windows Vista comes with a children's game called Purbles, and she had the game figured out almost as quickly as I did, and without the benefit of being able to read the directions (which were in English). And then, she tried to teach her brother and sister, but they were convinced that they knew better, so instead she resorted to telling them the wrong things and tripping them up at the game.

The same thing happened with my digital camera. She watched me take a few pictures, and just like that, she was off taking pictures of her own, showing them to her sisters and cousins, taking a few more. She even mastered the zoom with only a small hint from me. Her little hands are a bit unsteady, so she cuts off a lot of people's heads, but she's got the general idea!

From Laptop Surprise!

And that, of course, was how the fashion show started. Once the camera was out, the girls were dressing up in every headscarf and new piece of clothing they could get their hands on, begging me to take dozens of pictures. For once, now that I have a digital camera, I could happily oblige and take as many pictures as they wanted, and then download them right to Ghadeer's new laptop.

From Laptop Surprise!

Now, naturally, since I had given their sister a free laptop, the boys had to find something to complain about.
"How come it doesn't have games on it? What good is a laptop to us without games?"
Well, it's not for you, is it? It's for your sister!
"Why doesn't it have sound? It should have sound!"
Just as soon as I can get back to Amman and the Internet and find a driver for it.
"Only 24 giga of hard drive? Come on! The boy up the street's got over 100 giga, and it wasn't that expensive!"
Maybe not, but it wasn't free, was it?
I was a little peeved by all the complaining, but Ghadeer certainly never complained, and I suppose the boys were just jealous!

I have rarely seen a laptop excite such joy. Thank you, Jad, not to mention Carter, Ryan, Rebecca and everyone else in Amman who helped to make it possible.

100 Years of Amman!

Amman, Jordan

From Amman Centennial Parade

Happy Birthday, dear Amman....

My new co-worker Kristen and I had a slow brunch at Books@Cafe with Ahmed, and then made our way down to the Balad, where we saw the Centennial Parade. Arnoux managed to join us mid-way through, a little forlorn without his lady love....

For more beautiful photos try this Flickr stream.

We headed out for dinner at Jafra afterwards. It was spooky to walk through the downtown with all the streets closed. You've never seen the Balad so quiet! We could walk right down the center of the streets, and weren't the least bit crowded!

Like a Real School

Marj-al-Hamam, Amman, Jordan

It struck me as my last class was on their break, and I went walking down the second floor hallway past Kristen and Fadi's classrooms.

We all had at least 9 students, grouped at tables, hard at work. Despite the post-Ramadan slump (everyone's maxed out their budgets on Eid al-Fitr gifts), we've got nicely packed classrooms. We're starting to look like a real school around here, and it's quite satisfying. (Not to mention, a relief: it means we can feel fairly secure about our continued employment!)

And with the corporate contracts pouring in, I feel fairly confident that it will only get better.

Miss You Already

From Muncie

selamatku!

York, Pennsylvania, USA

Swine flu is messing with my plans!

I was supposed to go to Washington, DC, today to see my old college buddy Candice, but she's laid up with swine flu at the Naval Hospital. I'll be going down to DC tomorrow to meet up with some Peace Corps buddies, but sans Naureen, who is also laid up with swine flu.

Selamatku! as they say in Arabic. Get well soon!

My Godson

or,
They Grow Up Too Fast!

West York
Pennsylvania
USA

First there was just Fred, one of dozens of Jennifers of her era, who longed to be unique among the Girl Scouts at Rainbow Connection. Then there was Fred, Melvin and Side-Kick, life of the Lock-In at the old Junior High (at least as I remember them). Then there was Fred, Ned and Ed, which soon became Phredd, Gnedd, Eadd, Ted and Edna, singing silly songs down the Appalachian Trail. Now there's Phredd, Nathan and Aunt Gnedd.

Now we're scattered to the winds, and reunions are few and far between. Nathan is my oldest, best friend Phredd's son, and at 5 years old, he's seen me all of 4 times, including today! I didn't even meet him till the day when he was over a year old and I became his godmother. I make it out to see him once most years, but rarely when his mother needs the support the most.
It was, therefore, a high priority for me to see him on this trip. And to see Phredd, of course. It was, as usual, complicated. Phredd is laid up with severe asthma, living at her father's again, and her car's transmission was being repaired, but eventually we managed to make it work. And she was right when she said I wouldn't even recognize Nathan!

From Back to Penna.

He's the size of an 8-year-old, talks your ear off, runs circles around his poor Aunt Gnedd, and is the spitting image of his Aunt Yum-Yum (and his mother, apparently, but all I remember about her from elementary school is that we couldn't stand each other)! However, with great verbal acuity has come much better control over his emotions, though his problems are still obviously many, and it was great to see how much better things were going than the last time I saw them.

From Back to Penna.

Look Up!

York, Pennsylvania, USA

I was reminded today of the beautiful work of Gregg Doll as we walked around York's Central Market. It wasn't as busy as usual, and my photos are nothing like Gregg's professional job, but I had fun playing with my camera.

From Back to Penna.

I was also reminded of Mrs. Trevaskis and the best advice I've ever heard about appreciating York, Penn. "When you're in York," said Mrs. T, "you have to remember to look up." There's some beautiful architecture in York, but very little of it is at street level!

From Back to Penna.

I was also reminded of my 10th grade chemistry lab partner, Jim Stephenson, and his mother, who painted one of the many lovely murals around York. We didn't see her, but this one tells of the Constitutional Convention that met here after the British conquered Philadelphia during the American Revolution:

From Back to Penna.

Tied the Knot Their Way

Lincoln, New Hampshire, USA

There were so many reasons to be glad to see Dom and Marie get married. To start with, she supported him when he was trying to open a business with a friend, and in my family, we love entrepreneurs (since both my parents are). And they are both such nice people to spend time with. At the cookout his brothers-in-law hosted after the rehearsal dinner, Dom took time to sit and talk with everyone who came, and in such a way that it felt totally natural, not at all hurried. So I'm delighted to say that they had a beautiful wedding, starting with a stunning location at Indian Head in Lincoln, New Hampshire:

From Dom's Wedding

And I just adore this image of my cousin Dom, watching his bride come down the aisle:

From Dom's Wedding

Dom's Aunt Mary, aka "the JP" (Justice of the Peace), presided over the ceremony, which was brief and to the point, but poignant.

From Dom's Wedding

As part of their ceremony, they assembled a time capsule, which contained pictures of the two of them at their happiness, and love letters detailing why they had chosen to marry each other, to help them through inevitable rough patches in their relationship.

From Dom's Wedding

It was a beautiful, personal wedding, and a fun reception.

From Dom's Wedding