Snow & City Shut Down

Heard of the "crack" of dawn? We have just had the "thunder of dark". It's 5.20pm and it has been a cold and miserable day in Amman, especially this afternoon with hail and sleet showers. At about 5pm I was facebooking our family when there were two big claps of thunder, and looking outside at the second one saw that it had began to snow heavily. The first photo was taken a couple of minutes later from out 3rd story window. Just looked out the window again and its a blizzard. Strong wind, horizontal snow and drifting already.

In yesterdays blog I mentioned the traffic chaos in Amman as we came back early from the dig because of the rain. That chaos was caused by the government declaring what we would call a state of emergency and closing all government offices and schools at mid day to give people enough time to stock up for the impending storm, with warnings not to over buy on things like bread so there is enough to go around. With the snow settling there will be a curfew declared according to the Jordan Times.

This morning it was cold with a bit of sunshine so five of us set out with Sultan our bus driver to extend our visa at the 3rd Circle Police Station, which is the main Police Station in Amman. We were all geared up for the 2 hour process, which is unusually free, only to find that the Police Station had closed for the day! Why? Because the government declared this morning a public holiday because of the impending storm. We will try again on Saturday, and have to get it done before Tuesday when our visa runs out. We went to the mall after our failed visa trip to stock up on essentials for the lock down, like chocolate biscuits and Greek Kiwifruit, to find that the shops were going to shut at 12pm by government order, suppose that's a curfew. There are a group of diggers due to fly out tonight so not sure how they will go. In the mean time we are snug and warm at the hotel, as long as the power stays on, which is far from guaranteed we are told.

Since we have been here Helen has been knitting a shawl for our new grandchild who is on the way. It has taken her hours of meticulous work, most of them in the afternoon sitting in the sun after the pottery washing and sorting duties at Sodom. We think this is the first shawl knitted at Sodom for thousands of years and not many kids can boast that their shawl comes from Sodom and Gomorrah!. (Just had a big clap of thunder that set car alarms off on the street and the big fluffy snow flakes are coming fast).

We are just off to dinner, no doubt more tough chicken, but the vege's will be great. Haven't told you about Jordanian desserts, always filo pastry covered in honey syrup (baklava). Some with ricotta cheese centres others with ground nut centres - yum! Helen's got the recipes.