Wonderful Day in Madaba

Household Goods.

It's been a few days since my last posting. It has been a busy week, but has been pretty normal. A few significant events included the arrival of Jake's Mickey Mouse toddler bed in the mail and the arrival of some of our household goods from Alabama arrived. We also attended two playgroups, one at our social sponsor's house and one at the British Embassy.

 Above,  Jake enjoys his Mickey bed. And below Jake enjoys his "new" toys and our household goods.

Ramadan.

Ramadan started on Sunday, so things change slightly in the Middle East for the Holy Month. Muslims fast from sun up to sundown. Ramadan is based on the lunar calendar so the dates change a little each year. The first "experience" I had with Ramadan was during my first deployment to Iraq and I specifically remember Ramadan occurring during the month of October when days are a little shorter. Because Ramadan is in the summer months this year, Sunrise is at 5:30 AM and Sundown isn't until 7:45 PM. It make for a long day a fasting. Businesses and Restaurants have later hours and most aren't open during the day. We went to a wing restaurant last night and we had to sit upstairs where the windows were covered so we wouldn't offend anyone who could see into the restaurant.

Madaba. 

Today was a great day in Jordan. Chris had the day off since tomorrow is the 4th of July. We went with our friends Dan and Kaylan to the city of Madaba. It's about 30 minutes from Amman. We left our kids with a babysitter and had a baby-free day today enjoy with friends.

Madaba is a city known for it's mosaics.

From Wikipedia: Madaba (Arabic: مادبا‎), is the capital city of Madaba Governorate in central Jordan, which has a population of about 60,000. It is best known for its Byzantine and Umayyad mosaics, especially a large Byzantine-era mosaic map of The Holy Land. Madaba is located 30 kilometres (19 miles) south-west of the capital Amman.

The Catholic Church's list of titular sees uses the spelling "Medaba", traditional in reference to the ancient bishopric centred on this city, while at the same time referring to the modern city as 'Madaba".^[2]

Dan and Kaylan have been here since the end of January and they've been to Madaba quite a few times and have a "guy" there named Osama. Osama is a business man in Madaba that they connected with through another military family that is in the same program as Chris and Dan. They ordered a table from Osama a few months ago and it was ready to be picked up, so we asked to tag along.

Last night Dan and Kaylan called Osama to let him know that we were planning to come pick up their table today. Osama insisted that we come for lunch at 1PM. We were to meet him at his shop in town at 12:30 and then we would go to his house for lunch because he had some friends visiting and also coming to lunch. The friends are Mormons and consultants to the American University in Jordan. They are good friends with Osama and he does a lot of mosaic work for the Mormon churches in Utah, so they have a long-standing friendship.

We arrived in Madaba at 12:15 and we barely got out of the car before we were greeted by Osama. He is referred to as an Arabic George Clooney, and actually does share a resemblance. He took us to his shop and showed us Dan and Kaylan's table. They also have an ostrich egg that is painted with tiny, pin drops and I knew I wanted one too, so we made our first big souvenir purchase in Jordan. Osama threw in a few other things from his gift shop too. We left our things there and went to his big shop where tour buses stop on their way from Mt. Nebo. This is where we were to meet his other friends. The shop has a number of souvenirs from surrounding Middle Eastern countries. We spent about 2 hours waiting in the shop and looking around, and we got to see how the mosaics are made. They have 78 artists who handcraft the mosaics. It takes 4 years of schooling to become a mosaic craftsman and another year of apprenticeship before they artists can work on the really intricate mosaics.

At around 3:15, we went to Osama's house for our 1 PM lunch. But it was well worth the wait. His wife made us a HUGE lunch and it was wonderful. She fed 10 of us Americans in her house, all the while, she is fasting for Ramadan. She prepared Maqluba with all the trimmings.

From Wikipedia: Maqluba (Arabic: مقلوبة‎; Turkish: maklube; Persian: مقلوبه‎; Hebrew: מקלובה‎; ) is a traditional dish of the Arab Levant,Persia, and Jordan.^[1] The dish includes meat, rice, and fried vegetables placed in a pot, which is then flipped upside down when served, hence the name maqluba, which translates literally as "upside-down".

The dish can include a variety of vegetables, such as fried tomatoes, potatoes, cauliflower, eggplant, and chicken or lamb.^[2] When the casserole is inverted, the top is bright red from the tomatoes that now form the top layer and cover the golden eggplant.

Maqluba is usually served with either yogurt or a simple Arab salad (salata Arabia) of diced tomato, cucumber, parsley, and lemon juice, often mixed with a tahina sauce.

After lunch, we went back to the small shop downtown to pay for our ostrich egg and we also ordered a small coffee/end table, our second big purchase in Jordan. It was a fun day.

Below: Top left is a photo of one of Osama's shops. Top right is Dan and Kaylan seeing their completed table for the first time. Bottom left is a mosaic of St. George and bottom right is of the Tree of Life.

From Wikipedia: The concept of a tree of life has been used in science, religion, philosophy, and mythology. A tree of life is a common motif in various world theologies, mythologies, and philosophies. It alludes to the interconnection of all life on our planet and serves as a metaphor for common descent in the evolutionary sense. The term tree of life may also be used as a synonym for sacred tree.^[1]

Above: This is how the mosaics are made. They stretch out a piece of cloth and then draw and outline of the design on the cloth (the middle left photo shows the outline drawn on the cloth). 

A machine will cut stone into long, thin strips (the right side of the upper right photo shows a few of these strips of machine cut strips of stone).

From there, they use the plier-looking tool (like the one in the upper left photo) to clip the stone into pieces to place in the mosaic. The pieces are glued to the cloth, smooth side down. 

Once the mosaic is finished, they flip the mosaic over and remove the cloth so the smooth shiny side with be face up. Then they mount into a frame/table top with cement. The size of the piece and the size of the stones used determines the amount of time it will take to complete. Smaller stone mosaics can take a month or two, but ones using larger stones may only take a week. 

The above photos are of a Syrian craft where wood is inlayed with Mother of Pearl to make elaborate furniture. In the upper left corner is a photo of the wood in it's original form. The bottom piece of wood is Walnut, then to the left is Olive wood and to the right is lemon wood, and the thin piece on top is rosewood. All are used in making this furniture. The wood is machine cut into thin strips shaped like triangles, then glued together. In this case the middle left photo shows the circular block that is used in this piece. Once the triangular pieces form the circle, they cut the circle into thin pieces and inlay into the furniture. Once the wood is in place, the Mother of Pearl is glued into the piece (top right photo). The bottom left shows a pot of the glue. It's a natural animal glue and it didn't have a smell to it. The bottom right shows the finished product. It's a chess table with chairs built in. It is a beautiful piece of furniture and very intricate. One of these tables runs upwards of $8,000. But it is all handmade and crafted.

The upper left and right photos show the Maqluba that Osama's wife prepared for us. It was delicious. It was in a big red pot that looked like a big pot of rice. Then he tipped it over, exposing the other hidden treasures within. The chicken was wonderful. 

The middle left photo is of some of the ostrich eggs in the gift shop.

The bottom right is a photo of our lemon and mint drinks. Jordan and probably other Mid-East countries, serve this wonderful drink. It is lemon juice, fresh mint and sugar. So refreshing on a hot day. The plates are Turkish and just happen to be in the photo.

The bottom left photo is of a kid who looked to be about 12 trying to get a car out of our way so we could get out of the parking lot. Our funny story for the day is that after a long day of experiencing Osama's shops and generous hospitality, we were ready to go home and relieve our baby sitter of our kids and get ourselves home too, but we were blocked in. Osama tracked down the driver or some kid who had the keys to this car and asked him to move the car. I don't think the kid had ever driven before. It was funny to watch him try to back the car out of a very full parking lot. Osama is the man in the picture talking to the driver. Eventually, he got in and moved the car out of the way so we could be on our way. Just a funny little thing at the end of the day to make us laugh.

This is a picture of our Ostrich Egg.

And on our way home, we were not in so much of a hurry to get back to our kids that we didn't have time for desert. We stopped at a pastry store and picked up a kilogram of these wonderful treats.

That was our day. So much fun and it was nice to not have a toddler to chase around in the gift shops, but we missed our little bear. Tomorrow, maybe we can get him to the park. Or maybe we'll go to the Embassy for the Independence Day BBQ.