The Grand House

In Samara, where my father was born, I was educated to find my roots. My memories of the place are simple and rich. I remember the old two-room house on the top of a hill overlooking the village, I remember the graves scattered in the yard of it that we called a home, and the bathroom that stood some 50 meters away. Electricity had not reached its glowing fingers to Samara when we stayed at that house, and so we depended on my father’s creativity to generate light in the dark.

Those hardships are not the subject of my entry, however. A while back, I took a good number of pictures of the Grand House; that is the house of the family in the past. By family I mean my grandfather, his two brothers, and their offspring and wives. I decided to share a few pictures with you, readership.

What I can gather from the imprints coined in my memory about the Grand House is largely formed in my childhood. Many a time my father would sit by the fire and narrate a story starring my grandfather,whom I never got to meet. The narrator would trace the lineage of the family, and emphasize the fact that we are Christian converts to Islam. He would speak of the horses and the cattle, the women and the trade, the field and the harvest. All sounded, and still sound, absolutely surreal.
The storyteller would follow to the mystical tale of how the family moved from their original place of residence in another village, to Samara, after a man’s desire in a woman.

Accounts of dramatic personal injuries of long ago are also often cited. I clearly remember a story about a certain individual of the family having to live with a broken jaw for quite some time, simply because it was harvest time and his father was not about to lose a worker to a broken bone. Another tale told of how a little girl lost a finger in a hay stack while playing with her friends, the narrator of this particular story traced the life of the girl and always reassured us that her losing that finger did not hinder her abilities to snatch a husband.

I would sometimes wear an awkward looking hat and walk through Samara to get to the little area of land owned by my father, and old men would stop me and ask ” Who’s daughter are you?”, and I would proudly produce my father’s name and the name of the family. I was a foreigner to them who lived in the village, I merely visited every once in a while, therefore I was always under close inspection.

The pictures you will see shortly were taken at the Grand House, I hope they could convey a little of the charm the place holds. I do not have the keys to the house and so I had to literally break into the premises. All pictures are of the external parts of the house.

This here is the gate of the Grand House. The keys that unlock the doors of the Grand House are giant in size, I remember seeing them dangling from the hand of my uncle. They are heavy, rusty, and bound together by a chain.

In the following two pictures you see a path dividing the Grand House in two parts, one for living and the other for work. The first picture captures the visual representation of what meets you upon entering through the gate, the second is basically what you see should you walk through the path and reach the end, then look at the gate.

The multiple rooms were divided into sections, one for each family. A door of one of the rooms looks like this:

A general, beautiful view of the terrace of the Grand House. Sitting in that place, you can see most of the old structures of the village. It is a wonderful view, at all times.

Stairs are used to get to my grandfather’s section of the Grand House. You first enter the main gate, proceed forward then enter through the first door to your right. There you come into a vast, dark hall called “Al Khan”. I was told that this is where the family kept the sheep and cows(in Jordanian that’s “Halal”) right under the living quarters. I did not live that era, and so I never saw any livestock in the Khan.

I personally have always found the Khan to be an amazing location, it is always dark, and there is a part of it that I never entered. It was never empty, but full of antiques at all times.

In the end of the first section of the Khan, you find stairs to your right, you climb the steps up to the terrace, surrounding which you find the actual rooms once inhabited by my grandfather and his family. I took a picture of the stairs from above and one I took from the bottom of the stairs, looking up.

Samara’s old structures are well-knit. The roofs of the houses interlace, you can move on them and get from one house to another with ease. That is what I enjoy doing every time I visit the Grand House. From the roof, I took pictures of neighboring houses.

I should probably note that nobody lives in the Grand House anymore. Families visit, stay for a day, and leave. I pass by and, realising that without the keys to unlock its doors I will be unable to enjoy it fully,I walk on. The Grand House remains adorned with magic and mystery. The amazing simplicity springing forth from its stones intermingles with history.