The Tailor

My friend’s neighbor is an elderly widow whose daughter is a tailor. This daughter has a speech disorder (and perhaps some learning disabilities from what it appears) so she makes money for the family by sewing. For altering something she only charges 1 JD and her work is rather neat so a few of the sisters her utilize her services. There is another son and daughter who live in the (1 bedroom) house and are unmarried, and 2 other sons and one daughter who are married and live separately.

The son works all night and the (non-tailor) daughter works all day to support the family. The widow helps to watch two of her grandkids because the parents are so busy working trying to make ends meet. She sits and watches them...as they watch TV.

Their life saddens me...for her son works all night and then sleeps away the day on the couch, while one of the daughters struggles to earn for her family in a workforce that doesn’t even pay men enough, let alone women. And the other daughter is effectively isolated from society due to her speech/learning problems.

The elderly grandmother/mother/widow always greets me with a smile yet it’s never enough to hide the sadness and tiredness in her eyes. She is well past the age of looking after the rambunctious grandkids who go from TV to running and throwing around toys. And her bedroom holds a picture of her husband who was killed in Palestine by Israelis---a picture in front of which she still weeps from before she goes to sleep.

My friend tells me that when she goes to see the family for tailoring work, she always sees them eating the simplest of foods: bread and za’tar (thyme) with laban and olives, for example. And the grandmother always sends up food for her neighbors and invites them to eat and share with them. It is indeed a hard, hard life for them but their generosity and good nature beautify their hardship.

It’s being around people like this and learning from them and taking a lesson from them that I see as a benefit of living here. Living in the west, especially in the suburbs often cuts one off from the “real life” that most people in the world live in. Although where we live is one of the nicer parts of Amman there is still much around here that one can see and take heed from.