Olives Olives

This entry was started on Friday November 11th, but for some reason remained in a doc file until I spotted it today in my "blog" folder! I can't believe I got too busy and forgot to post it!! But well, old news or not, it just means too much to me to be relegated to the confines of my hard drive until it crashes and the bits and bytes vanish into obscurity. (I don't know what's with me but waking up at 5:00 AM on a Friday might have something to do with it ;) )

As painful as everything is, and as shaken as we all are… to me today embodied very beautifully how life is stronger, and gave me a strange feeling of belonging.

My eyes ached from the long hours spent in front of TV and the internet yesterday… so when my dad said we want to go to the farm to harvest the olives, I felt it would be a good break and a chance to clear my mind and spent some time with the family. The weather was perfect, sunny but fresh… I had been looking forward to this family activity for quite a while, and had always envisioned turning it into a festive picnic, but not today! The mood was far from festive, yet it was amazingly peaceful…

Sally (miniwheels_5) and I wasted no time in immersing ourselves in the olive picking process with dad and my aunt. Laith and his friend joined us a little later, while mom was preparing a delicious magloubeh for lunch ;) My aunt was telling us about their childhood and their memories of the olive season.

I had no idea how three hours had passed. Mom had to call four or five times before we agreed to stop and go in for lunch.

I'm not going to lie and say that we spent the entire day working… what we had was probably just a taste of this lovely tradition, but it meant so much to me! Later in the evening I went with dad to the olive mill in Madaba where they make the oil, but it was so crowded that it would've been impossible to get a turn that night! So many people were standing there, with small pick-up trucks, and sacs of olives lined up waiting to be milled and processed. So we just left and my cousin told dad that he'd try again for him tomorrow.

Now I remember why I paused while I writing; I had too many thoughts and I figured I'd come back later when I'm in a better mood to articulate them. Ah procrastination!! I don't think it's right to finish it now though… it's been almost a month! (Scary how time flies… in exactly one month I'll be doing the presentation of my graduation project!)

Did I tell you that olive oil with mixed thyme is one of my favorite things? :) Well, olive oil is such an essential ingredient in any Jordanian family's annual supply… they don't buy it in the bottle, they buy it in the gallon. Some grow their own supply, and some turn it into a family business.

Jordan is the 8th olive oil producing country in the world; its extra Virgin Olive oil is well known for its very distinct aroma of ripen olives. [read more]

I'll just leave you with these interesting facts about olive oil, and some pictures from our olive harvesting day (that's my sister sally in the first two, and then my little bro and his friend)… the last picture is slightly irrelevant, but I loved the sight of the "mandalina" tree, and couldn't resist posting it ;)