Madrigal Dinner

The Madrigal Dinner performances were the last two nights, and the results are in:  it was fun, but we are not all that great.  But hey, it was fun!  Here are a couple of pictures:

It was really hard to take pictures in the dark room, but maybe you can get an idea.

I actually had a real part, too - I was the Lovely Amaryllis.  The plot was that the King had recently disposed of his Queen, and needed a new consort, so we sang through several madrigals about ladies like Fair Phyllis, but in the end, he courted Lovely Amaryllis, who left him for a knight.  It was all very lighthearted and fun.  And the cast party at the end was fun, too.  Ask me about it when we get home.  I hope we get to do it again next year.

Helicopter Visit!

Wow!  We were on our way to Khobar this morning, and on the way out of our little neighborhood, we saw a Company helicopter parked in the big empty paved area across the street.  We drove over to investigate, and it was open for looking and sitting! They were having some sort of model airplane show on another nearby soccer field, and the helicopter was part of the fun.

Lawrence was simultaneously fascinated and horrified.  He REALLY wanted to see it, but he was SO scared of it.  Everett was in the cockpit in this photo. 

He's got the headset on and everything!  Everett really ate it up.  Speaking of eating, Catherine was hungry, so she's getting a bottle for a snack during the festivities. 

 It was a big helicopter!  How fun!

What a neat way to start our Thursday morning errands!  Wish they would do stuff like this more often!

Getting ready for Christmas in Saudi

Today we got all the Christmas decorations out!  Here is a picture of our tree.

We are not supposed to have any Christmas decorations at all, but we sneaked in a bunch of stuff with our shipment.  Our tree was in a box marked "Ornamental Patio Plants" and all of the rest was stuck one piece at a time with clothes, dishes, linens, and toys.  I don't think they took anything out at customs.  At least, I can't think of anything we are missing.

One problem was that we had stockings, but no fireplace!  So I took a big piece of butcher paper, taped it to the sliding glass door, and drew a fireplace.  Everett colored it in with paints and crayons.  Voila!

We are listening to Christmas music all the time already, and it's about as festive as I can make it feel.  I am trying to think of it as Christmas in Florida - it feels weird that it is so warm, but we'll just wrap some lights around a palm tree and call it a day.  Like in the Corona commercial.  Merry Christmas!

Grits at the Commissary

Hey, they had grits at the commissary today!  Yeah!  Must be a sign that it's about time for us to go home.  Eggnog, cream of wheat, chicken nuggets, ranch dressing, nutmeg, and ziploc bags, here we come!

Another sign that it's time for us to go home is that I was talking with the boys about cold weather.  Well, not really talking with them as much as warning them. 

"It's going to be really cold when we get off the plane, boys.  We will have to wear long pants and long sleeves and coats." 

Then Lawrence said, to my astonishment, "What's a coat?" 

OK, time to go home. 

It has also occurred to me that this will be Catherine's first experience with cold weather.  I think the coldest she has ever experienced outside is about 68 degrees.  I only have one pair of pants for her.  All the rest of her clothes are sundresses or daygowns.  Gramama, would you please bring the big blue bunting to the airport?  We are going to need it. 

Christmas Plans

It is with a heavy heart that Mike and I would like to tell all of our Charlotte friends that we will not be coming to visit this Christmas.  We will be staying at our rental home in Knoxville for the duration of our visit, and we would like to invite any and all of you to come visit us at any time while we are Stateside. 

We thought long and hard before making this decision, and in making our travel plans, we realized that coming to Charlotte for even just a few days was simply too hard on us and on the children.  After traveling a zillion miles and 8 time zones, we just didn't have the heart to force the children to miss any more naps or be living out of a suitcase for any longer.  We really need to be in once place.

We would still love to see you all, though, so please consider staying with us in Knoxville!  We have our own house, at which you are welcome to stay, and my parents' Guest House (quite lovely) is also right next door.  Everyone was so gracious and accommodating to us this summer; please let us reciprocate by throwing open the doors for you at Christmastime!  And remember, we are last-minute planners by nature, so no worries if you just call us up and tell us that you are on the way!

Elvis - er, Priscilla - Has Left the Country

Here is an interesting article from CNN.  And while this is (of course) bad for women, it also includes dependent workers; people who come here from other countries to be houseboys or nannies must be sponsored by a resident in order to come into the country.  They cannot move a muscle without the permission of their sponsor.  As an example, one of my friends has an Ethiopian babysitter who is sponsored by a Saudi.  All her family is still in Ethiopia, and her mother, who is caring for her (four?) children, is quite ill.  She would like to go back home to care for her mother and see her children.  Unfortunately, her Saudi sponsor has disappeared; the sponsor lives in Riyadh and cannot be contacted.  She needs the sponsor's permission to leave the country, so - guess what - she can't leave.  It's like slavery.

I do hope that this fuels some sort of change, but I am not all that optimistic.  Many (most?) of the women here defend these types of practices.  They say that they need their guardian to make decisions for them, rather like they say that they need to wear the abaya.  At what point does an accepted cultural practice become brainwashing?

Also, after reading this, all you red-blooded Americans should be asking "How does the government know the husband's cell phone number?"  The answer is that in order to buy a cell phone, you have to register it with the government!  (Which means that if Mike gets a text when I leave the country, it might come in on my cell phone, since it's registered under his name.  How ironic!) 

 Saudi Arabia's unsolicited monitoring of women's travels draws activists' outrage

By Mohammed Jamjoom, CNN

updated 5:46 AM EST, Mon November 26, 2012

A fully veiled Saudi woman walks into a mall in Riyadh. Women's "guardians" are notified whenever one leaves the country.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• In Saudi Arabia, every women of any age has a male "guardian"
• The government set up an electronic monitoring program in 2010 for women's travel abroad
• The guardian could request to be notified if his dependent left the country
• But now, men are being notified -- even if they never asked for the information

(CNN) -- When word started spreading last week that Saudi women -- already some of the most oppressed and restricted in the world -- were being monitored electronically as they left the country, activists were quick to express their outrage.

"It's very shameful," said Manal Al-Sharif, who became an icon of female empowerment in 2011 after defying the conservative kingdom's driving ban and encouraging other Saudi women to do the same.

Al-Sharif was one of the first prominent Saudis to start tweeting about the electronic monitoring issue -- describing the shock experienced by a couple she knew after the husband received a text message alerting him his wife had left Saudi Arabia, even though they were traveling out of the country together.

What surprised and disturbed them most, Al-Sharif told CNN, was the fact that the husband had not registered with the Interior Ministry to begin receiving such notifications.

A Saudi city exclusively for women

Saudi Arabia: Paving the way for change 

 

"It shows how women are still being treated as minors," added Al-Sharif. She went on to explain how, even though a notification system has actually been in place since 2010, before last week, a male guardian would have had to specifically request the service from the country's Interior Ministry before receiving such messages.

In recent years, much has been made of the fact that Saudi Arabia is the sole remaining country in which women still have not been given the right to drive. But restrictions experienced by Saudi females extend to far more than just getting behind the wheel. In the deeply conservative kingdom, a woman is not allowed to go to school, get a job, or even travel outside the country without first obtaining the permission of her male "guardian," or mahram.

In Saudi Arabia, every woman has a male guardian -- traditionally her father, husband or brother.

But the country's guardianship system doesn't just apply to women -- underage children, as well as foreign workers, also must be granted permission before being allowed outside the country's borders.

In the past few years, the country's Interior Ministry has been introducing "e-government" initiatives to simplify tracking of dependents with technology and to make it easier for guardians to allow their dependents to leave the country.

One such program was introduced in 2010 -- guardians could sign up for a service that would notify them electronically once any of their dependents, be they, wives, children or workers, had left the country. The information would be sent out once any of these dependents had their passports scanned and crossed any of the country's borders.

It was only over the course of the last week, however, that text messages started getting sent even to men who hadn't signed up for this service.

Eman Al Nafjan, a Saudi writer and blogger, told CNN that the electronic monitoring controversy is a complicated issue that has been somewhat misunderstood -- that this is simply the latest iteration of an antiquated guardianship system Saudi women have had to live with for far too long.

"Why is it being technologically implemented and being updated?" asked Al Nafjan. "Why is it not being phased out? That's the real question."

And it's a question that's been asked more and more in the last several years by activists who say Saudi Arabia's strict guardianship laws only serve to infantilize women and strip them of any freedoms.

For Al Nafjan, the electronic monitoring is a serious matter, but one that has overshadowed something far more important:

"This (male guardianship) system enables exploitation of women -- it's government-sanctioned exploitation," said Al Nafjan, adding how Saudi laws enable men to exert complete control over their female dependents.

"It's a power that's being used over women," explained Al Nafjan, who strongly advocates ending the guardianship system. "Women are not free. No matter how old you are, you're always a minor. It's almost like slavery. Guardianship is practically ownership."

Al-Sharif, for her part, wondered why there aren't e-government services in place in Saudi Arabia to assist women who are in trouble, "to help women go file complaints against their abusers if their actual guardians won't go with them."

"Women should use this to make some noise," added Al-Sharif, "rock the boat, and say enough is enough."

MORE Rain!

It rained again!  It rained all morning.  It was lovely and gray and dreary.  Hooray, something different!  It was fabulous. 

I was smarter this time, and I went out right when it started with a cup from the kitchen.  I put it out in a clear spot to measure how much rain we got.  Here is the harvest after a whole morning of rain:

The rainwater is in the very bottom of the cup.  Maybe 1/8 of an inch? 

So I think I must have overestimated how much rain we got a few days ago.  Apparently, a lot of time of rain does not translate into a lot of volume of rain. 

But who cares how much volume?  It was cloudy!  It was rainy!  It was different!  Yay!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone is having a good Thanksgiving Day!  We have just finished our day over here, and we not only survived, but we had a pretty good day. 

Of course, there is no family to visit over here, so we made plans a long time ago to have Thanksgiving with several other families.  More families were added and the venue was changed to a new house (we were originally supposed to host), but it all worked out in the end. 

 

All the moms made lots of food to bring, and here was my committment:

a 20 lb turkey
sweet potato souffle (E-side recipe)
cheesy potatoes (M-side recipe)
creamed spinach (my own recipe)
baked apples (my own recipe)
creamed corn (my own recipe)
cranberry relish (E-side recipe)
rolls
drinks for the five of us

Whew!  I had to have somebody else pick up the rolls, but the rest of it all got done.  IN ADVANCE.  Oh yeah.  I baked and froze most of this stuff last week.  All I did this morning was cook the turkey and heat the rest of everything else. 

Believe it or not, I have never actually cooked the turkey.  I am always at either of the grandparents' houses, so I've never flown solo on that one.  But I think I did a pretty good job!  We were very lucky to actually GET a turkey, too.  A 17-pounder from Iowa.  A very expensive 17-pounder from Iowa.  But very-expensive-turkeys are much better than no-turkeys! 

 Everett and I mad the cranberry relish together last week.  He was very excited to make sure it got in the car to take to the gathering. 

One weird thing about Thanksgiving here is that it's on the weekend.  For once, a US holiday works out with the Saudi schedule!  So Mike was home all day.  Admittedly, it was kind of weird that it wasn't a holiday, as in an extra day off, but I'm happy that's not a regular work day like Easter or Christmas.  And also I'm watching the Macy's parade at 9:37 at night.  Crazy. 

Speaking of Christmas, onward!  We are getting out our Christmas decorations tomorrow because we only have about 2 weeks before we leave for the US.  Hooray! 

RAIN!

WOW, it rained last night and this morning!  It hasn't rained since April.  And it wasn't one of these 10-drop Saudi rains.  It actually RAINED (for 8 minutes) this morning.

We got a good fraction of our rain today, too.   We get 2 cm a year (about an inch), and I bet we got 1/2 cm (1/4 inch) today.  Only three more rains like this, and our yearly allotment will be fulfilled!

The kids were so excited!  They ran to get their umbrellas, and they wore their raincoats, boots, and umbrellas to preschool.

Also, lucky us!  We JUST called to get new grass installed in our front yard.  They put it out yesterday.  The perfect day to get new grass!  Who would have thought we would have picked the one day before it rained! 

Pictures of Around Camp

As promised, here are some pictures of what it's like around camp.  I took these in the car on the way home from Latif, so you can see the dirt on the windows on some.  (Sorry!) 

I tried to get a picture of a jebel, which is a big rock hill sticking up out of the desert, but of course just as I took the picture, we drove in front of a couple of trees. 

There is another jebel behind these trees. You can walk and climb on jebels, and everywhere else is so flat that when you are up there, you have a good view.

A typical street on camp.  This part of camp is called Main Camp, because it is the original and oldest part of the community.  It was started in the 30s.  We live in another part of camp which was built in the 80s, and it is called The Hills, short for Dhahran Hills. 

On our way from Main Camp to the Hills, we pass this park called the Duck Pond.  It's a fairly large green space. 

On the other side of these trees is the pedestrian path that goes from the Duck Pond to the Hills.

Pipelines are buried on camp.  Not sure what is in the pipes.  Oil?

The main road in the Hills.

Here is where we turn to get to our little neighborhood.

Going into our part of the Hills.

Here is our corner.  Our house is on the right.

Home again!

After we got home, we went back out to the Commissary.  Here is the parking lot for the Com (for short).  It is also the parking lot for the Al Mujamma (rhymes with pajama) building.  Al Mujamma has the mail center, the barber shop, the bank, and a big fish tank that the kids love. 

More parking lot.  We are walking to the Com.  It's a long way.

The Com is very far from the parking!  We are still walking, and the Com is the building behind the white pickup truck.  See the corner with the blue writing?  That's it. 

Sidewalk to the Com. 

We are not allowed to take pictures on camp at all, but especially not inside where people are more aware.  I didn't dare take any pictures inside, but it looks like a small, outdated grocery store. 

Speeding

So did I mention that today I talked my way out of a speeding ticket?  I did!  Yes, me, who has narry an acting bone in my body. But I was not about to let that Saudi jerk give me a ticket.  No way!

I was on my way home from choir practice.  It was so nice.  I was all alone in the car, and it was peaceful and quiet.  And it was raining!  It had started to rain just as we were leaving the building.  How exciting!  One of my friends had needed a ride home, so we had hopped in Clyde and I had dropped her off at her house, about halfway between choir practice and my house.

Because I was off my usual route, I took the back way home, on a perimeter road that hardly has any traffic on it.  It was really dark, and raining, and as I said, I was really enjoying the ride.  I got to the end of that road and turned right onto the next road.  I had noticed some headlights facing me way off in the distance right before I turned, but I did not pay it much mind since I was not going that way.

About halfway down the second road, I saw blue lights in my rear view mirror.  "No way," I thought.  "It must be a funny reflection from the raindrops on the back windshield."  But then the car flicked its headlights at me.  Ugh.  Am I really being pulled over?  By security?  Really? 

I pulled over and stopped.  I have heard that if you get pulled over here, you are supposed to get out and go to the security guy, rather than waiting for him to come to you - it's a sign of innocence (vs. guilt).  But it was raining, and I was not comfortable confronting a Saudi man in the dark and rain, so I rolled down the window and stayed put.  He got out and came over to my window and said, very slowly and profoundly, "Speeding."  Then he smiled.  His smile said "I gotcha." 

What??  Well, OK.  I probably WAS speeding, as I do it all the time.  I am a chronic speeder - I go too fast here and in the States.  Not a lot too fast, but yes, more than the speed limit.  For me, the speed limit is the minimum speed you should go.  My last ticket was for 52 in a 35.  (But that was in 1994!!)  (Apparently I do not go quite fast enough to warrant being pulled over a lot.) 

But smiling?  Smug in his dominance over me?  Nuh-uh.  I am GOING to get away with this, I decided.  I am going to use what I know about this culture to change the situation in my favor.  "I am smarter than you," I thought.  "I can beat this guy at his own game."

Let me add that traffic violations here are a big deal.  You do not have to pay a fee directly, but it goes in your husband's performance report and will negatively affect his raise, when the time comes.  So let's say you were going to get a 3% raise, but the traffic ticket bumped you down to 2%; one ticket can potentially cost thousands at first, and eventually tens of thousands, because the lost percent would have compounded, if you stay a long time.  So it's no fun to go home and tell your husband that all his hard work was for naught because honey, I just demolished your raise with a dumb speeding ticket.

"Speeding?!" I cried.  "But I was only going... ["Uhhh, what do I think is the speed limit on this road??" I thought quickly to myself.] ...65!"  (Totally guessing.) (We are in clicks now - 65 kph = 40 mph). 

"Ah, but this road is 50," he says. 

He had caught me in a tiny stretch of 50 in the middle of a very long road of 65.  Ohhhh.  It's a speed trap. Thanks, Company.  A tiny American community in the desert, complete with speed traps. 

"No!  This road [indicating the one we are now on] is 65.  I just saw the sign."  That part was true. 

"It is 65 here and 65 there, but it is 50 in the middle.  I watched you from afar.  You went 64, and then you slowed down to 62."

Jeez.  Come on!  Going 64 is hardly unreasonable!  Come on dude!  I am getting angry now!  You are just a security guard!

Then, in a flash of inspiration, I spontaneously burst into tears.  How I did this, I am still not sure.  It had no real emotion behind it.  Where did it come from?  But it must have sounded real.  As I wailed, I thought to myself, "Wow, this is weird."

"Oh please don't give me a ticket!" I sobbed.  "I didn't KNOW!  I won't do it again, I promise!  Now that I KNOW, I won't do it again, please, please don't give me a ticket!"

"It is a violation," he said, sternly.

"But I thought it was 65!"  I wailed.  "I am so sorry.  I won't do it again.  PLEASE PLEASE don't give me a ticket!"

By now I am thinking, "If this doesn't work, I'm going to have to pull out the 'husband' card:  my husband will be so angry at me, my husband will not like this, my husband will punish me so you don't have to, etc." 

I am also thinking, "Wow, I did not know I could be so insincere." 


But no husband card needed!  He paused and said with a wag of his finger, "Don't do it again."  And he gave me my ID back and walked away. 

WOW!  It worked!  The second he was out of sight, I was back to normal and I pulled away.  HOORAY!!  No ticket-writing for you today, dude.  I totally worked that.  Yay for me!

When I came home and told Mike, he laughed.  Then he stopped laughing and told me to stop speeding.

But now that I know I am capable of talking my way out of it, nah, I'm not going to worry about it.  Go me!

People Watching At The Grocery Store (Not The Commissary)

Last week, during my two hours off camp, we went to the real grocery store.  It's a store called Tamimi that is owned by Safeway.  I've mentioned it here before, but today I'll post some pictures of it. 

Notice that I say AT the grocery store, not IN the grocery store.  That's because I didn't go in.  Lawrence fell asleep in the car on the way, so I sat with him while Mike, Everett, and Catherine went in.  I was bored, so I started taking pictures from the car. 

Here's the outside of the store.  Notice the Safeway S logo in the middle.  It has covered parking.

A few interesting people were going in and out.  This lady is western because she does not have her hair covered.  

This lady is VERY BRAVE because she is not wearing an abaya.  The mutawa (religious police) are very aggressive about harassing women who are not wearing an abaya, even if they are, like this lady, appropriately covered.  They are now also starting to harrass women who are wearing an abaya but do not have their hair covered.  So she is really, really, gutsy.  

Saudis love western fast food.  We have all the chains, even the sit down restaurants like Chilis, Applebees, Fudruckers, and Johnny Rockets.  Near the Tamimi is Starbucks and Taco Bell.  They also have Krispy Kremes all over. 

 

  

 These are the buildings in Khobar that I could see from the car.

After we went to Tamimi, we drove to a bakery called Latif Pastry.  They sell Arab Bread with various stuff on it (i.e., bread with zataar (spices) on it, bread with vegetables on it, bread with yogurt on it).

 Latif Pastry is on the first floor of this building.

The store next to Latif.

 Again, I didn't get to go in, but here was my view from the car.

Driving away, we got a closer look at the store. 

This picture is just for perspective.  On the way back to camp, we passed the big mall and the Ikea.  The desert is the largest vast flat expanse you could imagine.  We all know how big Ikea is, right?  That little blue rectangle on the left is it.  And the footprint of the Mall of Dhahran is as big as the entire Southpark Mall complex (including the parking).  It's hard to even make out in this infinity of desert. 

And then we were home again.  So there's my two hours for the week.  Hooray, at least I got off camp!  Tomorrow I'll post some pictures of what it looks like around camp.  It's greener on camp, and that way you all can get a feel it.