WEATHER REPORT

After weeks with pouring rain, even snow, and cold sunny days, spring has arrived – even late spring, it feels like, the past two days. Leaving the jacket at home is a welcome change!

OLD TIMES IN AMMAN

People are still agape when I mention I studied Arabic here back in 1981. It doesn’t feel that long ago to me, but objectively, I guess that’s a few more years than most young adults have been walking planet Earth!

One mini project here has been to track down the places I used to go in those days. One of the obvious ones, of course, was the Kelsey Language School on Jebel Amman, where I did my first intensive Arabic studies in 1981.

I live on Jebel Amman this time and have even walked on the street the school’s stairway is on (Mango Street – not the fruit, a local family!), but didn’t realize it until yesterday!

The school’s modern incarnation is in the former (Anglican) Bishop’s School elementary school facilities. When I went in to meet the new (Dutch) Reformed director Mark and his wife Jennifer from Michigan, we were of course talking about the good old days (he doesn’t remember them!), and he mentioned that one of the old beloved Arabic teachers, Asma, had retired the year before and had just lost her 41-year-old son Hussam two weeks back. Now, I had tutored Hussam my final months in Jordan in 1981, so I was shocked he would not be available for a visit in 2010 (it would have been my first time to see him).

Another student walked in, a friend and current tutee of Asma’s, and we arranged to go together to pay our respects to the family during their mourning period. The local custom is to hold a daily open house for a month for friends and neighbors to visit and pass on their condolences. One grown daughter (I remember her as a 12-year-old) conversed with us until Asma finally arrived looking so short and gray-haired that at first I didn’t recognize her, but when I paid closer attention to the face, it was definitely her! She remembered me well (out of hundreds of students over 30 years) and spoke of the affection Hussam had had for me. It felt so gratifying being a welcome visitor at a very heavy time – the first visit in perhaps 15 years.

After our very chummy reunion (Asma sat next to me and joked a bit about old times), the Kelsey student took me just a few yards/meters down the street to the stairway that led down to the door to the old school (actually a Jordanian family home architecturally. Lots of homes on Amman’s seven hills are built off city stairways rather than roads.) Almost everything looked the same – except the school was now back to being a private home.

Now a second goal is to locate my old APARTMENT from 1981 on Jebel Luweibdeh nearby. I tried once in February and stubled on Luzmila Hospital, which instantly clicked – yes, this is the neighborhood and Mustashfa Luzmila was my original taxi directions for getting tot he apartment! But after that, the trail had grown cold. Maybe I’ll Facebook one of my old Kelsey flatmates to get directions?