We had to be out of the hotel by 8am, no lie-in for us. We hauled our backpacks round the little town, picking up a falafel sandwich for breakfast (so far nothing has come close to the monster falafel sandwiches in Dahab) and stopping at an internet café before getting another small bus, this time to Mazra'a by the Dead Sea. We had a little wait for the bus to fill up which while slow to start, happened alarmingly quickly, the bus driver jumping in and heading off at top speed down the hill leaving Djalma waiting outside admiring the view and me having a heart attack inside shouting STOP! The driver was painfully slow to respond to my panicked shouting but eventually pulled over for Speedy Gonzalez to get in after he had caught up with the bus running full pelt down hill. Much to my embarrassment the bus reversed all the way back up the hill, as if planned, to wait there a little while longer, no need for all that fuss and panic after all, oops.
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| From Karak, Jordan |
About half an hour later we arrived in Mazra'a, hoping that we would have a place to couch-surf but no idea if we had been accepted or not. We stood in the same spot where the bus dropped us off, just outside a café, shop and falafel restaurant, for about two minutes before someone approached us asking what we were looking for. When Djalma told them William, which is fairly unusual for a Muslim name,they knew who we were talking about and without much faffing one of them hopped in his car and drove us the two minutes to his house. So we pulled up, uninvited and unannounced to this guy's home, and he welcomed us in with open arms.
We spent most of the day inside the guest room, which acted like a second living room, where it was coolish enough to rest without being uncomfortable. William lived with his family, his wife, four year old daughter and two year old son in a new building separated from his family's home by a wall, there was also a separate two room building made of mud and bricks containing the family's kitchen and the guest/living room. I still wasn't feeling too great and it was damn hot in the village (not being too far from the Dead sea it was well below sea level in Jordan valley) so I lay on one of the mattresses reading and sleeping. At some point Khalut, the younger of William's sisters with an absolutely beautiful smile, made some lunch and although I wasn't feeling up to eating Djalma assured me through a full mouth that it was delicious. While I was resting and recuperating Djalma went out to help William's brother to cover a wire frame attached to the house with long grass, making an open but shaded garage. On his return the next morning, William thought it was fantastic.
Being guests in this man's home we were treated like visiting royalty and soon enough his family decided that it was time for me to eat and Khalut brought in some of the tomato sauce, freshly cooked, with bread and we ate together (and it was damn fantastic). William was just starting to work the beginning of four consecutive night shifts when we arrived so he disappeared around 5pm and left us in the more than capable hands of his Grandfather, brother and sisters. We sat out in the garden where it was much cooler than the mud brick house which we had been told kept cool in the Summer and warm in the Winter (it retained the heat from the day) and chatted until it was time for bed.
We slept underneath the stars on the 1st floor of the house which was unfinished. We lay on mattresses, tucked into our sleeping sacks despite the heat which hadn't abated much since the sun went down and settled into sleep despite the sticky sweat coating our bodies which attracted the masonry dust that stuck to us whenever the breeze was strong enough to lift it. The joy of sleep.
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| From Mazra'a, Jordan |
