Quirks

The quirky, bizarre things that astound and amuse us are among the best parts of living in a different country. I will give you lots of examples of interesting quirks in this post, starting with Josh's new cell phone. His phone came with a prayer-time app, so he activated it, as it is useful to know the prayer schedule. However, we didn't expect to be jolted out of bed at 4:30 in the morning by his cell phone blasting the Call to Prayer at maximum volume!

Here I am in front of the Faisalia Tower.

Saudi driving gives a new understanding to how bad driving can get. I have seen a car pass my taxi by running two tires up on the curb to get around us. We have also seen (more than once) a driver decide to turn left from a right-turn lane IN FRONT of us. Drivers do not stay in their own lanes; rather, all the rows appear to zig zag back and forth. Drivers will regularly create their own lanes by simply driving at full speed down the middle of a lane until the cars on either side scoot over to make way. And even Misha noticed how they make parking spots wherever they want – on top of cement islands in the mall parking lot, for example. “Why do they park on the sidewalk?” Misha asked, his face wrinkled perplexedly.

Even more mouth-dropping is the Saudi youths' habit of "drifting." You really must look it up on youtube - it's flabbergasting. We discovered that the squealing sounds from out of our hotel window were not from drivers taking the turn too fast. The squealing sounds are from drifting; that is, when a speeding car suddenly and deliberately turns the wheel 90 degrees and goes skidding sideways down the lane (empty lanes are preferable). This has been happening all day every day in front of our very hotel! Josh asked his students if they do drifting - and every one of them said yes. One even admitted that he doesn't do it anymore, after crashing his brand new Toyota.

Being from such a small city has made adjusting to Riyadh rather interesting – especially in terms of how long it takes to get places. I hate spending so much time in traffic. Complicating things further is the fact that it is very hard to know where you are going unless you have personally been there before. Streets often have a nickname, a short name and a long name (like “Prince Mohammad Ibn Abdul Aziz Road”) or sometimes, no name at all. Buildings don't have addresses or even numbers with any consistency. Describing to someone how to get somewhere is done almost exclusively through landmarks, followed up by real-time, step-by-step instructions on the cell phone. I would truly be lost in Riyadh without my cell phone!

Misha at Chili's, where we went one evening with some friends.


Downtown Riyadh: At night, the palm trees' trunks glow with what look suspiciously like Christmas lights.

Adding to the confusion of being new in Riyadh, the lack of addresses in the traditional sense, and the fact that nobody can locate themselves on a map, is of course the language. One morning, two other teachers and I took a taxi to get to the women's campus. We thought he understood where we needed to go, but after a considerable amount of driving, he stopped in front of the Women's Mental Health Institute and gestured that we had arrived. Hmmmm. Did we look that far gone? We said no, no, no, King Saud University – Malik Saud. With a sigh, he hit the road again, driving us this time to the men's campus. Again we said, no, no, saying in Arabic that we are girls - “bint.” It was obvious he had no idea where the women's campus was. (Making everything even more confusing is the fact that KSU has several men's and several women's campuses scattered around the city.) At this point, I called our director and asked him to explain to our taxi driver how to get us to work. They talked in Arabic, and our driver started off yet again, only to drive down street after street, stopping and asking several people on the way. Just as the frustration level was getting ridiculous, our driver started laughing. At least that broke the tension! At long last, we came to the university, and even though it was from a different gate than we were used to, we cheered and told him this was it. Because we had been in the taxi for nearly an hour and a half, we paid our driver a hefty 100 SR (just under $30) and chalked it up to experience.

My other fun taxi experience was when I had to pick up the boys from day care after work. After several days' worth of paying attention to the route, I felt confident that I could direct a taxi. The directions go something like this: go to exit 2 ("mahraj itnin"), pass between the men's preparatory year and the Hyper Panda grocery store, continue past the Global Colleges building, go over the highway and turn left onto the service road, drive down the service road past the shining green lights to the end of the villas, turn right and then immediately left, until you come to the villa with two big palm trees in front. Armed with this knowledge, I exited the university, found a taxi, and hopped in the back. As we started driving, I quickly discovered that the words “good,” “U-turn,” and “I love you” completely exhausted the extent of my nice Yemeni driver's English. Nevertheless, we made it all the way across town to pick up the kids and even had a little conversation about where I was from, my husband and children, and the rain. I learned the words for right, left, and straight from him in Arabic, and I taught him the same in English.

Commuting is getting easier now because of two things: First, we are getting a general feel for the city, and second, we moved from our hotel! Now we live in the Sahara Towers compound right in the heart of the city, between the two major landmarks that I posted photos of, the Kingdom Mall and the Faisalia Tower. This means that I am much closer to the women's campus, a mere 20-minute drive as opposed to 45.

Luxury: Eating at a real table in our new apartment!


There are advantages and disadvantages to living in a compound, but after visiting another American couple's apartment in Sahara, we decided it would be a very comfortable place to live with kids. It's one of the smaller compounds in Riyadh – walking across it is like walking about a block. Inside the gate, there are eight 6-floor apartment buildings, a little pool, a restaurant, a convenience store, a tennis court, and a little park. The furnished apartments are great – we are in love with our big green bathtub, our real dining room table (no more eating standing up!), the shelf and closet space, the big fridge, the stove, the spacious living room, and the balcony that faces Kingdom Mall.


The kids on the balcony.


The view: You can see Kingdom Mall peeking out from behind a building.

We are in a one-bedroom place, meaning the kids sleep on the floor in the corner, but it's working well. And the best part is that our employers give us a housing allowance that completely covers the cost of living in the compound. Hooray! Since moving in last Tuesday night, all Misha wants to do is go swimming – so we have gone three times already. The pool is heated, so it's nice for Sebastian too. Misha just loves swimming back and forth with his water wings and floatie toys. Since the weather and the water are both so warm, it's very easy to swim in the late afternoon and evening, where there is no risk of getting sunburned. It's a great way to relax!


Seb at the pool!


Misha and Josh enjoying the water.


Night swimming is fun too.


The living room.

The kitchen.


It's great having places to store things. Misha thinks so too!


The bedroom - with a soft area for the kids. Usually though, at some point during the night, they both end up in our bed.

Within the compound, people are free to dress as they please, meaning I don't have to wear the abaya and I can wear short-sleeves, shorts, and, yes, even a swim suit. It felt a little odd declothing by the pool after a month of hiding every inch of skin from public eyes. Now imagine a Saudi woman who has been doing that her entire life - it's not a habit you change easily.

Getting into the compound is a story in itself. The only way to get anything done in Saudi Arabia is with “wasta” - that is, connections. You can call and add yourself to the waiting lists for each compound in Riyadh, but the list is merely a formality. Nothing will ever come of it. When we visited our American friends, they took us to the compound's office to meet the staff and show them our wonderfully adorable children and tell them we were English teachers from America working for KSU. We tried to be memorable. They put us on their waiting list as a formality, and we were told it would be no problem. A week later, I called, without identifying myself, inquiring if they had openings. I was quickly told that they were full and there were 100 people on the waiting list. Josh decided to call back, saying we were the American family from the previous week wondering about vacancies. Suddenly everything was different. He was transferred to several different people and finally told that we could come in two days and look at an apartment that had just been vacated. We did just that and moved in two days later. Wasta! We lucked out because the compound currently has a large population of Asians, Egyptians, Syrians, etc., and they are looking to bump up the count of Americans. As far as we are concerned, it's better without too many Americans - we didn't come to KSA to be surrounded by Americans. Plus, we actually may be around more Arabic in the compound than if we lived somewhere else!

We are so happy to have a bathtub now.


Park time with Daddy.


On the swings.


Having a comfortable place has really helped us feel like we can relax at home now - and we can get back to normal activities like SkipBo.

Through Misha's Eyes:

Everyone asks how the kids are adjusting, and I can tell you they are doing very well. When you think about it, as a child in Saudi Arabia, what's not to like? Everyone loves you, gives you high fives, asks you your name and how old you are, pats you on the head, gives you free candy and presents, and picks you up. They think it's adorable if you say “al-hamdilula” or “as-salam-aleikum.” On top of that, you get to wear whatever you want and go swimming whenever you want, and every time you go to the mall, you get to ride a roller coaster. You interact with other children at preschool, and whether they speak English or Arabic or something else, kids are still kids.

Misha is teaching Sebastian how to color.


Just give me the $1000 right now, because I'm sure I just won the Cutest Baby contest.


Here are some funny things Misha has said lately:

The dress code was a little strange at first, but now he is mostly used to it. He said, “Why do girls only have to wear black? I think girls should wear white, and boys could wear, like, green."

He's eager to learn Arabic. It's so cute how he comes home from preschool excited to show me the letter he learned that day. Last week he was drawing the first letter, alef, (with the sound of “ahh”) for me. At the store, when we let him pick out a toy, he chose a chalkboard and said, "It's a good thing you got me this chalkboard so you can teach me Arabic!"

Easter went by rather uneventfully, but Misha was happy when another teacher gave him a chocolate bunny she brought from America. He has been asking about Christmas now: "Can Santa still bring me presents in Saudi Arabia?" I said yes – if he can make it through customs! ;-)

He is surprised at all the American foods we can get here. "How come SA has such good ice cream and such good yogurt?" However, he is a little bummed that he can't have his beloved sausage, since pork products are forbidden by Islam. "How come Saudi Arabia has the same things as America? But Saudi Arabia doesn't have some things, like pigs, because they're too muddy. How come they don't wash them off?"

Here are some clips of Misha swimming in the pool and Sebastian walking around Payless in the mall. :)