Carob Hostel – A Home From Home

So far I have regaled you with tales of lost cities, otherworldly deserts and paradisiacal canyons but I have been avoiding the place I spent the most time, my home for 8 months, Amman. The reason for this literary sidestep is that writing about Amman is like trying to explain to your friends that you want to marry a horse. Extremely difficult… Ok, no, let me expand. My feelings for Amman were not positive to begin with but they were given time to stew in the Jordanian cultural pressure cooker allowing sentiment to extend far beyond my usual parameters of judgement. In a sense, I was somewhat forced into this one-sided love story by the restraints of global circumstances but that’s just the way it goes sometimes. An emotional connection with a city, person or horse can’t be sniffed at, lockdown may have closed a door or two, but plenty more opened in their place and I was all too happy to walk through them. 

Note from my lawyer: In this introduction James is in no way aligning himself with the underground bestiality community nor does he condone or support any untoward relations with equine animals. 

Arrival

After a two day stop over in a church filled chest freezer of a city called Bucharest, I was on my way to Amman. I had planned to volunteer at a hostel while I searched for jobs in Jordan however, the volunteering fell through the day before my arrival. So, with an anger infused reckless abandon I just chose another nice looking hostel to stay in for a week while I sorted out my life. When I landed at Queen Alia airport it was a cold and wet January evening. As I exited the building the bright airport lights were bestowing the dark tarmac with a luminescent sheen, elevating the usually muted surface. In the roadside spray I managed to catch the correct bus and indulged in one of the best things about arriving in a new country, the ride from the airport to the city. In those journeys, deep muscular discomfort from lack of space melts away as you stare at a completely new world. In Budapest I stared at the gritty industrial outskirts that had been covered with a blanket of pristine snow, while in Taipei we sat in a capsule of technologically guided serenity as we glided towards a rising metropolis. From Amman’s airport the road was fairly dark and empty. Outside of the bus was only the cold rocky expanse of the desert and the occasional small town that bordered the long highway. But soon we started to cut through the iconic hills of the city, the lights of houses becoming denser with every turn. After 45 minutes we were at the North Bus Station and I prepared myself for the standard verbal and physical molestation of taxi drivers. However, when I got out there wasn’t the immediate, almost violent rush for my attention. That was until I opened my mouth. Heads swivelled and teeth gnashed. I had opted for the standard “cheapest way possible” approach to travelling which meant I didn’t have a local sim card and I couldn’t order an Uber and so I began the haggling. I have never had to haggle that hard in my life and once I had finally agreed on a decent price, I got in. The man and his friend quickly started to complain about how I was giving them too little and they wouldn’t make any money for the journey which I knew to be a barefaced lie. Seeing that I was still not willing to pay them roughly £25 for a 10 minute ride they just drove me back to the bus station. This was an interesting tactical play from them. It was a pure act of self destructive retribution. This caused in me both seething indignation and a hesitant respect for this penniless but pertinacious last stand. He was standing up for something he believed in, it’s just a shame that something was the exploitation of tourists. But, either way I was stood back at the cold and rainy bus station. This wasn’t going well. I settled for a nicer older man who I ended up paying a few more pounds than usual but he was friendly, chatty and I was confident I would reach my destination this time (even though he had to ring the hostel to ask for directions). I rocked up to Carob Hostel at around 10pm completely unaware I would be living there for the next 8 months.

My first week at Carob was spent pretty methodically. I think around 1/3 of my time was spent doing job applications and the other 2/3 were spent completing a 1000 piece VE day jigsaw puzzle. Two equally important endeavours. It was an incessantly cold and wet week and so a Peruvian girl and I decided that we should start a jigsaw. While we were starting, Ahmed (the joint owner of the hostel) looked on with contempt, even commenting that “an elephant could do that”. I’m still not entirely sure if that’s the biggest slam he could’ve thought of concerning the difficulty of the jigsaw but we continued undeterred. The living room was by far the warmest place in the hostel, and when it’s narrowly above freezing everywhere else, it quickly became the social hub. Stuck with the jigsaw in a single room Ahmed slowly but surely became invested in the cause. First, he started finding pieces for us, then he took over a section and by the departure of my Peruvian jigsaw accomplice on the second day, he was hooked. We began working on this puzzle for maybe 12 hours at a time. Ahmed even fell asleep on the job multiple times. The puzzle became our lives, others dipped in and out but this was all we had. I started to see the slightest distinctions in tone from brown piece to brown piece. My brain was so dialled into the world of the jigsaw that the “real world” became an inane game, a useless waste of time, a distraction from the 2D world laid out on the table. During this time I got to know Ahmed pretty well and we got along very easily. In the brief interludes in our jigsaw lives, he recommended places to eat and one night we ate some homemade Sajiya (rich, meaty, peppery stir fry thing cooked on the fire) which his older brother Rami had come over to make. Sat out in the covered seating on the front terrace which was being slowly heated by a traditional oil heater, it was the first time I felt like one of the hostel gang and possibly more importantly, the first time I had discovered the deep love of food in Ahmed’s family.  

Note: For a deeper understanding of Amman’s food scene and for explanations of any of the food names in this post check out my Meats & Sweets post about exactly that.

After my week at the hostel, I decided that I might as well see the rest of the country. At the same time I concluded I was having no luck on the job hunt in Jordan so began looking abroad. As well as gaining a new perspective of the country and my future job prospects, I could extend the distance between me and the now complete jigsaw, the sad reminder of my sad life. I had lost my mind among the pieces now it was time to rediscover what it meant to be James. So, I caught buses to see Petra, Wadi Rum and Aqaba. In all those places I met amazing folks from all over the place. In Petra I met Jerome, a lovely German guy with whom I had my first freshly cooked knafeh (life changing culinary experience), in Wadi Rum I spent a lot of time alone which was amazing and then in Aqaba I stayed at a nice hostel with plenty of really chatty people. In fact, in Aqaba I had one of the most authentic cultural experiences yet. Rolling out as a triumvirate of problematic bachelors from the hostel, Olivier, Mike and I headed for the local boozer for a pint. The Rovers Return isn’t a bad imitation of a British city pub (I didn’t say the experience was authentic for Jordan) and we had a lovely time in there spending a fortune on overpriced lager. In Aqaba I got a text from Ahmed who asked if I’d like to volunteer at Carob as a receptionist. I didn’t need any time to think about the answer because free accommodation was just what my bank account and I needed. By the time I got back to Amman, Ahmed had left to do his stint as captain on a ship, so Firas (his business partner) took the reigns and I met him when I arrived. Thus began the Carob Odyssey. 

Volunteering

For a couple of weeks I learnt about Amman and the wider country because I had to become a fount of all knowledge for the incoming customers who were planning on getting around. I quickly learnt that people generally want to go to the same old places, so when I could I would recommend a few hidden hiking trails in Petra or somewhere people often overlooked like Jerash. When people came back to us they loved that they had deviated from their day by day itineraries to follow our advice. Always listen to local knowledge/ random hostel worker knowledge because they’re the ones that will know what is worth skipping or seeing. Alongside my growing knowledge I was getting to grips with the inner workings of the hostel. Firas and I got on really well and he was very relaxed about my responsibilities. My Arabic was still terrible but I was starting to feel more comfortable in the city and the hostel’s sluice gates were constantly open, letting in backpackers and Russian Babushkas alike (not a joke). 

Felix was one of the first people I met as a volunteer. Working remotely, she was from China and had quickly spotted that I was always cooking in the absence of jigsaw related activities. She wanted me to cook for her and I wanted her to pay for ingredients, the arrangement was set. I was cooking anyway and now I could cook whatever I wanted because Felix was happy to spend her employer’s money on whatever I wanted from the shop. Little did I know this would be the origins story of my brief escapade into the world of a semi-professional kitchen. 

Pancake day. Apparently this wonderful annual occasion is not a thing elsewhere and when I announced the day with childlike enthusiasm everyone in the hostel looked at me like I was losing my mind (a look I know well). Therefore, pancake day became an opportunity to make unhealthy food protected from scrutiny and judgement by the warm embrace of cultural identity. I made pancakes for whoever wanted them and got to know a Belgian and a German guy pretty well. I later found out that they appreciated the true glory of a falafel sandwich from my favourite shop, Safiruna. This bonding over the delights of food endears me to a person immediately, in fact I’d go as far as saying that I respected them both as people after hearing their thoughts, and its not often I can say that.   

Despite making friends though the medium of falafel, not every person that came through the hostel doors was worthy of praise. We did have the rare character that I wished would disappear without a trace. The worst by far was the human equivalent of the Mogwai. With human mogwais you can feed them after midnight all you want but for God’s sake do not give them a single drop of alcohol. Of course, someone failed to read her instruction manual because on two occasions she turned into a boozy hell gremlin. The worst night was when she came into the dorm room (which we were sharing) at 3:30am. She began singing along to the call to prayer, loudly trying to converse with Lala (the hostel cat) and decanting her entire wardrobe into individual plastic carrier bags (definitively the loudest and most inappropriate activity you can do in a dorm room in the early hours). 

As the normality of living in Jordan was kicking in, I went out on a few dates with an American called Sara who was studying Arabic in the city. After I had recovered from the utter disbelief that I managed to convince a real human woman to go on a date with me, I pulled off my most technically elaborate trick yet. My showstopper if you will. I somehow managed to convince her we were even close to the same level of attractiveness. HAHA, what a fool! I kept up the ruse and we went on a fair few dates, one of which took us to the bowling alley. I had been professing my inability to bowl beforehand because of my shaky track record on the lanes, but somehow I pulled off the best bowling performance of my life. In any other setting my smugness would’ve been severe and my glory eternal, but here I had revealed that I could in fact be a charlatan and a trickster. That accidental show of extreme athletic prowess (yes, bowling is athletic) meant that I had to change the setting quickly. We had to get out of there before more realisations were made about the much more important trick (the illusion pertaining to the vast gulf in our objective attractiveness). So, after a little shopping, we headed for the colloquially named Hungry Street. We arrived in the torrential rain, puddles were becoming lakes and I was strongly suspicious that despite being soaked to the bone, this date was still going well. The whole thing was totally inexplicable. We ate lots of amazing fast food that the street is known for and then sheltered from the rain in the knafeh shop.

After a few dates I had finally scored a teaching job but it was in South Korea. I was busy sorting out all the documents so I could head there while I also realised this was a bit of a bummer because I was accidentally really into Sara. News broke pretty soon after that the country was going into lockdown and the government gave a whole day’s notice. This meant that all the expats in Amman were losing their minds trying to get home, attempting to book flights on the over-capacity websites, which crashed regularly and increased the ticket prices by the minute. I couldn’t get my visa for South Korea because it would’ve been ready the day after lockdown started and so I was staying in Jordan. Sara, though, was one of the ones leaving. The tables had turned. I helped her pack up her stuff and we said a sad goodbye.

Under Lock and Key

The government of Jordan doesn’t mess around. Lockdown meant exactly that because they shut everything. Every business and place of worship was closed down and in the process the government got so carried away that they shut themselves down. Three days of intermediary measures were put into place while the army literally surrounded each city in the country and then they began patrolling the streets. Next it was announced that multiple days in a row per week would be lockdown days and anybody seen on the streets at all (walking or driving) would be put in jail for up to a year. Alongside this, a 6pm curfew was issued which was marked across the city by loud, eerie air raid sirens. The day before this came into effect we legged it to go shopping because we knew we were going to be locked in the hostel for the next 4 days. We drove all over the city to find deals (Firas’ no.1 activity), from the extravagance of Abdoun to the narrow streets of the refugee camps we scoured every corner of the city. One road was especially memorable from this journey. We emerged from a tightly packed neighbourhood heading towards the far north of the city, the houses to the sides of us had disappeared suddenly and the narrow road we were on continued its direct path into the black night. As we crested the hill, northern Amman’s shimmering nocturnal expanse greeted us. The panoramic view of lights penned in by the curving ring road boundary were so far below us and far into the distance that it felt like we were on a plane slowly coming in to land. To our sides we occasionally passed sheds selling coffee which were the only beacons of harsh light along the narrow ribbon of undulating tarmac. At the end of this adventurous decending detour to find bread, we were met with one of the longest bakery queues we had seen all day, so we got some other basics and got on our way. Eventually, we called it a night after filling the pick up with more than enough food. By this point we knew we couldn’t be bothered to cook so we swooped by a fast food Lebanese manakish place. We ate from the back of the truck in the drizzle and it was beyond heavenly. 

From here lockdown kicked in and we all got into our own little routines. I became the personal trainer of the QuarenTeam (because they had heard tales of my bowling athleticism). This consisted of me making up circuits to do on our wrap-around outdoor terrace in order to keep everyone fit. 100 laps of the hostel was roughly 8km and the back terrace was open and perfect for suicide sprints which were about as fun as they sound. Sebastian, the long haired Belgian who features in most of my Jordan posts thus far, was the master of games. A man with a supreme aptitude for optimistic inventiveness, he created the firm favourite among all the games, foot golf. It had all started when we decided to play football on the front terrace but lacked a key piece of apparatus, a football. We improvised. After throwing a tightly bundled blanket into a fabric tote bag and applying enough compression we had a functioning football. Soon, we realised football was an awful lot of effort, so after being gifted semi-deflated small beachball, foot golf was invented. The blanket ball would be placed at any height or distance around the building and then, as per standard golfing rules, we would attempt to hit it with the beach ball in as few shots as possible.

As we entertained ourselves with harmless games, Ammanis were going crazy. Not ones to enjoy being told what to do, the locals pushed and prodded the lockdown rules. A few brave people snuck onto the streets and slid under nearby cars while the armed Hummer convoys sped past and an absolute hero (who had completely forgotten that he’s not in the Wild West) decided to take to the streets on a horse. This lone ranger wasn’t received with as much jest by the army who chased him through the streets. Despite this epic equine roguishness, my favourite story is that of a Jordanian couple who had decided to fly back to the country for their wedding during lockdown. They were ferried to the Dead Sea to do quarantine and in the hotel they had their wedding, even receiving a present from the king himself. When they got out of their 2 week quarantine the newly weds returned to their families where they should’ve obeyed the lockdown rules. Unfortunately, they weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed and decided to have a street party with their extended family instead. The internet spies (I imagine these keyboard agents to be about as physiologically far from James Bond as possible) found videos of the party on Facebook and the king himself tweeted for them to be put in jail. So, they were arrested and taken to what I imagine was an extremely distressing honeymoon. 

When we weren’t staying fit or getting furious at the bounce of a small children’s beach ball, we kept our brains ticking over. Sebastian and I partook in a variety of quizzes at almost every opportunity and Firas joined us for card games or Geoguessr. The latter is a website that drops you anywhere in the world on Google street view and you have to whiz around to try and figure out where you were dropped. Ok, that might sound incredibly dull but we spent untold hours getting those guesses down to the metre. The most impressive/shameful waste of our time was figuring out (to the exact metre) where in Siberia we were which only took a few hours. Days and weeks were whiled away like this and soon winter gave way to the fresh yet sunny air of the Jordanian spring. In these sunny days we were inclined to sit out on the terraces more often. We watched over the beautiful valley that ran off to the west where the skyscrapers and minarets of the Abdali district dominated the view, or looked to the North where the rolling hills were covered by the concrete boxes that define the Ammani cityscape. Spring might be the best season in Jordan, the days are getting warmer and all the flowers and fruits are appearing in the trees but the most impressive sight of spring is found in the skies. Thousands upon thousands of kites fly over Amman and I think that lockdown only increased their density. The best time to see them is at sunset when families make their way to the rooftops and children launch their homemade kites dizzyingly high into the sky. The whole sky is filled with dancing shapes, trembling in the constant late afternoon breeze. Some glide peacefully while others, at the hands of more adventurous kite handlers, dip and spiral bringing the whole sky to life. All the while, the heavens themselves compete with the their own late afternoon show, throwing vibrant streaks of pink and orange onto the sky’s canvas.

On the few days per week that we were allowed outside we did group shopping treks which, much like Firas’ driving trips, took us to about 5 different shops in search of the best deals. Despite this, we did settle on one main shop which was a maze of shelves and low ceilings behind a normal looking facade. The shop sold almost entirely out-of-date goods which were totally fine and much cheaper than everywhere else. In fact this is a chance for me to give a little slither of helpful advice (I know, I know, this is almost unheard of on this blog and in fact its a little nauseating to even thinking about being helpful but here I go). If you go to Amman, find a convenience store with “Al-Quds” (Jerusalem) in its name and it’ll be one of those cheap shops. From these longwinded trips we not only got our some much needed visual variety but we also got the ingredients to make magnificent meals for 5. Some of which included a Belgian beef stew called Stoofvlees, Jewish potato pancakes (latkes) with homemade apple sauce and my signature coconut curry. 

Lockdown Relaxes

The curfew extended to 7pm, the number of total lockdown days started to decrease and cars were incrementally allowed onto the roads. It was like being spoon-fed freedom. Lovely delicious freedom. During this time, Firas was on a mission to earn a bit of money using the classic side hustle of being a man that can fix anything. I’m not handy but needing his trusty Britani to hold things and to entertain him with scintillating conversation, I came along to most of these jobs. One of them was a man who needed a new water tank fitted on his roof and Firas had failed to hoist the new one over the lip of the 3 storey building. To save him dropping it on the street below again (which could’ve easily killed a person) Sebastian and I came to help. Turned out after heaving it up we didn’t have much else to do, so we talked to the owner of the rooftop. It turned out that he’s been the director of multiple large films such as The Mummy and Transformers but he quit Hollywood to work on projects he enjoys and got invited to the Oscars for his Arabic film “Theeb”. Other than that we helped many people, one of my favourites was a French family. They wanted planters for their beautiful balcony, new shelves put up and pictures hung. Firas made everything they wanted from scratch, fixed it all and I mainly stood around talking to the lady and then she paid me. None of the other people had paid me so I think I owed my new found (and quickly spent) wealth to charming this middle-aged French lady. 

Ramadan began and spring decided that this was the perfect time to slap us with some summer. The days and nights became scorching affairs so Firas and Sebastian started sleeping outside because inside it was 30 degrees in the rooms. This hellish heat was slowly sending us to a sweaty grave so, to make us feel better, we made a monumental cheesecake from scratch. I’m not sure whether the cheesecake really helped alleviate our heat-related despair but it did give us sugary fuel to say goodbye to Eliza as she moved out. Soon after her departure it was independence day so I guess not only were we sadly independent from Eliza but the city was celebrating its independence from Britain (shocking I know). The evening of independence day began with a brilliant array of light beams fanning out over the inky sky smothering the cityscape. Soon enormous fireworks lit up the horizons in flashes of dazzling colour while an elegant scythe of moonlight illuminated the sky in their absence. Once the fireworks had ended the beams of light from the hill descended upon the city itself and scanned across the houses. People were on their rooftops, balconies and terraces whistling and shouting, it was an incredible spectacle and a show of solidarity despite the pandemic.

As the lockdown grew less severe we started exploring the country together, going camping, hiking and on road trips. I was becoming more and more invested in the hostel and its plans for the future and this was only added to by Firas’ desire to get me involved in the business. We started thinking of schemes and how to market the hostel in these strange times. One of these schemes was to help emerging businesses make Hostelworld and Booking.com accounts alongside a larger google presence. After a day of driving around the north of Jordan, chatting to locals over many cups of tea, we came to the farm of an old man with an unctuous moustache. Located within viewing distance of Ajloun castle (as seen in this post), he greeted us with freshly picked figs from his farm and we sat down to discuss options (by we I mean Firas discussed options while I listened quietly like a good completely mute boy). Soon it became apparent the man wasn’t interested in paying for our help setting up online stuff but he did say that we should just run the place. Firas always wanted to expand and have an eco camp in the green north of Jordan and so this seemed like a perfect opportunity. We came up with lots of plans and visited the farm a few times (I tagged along for the figs and Arabic listening practice) but one day out of the blue the moustachioed man rang and called it all off. His sons had caught wind of the plan and dissuaded their dad from giving power over their inheritance to some random guy from the capital. This was a blow to our spiderweb of ideas but we ploughed on. By this time Ahmed had returned from sea and a famous TV show had contacted the hostel. They said they wanted Carob to be the next place they would film their show which is where they take a business like a restaurant or a hotel and improve it in a small time frame. It’s pretty much DIY SOS but without Nick Knowles or the touching familial backstories. When they saw the hostel they said “We can’t improve this, what ideas do you have?”. This is was music to Firas and Ahmed’s ears. They explained their plans for the outdoor terraces and after filming the building crew got to work. 

Despite completing a life goal of mine (featuring as non speaking extra of a cinematic shot on a foreign TV show), one of the most special and memorable moments of Jordan for me was actually the most gruesome. I was invited by Firas and his Dad to join them on Eid Al-Adha for the slaughter of their sheep. Eid al-Adha is the latter of the two international Islamic holidays (the earlier one being the post Ramadan Eid al-Fitr) and is considered to be the holiest of the two. It honours the willingness of Ibrahim/Abraham (the one guy that Judaism, Christianity and Islam can all agree was seriously important) to sacrifice his son, Ismael, as an act of obedience to everyone’s favourite eternal bearded fella in the sky. Just before Ibrahim could sacrifice his son, God magicked up a lamb instead which I suppose would’ve been a huge relief. God’s intervention in this twisted game of truth or dare (that he designed) is a little on the nose for me. Obedience to the great puppet master is of course important, but asking a guy to kill his son to prove his loyalty only to say, “O.M.G you were actually going to do it? Seriously? You were going to kill your son for me? You’re a crazy guy. If I told you to jump off a cliff would you? Haha, only joking. Just kill this lamb instead” is a little much. That being said, Muslims love it and so every year on Eid Al-Adha they commemorate it by sacrificing a sheep. One third of the meat from the animal is eaten by the family and then the rest is distributed to the poor and needy.

So, we pulled up to the side of the road where the makeshift sheep pens pop up in the lead up to the holiday in order to find our sheep. He wasn’t hard to miss. He was the biggest one there, with big curled horns. He was going to give us a lot of meat. Firas’ dad showed his receipt and the sheep was unceremoniously dragged to a large carpet in the dusty field next to the road and killed. Then after a bit of waiting it was skinned, butchered and we left. We went back to Firas’ house, ate lots of offal (as is traditional) and then hopped in the car to bring meat to the poor. We drove to the refugee camp of Baqa’a which like most refugee camps in Amman was set up following the Six Day War which pitched Israel against Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon in 1967. Israel won with less than a 1000 losses whereas their opposition’s losses totalled over 20,000. The history of this conflict and indeed the whole Israel/Palestine shabang is incredibly complicated and fascinating (and something I might consider writing about soon) but for now back to the conflict. As well as winning the war, Israel did what they do best and said “Hey is that your land? Yes?” *Raises gun* “Haha, please reconsider your answer” and so hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled their homes to come to Jordan. In response 6 refugee camps were set up and Baqa’a is the largest of these. Originally comprised of tents, over the years the residents have moved into prefab homes and concrete shelters using outside aid. Today Baqa’a houses around 100,000 Palestinian refugees on the outskirts of the city. There we brought meat to many of Firas’ Palestinian relatives and people they knew needed help before heading back for tea and chocolates. Unfortunately, I missed the next day’s feast using the remaining meat because we went hiking and wild camping in Wadi Al-Hasa but still it was a day I’ll never forget and a real honour to be invited. 

Music To My Ears

Once the TV crew was gone and the swanky new terrace layout was starting to sink in, Ahmed left again. I thought this new set up would be perfect for live music events with a little food and drink. However, we quickly overstretched and soon we had a full menu. I was appointed head chef and designed the dishes which I was proud to say were edible verging on delicious. Eliza’s band agreed to play for the first event and the rush began to get everything ready.

We failed because the event was utter chaos. Our kitchen was too small, we had too many people ordering and some of the dishes took far too long. In fact that might have been one of the most stressful evenings of my life. But, we pushed through it with dogged perseverance and came out the other side alive but knackered. Our many doubts about the future of the events quickly turned into plans to make sure that the our kitchen nightmare never returned. Chief among these was to reduce the cooking to one main course and one dessert depending on the event and the live music would continue. We found a Turkish guy called Kadir who could play many things and sing, he decided to stay at the hostel and play music for us which meant that we could ramp up the events and start to make it a regular thing. I got involved with the marketing and things were going swimmingly. However, by this stage the government was back in charge and they decided to start picking new rules out of thin air, one of which pretty much made our events illegal. This meant that my opportunities in Jordan were being viciously strangled and it was time for me to leave before to 2 month window of permitted visa overstay was overstayed. In other words I had overstayed my visa but they just decided that was allowed until October because of the pandemic.

Final Thoughts

I was the last of the hostel crew to leave and with that it was the end of an era. Jordan feels like a second home to me now. Not only will I always have great memories of the QuarenTeam (Firas, Sebastian, David, Eliza and Tam) but also the families of Firas and Ahmed. Ahmed’s youngest brother Zaid was around the hostel every other day and was the fast food connoisseur, Rami (Ahmed’s older brother) was around for any BBQ or meaty meal, Firas’ mum Irina was the first person to teach me some Arabic and cooked me some amazing Russian food. These people were so closely tied in with my life in Jordan that they became a second family to me.

So, to recap Jordan. Planned on living there, then planned on not living there, which was duly punished by forcing me to live there, which turned out to be a godsend. We are all just living in a M.Night Shyamalan film so it’s better to just embrace the twists and turns.