GREETINGS FROM SAUDI SANDY

We just got back from Al Khobar where we were working some more with our travel agents for our trip to Kerala India. We have two Indians working with us. One does all the flight stuff and the other does all the 'ground tour' stuff that includes the hotels, tours, and driver. Every time we walk into their office, they quickly turn on the AC. They like the heat, and we die! So, they are VERY nice to us, and always flick the switch to ON when we come. When we walk out of the office, I think they turn the AC off again.

We confirmed our flights..leaving on March 27th and returning on April 7th. The hotels are still being negotiated and that should be all settled by Wednesday when we go back downtown to pick up our passports with the India visas and pay for our airline tickets. These Indian guys talk SO FAST!! Jim and I keep saying, "Excuse Me?!" They laugh. I keep telling the one who is booking the hotels etc. that we are NOT rich ARAMCO oil people, but poor university professor people. He just laughs some more. I did find one hotel for $30 a night on the internet that looked great and clean etc. My logic is that we can stay there for ONE night and then in a big, beautiful TAJ hotel for one night and the price averages out. Anyway, we are all working together. It is fun. Hope to be able to post our Itinerary before long.

Jim had this morning free, so after the travel agent, he took me to the Primadonna Ladies Center to get a hair cut. Only women are allowed inside and there is a guard stationed outside in a guard house to make sure that males do not enter. All Ladies Centers are like this. Beauty Parlors here are referred to as Ladies Centers and they all have guards outside to keep the men out.

This Center sure seemed very quiet when I walked inside and I saw about four female janitors hard at work washing off the massive entryway and grand staircase that led up to the beauty shop. Not a customer in sight. I found one female staff member getting herself some tea and asked if I could get a hair cut. Well, no one was available until mid to late afternoon. I was there at 10:30 AM. OOPS, forgot that the female Arab population here really doesn't start their day until about 4 PM. and the majority of businesses here for women are not prepared to serve the public until then. They are opened, but not fully staffed until the afternoons. So, I made a reservation for 3 PM this afternoon. Saudi women or American women married to Saudis often own the Centers, but all the work is usually done by Filipino ladies.

I came back down 4 flights of stairs and got in the car with Jim, who was prepared to sit there and read for the hour or so it would take me to get my hair cut. He was surprised to see me as we both thought this was a great time for me to stop by and get a haircut. I found out that he has a meeting with a student at 3 PM, so he will now not only have to return me to the beauty center, but also hurry back to his own appointment. We will meet up in the family area of the Starbucks , that is close by, at about 4 PM when I am finished with my hair appointment and he is finished with his meeting. Nothing, but NOTHING is easy here.

I was making a special pie the other day for guests and ran out of corn syrup. Nope, couldn't just have Jim make a quick trip to the store because it was prayer time and nothing would be opened. After about 45 min. we were able to drive to the closest store, but they did NOT carry corn syrup, and there wasn't time to drive to the city of Al Khobar and check out the Tamimi store there that carries more Western supplies. Guests were coming and another prayer time would be following the one that just finished. So, had to come back home and call one of our dinner guests and see if she had Corn Syrup. She and her husband were coming over in a taxi from another compound. Her husband refuses to drive the streets here and always hires a taxi. She had some corn syrup and would bring it over when she came for dinner. So, the pie fixings had to sit for another hour before I could continue.

Whew, and I do try and make sure I have everything I need before I start cooking. It just gets pretty nasty working around prayer times if I am not totally organized. I am finding I am not as organized as I used to be with each passing year and boy, do we suffer for it here.

Ladies' bus trip to Dammam

Today, for the first time in over a year, I went out my front door to catch the compound bus to the city of Dammam for a morning of shopping with the ladies. I did wear my abaya, but I left my hair uncovered. Dammam is much more reserved than Al Khobar as many women get approached to "COVER YOUR HEAD" by the Religious Police (Matawas). At the bus stop in front of our apartment area, there were about 8 ladies waiting when I arrived, all totally covered in the black, all with head scarfs and/or veils. Once the bus arrived, however, I was pleased to see that I was NOT the only one going off to Dammam with a naked head. The buses make a lot of stops to pick up all the women here at KFUPM as we have a very big faculty housing section.

I met up with several of my KFUPM women friends and enjoyed talking with them all so much that the 25 minute ride to Dammam went by very quickly. There were so many woman going shopping from our compound today, that it was necessary to take two large buses. Most of the women had their little babies and toddlers with them and strollers. On the return trip, the buses were absolutely stuffed with not only the women, children and strollers but also hundreds of plastic bags of purchases.

The bus stops at a huge mall in Dammam that houses very inexpensive housewares and clothing of all kinds for women and children. Right next to this mall is a huge 10 Riyals shop...similar to the $2 stores in the USA.

Mornings are when women go shopping here and in the evenings the families go out shopping. So, since the weather here is still cool, this is a good time of year to get out and about and look around at the stores. Very, very cheap stuff, but even so, I hampered the shopping of my friends because I am an American. When these shop keepers see an American, or any Westerner, or anyone they may perceive to be a Westerner, they hike their prices WAY up. Nasty but true. As a result, I felt terrible that I was spoiling the shopping day. To compensate I didn't go into all the shops with my friends. They were all covered in black with black scarfs on their heads. They are from India, Sri Lanka, Cuba and Greece. Their skin tone is darker than mine and that is the main key to getting a better deal. So, I would just stroll around outside some of the shops and wait so they could get their discounted prices. In the 10 Riyal shop, however, everything is marked cheap and no bargaining goes on there.

We then went to a MacDonald's for tea and coffee and visiting until the bus returned to haul us back to KFUPM.

When I got home I cooked up a turkey breast and packed some other food for me and Jim to take to the beach for dinner. KFUPM has a private beach, Half Moon Bay, about a 20 min. drive from the campus. It was pretty chilly at the beach this evening. I had to actually put on a sweater!! We stayed to watch the sunset, but the cloud bank was too thick, so we didn't have a sunset...BUT, we did see a couple of dolphins!!

Right now Jim is giving a test tonight and I will be returning to my book, "JARHEAD". Just finished reading "Buffalo For The Broken Heart", and recommend it VERY much. Author is Dan O'Brien.

STORIES FROM THE CLASSROOM

Jim gave his class a very interesting assignment. They were to go to a store they had never been in before and observe shoppers and how they shopped. They were then to write up their observations according to his instructions. In the class following this assignment, Jim asked if anyone had seen anything they had never seen before. One student was very excited to tell about his experience.

This student had chosen Toy's R US. He had been in the store only a short time before he saw a little boy, about 5 years old, pushing a shopping cart up and down the aisles and clutching money in both hands. The student could easily see he had 1,500-2,ooo Saudi Riyals or $400 to $500. This little boy was all alone, unsupervised in this store, having the time of his life. Because the student had never seen anything like this before, he followed the little boy throughout the store as he filled up his cart with anything he wanted.

The child then took his tower of toys to the cashier where he was helped in paying the right amount. Still not seeing any adult supervising this little fellow, the student followed him as he left the store and headed to the parking lot where a family driver was waiting in the car to take him home!

The first question Jim's class had for their fellow student after he told his story was, "What kind of car was it?" "Jaguar!" was the reply.

My first thought, when Jim told me this story, was how safe the parents must have felt to allow their little boy to go shopping like this on his own with all that money, while the driver just waited outside in the car for him with all the other waiting Saudi drivers. The other thing is that this Saudi family trusted their family driver with their Jaguar!

Speaking of money, I have to keep reminding myself of how cheaply we really are living over here.
Diesel for the car...........40 to 45 CENTS a gallon
Two queen size DOWN pillows dry cleaned.....$3.25 (total)
Car wash with vacuuming and total detailed cleaning of inside as well.................................$4

Greetings from Saudisandy

The weather out here in Saudi Arabia right now is utterly heavenly. Amazing how much good weather can affect my mood. I have added more potted plants to my front walkway, including a Frangipani tree that is about ready to open a pink flower. Our upstairs neighbor, Ed, has added more plants as well to his major courtyard garden he started last year in our area. We are easily the prettiest section now in Ferdaws Court. Jim and I have been sitting outside quite a bit in the afternoons and evenings, until we get driven in by flies. The walkway in front of our apartment is very secluded and quiet but lately traffic has picked up with campus workers coming by as well as a few covered women and now and then a Saudi will walk by on his way to his car. Doesn't bother me to be sitting outside in this area in my shorts and I am pleasantly surprised how friendly people are who pass this way. Jim said the walkway I have created with my flowering pots is a draw now. Before I craved the isolation, but if my flowers and potted plants are indeed the draw, and they do make people open and more friendly around here, then we are all the better for it!

I don't read the local ARAB NEWS very often now as I find too much in their paper that I let dampen any good feelings I have at the time. However, yesterday, we bought a paper and I settled in for a read.

The article that captured my attention was a small piece about a situation that occured at a huge women's festival (Janadriya) held at a cultural village in Riyadh. The festival went on for about 3 days. This is a time set aside especially for women and draws hundreds of women, probably thousands, during this 3 day period for this yearly festival. The men as well have their time for such a festival held at the same place and you can get all kinds of information on what goes on for the men during their Janandriya. But, good luck on getting any of the information about the women and their celebration on this festival over the internet. This was the first time I ever saw where Saudi information printed in the Arab News was not available on line, but could only be obtained through the printed word. Unfortunately, I didn't buy the newspaper on the day the information was printed about all the festivities that went on at the women's festsival. This particular paper just had this one piece of news about the festival.

Apparently the women organizers had arranged to rent golf carts to help drive the old and infirm around this huge area during the festival. Their plans called for "trained women to drive these carts". Women are not allowed to drive cars here, but, apparently some had been trained to drive these carts for the festival. Also in women's universities here, golf carts are used to shuttle girls around their campuses. I am assuming that 'trained women' are in charge of driving the female students about the campuses. I really don't believe the students drive the carts themselves. So having the carts for this festival seemed a practical and logical option for moving the old and infirm around a very large space.

At the last minute, the golf carts were denied the women. When the Saudi men use this same cultural village for their gatherings they have the golf carts, but even tho the contract was set up and signed for the same use for the women, it was denied at the last minute. The reason given was safety. Security was "looking out for the safety of the Saudi women and their protection". This reason is given for pretty much all restrictions on women in this country. Just another illustration of the unreasonable cultural rules and restrictions that make no sense in this country.

I was talking to Ed yesterday and he is just a wealth of information about the Saudi culture. We swap stories. I give the female side of life here and he gives the male side. Ed is fluent in Arabic and has close contact both professionally and socially with his students. I found it very interesting to hear how strongly his students feel on this subject of women driving is this country . The majority of his students are very much against giving women this freedom as they deeply believe that the women in their families would become "whores and sluts" once they get behind the wheel of a car. This is a belief that his students expressed about their own mothers and sisters. Ed has lived and worked here for 15-16 years and his fluent Arabic enables him to have some amazing interactions with Saudi men and several Saudi families.

On a lighter note, I was opening the glass door to our front patio last night, and felt something hit my shoulder. I thought it was a leaf or something, but then it pushed off on its own and flew up the wall of the living room and clung to the wall. It was a Gecko, about 8 inches long! He must have been just outside , high up on the glass door, and somehow I knocked him off, to my shoulder. Well, Jim tried to capture him, but..... I have no idea if this little Gecko is still in the house or not. He is welcome, maybe he will eat the occasional cockroach. Ah, desert living!

My day-to-day

OK, so what is what around here now that I am back inside Saudi Arabia. I have been taking walks around the compound as our weather is absolutely fantastic this time of year.

One day I saw about 30 Filipino workers cleaning up the desert. They had their hand tools and were out there squatting down cutting away scrub bushes and a huge pile of these shrubs formed a WALL, that was being picked up by the garbage truck. As this was going on, I noticed on the other side of the road, our housing appeared like an ugly U.S. ghetto. Very ugly chunks of concrete missing from the walls of homes with the re-barb showing and new painting desperately needed everywhere. Yet, the desert was getting cleaned up and not a hand was working on our housing situation.

My most recent walk around here again showed 20 Filipino workers or more busy clipping back the tops of all the trees in our area. This is a massive job and the trees look absolutely butchered when it is done. Fortunately, these trees all grow back pretty quickly. However, this choppoing of trees tended to expose even more of our housing and the horrible state of deterioration taking place. If 20 Filipinos were given some concrete mix and paint, they could have our whole area looking about 100% better in a very few days! Nothing is being done in this area, and I just turned my Walkman up louder and tried to, really tried to not notice the strange priorities of maintenance going on here.

As I rounded a corner and looked over at a part where some new housing is being built, I could see huge machines digging out a major part of the desert. I understand a pond/fountain is going to be constructed in that area.

Lots of new building going on everywhere not only at the university, but in Al Khobar as well, but maintaining what is already built is simply not something the Saudis seem to have grasped yet. And nowhere is this showing up more than in our housing area. How everything looks from the outside is very important in case Royalty floats by. Royalty never makes it this far down inside the KFUPM compound. Housing up closer to the campus, where things are exposed to Royalty, has been repainted and refurbished. I am reminded of Alice and Wonderland where the 'cards' are out painting the roses red!

We have an American in the apartment above ours that loves to garden, and in spite of our building falling apart on the outside, he has created a beautiful garden area out front that those in our area really enjoy and he has plans on spreading it even farther beyond our front doors. I have my potted plants out front that perks up the place, but yesterday, I had to remove a foot long chunk of concrete that fell off the side of the parking garage that is right by my plants. Hello re-barb!

I had the plumbers come the other day to fix something. One of them had to use my phone to call his manager. The plumbers are also Filipinos. They speak just enough English to get the job done and this one, when he was on the phone, noticed the Catholic Rosary I have draped around my desk lamp. His face just lit up and he gave a huge smile to me and made the sign-of-the-cross and asked, "Christian?" They get pretty excited when they cross paths with another Christians out here. Reminds me of when the Volkswagens first came out in the '60's and we always honked at each other when we saw another one on the road anywhere in the USA! Remember, we really have to keep our religious practices deeply hidden in this country. They like Christians here, but....we can not practice or show any signs of our faith publicly.