our first home in amman

we live in an apartment
for lack of a better word
attached to the owner’s house.
kinda like a duplex.

see the water tanks on top?
amman’s water is rationed on a weekly basis.
we bathe about 2 times a week
– you can understand the implications of that
if you’re married (smile).
i don’t dare do more than one load of laundry a day.
our landlord has a well,
so we’ve got a little safety net.

it’s nicely furnished with sofas and a table and chairs in the living room,
a table and chairs in the kitchen
a king size bed in one BR
two twins in another BR
and plenty of storage.

i’m told that it’s warmer than most places in the winter
and easy to heat.
it’s not too big,
so it’s very manageable considering all the studying ishaq and i have to do.

on the first night we got there
i was so uncomfortable
and cold
(we didn’t know how to work the heat, yet)
being without my own things and all
that i slept in my jacket.
i’m finicky like that sometimes.

alHamdullilah, the bed is comfortable,
but let me show you what you might expect coming to amman:

this is central heating

along with diesel-powered radiator heat and diesel-heated water.

(an aside:
i’m told that jordan is still using diesel vice electric or other sources
because it use to get oil from iraq
in return for iraq having use of jordan’s roads.
well, when iraq fell into chaos,
guess what happened to diesel prices.
how do you say “solar cells” in arabic?)

this is our microwave.

or what we use as one.
when was this manufactured?

this is how our stove is literally connected to a gas tank

and after turning on the gas
we’ve go to manually fire it up with a lighter or match.

this is the washer.

this is the dryer.

it takes about 2 days for clothes to dry in this weather.

this is the hoover that initially refused to pick up rice.

it’s fixed now.

just as i was getting used to it,
and creating a rhythm for things
the landlord told the school property manager
that he’d prefer we’d move out.

see, there were a few things that thought needed fixing:
e.g.

• the gas smell in the kitchen
• a leaking sink in the bathroom
• chipping lead paint on the walls
• lack of a oven rack so we can bake stuff
• the icky smell in the bathroom

the landlord’s thing is:
the apartment is what it is.
if you want it, you’ve gotta live with all of that.
if you don’t want it, move out.

we’ve heard stories from previous occupants.
most of them weren’t good.

well, Allah made an opening
and we’ll be moving in a few days, inshaAllah,
to a more expensive, colder,
but bigger, updated, cleaner 2nd floor apartment just down the street.

in amman, the closer to the ground the better.
if you have windows facing south and north
it’s warmed by the sun.

things are looking up,
but send us some thermals!