Amy's New Blog: Far2social.wordpress.com

Check out my new blog at far2social.wordpress.com

Old Town Shopping in Al Balad



 "Old Town" here is truly old, and after seeing the newer parts of Jeddah, I really wanted to make a trip to Al-Balad, the souk district. So last Thursday night we went.

Parking was nearly impossible; we found a spot just as we were ready to give up.

It was a very busy night. Thursday night is the last chance to shop before the holy day on Friday.

Al-Balad consists of a maze of streets and passageways. You will find every strata of the society represented here, and if you come to shop, be prepared to bargain.



Shoppers in Al-Balad



One of the oldest structures in Jeddah, this building in the old town is now a museum

Since we recently purged so many belongings, I don’t feel inclined to amass a lot more “stuff” again, so I didn’t actually buy anything. I was most tempted by the displays of dates and spices, so I will buy some of next time. It was very busy on a weekend night, and I’ll admit I was a little intimidated.



In the hookah shop. Just like the head shops back home, disco lights and everything.



Hanging out in Jeddah on "Saturday" night.

Al-Balad display of dates. I can't imagine how many varieties there are.
I have been doing my best to sample every kind.

I wore the scarf that came with the abaya that Bill bought for me just to avoid more stares than I would ordinarily attract. I know that plenty of westerners visit Al-Balad, but I did not see one other western woman there the night we went. Most local women wear at least the head cover, and many are fully veiled. You aren't required to wear the head cover here, and we did see some women without, but all of them had dark hair. It's natural for people to notice what's foreign and look at someone unusual to them, but I can tell you that it gets a little tiresome, and by covering my head, I was able to blend in more than if I hadn't. Other than the airport, this is the only place I have worn the headscarf.

There is an endless selection of goods.

Paving stones "staged" prior to install.

The gold has to be at least 22k by law, so very high quality.

I wish I had known to wear sturdier shoes. The ground was very uneven, with a lot of treacherous obstacles. You can see in the photos that it is rustic, and a lot of damage occurred from the winter's flooding. They are trying to re-pave some areas but for now it is still a bit of a construction zone. I think the photos will tell the story of the visit at least as well as words, so take a look... 

Women shoppers

There was a lot to see and it was hard to both watch your step and take it all in.
I will have to go back and do it again.

Practicing Our Customs

Bill wearing his camel-riding glasses

In my job in HR, one of the things I do is take care of all of the details for the classes we put on for staff. Last week we had our own HR training session so I confirmed everyone in the department via email and split them up into 3 class sessions. Since everyone gets emails from me, most of the staff know who I am even if I don't know all of their names.

View of the beacon from inside the library. This is where my friend and I study Spanish/English.

When the day of the class came, and I was also required to attend, I started out walking with some Saudis from my department (2 men, 2 women) over to the class across the plaza. There was a lot of giggling from the 4 of them (don't ask me what about, but it must have had something to do with me walking with them), and a lot of speaking in Arabic. All friendly, but I felt like all paranoia aside, they must be talking at least a little about me. I started to wish I had worn pants instead of a dress, but it was all very lighthearted. One of the women asked me what I thought of living in Saudi Arabia. This is a common question and I always try to answer it with something the person asking will be pleased to hear and still truthful. This time all I could come up with was, "It's quite different." We both agreed that living at KAUST isn't like living in Saudi Arabia. She had lived twice outside the Kingdom, in Australia for over a year and in Malaysia for I don't know how long. She said something I thought was funny, "Yes, living at KAUST is not like living in Saudi Arabia. You can dress as you like here and practice your customs."

Flowering tree, close up.

The idea of practicing one's customs seems so exotic, but I guess it's true. Here I am practicing my customs.

Among the customs, I think you could count throwing the ball for Wally. Actually we have the Chucker now, so that helps. It finally came in the sea shipment. People are so fascinated watching Wally fetch the ball. Bill said a bus driver stopped the other day to watch for about 5 minutes.

Here's the grocery store where we finally managed to find Siracha. Yay!

They have security guys on segway scooters here, making the rounds of campus. One guy stopped while I was walking Wally the other day, completely enthralled. I asked him if he wanted to pet Wally. What I actually said was "do you want to touch him?" He did, but he couldn't bring himself to actually do it and got no further than letting Wally smell him. "I'm afraid," he said, staring. I was trying to reassure him about all of Wally's panting and teeth showing so I said, "He's tired." The guy asked why and I explained about throwing the ball and Wally running to bring it back. "Oh, you play with it," he said.

Bill and his golf partner rippin' it up at the golf course

Food remains a high point of my overall experience. We are hosting 5 other people for a Vietnamese dinner this Wednesday night (our Friday). I can't get rice paper wrappers easily, so my standby favorite spring rolls are out. I think the grocery is also sold out of pot sticker wrappers that I was lucky enough to buy once. That's ok though because it forces me to branch out into some other new Viet dishes. I got a cool Vietnamese cookbook from the library and am going to make a soup with ground beef and cilantro, marinated baked bone-in chicken, a salad with mung bean noodles, lime and mint, and (I think) a squash/sweet potato side dish with coconut milk. I'm pretty excited about this upcoming meal. I miss Vietnamese restaurants above all.

Goodies grocery store in Jeddah. Oh how I wish this store was on campus!

We are going sport fishing on Thursday and diving on Friday this week, which should be fun. The diving is a highlight though we haven't gone the last 2 weekends due to weather-related cancellations. I really should admit, however, in the interest of full disclosure, that we went to another party at the US Consulate and we both simply could not hold back from all the fun. We danced and carried on and had a super time. Even the drive back was fun since someone in our group of 7 remembered to bring a connector for the car's stereo so we even had music!



Before the Hawiian-Theme US Consulate Pool Party (women in abayas)

Before the Hawiian-Theme US Consulate Pool Party (women without abayas)

You can't go diving after having as much fun as we did at the Consulate, so we were not going to go. Lucky for us they ended up cancelling due to weather anyway. We had such a great time at the party, I was determined not to regret all the fun even though diving had to be scuttled.

Bill and me diving in the Red Sea

 More on food: We have continued to enjoy the Shri Lanka specials at the Golf Club restaurant. That is definitely the best restaurant here. Best pizza, the best specials and it's nice that the chef puts on some of his own home country food because so much of the food in the outlets here gets to be a lot of the same after a while. I know I've said it's good, but variety is the spice of life and the ethnic outlet makes it interesting.

There is a lot of fast food here. How homey.

We made another trip into Jeddah last weekend to look for some diving equipment: a BCD for me, so I am happy to have my own now rather than rent. We will eventually find a good place and pick up a couple of regulators and then we will have all of our own required equipment. I found a book on diving the Red Sea at the library here, and although there is a big section on Egypt, one on Jordan, Israel, Eritrea and Sudan, the section on Saudi Arabia consists of only 2 spreads and mentions near the beginning of the chapter that it is difficult for most westerners to gain access to diving here. The book lists many of the cultural requirements for women and a serious warning not to try to enter the country with anything less than an official visa. It simply won't be allowed, the book says.

Purple-blue sponge. Photo by Gary Taylor.

Diving here in Saudi Arabia we have seen some things I've never seen before, and the soft coral is definitely a highlight. One variety I've seen rapidly opens and closes the flower-like shapes that collect its food. It's like an amazing cross between a plant and an animal. There are all sorts of sponges too, coral of many shapes, sizes and colors, and of course the fish with colors so bright they practically glow.

March Photo Journal

Wally, the main reason for our recent trip to Jeddah in our backyard

I have really been trying to be more reliable in my reporting of how it is living here at KAUST in Saudi Arabia, but yet not really in Saudi Arabia since we live on campus. The campus is so different from Jeddah and the rest of the country. Now that I am working, I have a lot less time to keep up the blog, but since today's entry is going to be largely photos, hopefully I can convey a lot through pictures and captions and give a bit more visual information about what it's like.



Bill and I took care of our friends' two dogs. Thuwal Park, a huge park in the Island District is in the background.

 We made a trip into Jeddah on Thursday (our Saturday) to run some errands, and most importantly to buy dog food for Wally. They don't carry quality dog food anywhere on campus, and since everyone knows, "You are what you eat," (even dogs) we want to feed our dog good food. Wally is a big dog, and he needs big bags of food which are not convenient to try to get on the bus. Not only that, the buses that go to Jeddah don't go near enough to the vet's office where we have to go for his food. We have found that one big bag lasts for one month, so we bought two bags of food for him. We also picked up a bag of food for another lady and some medication for her dog. Getting dog food is not as easy as just getting in your car and heading over to Petsmart, so we wanted to help out a fellow KAUST resident get her dog supplies.

Bill riding his bike. Island District.

Since we couldn't rent a car to simply drive ourselves, something we tried to do the last 2 weekends, we ended up having to rent a chauffeured car. It's about four times as expensive at about $120, but to justify the cost, I guess I could say we don't spend any money on transportation otherwise, so if we have to run important errands, that's simply a transportation budget item.

The main mosque.

In addition to dog food, we stopped at a fairly high-end grocery store and picked up a number of imported food items I have not seen at our on-campus grocery. When I say "high end" I don't mean the equivalent of Whole Foods or a "Local" type of grocery. I just mean a store where they have more than one kind of rice. The predominant kind here is basmati, and I actually managed to find aborio (short grain) rice as well as dried mushrooms, anchovies and the long-searched-for Siracha chili sauce!

A typical street in the Garden District



Sushi lunch at Shogun in Jeddah

After grocery shopping we drove to the sushi restaurant that was advertised in a local magazine called Shogun. We have been craving Asian flavors and are also fairly burned out on most of the on-campus dining at this point. I still like the dining hall for lunch because they have such a great selection and it's all very fresh, but as I'm sure most people can imagine, when you only have 3 or so restaurants to choose from, it becomes more and more appealing to simply cook at home.

After lunch we headed off for the Red Sea Mall where we bought some swimming goggles for Bill, visited a candy shop, had coffee at Starbucks and watched people shopping and kids playing. When prayer time started, we left for the Home Depot of Saudi Arabia, Saco World for a few villa-improvement items.  

After what doesn't seem like that many stops (groceries, vet, lunch, mall, hardware store) it was almost 5:00 so we began the drive back to KAUST.



There are at least 3 fairgrounds-like places for family entertainment between Jeddah and KAUST

 On the second day of our weekend (Friday) we went scuba diving again. It's about the most fun thing there is to do here on a regular basis. Of course there's golfing, which Bill has been doing quite a bit of, and I have even gone with him. The golf course here is quite nice, and for Saudi Arabia standards, it's really nice. I understand they have some courses that are all sand and you just take along a little piece of astroturf. Wherever your ball goes, you set it up on the astroturf and hit from there. The golf course here is all very beautiful and green. Quite a feat in the middle of a lot of sand, as I'm sure everyone can imagine.

Family pool

We also have a really nice pool that's set up for family use (except two different evenings when it is men only). There is also a ladies only pool which I visited once shortly after arriving. It's quiet and relaxing, but the family pool is really the best place to hang out, and we go there sometimes on our "Saturdays". Getting used to the days of the week being different in terms of the weekend is really difficult. I am barely getting used to the idea that Wednesday is the last day of the week, so when describing something I did on the last day of the week (which I would normally think of as Friday) it really happened on Wednesday. In terms of getting used to things, I have only just gotten used to seeing palm trees every morning when I open the blinds. It's finally to the point where it is no longer a surprise.

Retail space

There is also a bowling alley at the sports club, and I bowled my best game ever a couple of weeks ago when I managed a 112 score. One of our friends got 206, so my score really is not that good, but for me, breaking a hundred is quite a feat. It was a lot of fun and it was a big group playing together which made it so fun. I didn't even go planning to bowl; I was just going to cheer the other bowlers but they ended up being short.

Bill and me diving. Photo by Gary Taylor.

I have registered us to dive again this coming weekend. You have to go and pay and get your name on the list several days in advance, so I just took care of that. Most transactions here are cash-based, and paying for diving is no exception. Unfortunately I spent most of the cash I have and the ATM machines are out of money again. This has happened twice before, same time of the month. There is a run on all of the cash machines on campus after all of the contract laborers get paid and the bank machines run out of money. It's a regular crisis. At least you can use a credit card at the grocery store, but not being able to get cash is a big problem here at KAUST where, as they say, cash is king.

Facing the sea

One thing I really like about living here is riding my bike around. It's usually really quiet on the residential streets, and most everything is a 5-15 minute bike ride away. The paniers on my bike work really well for picking up groceries, though I do have to be a little bit careful not to overdo it.

Bill's office building

The following photos are from our trip into Jeddah over the weekend. Most were shot out the window of the car.

Camels by the roadside

Central Jeddah

Central Jeddah, residential

Central Jeddah, residential and commercial

Central Jeddah

Ladies Branch of SABB bank

Pizza Delivery

View of Administration Building where I work Here at KAUST we have several dining out options: fairly nice sit-down restaurants at the Sports Club, at the Golf Course and at the Marina. In addition, there are several fast food style restaurants where you order at the counter, including Burger King, Quiznos, Pizza Inn, an Indian fast food place called Spices, and a Shwarma/Falafal restaurant called Shoro. We also have Baskin Robins at the movie theater, and there are some other coffee shops and cafes around campus with a few other options. The Dining Hall (cafeteria) is where most people eat lunch since the food is fresh, they have good variety, and there is a lot of appeal for students since the price is right too. They serve dinner (and I think breakfast too) but I haven't been there for either of those meals.    Closer view of Admin Building    Last night we went to a friend's house before we had a chance to either make or go out for dinner, so we thought we'd try the delivery pizza from Pizza Inn. I called from our friends' house and started out with the usual.   "I'd like to order a pizza for delivery."   Communication can be difficult sometimes here, and the language barrier is even more pronounced over the phone.   "What size would you like?" "What sizes do you have?" "We have 6", 9" and 16" "I'll take the 16" pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms and onions." "Ok. You want pizza sauce?" "Yes. Pizza sauce and cheese too of course."   Then the gentleman said some things I couldn't understand. I thought I should just confirm the order, which is something they tend to do here at restaurants as a general practice: repeat back everything you order.   "Can you tell me what you have for my order?" "We have teriyaki chicken, chicken Caesar..." "No, no. I don't want that. Just tell me what you have for my order. Just tell me what is on my pizza." "16 inch, pepperoni, mushroom, onions, pizza sauce. It will be about 20 minutes." "Ok. See you then."   Twenty minutes later the delivery guy from Quiznos shows up at the door with a 16 inch toasted sub with pepperoni, mushrooms, onions and pizza sauce.   Pizza Inn promo   Everyone thought it was pretty funny, and it also explains why the guy on the phone kept mentioning teriyaki chicken. It turns out I had called the wrong number and got Quiznos instead of Pizza Inn. I had no idea I had called the wrong place, especially since everything fell more or less in line with a traditional pizza order.   It really was pretty humorous, and the second time I called, I called the right number the second time and got something a lot closer to what I was envisioning. Even the simple things can get confused if you don't ask the right questions. I guess that if I had said, "Is this Pizza Inn?" we wouldn't have ended up with a pizza sandwich.

Month End Update



View of our living room

 It's high time for a blog post, and I can only say that my new job responsibilities and other commitments have been keeping me from updating the blog. Working in the HR Department at KAUST has been going well. Now I am working, I have met a lot more interesting people. It is a mixed group in the office, as one might expect, the staff consists of expat workers from all over the world and locals. I work in the Administration Building, which is very showy, with an oval glass tower that makes up its entryway. The building has a central atrium, and there is a café on the ground level. I have already been there to make sure their chocolate chip cookies are up to snuff. My job is to help the team stay organized with all of the learning opportunities that they host. It has been nice having a job again.

Bill has been playing a lot of golf. He was in a tournament over the weekend and has been playing several times a week. I went out on the course with him over the weekend too, so I know a little more about what makes the greens "fast," which is how they are currently described. The weather is beautiful right now, and it's nice to be outside. The course seems very well maintained (not that I have a lot of reference points as a non-golfer) but there are dozens of workers carrying out various tasks all over the course, and it is all beautifully landscaped. The best restaurant here at KAUST is probably the one at the golf course. I had a great steak sandwich there the other day, and they have the best pizza here too.

Dining room

I have been running nearly every weekday morning. A trip to the farthest end of the island, plus two laps around one end takes me sixty minutes. I always see people taking their kids to school, or scootering or biking to work. Some people have cars, but things are usually pretty quiet. I run past probably a hundred workers every day--no exaggeration. There are dozens of gardeners raking, trimming, weeding or squatting next to a sprinkler. Some of them say, "good morning ma'am," and others just stare. There is also an army of garbage collectors and street sweepers who are distinctive in their bright green jumpsuits. No leaf goes un-collected and no sand lays undisturbed in the orderly streets but there is a guy in green with a shovel and broom to remedy the situation. Honestly though, the workers are not always working. One day we were throwing a stick for Wally in part of one of the extensive parks here and accidentally hit some playground equipment with the stick. You never saw a guy sleeping in a child's plastic slide jump up as fast as this one did! We had no idea anyone was there until we saw him launch out of the slide, trying to act like he was just walking by.

Kitchen

I have been meeting my friend about every other day to practice Spanish and help her improve her English. The campus library here is probably the most beautiful building here and has a gorgeous view of the showpiece "beacon," the lighthouse-like sculpture in the harbor. Most of the exterior is glass, and the interior finish is beautiful, so it is really a lovely place to spend time. I'm sure the students appreciate it given how much time I'm sure they have to spend in the library. There are lots of rooms of various types where people can meet in groups of any size to collaborate, and sliding doors help shield the rest of the space from any disturbance. My friend and I meet in the café area for an hour and a half at a time and work on our second-language communication skills.

I'm sure it has helped me a lot already, and I think my friend is more motivated to study also. The more I explain the pronunciation, the more difficult I realize it would be to learn English as an adult. "Sun" and "son". "Sew," "so," and "sow." And why spell "cough" without an "f"? It would be tough to tackle such a language. I read somewhere that there are more words in English that mean the same thing than in Romance languages. The reason is that English brings words both from Latin and from Germanic sources. Therefore, we have a lot of names for the same things. Anyway, Spanish is difficult too; just in different ways. At least you can get the pronunciation right.

We have been down to Jeddah and back to Barnie's the hookah bar. I can't say the food is great, but the atmosphere is very attractive. They play music, there are lots of people, and of course the brazier comes around whenever you need a new coal to keep the tobacco burning. I don't think it's especially healthy, but as I said before, there aren't that many vices here so you have to sometimes take a risk with something like hookah once in a while. At Barnie's this last time we called for a reservation so we got to sit outside. You can see some of the city lights, and you can just barely see King Fahd's Fountain, the world's highest fountain (1024 feet high) down on the Corniche. It's an enjoyable place to spend a couple of hours before a walk past Krispy Cream Donuts, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Starbucks for a quick stop at the international market grocery store and then back on the KAUST bus.

We are scheduled for another dive trip this weekend, which I hope is better than the last one. Rough seas made it challenging for the crew to anchor the boat and in the end the dive site we were able to finally explore was not what everyone was hoping for. There is always something beautiful to see, but now that we have been going out regularly I guess my expectations are rising. I do feel like I am getting more comfortable every time we go, and that alone is rewarding.

Red Sea Diving

Enjoying a French-style cafe



I officially recorded my twenty-sixth dive in my dive log book yesterday. Wow, over 25 dives now! I can say I'm gaining confidence and having an easier time descending from the surface once I make the "giant step" entry into the water. The most stressful part of diving, for me, has got to be at the beginning. I am focusing on pre-entry calm behavior: breathing normally, trying to ignore my rapid heart rate, getting my fins on, mask on, regulator in my mouth... Then I hold the mask in place and step off the boat deck into the water. The first thing that happens of course, is submersion (with this, more focus on calmness as I reassure myself my mask is secure), and then I begin to float among the waves, thanks to the inflated BC. Being buffeted around in the waves is a little bit stressful too, so descending actually minimizes the buffeting around business. Then I concentrate on the dive master, letting air out of my BC and clearing my ears.

Red Sea Dive
Photo by Gary Taylor

We had two very enjoyable dives again on Friday (Again, that's our second day of the weekend. Like Sunday). The boat trip out to the dive site was pretty rough. I'm not sure exactly the threshold for seasickness for me personally, but that wasn't quite enough. Bill and I both still felt fine even after a lot of dips and rolls. The day was probably 85-90 degrees, with a little breeze. Very pleasant. The first dive was very cool, with a lot of swimming among coral formations. It reminded me of the rock formations in the desert, but with colorful coral growing all over the rocks. There is so much to see, and you can concentrate on just one cluster of coral in spiky purple shapes, or a more round-shaped growth in blue, or fan corals with white veins... There are sea anemones and fish standing by that look like Nemo's inspiration. I can't identify all of the fish yet, but I have seen some familiar ones: yellow grunts with blue stripes, parrot fish. Mostly I call them "blue schooling fish," or "the big black fish with the blue outlines with some orange spots." We see a lot of tiny gold fish in schools in certain spots, and then other schools of small fish that are half black, half white--front and back. I have seen red fish with blue and white spots, giant clams that have amazingly glowing blue interiors, and lots of other colorful ones.

The second dive focused more on the wreck of a cement ship from 25 or so years ago. Coral is beginning to grow all over the ruined ship, and we swam all around the outside of the large vessel, through the propeller housing, and then over the ship's deck. We saw a giant pulley lying on the sea floor and lots of other pipes and other components that are now the home for fish and other sea creatures. We saw a 6 ft. nurse shark near the beginning of the dive (this is a non-man-eater, Mom.) Upon our return, everyone was really impressed that we had seen a shark. I think it was just trying to have a nap because it never moved from its spot. Underneath an overhang we saw a sting ray, also resting with its blue markings and yellow eyes glowing. There are some really beautiful and unusual creatures living under the water, and it's really amazing to have a chance to see them.

We went to the beach over the weekend too. We relaxed under a palapa and listened to some bad American music. After an hour or so, some people asked us to join them for a volleyball game, and even though Bill and I both told them that I'm really not very skilled at volleyball, they were so short on players that I agreed to give it my pathetic best. We did have a fun time, though I really did prove that I am indeed terrible at volleyball. My most redeeming moments were two: serving (I'm not as bad at that) and running to get the ball when the wind blew it far out of bounds. My hand-eye coordination has always been an issue with games involving balls, but I like to say I'm good at other things so I don't get too worked up over it. Anyway, it was fun and everyone was a good sport.

As we prepared to move to KAUST, I noticed a phenomenon associated with belonging or maybe with responsibility, and that is associated with keys. As we approached the move date, I kept giving up more and more keys. Keys to the cars, keys to the garage and to our house, keys to my friends' houses disappeared one by one. When I arrived at KAUST, I received one key: the key to the villa. Now I have two keys because I now have an office on campus. I started a job today doing some work for the HR department in their Learning Development department. It will be afternoons on weekdays, and that is the time of day that I have had the most free time. I have been very busy, for the most part. I think the part-time job will be a great way to stay busy, meet more people, feel validated and make a little money. I have to have Bill sign my employment contract that I will take in to the office tomorrow. As a dependent, I have to have his permission. 

Tomorrow I am teaching my first English class on my own. Last Sunday I taught about half of the class at the community library. The class consists of all women. There are a couple of women from China, one from Sudan, several Saudi, one from Egypt and one woman from Uruguay. I mentioned in class that I am studying Spanish, "so I know what it is like to study another language," was what I was saying. I didn't realize I had a Spanish speaker in the group, but it has turned out to be a great discovery. My new friend and I have met twice for coffee and to help teach each other our respective languages. I'm thrilled to have met someone I can practice with! I have been studying a lot and am making good progress.