Living With the Twal Family

A Family Affair

I live with one branch of the Twal Family in Abdali in an upper class neighborhood in the heart of Amman. Another CIEE student shares this house with me; Darci Dweyer from Boston, Massachusetts lives on the 3rd floor while I live on the 1st floor. The second floor is divided into two apartments, one of which I should move into around the 17th of March. The current lessee has become something of an awkward point as he was originally slated to depart for Saudi Arabia in early February.

Like most residences in Amman, it is a multi-story affair with little space for cars or a yard when compared to the Midwest or Southern California that I know, but it has a pleasant outdoor garden with citrus trees, a patio, and room for several cars around the front. I regret not living more in an American city as a point of comparison, but it is roughly similar to the Queens row house of Ray and Tina Verta where I stayed for a week.

I live with Muna, the matron of the household; her sister-in-law Samira; and one of her four sons, Raja'i. Raja'i smokes, but only outside. Muna subsists on a diet of American coffee with condensed milk in the morning, red meat at lunch, and very little else. Muna and Samira sit with me most mornings talking, listening to the radio, or reading a national Arabic-language newspaper.

The 3rd floor is home to another of Muna's sons, Marwan, and his family of five. Nooha and Marwan are happily married with their eldest daughter Dinah, 16; their sole son, Odeh, 13; and their youngest daughter Leen, 10. All three attend private Christian schools and the entire Twal family is to some degree a practicing Catholic.

Leen the Youngest

The Twal family is of Jordanian 
origin - a key part of any identity is the origin of one's family - though Nooha is of Palestinian descent. The family congregates around the television after work and school for international soccer, regional soaps, and the latest American movies and television programs brought in by one of the ubiquitous satellite dishes perched on rooftops across Amman.

Dinner is a strange and sometimes confusing mix of communal and individual. Family members eat full meals as they come in from school or work then congregate for an evening meal at which Darci and myself are the primary diners. Most social activity takes place on the first floor, but I'm welcome on the third floor to study, cook, and play with Marwan and Nooha's children.