Taif: a photo album, part 2

Our next stop in Taif was a rebuilt Turkish fort. Like so many other things we saw on this trip, the fort was just hanging out on the side of the highway. This one had been completely rebuilt ("restored") by the government a few years ago using the same stones or stones from the surrounding area.

Upon entering the fort, we were surrounded by graffiti. So anticlimactic.

No ramps, no plaques, nothing to explain the history. It was like the government just rebuilt the fort, clapped the dust off their hands, and said, "Meh, good enough." The historians in both of us collectively facepalmed.

In the hill on which the fort is built, there are ancient Nabataean carvings. Some rocks with carvings were cut out of the hillside and used in the rebuilding of the fort. The rebuilding of the fort was overseen by the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Culture and Information. ...facepalm.

Right next to the fort are the ruins of some outbuildings that were also build by the Turks. Our tour guide didn't know what these buildings were used for. He kept calling them houses, so perhaps there was once a village on this spot?

Like all the other ruins on this trip, we were able to poke around. It was pretty cool to be so hands on with history. 

I have a lot of pictures of my Mister surrounded by ruins.

Vicariously yours,

Taif: A photo album, part 1

After we had our day tour of Jeddah, the Mister and I met back up with Dawi and drove 200 miles outside the city to a mountain town called Taif (tah-eef). Taif is noted for its cooler weather and rose farms. Yes, I said rose farms. One of Taif's main exports is rose water that is used in many Middle Eastern recipes. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see any roses being grown because they are only cultivated in the summer during the rainy season. But we did get to see all kinds of really cool things. I've decided to share the gems of Taif in sections, photo album style. In the case of Taif, pictures really are worth a thousand words.

ew, I just gagged on my own cheesy cliche-ness.

Anyway.

The mountains were so pretty. I thought it was so funny to see naked mountains, I'm so used to seeing the Blue Ridge mountains covered in a blanket of green.

The Mister napped as the desert scenery passed us by. He was so grateful to have two days without the stress of driving in Saudi Arabia.

MONKEYS! Specifically, baboons. They were scary! The people just throw food at them, something we were strongly cautioned against when visiting Gibraltar. They even let their kids throw rocks at the monkeys, even the mothers with babies! So I was afraid to get out of the car to take pictures of them. 

The "Donkey Trail" is a restored path that shows how traders and invaders got to Taif before modern roads.

Mountains so grand.

Once in Taif, Dawi showed us an old watchtower, all that remained of a Turkish fort. Appropriately, the watchtower has been built into the wall surrounding a modern military compound.

Me in front of the door of the Shobra Palace. The Shobra Palace served as the office building for King Faisal before he became King. It was built by an Ottoman who spent lots of time in Egypt. He brought the materials for the house from Egypt, and gave the house his newly adopted Egyptian family name.

The inside of the Shobra Palace.

The beautifully restored facade of the Shobra Palace.

Inside the Shobra Palace is a small museum. It had tombstones from early Islamic graveyards. Saudis don't use tombstones anymore (all bodies are buried in unmarked graves), so these are rare examples of tombstones from the area. I wonder what they did with the bodies that were (are?) in the graves where the tombs were taken....

More photos from Taif tomorrow.

Vicariously yours,

I am unintentionally culturally insensitive*

As Americans, we use a lot of formerly powerful words in very meaningless ways. "Awesome" has less to do with a feeling of awe and more to do with how much you liked that new flavor of ice cream at Baskin Robbins. "Literally" gets thrown around so much now that most of the time, it's just assumed that you don't literally mean "literally." I once dated a guy in college that used "definitely" so liberally that I came to understand that when he said "definitely," he meant "probably not."

I confess, I am one of those ugly Americans. I am guilty of the meaningless "literally" or the overuse of "amazing." It's a personal habit that I've tried to work on, but it wasn't until today that I realized how much this Americanism had permeated my lifestyle.

The Mister and I have been on vacation in Jeddah, and we were on a tour of the Makkah region with a Saudi tour guide. Our guide was wonderful, very friendly, and knew all the back roads to take us to places we would never be able to find on our own. I riddled him with any number of silly questions, and he always gracefully answered them. However, throughout our trip, I'd felt like I had offended him in some way, but I wasn't sure how. Until today, when I asked a question about camels.

He was explaining about camel beauty contests, a concept I was familiar with, but I didn't know all the details he was sharing with me. He was explaining about the millions of dollars people will spend on a camel from a good bloodline and other customs. I kind of chuckled, shook my head and said, "That's so funny."

"That's so funny" is a phrase I say all the time. For me, it's more of a vocal pause, or a replacement for the courtesy laugh. I usually use it without thinking, it's sort of an automatic ender to a side conversation or a response to a fast fact that is interesting, but isn't a segue into anything else.

"I just found out my best friend has a huge Madame Alexander doll collection."
"That's so funny!"

"...and then she walked right into the lamp post!"
"That's so funny!"

"I just found $20 in my coat pocket!"
"That's so funny!"

I didn't think anything of it when I responded to my tour guide's story of the huge prizes to be won at camel beauty contests with my typical, "That's so funny." I'd probably used that phrase several times throughout our 2 day trip to Taif and back and didn't even realize it. But his response got my attention.

"It's not something that is funny. People spend a lot of money. Just like people in your country have dog beauty and cat beauty contests. In Syria they have goat beauty contests." His voice had a tinge of defensiveness. I had touched a nerve with my nonchalant "That's so funny," and I certainly hadn't meant to. He had interpreted my "That's so funny" as me saying that this part of his country's culture was laughable, nonsensical.

We were on a very long road trip back to Jeddah, so I got a lot of time for introspection. I'm afraid that over the course of my almost two years in Saudi Arabia that I've been leaving a trail of offended locals in my wake. I reflected on days at work that were particularly marked by cold shoulders from my colleagues, or parent conferences that didn't exactly go so well, despite me using my typical teacher charm. I realized that I have probably been inadvertently exercising this ugly American habit, and those around me have taken my words seriously when I was just using a prolonged vocal pause.

Now I'll probably be that paranoid, overly-cautious-with-her-words, awkwardly sensitive American. I'm not sure which is the lesser of the two evils, but I'm grateful to have gotten this chance to realize this giant flaw. Now I can start working on it.

Vicariously yours,

*I wrote this post a few days ago, but scheduled it to be published at a later date. I'm not in Jeddah anymore, but I was when I wrote this post.