Back in Saudi

When I arrived at the Dammam airport, as usual (it is beginning to seem), they took my passport, told me to get my luggage and come back to wait. What’s wrong? Is something wrong with my visa? Just wait, five minutes. I wait. And wait. I refuse to sit down out of defiance. He said five minutes. This seriously annoys me. It’s because I’m a woman traveling alone. Another officer finally arrives and looks through my passport. Husband? No husband. Who you work for? I’m a teacher with ISG. Where you going? Home. Al-Khobar. Company here pick you up? Yeah, sure. (I’ve learned to say yes. Last time when I said no, that I was taking a taxi, it took twice as long with more officers coming and being told I can’t take a taxi alone.) OK, OK. They let me go. This only took 20 minutes. In August it was 45. Another white, single woman is being treated to the same.

The taxi sped along the freeway at 120 kph, then suddenly the driver hit his brakes and started to quickly cross over 3 lanes of traffic to the shoulder. There was no road block, so I had no idea what was happening. He got to the shoulder and nearly turning his car toward the desert, he started laying on the horn and shouting. There on the side of the road, a herd of camels sauntered along only a few feet from the road. The Saudi taxi driver honked and shouted and moved to the next closest camel, trying to scare them away from the freeway. As we sped away, he got on his cell phone and called the police.

He made several other phone calls on the way home. With one hand holding the phone to his ear, his other hand was needed for two purposes: holding the steering wheel or gesturing to the person on the phone. Often it was the latter.

I’m back in Saudi.

Nairobi - a good animal day

January 3, 2007

I’m back at the Dubai Airport with a 16 hour layover before going back to Saudi Arabia. I’ve decided to stay here and grade the 30+ papers and 70 Unit tests that I must have finished when school starts again in two days. I’ll try to see Dubai another time.

It’s two in the morning and the place is hopping. The shops are all open and packed with long lines at the cashiers. And instead of sleeping, I’m writing in my blog. It just feels like I should be awake. Everyone else is.

I spent a lovely day with Josh, Audra and their kids in Nairobi on New Years Day. I like Nairobi. It is so different from Kampala, there is almost no comparison. The roads, although not perfect, are a thousand times better. There are beautiful trees, greenery, and parks everywhere. The downtown is surprisingly clean with a nice colonial feel to parts of it. There are big, modern shopping centers, a wide variety of restaurants, markets with crafts, and a feeling that you can get all the comforts of home if you’re willing to pay for it. But you’re still in an African city.


The first stop on the Nairobi tour was City Park, a somewhat rundown park, but with monkeys everywhere and fairly tame. They jumped on our shoulders, eating peanuts from our hands. I could have watched them for hours.


We then shopped at a crafts market and a rug store. Josh asked a shop owner in the market to teach him how to play the shell game (I don't know the Kenyan name for it - we had a similar one in the Philippines). I didn’t buy much. Ate lunch at an excellent Ethiopian restaurant, then went to the suburb of Karen (named after Karen Blixen of “Out of Africa” fame). This is an upper-class area with huge estates. Sitting right in the middle of these homes is a giraffe sanctuary for the Rothchild giraffes which are endangered. On one side of the road is a building with a balcony where the giraffes come to eat pellets from the hands of visitors. Their heads are at our face level. Their long tongues stretch out and curl around the pellets as we place them on their tongues. It’s lovely to be so close. The opposite side of the road is a large area of bush where two full grown giraffes live. Visitors can walk around this area in search of the giraffes or just for the fun of it. We hiked around for a while and came across one of the giraffes.

A good day is a day seeing animals.

We went out to dinner in the evening and watched a movie on the computer until late. A good day. Raeleigh was even fun with very little whining.

(Saw a beautiful male and female bird I'd never seen before. The pictures are out-of-focus, but they are worth showing here. The name (thanks to Audra who looked it up for me!) Red-cheeked Cordon-bleu.

Goodbyes

December 31, 2006
I’m sitting at Uganda’s Entebbe Airport waiting to board a flight to Kenya to see Josh & Audra for two days. They left this morning to drive back to Nairobi –13 hour driving to Uganda, but apparently, they did it back to Nairobi in 11 ½ hours this time. They will pick me up at the airport tonight. I don’t think we’ll be doing any wild New Years parties tonight.

Jon & Cher took me out today to see the source of the Nile where it comes out of Lake Victoria. We didn’t have much time, so just looked at an area of several rapids and small waterfalls. I wanted to do a white-water river rafting trip earlier this week, but it didn’t work out where Jon or Josh could go with me, so I decided not to go. I don’t like traveling alone, and even doing things like that alone lose some of their potential enjoyment for me now. I’ve done enough by myself. I don’t want to anymore. Anyway, I didn’t feel like I needed to be doing things on this trip, no matter how much I talked about wanting an adventure. I didn’t want to make an adventure happen.

I’ve said goodbye to family so many times in my life. Sometimes it’s easy. In some ways it is getting harder now. We are getting older. We aren’t invincible. Anything could happen. I was fine until I said goodbye to Jon who came inside with me and said those words: “I don’t know when I’ll see you again.” Then it hit. Maybe years. Maybe never. My siblings & their spouses are my best friends. My mom is my best friend. I have best friends who aren’t blood too. If goodbyes are so painful, why do I continue to put myself in a place where I’m always saying goodbye and always feeling alone? Often I just shut down when it’s too painful. Walk away before they do. That’s much better.

In the big picture of life, what is more important? A job? Family? Friends? Living overseas has been a dream, even an obsession of mine. Take that away from me and you’ve taken away part of my soul. If I had my own family it would be different. Saying goodbye would still be hard, but I’d have part of my family with me. If only. I feel so sad right now.