Customarily....

* post from yesterday that I....didn't post. Whoops!*

The family keeps getting bigger.

Last night Mama and I had a conversation about the size of the entire family. While originally she listed 33 as the total for both hers and Baba's, I didn't realize that she hadn't even counted her first cousins. Mama comes from a family of 12 -- 6 boys and 6 girls. Each sibling has at least 2 children, except for two sisters who are apparently spinsters and live together somewhere in Amman. Altogether, her side totals somewhere in the twenties, including her children from her previous marriage. On Baba's side, though I don't know about his siblings, he has 4 children from a previous marriage, an ex-wife (who is very close with Mama), and each of his children have at least two children. All of this leaves the total immediate family somewhere in the mid to high thirties.

That being said, about a quarter of them dropped by last night.

In Jordan, as I was made aware of during orientation but only truly learned last night, it is very common for people to 'drop in.' Dropping in does not, however, consist only of a quick hello and short conversation. We brought out the sweets, the ice cream, the Turkish coffee and the tea over the course of two-and-a-half hours of, as far as I could tell from the violent giggling and gesticulations of a 200-year-old woman and her equally animated, but comparatively....smooth, daughter, very exciting gossip. Then, a neighbor, who may or may not be related to someone in my family, brought her gaggle and her maid over as well for even more gossip, gesticulation and giggling. This time, though, I got to hold a baby so I was a little less useless in the social context.

Every 40 minutes or so, the old woman would look at me, give me a giant, toothless grin and ask my host mother in Palestinian-accented Ameeya whether I had any idea what they were talking about, and each time I would grin just as widely and shake my head.

The words that I understood over the course of this three-hour conversation:

تفولتنا = Our childhoods

محمد = Mohammad

اولاد = children

There were some others, but, I assure you, not many.

'til tomorrow,

anneke