WE MOVED!

...to the hotel lobby.

The school sent only one driver to get 3 teachers (me, the hubs, and another guy who's been staying at the hotel) and all their luggage. The driver doesn't understand how we could have so much stuff, and he's very upset that he has to call for a minibus to lug all our bags.

So we've made it as far as the hotel lobby...but hey! That's progress.

We can now definitely say that our next post will be from our new apartment. Probably in a week or two, but there will be no complaints from me about that!

Vicariously yours,

A quick look back...

Well, the last word we heard was that we would be able to move into our newly-painted, newly-furnished apartment tomorrow after work. I've tried to confirm that with my new boss, but she was out sick today, so I'm staying positive and assuming it's still game on for leaving the Gulf Flower Hotel.

I realize that's really just wishful thinking at this point, but just in case things work out in our favor, I thought I'd make one last post before we left the hotel. We recorded our first few moments in Dammam when we arrived on September 13th...and then we promptly lost the cord that connects our video camera to our computer.

Obviously, we found it! And now we share with you the first footage from Saudi Arabia:

If, by some miracle, we do get to move into our apartment tomorrow, we'll have to wait until we get our iqama (residence visa) before we can get internet. I'm sure it comes as no surprise that that will take a little while. So bare with us as we "go dark," as the Mister's mom put it the other night. We'll be back with many more updates soon (and by "soon" I likely mean "tomorrow").

Vicariously yours,

First day of SCHOOL!

Well, today was our first day with students. For me, it was very overwhelming. I've definitely got my work cut out for me, but all my girls seem really sweet and I hope we're going to have a lot of fun.

Every year I have my kids fill out a survey telling me about their interests and fun facts about themselves. This helps to break the ice and allows me a little snapshot of their learning styles and what kinds of books they might like to read and other insights teachers find useful.

One of the questions I asked my girls today was the location of their favorite vacation spot. The typical answer I got to this question back in the States was usually something like "Six Flags" or "Florida" or something pretty domestic like that.

I've created a word cloud of the responses I got today from my girls:

These kids are better travelled than I am! Not that I'm surprised by this fact. I am, of course, insanely jealous.

I also ask my kids what they want to be when they grow up. My most common answer in the States was "I don't know." Here's a word cloud of my Saudi students' responses:

I think it's important to note that I only had two kids say they didn't know.

It's definitely going to be weird to be in a building with so many females, but I think it'll be a fantastic challenge and I can't wait to try all the fun girly tricks I've picked up over the years and I didn't use because I knew my boys would whine.

Vicariouly yours,

You might like this version better...

Armed with my trusty flipcam and my hijab, I recorded tonight's call to prayer. It's a much better recording this time, and you can really hear how the call kind of sweeps across the city, mosque by mosque. I think it really this is pretty cool part of living in the "Magic Kindgom," as someone we met this weekend called it. I hope you enjoy.

*My apologies to Steven Spielberg for misspelling his name*

Vicarious yours,

Are you there Allah? It's me, Amber

The Hubbins and I went to church today! Thanks to friends with connections in Aramco, we were able to get on to the Aramco camp (don't call it a compound. or a base. It's a camp. You only make that mistake once.) for Bible study and worship service with the Anglican congregation there. Needless to say it was a long way from our usual worship service back in Brentwood (it lacked a few thousand participants), but it was very nice to be able to connect with a like-minded community that was so warm and welcoming.

**In case you're wondering, Aramco is the Saudi/American oil company that has its own campus where they house their expatriate employees. Once you go through the gates, it's like driving into a movie set of a suburb in northern Florida. The architecture is very Floridian, and they've brought in sod and mature trees. As fun as it was to be in a more "familiar" milieu, I am very happy to not be living on a compound like that. I feel like we're getting a more genuinely Saudi experience. It will be nice to be able to visit Narnia every now and then, though**

It's been a long long time since I attended a small church. I'd forgotten how hard it is to be invisible in a congregation of TWENTY (on a good day). This group was so friendly and immediately made us feel so at home. And there was a potluck lunch after the service!! I was telling the Mister that I don't remember the last time I went to a potluck lunch at church! Oh man the food was sooo good, and sooo completely not like home. There wasn't a single deviled egg or cold pasta salad in the whole place! We had Ghanan stew, Indian rice, an Arabic eggplant dish, and a Thai beef concoction. Oh wow was it so wonderful!

There is a more Protestant group on the Aramco camp that has a larger congregation, so we might try that one out next week. I feel a certain sense of fidelity to this group because they were so helpful and nice to us today. But I definitely don't really connect in an Anglican kind of worship, so we might have to find a way to stay connected with both groups.

Vicariously yours,

happy saudi national day!

I thought I would take a moment away from celebrating, drinking beer, and grilling up some delicious brats in our huge backyard to let you all know what has been going on today in Saudi. Haha, just kidding, we're stuck in the hotel room all day again. Why didn't we decide to go to the mall? Wander the Corniche (road along the beach)? Interesting questions, all, and the answer is equally as interesting.

Today, as I'm sure you're all aware, is the Saudi national day. On September 23rd, 1932 King Abdul Aziz united the various tribes and peoples of a large chunk of the Arabian peninsula into what is today the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. If you were not aware, don't feel ashamed, most Saudis don't really know about it either. The Saudi national day is a new thing. It started about 2 or 3 years ago as a day off and...that's about it. In the states, we're all familiar with what to do with a day off that celebrates an occasion: parades, parties, festive cupcakes...

The cake is hope flavored and the icing is change flavored!

These are all tried and true methods for celebrating...whatever...and this is especially true of celebrating our most awesome of holidays, our independence day (I think Roland Emmerich owes me a nickel for that shout out...).

In Saudi, as I said, it's kind of a new thing. They are still figuring out what to do with a day off and all that celebratory energy. There hasn't been anything that's been organized by the government or cities so...this happens. To save you the time of clicking on the link, some of the younger, more "enthusiastic" Saudis have decided to go around beating up people that aren't Saudi. Awesome. Now you know why we're holed up in the hotel. However, before you get all "well there you have it, those people are savages..." remember that our own early independence day celebrations were...well...about as "enthusiastic". For instance, in 1777, in Portsmouth, NH, a gang of young men ran around the town breaking the windows of Quaker businesses and homes simply because they refused to close their businesses on days celebrating American victories. In 1788, a group of anti-federalists used the holiday as an excuse to march (anti-peacefully as it turns out) on Providence, RI to prevent the celebration of the ratification of the Constitution. In that same year, fights broke out between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists in Allegheny, NY. Granted, this was an argument over a particular issue, but hey, nowadays we would invite disagreeing friends from whatever party to our own fiestas because "what the hell, it's the 4th of July!"

"Enjoy your soy dog, you dirty hippies..." "Thanks you fascist moron!"

I thought it would be interesting for you all to know what's going on with the Saudi national day, but I also thought it would be a good way to look at how far we've come in such a short time. Remember that Saudi is only 78 years old (yes, Dad, I had to use a calculator). Compared to our 234, we've got this thing down...though we did need a couple hundred years to figure it out. I'm certainly not condoning the attacks on expatriates. As an expatriate, I would love to not get attacked. But they were last year and pretty isolated as far as I understand. So as I'm literally locked in my hotel room surfing the interwebs, lamenting my lack of both beer and brats (not to mention beer brats), I'm okay with staying out of their way while they celebrate...and hope that next year, someone has a little bit better plan for how to direct the..."enthusiasm". Now to check and see if they updated Geekologie again...no? Same as 10 seconds ago? Sweet.

Vicariously yours,

PS! Look at the Google Saudi Arabia home page today!

Like a woman under cover...literally.

The Mister and I went to the Al Rashid mall today. We have a long weekend this week, and we knew that if we stayed in our hotel room for 3 days, only one of us would come out alive, so we decided to get out.

Saudi culture is very mall-centric. There are no movie theaters, no skating rinks. It's too hot to hang out at the beach during the day, and there's not a single putt-putt course to be found. So for entertainment, the people here shop. We decided to join them today.

As mentioned in a previous post, the call to prayer doesn't stop Saudis from enjoying their mall time. They just blast the call over the P.A. system, and everything comes to a halt for about 20 minutes. We were in the mall today when the 4 o'clock prayers were to begin, so I whipped out my camera and got some footage.

We tried to be sneaky about it because people don't like to have their pictures taken here (not entirely sure why yet...will continue to investigate), so we didn't want to attract too much attention by video taping everything we saw.

As a result, you get a great view of the ceiling of the mall...and of my nostrils. Sorry in advance.

Enjoy!

Vicariously yours,