We needed a little Christmas

You may think this update is late, but it's just been traveling on Saudi time. So in fact it's a little early.

Suckas.

This year, I was fully prepared for a Christmas filled with tears and homesickness, but for me that was not the case at all! (Moms, the Mister was longing for a tender Tennessee Christmas, so he missed ya'll enough for the both of us.)

I made an effort to incorporate some of our traditions from home so this holiday wouldn't feel so foreign, so--after a very late night run to the grocery store-- on Christmas Eve, I prepared the breakfast casserole. Technically, it was so late it was Christmas morning, but let's not split hairs.

No pork in the Kingdom = no pork sausage, so this is the lamb sausage I used for the breakfast casserole. I tried not to think of this image as I was eating the casserole on Christmas morning. It looked every bit like a skillet full of cat poop as this picture suggests.

I played the role of matriarch this year and got up before everyone else (all one of 'em) and put the breakfast in the oven. The breakfast casserole is a tradition my family started when we stopped going to my grandparents' house for Christmas morning. Other than the sausage, which was hard enough to locate, it's got some pretty easy-to-find ingredients. Eggs, bread, cheese and milk will pretty much be found in any grocery store anywhere in the world.

The hubbins had monkey bread every Christmas morning with his family, so I got to learn how to make monkey bread for the first time this year! In America, this wouldn't be such a difficult task...But we're not in America, now are we? I searched for the canned biscuits that are the actual bread of the monkey bread, but I couldn't find any. Thankfully, the Mister knows about the secret "American refrigerated stuff" aisle, and Christmas was saved! Other typically American items, not so easy to find.

Exhibit A:

This is not brown sugar. It's just sugar that is brown. Like the unrefined cane sugar. Shopping in the Kingdom is fun!

Exhibit B:

Couldn't find the cinnamon powder, so I had to make my own! This is remarkably easier than I ever thought it would be, but I certainly missed the convenience of just opening the cinnamon shaker. Especially while half awake in my pajamas on Christmas morning.

Exhibit C:

The monkey bread has to be cooked in a bundt pan or an angel food cake pan...both are foreign concepts here, apparently. So I had to get creative a make one of my own! We stuck a glass in the middle of our ikea saucepan and hoped for the best! (We wrapped it in aluminum foil in case the heat made it break. Can't have monkey bread with glass shrapnel, now can we?)

It all worked out in the end, and the hubs and I had a little familiarity on Christmas morning.

We invited the housemates over for Christmas breakfast and some games. We read the Christmas story, nommed on some faux sausage, and worked off the calories with a few rounds of Kinect.

It was a really great first Christmas abroad. We were surrounded by great people, and we got to Skype with our family several times. I look forward to making more Christmas traditions that are uniquely ours, as only living abroad can force you to do.

Vicariously yours,

P.S. We bought ourselves a little treat as a Christmas present:

Dr. Pepper is super expensive here, so we don't get to drink it very often!

Let's Walk

Last night was possibly one of the most fun nights I've had since arriving in Saudi Arabia. And I spent it with high schoolers. This is either a sign that I have an unhealthy need to be 18 again, or proof that the students at my school are such cool, interesting creatures and I love hanging out with them. If nothing else, last night proved that teenagers are the same all around the world.

Our hostesses were three 12th-grade girls who are in my colleague's Global Issues class. They are truly remarkable young women with amazing aspirations and insight. Anyway, they took us to this "resort" that is just down the coast from where the Mister and I live. I think at home we would probably call it a country club, because this resort just basically consists of villas and suites that people can buy or rent, there are a few restaurants, a spa, a marina. What makes it so much like a country club is in order to get on to the property, you either have to own a villa, or know a member and be on their frequent visitors list. There is a screening process to become a member and, as one of our hostesses says, "Only fun people are allowed here. The very conservative are not allowed."

It's a Saudi pleasure island!

Abayas and hijab are optional. Teenagers are allowed to mix, within reason. There are jet skis for rent, a women-only beach where the ladies can wear whatever swim wear they want, a water park, and a work-out facility that overlooks the water. It really was an amazing place that felt like a whole different country, but it was right down the road!

So when we arrived, the girls showed us around the center of the resort where all the teenagers hang out. It's this area next to the marina with an ice cream shop, a '50s diner, and a coffee shop.

A "Friends" themed coffee shop. Unfortunately, the only thing Friends-y about it was the fact that it served coffee, and it played episodes on a big flat-panel TV behind the pastries. I was really hoping it would be a replica of the Central Perk, but no luck.

Anyway, the thing to do when one goes to this resort is to walk--promenade, really. The teenagers literally just do laps around this little shopping area while their parents get a table at the patio of one of the restaurants. My colleague and I laughed when the girls told us about this custom, but then I realized that this is just a different version of what teenagers do at home. Instead of a mall, they have this little...area where they can strut their stuff. And because it's in this resort, they can also show off their outfits and cute accessories.

They're technically still not allowed to mingle freely. The boys aren't allowed to stop and flirt with the girls, but they can stop and talk to their cousins or siblings.

So we sat and had dinner on the patio like old folks and then one of the girls asked if we wanted to take a lap. "You bet we do!" was our response.

I have never felt so cool in my life! This is definitely one difference between American teens and Saudi teens. It was so cool and not horrifyingly embarrassing for these girls to be seen with their teachers on a Thursday night. We of course ran in to a lot of my students, and they were thrilled to see me!

At one point, we rounded the corner and a beautiful young lady with sandy brown curly hair exclaimed, "Oh my God! HI! What are you doing here?!" as she kissed my cheeks and hugged me lightly. "Hi! So funny to see you here! How are you?" I responded congenially, and that was it. We were on our way. After she was out of earshot, I admitted to my company that I had no idea who that child was! She wasn't one of my students, and I don't think I've ever seen her in the halls! But she certainly knew me!

Anyway, after we did our lap, we went --wait for it--BOWLING!

This was Sandra's bowling name. The other names were "TheHijabHottie," "KSAKiller," and "Lois Lane."

They only have bowling alleys on the compounds or at resorts like this, so it's an actual treat, not an ironically hipster thing to pretend to enjoy like at home. It was such a small bowling alley, only about 6 lanes, and we were the only people there without children of our own accompanying us, but we had so much fun!

Sandra, my colleague, had the idea to change the "rules" each time we went up to bowl.

One time we had to sit on the floor and send the ball down the lane. Isn't it funny to see someone in the abaya bowling? Such a fun combination of East and West.

Another time we had to stand backwards and launch the ball.

It was a lot of fun and certainly spiced up a game that these girls probably haven't played since they were in middle school.

After taking another lap or two, and stopping for tea at Friends, we called it a night. We were told that our being sighted at the resort would be all the girls would talk about on Saturday. Too bad we won't be there to bask in the glory of our fame.

Vicariously yours,

Christmas in the Kingdom

Can you find 5 clues that indicate that this photo was not taken in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?

The hubs and I have decided to take Saturday off from work so we can celebrate Christmas together. It'll be an interesting day as it will be the first Christmas either of us has ever been away from our families. This is also the first Christmas for me in an Islamic country, so it's been an odd holiday season.

Before we arrived in Saudi Arabia, I had visions of a religiously oppressive people who had no idea what the Christian holidays were or how they were celebrated. I was surprised to find that my students and co-workers know a lot more than I gave them credit for. Granted, my girls don't really understand that Santa Claus is not in the Bible and that Jesus wasn't acutally born on December 25th, but they know more about the significance of this holiday than I thought they would.

A couple weeks ago, one of my eighth-grade girls asked me if I was going to be absent on Christmas. "I dunno," I answered, "Probably not. I have to work."

The whole class collectively gasped! "What?! You're not going to be home for Christmas? You're going to work on Christmas?!"

I was baffled that my girls were having much the same reaction that my conservative Christian family members and friends back home had when I told them the same news. I'm pretty sure my kids' understanding of the traditions of Christmas are limited to what they see on the Disney Channel, but it struck me as funny that they were so horrified that I was actually considering working on Christmas Day! ...I'm also pretty sure they have no concept of exactly how long it would take for us to fly home for Christmas and still be back to work on Sunday....

But I digress.

Naturally, a few things are going to be different this year as compared to every other Christmas we've ever had. Here are a few of them:

The weather: This one should go without saying. I'm sitting here in shorts and a t-shirt, getting a sun tan as the afternoon sun beats down through my window. Meanwhile, back at home it feels like 19 degrees Fahrenheit and there's a chance of rain/snow showers tomorrow afternoon. Anyone who has had the miserable pleasure of knowing me in a winter season knows how much I hate to be cold. I am most definitely NOT complaining about this particular change in my Christmas routine.

Decorated houses: When I was a kid, we used to go to my grandparents' house for the days just before and just after Christmas. It was the only time we got to see our grandparents, and now I certainly wish I'd appreciated those visits more. As a kids, however, my siblings and I got bored. Fast. So as a distraction, my parents would pack us all up and we'd drive around and look at the decorated houses! This was a novelty for us because we didn't really decorate our house--I grew up in the woods, literally. You didn't see our house until you were right in front of it. So why decorate it if no one but us is going to see it? After a few years, it became old hat to see houses decorated with lights and later the hideous inflatable things that infest front yards today.

There is none of that over here in Saudi Arabia (obviously I'm not shedding any tears for the lack of a giant inflatable Snoopy in our neighbor's yard). When I was on the Aramco camp a few weeks ago, that little kid that peered out of my Grandaddy's backseat came out again as I drove by an American's house dotted with colored lights and said, "Ooooh! Look at the liiiights!" Perhaps it's a good thing that we aren't drowned in the glow of twinkling beacons of holiday-ness. It makes it that much more special when we finally catch a glimpse of the magic.

Time off from school/work: I keep catching friends and co-workers from home updating their facebooks with things like "Out shopping with the kids" or "Movies and hot chocolate with the family in the middle of the day" and I want to comment saying, "DON'T YOU PEOPLE HAVE TO WORK!?" And then I remember. They don't. It's Christmas break at home, and while I'm still a slave to the 5:15 wake up call, they're sleeping in, going to parties, and generally enjoying time with family.

Working has certainly served as a great distraction from the fact that I won't be with my family on Christmas, and it's definitely bizarre to think that right now I'm on my "Christmas break." At home you call it a "Three Day Weekend."

The gifts under the tree: There are Christmas trees available in the Kingdom--shh, don't tell anybody. It's funny because we heard about this Christmas Black Market from a friend who told us in hushed tones the name of the guy at a store who would lead you to the "back room" where all the Christmas paraphernalia was hidden. We kind of laughed and decided against the cloak and dagger method of spreading holiday cheer. We especially laughed when we found out the dinky little 3 foot Christmas trees were going for $50-80 a pop!

Thanks, but no thanks.

We joked about getting a palm tree and having ourselves a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, but the fact of the matter is that it's not the tree that makes the holiday for us. So we have no tree this year. And we have no presents to put under it.

Oh, we've bought each other presents. They're just not here. We decided to get ourselves Kinect games for the Xbox, but the ones we want aren't available in the Kingdom yet, and they're too expensive in Bahrain. So we turned to Amazon...which won't ship video games to Saudi Arabia. We've had to get a little crafty with our gift purchasing, but let's just say that Santa's going to be celebrating the Epiphany this year and won't be making his delivery at this house until January.

As for gifts for our family and friends, we did a lot of online shopping and a lot of donating to charities in people's honor. Yes, there are authentically Saudi gifts we want to give, but it'll have to be Christmas in July because we don't trust the Saudi Post to get our gifts to their intended destinations (no offense, Saudi Post).

I'll be sure to report back after the Big Day with a full update on how we spent our time. Until then, ya'll enjoy your carols and hot chocolate and warm holiday goodness.

Vicariously yours,

They really do impress me every now and then.

**WARNING: in order to fully understand this entry, you should be familiar with the short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury. I've linked to a pdf of the story below.**

Today's entry was brought to you buy: The Author Ray. Thanks, Ray Bradbury!

Welp, we finished reading "There Will Come Soft Rains" today in my 7th grade class. It really is a very tough piece for these girls to try to fully understand because their grasp of the figurative aspect of the English language is so underdeveloped. They were troopers and trudged through the tough vocabulary and astonishing imagery for which they had no/limited prior knowledge.

I read the story aloud to the class in an effort to help them comprehend through the tone of the story if nothing else. I did the typical teacher thing and stopped and did think-alouds at the appropriate places. I stopped at the line "One, two, three, four, five voices died" (it's on page 4, about a quarter of the way down the page on the pdf I linked above) and thought aloud, "Five voices died. We heard about 5 people or animals that lived in this house. I wonder if Bradbury counted out these 5 voices so his readers would infer something here."

My teacher friends and fellow literacy nerds will appreciate the light bulbs I saw going off around the room. I watched as one, two, then three faces went from puzzled to enlightened in the course of 5-7 seconds.

"Oooh! I get it!" one of lovelies exclaimed in a hushed and amazed tone.

"What? I don't get it? Tell me," her classmate said, still confused, from across the table.

And then, in one of the most goosebump-inducing moments I've had as a teacher, my darling student explained to her classmate what I hope was Ray Bradbury's intention when he wrote that line (Ray, if you're reading and my class and I have totally misinterpreted your work, please accept our apologies): "There were 4 humans and a dog living in that house, but when the bomb went off, the humans died, and then the dog died because the humans weren't around to keep feeding him. But the house kept 'living' because it hadn't been blown up. So then the house catches on fire, and it's trying to save itself, but it can't. So when the house 'died' it's like the humans finally died too."

I. could. have. cried. I was sooo proud that she was able to make that massive connection, and then to explain it to a classmate! I'm seriously choking up now as I relive the moment sitting at my computer in my office hours later.

For those readers who are not teachers or don't get what I'm talking about, forgive me for this geeked-out blog entry. I just thought I should share that sometimes learning actually does occur in my classroom, and this is one example.

Vicariously yours,

Um.....no.

In my seventh-grade class, we're about to start reading Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains." This short story was written in 1950 during the Cold War and is Bradbury's commentary on how he thought nuclear proliferation would affect the world. It's actually a pretty heavy composition for 7th graders, especially 7th graders as naive as my girls. Seriously.

One of them today was wholly convinced that Manhattan was her favorite state in the USA. Given the fact that they are so totally clueless in regards to geography, you can imagine how rusty their history is! I knew I had to do some heavy introducing of the time period in which this story was written in order for it to make any sense to the girls.

So I put together a PowerPoint. About the Cold War. And nuclear weapons and their effects. It was a really jovial task. I tried to make it as attainable as possible without getting into too many scary details.

Their. minds. were. blown. I think the past two days were the first they'd ever even heard about nuclear weapons, Russia, radiation, and atoms. It was so difficult to resist the impulse to turn my class into a history class for a few weeks so they could fully understand everything we were talking about. But I pressed through and explained Hiroshima, Nagasaki, radiation sickness, "Duck and Cover," and other such things that were commonly on the minds of people around the world during the Cold War.

I showed the girls pictures of Hiroshima after the bomb was dropped and explained the things that are alluded to in "There Will Come Soft Rains": the flash, the shock wave, and the fires that can result from a atomic bomb explosion. At one point, I put a picture of a Hiroshima survivor on the screen and we talked about the radiation burns that were all over his arms and torso.

Here's where the title of this entry comes into play, get ready.

One of my girls cocked her head to one side, kind of furrowed her brows, and slowly raised her hand to ask a question. It was clear she had a doozy of a query brewing in that noggin.

"Teacher, the shock wave--the blast--is that what makes his eyes...like..." she trailed off as she pulled the outer corners of her eyes to make them look the same as the bomb survivor's hooded peepers.

I was at once struck by the potentially racist comment this child was making, then dumbfounded at the realization that I was pretty sure she was seriously asking the question. I think she legitimately thought the blast from the nuclear bomb was so strong that it had made the eyes of the people of Japan go slanted.

"Um....no. No, the man in the picture is Japanese. Japanese people are Asian and that's a physical attribute of Asians. They are born with slanted eyes." It was the best answer I could come up with without getting into the details of basic genetics.

"But we are Asian and our eyes don't look like that," another one of my darlings piped up.

Touche, my dear. Touche. I didn't have much of an answer to that one.

Vicariously yours,

The Saddest Place on Earth

The hubs and I had two colleagues and their kids over for lunch today. Afterwards, they decided to go ride camels down at the beach, the Mister and I decided to come along. Our guests had mentioned this animal beach before. They described it as a place where you would pay a guy to ride his camel, and there were little Shetland ponies and 4 wheelers and things like that for hire as well. It sounded like one of those parking lot "fairs" that pop up in Wal-Mart parking lots at home. It sounded a little redneck, but harmless.

This little guy was so funny juxtaposed next to a giant camel.

Boy were we wrong! First of all, this mish-mash of "entertainment" is literally on the beach. The sand is so packed down and polluted with horse apples and car oil that it looks like asphalt, but it's not. There's not really an entrance, so much as a break in the palm trees where you pull off the highway and into the sand while the cars behind you whiz by at 80 miles an hour.

Notice the winter thobe on the horse wrangler. The dark colors come out when the "cold" weather arrives.

We should have known that, since we are in the Arab world, there would be no sort of organization to the whole mess of animals and ATVs. There were teenagers speeding through the crowd in their SUVs, weaving past scared horses and children. People were parked anywhere they wanted and in any formation they wanted. There was a little roped off area for the miniature 4 wheelers and their pre-school drivers, but if you wanted to ride one of the mini ponies, you just needed to yell angrily at the wrangler and he'd trod over with his horse and his camel (they were sort of a package deal) and you'd negotiate the price for a 3 minute ride. There were guys driving these metal buggy/farm trailer...things; some with Arabic music whining quietly from the front bench, their niqabed and thobed passengers giggling gleefully.

All the while, the drivers were hanging out the side yelling at their friends as they passed in buggies going the opposite direction. If you were in the way, you were plumb out of luck!

While I could see how this whole scenario of visual and olfactory over stimulation would be fun for kids, the Mister and I just found it to be incredibly depressing. The animals looked so sad, and the beach was covered in litter and filth.

Ew.

I think our colleagues were a little disappointed that the hubs and I didn't hop right on the camel after they got off with their kids, but neither of us really wanted to take part in this whole scene. I couldn't help but wonder where these poor animals were kept when they weren't being paraded back and forth between SUVs and squealing children.

I'm sure there are places where one can ride a camel without feeling like you're crushing the poor thing's dreams with every step. We just haven't found those places yet. When we do, we'll ride the camels and take lots and lots of pictures.

Till then, we remain

Vicariously yours,

in which arabs never cease to amaze me.

I mean, honestly, you think you know a guy.

Recently, my co-teacher in Geography's father passed away. Unfortunately it was very sudden and he was gone from school for about two weeks. During this time I covered his classes in addition to my own. Needless to say it was pretty intense. I had probably one or two planning periods out of nine and any teacher knows that is not easy. Add to this that the kids were in substitute mode.

SIDENOTE: In light of Amber's last post, I should probably apologize to every substitute teacher I ever had right now. To quote former President Clinton, "I feel your pain..." (the hand gesture is implied, of course)

Wow, it is really not hard to find sketchy pictures of SNL Clinton on the internet...

Substitute mode is pretty horrible. The kids never stop talking, usually do exactly the opposite of what you request, and any attempt to advance the curriculum is met with a defense that would make the Russians jealous. So I was understandably nervous of how they would act for my colleague when he returned. The poor man had lost his father and then he was going to have to deal with some horrible punk kids when he got back...

...but then he got back. And they were everything you could have asked for. Every kid came in and immediately offered their condolences and, as is their custom, kissed him on the top of the head. During class? Not a peep. They all took notes and followed along with the lesson. Not a few of the students, but Every. Single. One. I tried to not let my mouth hang open as I watched this serenity of the classroom, but I was in awe.

Now, if the point of coming to this country was to understand these people better, then yeah I think I'm doing that. But I realize it's coming slowly. Last night we met a guy who'd lived in KSA for 30 years! I asked how he had done it, and he simply said, "It grows on ya..." I think I can see why. I'm constantly impressed with the level of respect that the students have for customs despite their blatant disregard for school rules and procedures. The disconnect between these dual personalities of my students is something I'm constantly confused by. Then again, little things like watching the students being very sympathetic to a hurting teacher...maybe Saudi is growing on me too...today, anyway.

Vicariously yours,