You might be in Saudi Arabia if ...

1. A runaway camel causes havoc in the university parking lot.

I missed the grand event, but a co-worker took this photo with her iPhone from the front window of our building. The wall you see here surrounds the entire women's campus, where we are free to walk around without abayas.

2. Instead of having the archetypal "naked" dreams, you dream about forgetting your abaya.

The first time this happened to me, I dreamed I was still working in a university in Saudi Arabia but that it didn't have a wall around it, which meant that we had to wear our abayas if we walked from building to building. In my dream, I had somehow left my abaya in another building which I had to get back to. As I crossed a street, all the cars started honking and I realized with mortification that I was abaya-less as I tried to hurry back!

In real life, our preparatory building has an additional wall around it to separate it from the main campus. There is a gate between the two sections, which is sometimes open. Once, a few colleagues and I had walked out that gate to the main campus, only to have the gate locked before we could re-enter. Even though our taxi was just out the exit gate in the parking lot, we couldn't leave until we had our abayas, which were locked inside the gate to our own building. Since finding someone with the keys was fruitless, we had a friend run down and throw our abayas and scarves over the wall. We could then cover ourselves and escape through the exit gate from the main campus, where all the male drivers were waiting to pick up the women. Whew!

3. You buy everything from make-up to bras from men.

All the stores are staffed by men, unless it's a women-only facility like the women's branch of a bank or the third floor of Kingdom Tower mall. So the vast majority of the time, you purchase everything from men, who are often from Bangladesh or Pakistan and have been doing the same job for years, possibly. Once I went to buy some mascara from a shop in the mall and found myself getting a detailed breakdown of different brands from the well-practiced attendant. "This one is waterproof, but this one is for every day use. However, if you want waterproof, I recommend this one because it has a much fuller brush," he said, and he proceeded to pull the brush out to demonstrate. Feeling most inferior in my make-up knowledge, I simply said, "That one looks fine" and went off to pay.

4. Your son can sing the Call to Prayer in a perfect Arabic accent.

Misha has a remarkable Arabic accent which Josh and I only wish we could reproduce. He has also gotten a close-up look at Islam. If, in the future, he sees women in abayas or men bowing on mats in prayer, I think he will find it quite normal and remember his days in this country with an open mind.

5. You don't get any snow days, but occasionally school is cancelled for a dust day.

This year has been exceptionally dusty, with more dust storms than previous years, according to several people we have talked to. Last year when we arrived, March was already quite hot (in the 90s), but this year the heat has held off until this month. March and April proved very windy, dusty, and rainy. The dust invades our eyes and nostrils, making everything taste like dust as well. The night sky is often pink, with the diffused dust reflecting back the light from the city. There are some perks though -- Misha's school was cancelled one morning because of a dust storm the night before which left a layer of fine red sand over everything. Even the university released students early once because of an impending dust storm (which, incidentally, never came).

6. When you ask your students how many bathrooms they have, they have to stop and think and count on two hands.

Recently I asked my students to tell me about their houses. They often have five or six bedrooms (depending on the size of the family) and almost always two living rooms (one for women and one for men) or more. When I asked out of curiosity how many bathrooms they had, many of them stopped to count as they mentally walked through their house and came up with numbers between five and ten. A few students only had two or three. When I told them that my parents' house in America only has one, they were extremely surprised.

Last year, Josh had his students show him their houses on Google Maps. After work, he told me in amazement that some of his students had homes on grounds that were bigger than our entire compound.

7. Your students get so excited when it hails that they make "hailmen" and photograph their achievements.

Naturally, it's a very exciting thing to see hail in Riyadh. My students love to see my photos of winter in South Dakota, so they were eager to show me their own hail creations. I was impressed!

Always Growing

It's hard to believe, but it's been nearly a year since we've come to Saudi Arabia. In the life of a child, a year is a long time - so much growing happens in just one spin of the earth. Misha has the same desire for learning that we've always seen, and his recent obsessions are Harry Potter and chess. He has high hopes of playing a real game with Grandpa this summer!


And Sebby just keeps getting cuter and more communicative. He always makes us laugh, whether he's climbing up onto the little coffee table to dance on his "stage" or trying to copy Misha's sommersaults by scooting around with his forehead to the floor and his bottom in the air. His vocabulary has mushroomed since his first expressions of "ju" and "uh oh" last summer. Now he knows several phrases, including "Where'd it go?", "There it is!", "Whatzat?" "I want that," "I want eat," and "I want shoes." He loves the water and at the slightest suggestion of bath-time, he demands, "I want bath!" while running to the bathroom and trying to take his shirt off. He knows a plethora of words related to his daily routine - up, down, all gone, look!, wadi (for water), turday (for turtle), no, yesh (for yes), come, book, car, poop, baby, and again. His most recent word is "shirt" - but as he cannot pronounce the 'r', the results are very amusing!

If Dad steps out of the apartment for a bit, Sebby nods and affirms, "Coming," knowing that he'll be back soon. When he rides his car down the compound sidewalk and finally sees the park ahead, he shouts, "Yay... whoo hoo!" He can go down every slide by himself and is now learning to appreciate the baby swing. When he finds something of wonder (which happens several times a day), he exclaims "WOW!" And he calls his big brother "Sha."


Josh and I have been learning, rather ironically, to salsa dance during our time here in Riyadh. We get together with a few other friends and have fun, informal lessons plus food. The kids join us, of course, and they love the music too!


Misha has been doing great at school. He is proud of how much Arabic he has learned, and his teachers coo over his excellent accent. He teaches me phrases he has learned at school -- "Mommy, do you know how to say 'Don't hit?'" says Misha before teaching me. He also knows how to say "bad boy" ("ghalad!") and "close your mouth" - of course, he says these are not directed at him. ;) He often comments on the rowdiness of the other kids. Boys especially tend to be quite aggressive. Besides those classroom management words, he knows lots of other vocab (for family, food, the home) but his specialty is singing Arabic songs.

One day after I picked him up from kindergarten and we sat outside the building where I teach, a little girl about his age (the daughter of a security lady) crept ever closer to Misha until she was right next to him. "Ya walad! Kaif hal? Esh ismik?" she asked. (Hey boy! How are you? What's your name?" Misha, focused on eating his treat, mumbled back, "Misha." Eventually a couple of the security ladies joined us on the benches and we had a brief Arabic conversation about his school. I said that Misha knew a lot of songs, and the security woman started to sing a popular kids' song, which Misha joined in singing immediately. She was thrilled. She sang another and Misha sang along. She belted out a third, with the same results. She must have sung 10 songs and Misha knew every one! She was duly impressed - "Mashala!" she kept saying - and so was I. I have recorded Misha's songs onto my iPod, and when I play them for my students (who are always asking about my kids), they exclaim that he sounds just like their little brothers.


Occasionally, Misha even gets homework - he has now moved on to writing not just single letters but actual Arabic words. This page shows his efforts writing the letter "ba" (on the right) and the word "beit" (meaning house, using the three letters ba, ya and ta from right to left). He is always eager to finish his homework for the next day.

Often at home, Misha will say things to Sebby in Arabic. Little things, like "Shuf, shuf! La, hinna!" (Look, look! No, here!)

Sebby is quite used to waving to faces inside the computer. I swear I even heard him say "Grampa" yesterday. Here he is saying "hi" to Grandma and Grandpa in SD, and he likes to chat with Grandma Kate in NM too.

Peekaboo! He is at that cute age where he can hardly contain himself when we ask "Where did Sebby go?"

This is another one of those classic mall haircuts several weeks ago. The red dye took weeks to come out!


Prayer time at the mall means all the men disappear into mosques within the mall and all the women sit around on benches and squeal at how adorable our children are while they wait for the stores to open again.


Panarama Mall has the best indoor play place I have ever seen. All four of us are allowed to enter and prowl through the tunnels, climb up the stairs and go flying down the huge slide. Six levels of entertainment!

An interesting photo: Just another day at the mall. When it's not crowded, we take Misha's scooter with us and he enjoys cruising through the smooth hallways. Many children rollerblade in malls as well.


Like Misha, Sebby has a fondness for drawing and now for painting.

However, painting on paper quickly turns into .... face-painting.


Bubbles for brothers

After a busy day, it's bedtime at last!

What else we did during Eid

To summarize what else we did with our November break for Eid al-Adha, I now present a scroll-show. That's right, just scroll and view.

Ice skating! We knew that there was a rink somewhere in this city since before we even left the States, but we didn't find it until recently. This one is in Panorama Mall in the kids' amusement park section. Sadly, it's for men and children only. However, there is supposedly another rink that is for women and kids only. Misha loved getting back on the ice - although he missed having mittens!


Only a culture with no thought whatsoever given to expense would build an ice rink lit by natural light flooding in from floor-to-ceiling windows.


Back on skates!


The famous Faisalia Tower in the background.


On the outside looking in. Sebby and I could only watch.


Well, Sebby was small enough that Josh picked him up and gave him a spin around the rink. (He loved that.) But I doubt Josh could do that with me without drawing a lot of attention!


We had a small Thanksgiving party with pumpkin pie that I made for the occasion.


We also babysat our neighbors' small tortoises.


Sebby is ready for a walk!


Hanging out on the box of milks.


Mastering the Fork.


Sebby is also fond of climbing into the bidet. He settles in and gets comfy!


Creating projects out of boxes.


Misha ready for school.

French Toast in the morning! Sebby likes to feed his family members.


For the actual Eid day, we had a grill-out with friends. We love grilling on our balcony!


Then we could glance out our balcony and see how the Middle East celebrates Eid al-Adha - by sacrificing a sheep and celebrating together. We got to be part of a celebration like this when we were in Kyrgyzstan.


Shopping for toys, naturally. New building toys are always a hit!


This little tent was a good find also.


Sometimes Misha sleeps in it! It's his little "bedroom."


We finally had time to get the kids presentable - by getting them hair cuts and clothes that don't have holes in the knees. The kids hair-cut station at the mall is a well-oiled machine. It's flooded with young children, tugging on their nannies, waiting to be shuffled through the process. Ten kids get their hair snipped at a time, all while watching individual mini screens showing Tom and Jerry. To get in line, you take a number - just don't be surprised if your number is 50 away from their current customer! Misha and Sebby's exuberant stylist loved Sebby so much that before we knew what was happening, he had given him this green Mohawk. Then he wanted to be photographed with both kids. Ha ha!


Warm-weather shopping. Though the fur-lined hoods and snow pants in store windows make us chuckle, we were in definite need of some long-sleeved shirts. This little hoodie is great for Sebby.


A hooded top for Misha too.


Look, it almost fits Sebby!


Mall entertainment for Sebby is easy - he loves to sit and play in NON-moving rides. Very cheap!


Misha got to play tug-of-war at a birthday party on the compound.


We took the kids outside within the compound in the mornings, when the weather is perfect.


Wee!

The kids strolling around.



Josh on a beautiful morning.