RAIN

We are on Day Three of RAIN!  And not just a little rain - a LOT of rain (for here)!  It's been raining on and off for three days now, and when it rains, we get some thunder and lightening, and actual downpours of rain!  It's been very exciting!

The morning of Day Three of rain dawned with the children so excited about it that they insisted on having their breakfast at the little art tables set up by the sliding glass door.  Optimum rain viewing that way, of course.

On the downside, our house is under major construction at the moment.  I have not caught the blog up to this point yet, but for the past five weeks, we have had large metal scaffolding all around our house as they rip off the old siding and put up new siding.  That project is an upcoming post unto itself, but the upshot here is that WE CURRENTLY HAVE NO SIDING ON OUR HOUSE.  Let's see a showing of hands of how many people think it's a good idea to have the siding torn off your house during a rain event.  <cue crickets chirping>  Huh.  Oh well, it's not our house anyway.  (Isn't renting fabulous!)  As long as our stuff does not get wet, whatever. 

Saudi Arabia is not prepared for rain.  It's rather like snow in Alabama.  When it rains here, the entire country gets shut down.  Mostly this is because there is no planned drainage and no storm sewer, so all that water collects everywhere, especially in the roadways.  Traffic is stopped, roads are closed, and sometimes when people drive through bad spots, they get washed away and die like in a flash flood.  Several people were killed a few days ago in Riyadh when this happened.  When it rains here, everyone is advised to stay home and off the roads.  All the schools have been closed for three days except the one here on camp.  Even the British Grammar School just around the corner from us has been closed since Sunday because of "threat of rain."

And I love this.  Bwa ha hahahahaha!  Look at what happened to the airport!  This is the airport we use to come and go from Saudi.  And keep in mind that this is the bottom floor of the airport, the baggage claim area, so all that water had to come in at the roof and down through all the floors above.  Click on the movie, it's worth it.  It's a great demonstration of the high quality building standards here in Saudi.  Always striving for excellence, right?

Video and pictures: Raining inside Dammam’s King Fahd International Airport

Saudi Arabia’s eastern city of Dammam was left paralyzed following heavy rains since Monday evening, and the King Fahd International Airport in Dammam was transformed into a lake after water started pouring in from parts of the ceiling in the international travel lounge, reported local media.

A number of workers were seen trying to work to stop the water from gushing out all over, while others attempted to dry off the floors in the international terminal. The rainfall has also caused a partial interruption of power supply within the airport, specifically in the car rental floor and baggage counters at the international flight departure terminal.  Sources added that a number of offices in the airport were damaged during to water logging.

Gearing Up For Halloween

Right before we left from repat, I went out and bought a bunch of Melissa and Doug costumes to make sure the kids had something to wear for Halloween.  We got them out  with the Halloween decorations, and the boys had a great time trying everything on. 

 Cowboy and police officer.  

I'm suspicious that Lawrence isn't wearing any pants.  Hmm. 

 

Switch to Fireman.  Still suspicious. 

Confirmed!!   Sir No Pants!! 

 

 Switch to police officer. 

Sir No Pants in a gallant fight to the death with Dragon Daddy.  

One of my friends had a baby and while she was in labor at the hospital, we kept her 4 year old son with us.  He is so sweet and precious!  We all had a ball when he was visiting, and we were so glad he got to stay all day.  We ate lunch with the new centerpiece of mini pumpkins that we thrillingly found at Tamimi! (Because there's no food at the com!)

 This is Catherine at a playdate, looking pretty in her festive pumpkins.  

Halloween is almost here!  (Thanks LHS!!  She lives in all the clothes you gave us!)

Miscellany

You know how every now and then you have to do dumb chores on Saturday morning that seem like such a pain?  Like getting your car inspected, or having your oil changed?  Around here, we have stuff like that too, except it usually has to do with your visa and it takes all day. 

Mike got his visa renewed recently, and we had to drive over the causeway to Bahrain to make sure it worked.  So we got up early, piled the kids in the car, spent 30 minutes driving to the causeway, and spent 2 1/2 hours waiting in line in the car to cross the border.  Once we were over the border (but not off the border-crossing island), we ate lunch inside the car from the McDonalds they have on the causeway.  We parked and Mike went in because there is no drive through, which I find ironic because over here, McDonalds has pizza-esque delivery service called McDelivery.  But no drive through.  Go figure.  Mike called it our visit to "McCauseway".  We did let the boys out and they took a picture from the causeway (that's the rest of the causeway to Bahrain in the background), and then we turned around and did it all over again.  Another two hours waiting in the car to get back over the border, and then 30 minutes more to get home.  It took from about 9 am to 3 pm.  The kids were great about it, even if they were miffed that this was how they had to spend their Saturday morning.  I can hardly blame them. 

 

In other news, I had some kids over for dinner one night and I made a veggie skeleton!  I was so proud of it that I took a picture.  That's rosemary hair in a bowl of ranch dressing for the head.

 

Also making headlines is the fact that Everett has finally hit 40 pounds, so he can take the back off his booster!  YAY!!  He is SO proud of himself!

And we took a one of Lawrence's friends to the park one day.  

 

So cool in her sunglasses!  This was mid October and it was still really really hot.  Probably more than 100 when this picture was taken at 10 am. 

With Friends at RT

In early October, we met some friends in RT for the day.  We go there a lot, but we usually come after naps.  This was the first time we went for the whole day.  It worked ok, but I think we'll be sticking to our post-nap routine until Catherine gets a bit older. 

The kids played all morning on the beach and at the splash pad.  We all ate lunch under a cabana on the beach, and then everyone else left.  Everett asked one of his friends to stay, and his parents said yes, so they got to play more on the beach while the little ones were napping. 

 

 Everett and his bud. 

 

Lawrence did beautifully napping on the cabana.  Konked out.   Catherine struggled and struggled and finally did nap in the stroller for about 20 minutes.  Not a fun time for her.  Things were too hot and too exciting to sleep. 

We went from there to the locker rooms to shower and then to the golf course for dinner.  We were home by about 7:00.  A fun day! 

On another day, we took our friend and her son, who is Catherine's age, to RT for the afternoon. We parked near the north splash pad.

Same deal that day - playtime on the beach and splash pad, then showers and dinner.  Catherine barely cut her foot on the beach, and the lifeguards came over and wrapped it up like her toes were going to fall off.  Here she is with her massive bandage.   

 

We love the beach at RT.  We've been going about once a weekend for a while.  It's our fun outing on the weekends. 

Commissary Conundrum

Oh, Company.  Oh, Saudi.  Why must everything be SO crazy and illogical and stupid ALL the time?  Sigh. 

How many pop tarts does one compound need?!

A long time ago, the Company ran its own commissaries.  It even had its own bread department to supply the commissaries.  I suppose this was because the country was so undeveloped that there was nowhere else to get things like bread, so if we wanted it on camp, we had to do it ourselves.

Then, sometime in the 80s or 90s or something, they did away with that and just contracted out to an entity called Tamimi to run the commissaries.  (Tamimi is also the company that runs the Safeway.  Tamimi does lots of other things, too, which are not related to food, but I'm not sure what else.)

Some parts of the com were better for this, others were worse, and that was that.  So for at least 20 years, Tamimi has run the com.  Uh, until they lost their contract this summer.

They lost it to an Indian (dot not feather) chain store called LuLus.  We have one in Khobar.  It's got food and clothes, kind of like Walmart, but not at all the same.  (They do have the most fabulous silk department upstairs, though, for material for saris.  It's gorgeous and not terribly expensive.  My mom bought about ten yards of silk that has one color fading into another and very detailed borders on it for about $100 the first time she was here.) 

LuLus is taking over the com on December 4th.  Tamimi lost the contract this past summer, say July.  And on that date in July, after they laid off all the workers, they STOPPED PLACING ORDERS.  As in, there is no more food coming in.  From July until December.  Fun times!

(Uh, hello?  Some of us still have to eat.  Thanks.) 

Right now, it's November, and the com is mostly empty.  They still are getting produce and dairy, but the dry goods are nearly gone.  There are so many empty shelves that they look for items that are more than one box deep, and just spread them out so the shelves will look populated.  And just about the only thing they have left is.....pop tarts.  Shelf after shelf, aisle after aisle.  Have you ever tried to imagine going into the grocery store and they have an *entire aisle* of nothing but pop tarts?  It's very odd.  You think to yourself, "This can't be real.  Am I dreaming?"

Go figure, one of the last orders placed was an enormous order for pop tarts.  They also have a lot of odd cereals.  And some toys.  And two car seats for sale.  And that's about it.

So breakfast?  Check!  Lunch and dinner?  Uh, yeah, we'll be having breakfast for lunch and breakfast for dinner, too.  Anybody up for pop tarts?  Again?  Ha!

Lawrence's First Day of Preschool

I am struggling so much to get this blog caught up!  Every time I think, "I'm almost there!" life gets in the way and it's another two weeks before I do another post.  At this rate, I'll be posting about Halloween at Christmas and Christmas at Easter.  Ugh.  Just know I'm working on it, people.

So anyway, around the first of October, Lawrence had his first day of three-year-old preschool.  He's at the same preschool that he was at last year, but he has a new teacher.  Here are his pre-preschool pictures.

 Headed out for the first day!

 Showing off the backpack.  And the new haircut.

 Over on the sidelines, Catherine had commandeered a tennis racquet.  

 Tennis, anyone?

"I'm a socks-and-sandals kind of girl."  

(Not really.  Actually, I have no idea why she is in socks and sandals.  Boy, that sure looks weird.  Mother of the Year, right here.)

Lawrence did great on his first day, but I think he really missed his old teacher.  He loved her dearly.  She is still there, but she is again teaching the twos class; so even though he doesn't see her all the time, he can still get a hug from her.  

My Funny Lawrence

My funny Lawrence.  He is always such a trip.

"Mommy!  I can hear the ocean!!"

(That's the cat food scoop.)

Red Day

The first two weeks of school, the children were assigned colors to wear each day.  They looked so cute on red day!

 Everett is headed to line up in the morning here.  He puts his backpack down by the wall and goes to the playground to play until the bell rings.

Here they are coming out for lunch.  The children have to spot their parent before they can run across the grass (a.k.a., The Great Divide) to go home.  Sometimes it takes Everett a few minutes to see me (I am standing in a gaggle of women all waiting for their children.)  (But I do have the ginormous double stroller, so I should be pretty easy to see.)  I'm not sure if he's seen me here yet, or not.  In any case, this is my favorite part because he comes running into my arms!

An Interesting Billboard

Speaking of stuff off camp...check out this sign. 

It's a picture of a car wreck, and on the left is a dead person.  Yes, a dead body.  Yes, this is a billboard. 

The sign says "Be Aware of Others Faults."   

Ha!  That's funny, because although it's just badly translated (what they mean is "Plan For Other People's Mistakes" or, more concisely, "Drive Defensively,")  it's exactly appropriate for Saudi culture.  People here LOVE to notice what other people are doing wrong and get them in trouble.  They think everyone else is always wrong, and they themselves are always right.  The religious police especially, the mutawa, go around tattle taling on people just for an ego boost.  So "Be Aware of Others Faults" might as well be the country's motto.  In fact, being aware of everyone else's faults is encouraged! 

I am reminded of a glass house and a rock.  Or a grain of sand and a plank.  Or the fourth word that Charlotte wove into her web.   A little of that wouldn't hurt. 

Morning Outing

Running errands in Arabia is quite the task.  First off, everything has to wait until the weekend because I can't drive off camp.  Then once you get to a weekend, the first day is Friday, which is the holy day, and nothing is open until 4 pm.  At 4 pm, everyone comes out in a huge crush, so the traffic is terrible.  And then you've got all those pesky evening prayers to avoid, because everything closes up for either 20 or 40 minutes for prayer time, depending on which prayer it is.  Saturday is the better day, because shops open at 9 am, close at noon prayer (which happens at a different time every day, but is usually between 11:20 and 11:50 am), and then reopen again at 4 pm. 

Also, running errands here is not like at home.  Nothing here ever pans out like it ought to; stores that should be open are closed for no reason, stores that always carry such-and-such won't have it when you come to buy it, no one there speaks any English, it takes 50 times longer than you think, and/or some other thing happens to prevent you from accomplishing what you set out to do.  And that's just your first errand.  Wanted to get two things done?  Forget it.  After living here a while, you learn that anything more than one errand per Saturday is just terrifically too ambitious, and if you get one thing done, you are doing fabulously well.  Oh, how our expectations have plummeted since living here.  

In September, poor Clyde needed a new battery.  So we all waited until Saturday, and then piled into Rosie for our one errand of the week.  A long drive - something like 30 minutes -  into Dammam got us to the surprisingly modern looking Hyundai dealership. 

Mike jumped out while the rest of us stayed in the car.  The kids are never thrilled when we say we have to run an errand on a Saturday, because it usually means that they get to stay in the car the entire time as one of us runs in to get whatever-it-is done. They were good sports about it this day. 

Also keep in mind that this is my big trip off camp for the week, so it's less fun for me if I don't actually get to get out of the car during my outing.  

The view from the parking lot where we were waiting.  Thrilling. 

Amazingly, after about 15 minutes, Mike came back with the appropriate battery and we drove home.  Success!!  A miracle!!  That never happens, that it works the first time.  Hooray for us!

A few weekends after that, we recreated this errand for something for Rosie, so we had to drive to the Chevy dealership.  It was inexplicably closed, so we tried two other stores, and they were also inexplicably closed.  We drove home after two hours, defeated.   Oh well.  You win some, you lose some.  Better luck next Saturday. 

Everett's First Day of Kindergarten

OK, you knew it was coming. 

Just after Labor Day (not that we get Labor Day over here), which was about two weeks after we got back from repat, Everett had his first day of SCHOOL.  REAL school.  We have a kindergartner in the house.  Holy cow. 

There was an open house before the first day, so that the kids and parents could see the classroom and drop of their required supplies.  Here we are on the way to the open house.  Everett wore his old preschool backpack for the last time. 

 

 Ready to go!

 Bye bye, old preschool backpack.  (SNIFF.)

 There are 11 (eleven) (!!!) kindergartens at his school.  This is because the Saudi kids are allowed to go to our kindergarten. There are lots of Saudis here, so they overwhelm everyone else.  And even if they are not Saudi, there are lots of Arabs.  Thankfully, there are three other western kids in Everett's class of 18.  One is Canadian and two are American.  That's doing pretty well. 

 His teacher is in the pink dress.  

 The class pet is a tank of fish!

 Everett sits at a table with four other kids.  Here is his spot.  

On the first real day of school, it dawned hot (nearly 110 at 7:45 am) and extraordinarily humid.  This was the fifth picture I took of him, as for the first four, the camera lens fogged up so much that you couldn't see him at all.  It took that long for the camera to equilibrate. 

For the first two weeks, all kindergartners have to wear a lanyard with their name, address, phone number, and method of transportation.  The options are BUS or WALK.  The Company will bus kids that who live too far away to walk in very luxurious brand new and very fancy Mercedes buses.  Kids like ours that live closer are required to walk.  But if you're in kindergarten, you may not walk by yourself (kindergartners are also not permitted to scoot or ride bikes), which means your mom has to walk you back and forth.  And they come home for lunch, so you're walking four times a day to school.  We live not quite a half a mile from the school.  And it's not like I can leave the younger kids behind.  So suddenly, our entire family is walking two miles every day! 

 

 Ready to go! 

The school has a tall concrete wall around it with a huge ugly metal gate that slides back and forth.  These pictures were taken inside the wall.  The kindergarten door is behind them, and that's the kindergarten playground under the sun shade. 

So proud!

 First day! 

 Walking him over to the playground.  Note new monogrammed backpack!

 Standing in the line for his class.    

After playtime, they line up when the bell rings and head on into the school.

 In he goes!!  A big kindergartener!  SNIFF!!

 I have never in my entire life EVER seen anyone sweat as much as Mike sweat on that day.  It's really hard to tell in the picture, but he was SOAKED like he had just been hit with a fire hose.  It was so amazing that I had to take a picture. 

At 10:45, we were back again for pickup.  Here is his class coming out of the school for pickup.  When your child sees you, he has to tell his teacher that he sees you and then he can run across the grass field to you.  This is my favorite part about kindergarten!  Everett sees me, beams, and runs full throttle into my arms, so excited.

Back home for lunch.  A great first day!