Finding out what we can do around here

When we were biking home from a game of squash and another of bowling at the Rec Center, Garnet came up with this comment: “I am not skilled at anything, I am just lucky,” I assured him that with some practice he would be beating me easily, very soon. The next time we went, he had improved markedly, but then we were kicked off the courts for not having appropriate gym shoes and find ourselves in a bit of a quandary because for the next month, it is 'Ramadan timing here'. You see, for a month, life is turned upside down. Stores in the malls open at 8 pm and close at 3 am or later. For us to get to a mall, we would need to catch one of the shopping busses and travel an hour or so to town, then catch the bus at 1 or 2 am and arrive back here an hour later.  Those times are tough for a working day! One has to be patient, so we will wait out the month or 'till we can share the costs for a taxi ride in and a reasonable return time.
This past week we had pancakes. I made a double batch to finish the flour. The flour is held in a Mason jar with rubber ceil so I find it odd that we had an infestation of very small weevils. I figured that they were so small that they would not be seen in the cooked pancake so just mixed up a batch of batter and cooked them all. Garnet spent a little bit of time picking through his meal trying to find them… Maybe I browned the cakes a little bit more than they should have… on purpose. I texted Donna and she responded that we were having ‘pancakes with a side of weevil.’

It has been hot since I got back here. I do not think that it is particularly the heat, but the rise of humidity that is what makes it so uncomfortable to be outside for very long. A ride to work (10 minutes) or a ride to the grocery store is just about all a person needs in the middle of the day! I pulled up a weather website and compared Jeddah to Edmonton.   If you look closely, you will see that here, the temperature fluctuates about 10 degrees either in the day or night throughout the year.  In Edmonton, the range is more like 30 degrees!

Well, you almost have to be here to get this part of our life, but I will try. I spent a day over at the KAUST schools where Garnet will be going in a few weeks. I was attending some training on use of the interactive whiteboards that are in each of the rooms (Gr. 1 to 12), as well as in a few of the University teaching lecture halls. These interactive boards can be used to move images around on the screen for the whole class to see. The boards are just like chalkboards/whiteboards in a classroom but are a projection of the teacher’s computer screen. Since these screens are touch sensitive, you can move things/draw etc with the tip of your finger. Some of the elementary teachers were commenting on how useful the boards would be to teach making change (currency) – adding and subtracting. The difference here at KAUST, is that change, as in coins, is not used. The smallest bill currency is 1 Saudi Riyal in Saudi Arabia, which is about equal to 25 cents. Like in Canada, products in the stores are priced not as rounded whole numbers but with decimals like 5.45 or 8.99 or so. So, as an example, when everything is run up on the cash register, the price might be 45.73. So now place yourself at the till and you are paying for this food with cash. You would normally hand over a rounded amount of cash such as 50 and expect to get back the exact change. Well not here! You will get four one riyal notes and a bottle of water or pack of chewing gum! This is because they do not use change in the stores on campus for some reason… I know they do in Jeddah, but not here! SO the teachers were laughing and struggling with how to apply real-life examples of how to make change at KAUST while conforming to the ‘real world’.

Garnet and I went on the K-Manta catamaran this past weekend. It was the third time that this boat has been out with KAUST paying patrons and it turned out that they need a bit more practice before things are smooth. Ramadan threw a twist into the schedule as well. We were told to turn up at 8 am to pick up any rental gear we needed and be ready for an 8:30 departure. By 10:30 we were still waiting at the dock for the Coast Guard to respond to our requests to leave and by 12, we were then waiting at the Coast Guard building (15 minute trip there on the boat) for papers which were lodged on the Tuesday before, to be acknowledged that they had been received. By the time we were out on the sea, the wind had picked up and after the hour or so trip to the wreck location where we were intending to dive, most of us were feeling green. Garnet did not enjoy that part of the trip at all.  You can see in the image above, that each person standing is holding onto a pole -- except for Garnet who was still feeling great at the beginning of the trip.  We negotiated with the crew and they agreed that an additional 45 minute trip to a second location was needed because the first site was not sheltered enough and was not appropriate for snorkelers. The second site was good for snorkeling but was very uninspiring for those of us who went diving. We only had time for one dive (had planned on two), and as we had to get back to the Coast Guard again before sun set to sign in again. It was nice to learn that the trip was chalked up to learning and was complimentary for us. I now know that I need to get snorkel equipment for Garnet rather than use rental. Most of what we chose was not well fitted for him. 

We say dolphin twice on the trip. With both of us taking motion sickness pills on the trip, we were totally bagged once we got home.

A New Year Begins, But This Time With Family

“Ahhhhh this is nice!” says Garnet as we exit the Lufthansa plane from Frankfurt last Sunday night. It was about 30C but with a sea breeze was quite nice. I think Garnet got about 4 hours sleep on the trip over, while I tried to get as much as possible between the frequent meals as we traveled into time (going from west to east). I think the trip was about 21 hours this time. We were quite rushed in Frankfurt with about an hour and a half to move terminals and pass through customs with searches and such activities along the way. Oh, and our bags made it!

At the Jeddah airport, we went to the University's greeting desk which is inside customs (try to get something like that in Canada!!!), and they whisked us through customs and immigration processes. Garnet was moved to the front of the line and photographed and fingerprinted. Next was the normal wait in the airport lobby waiting for the university transportation to take us home. With about a half hour wait, we were met and packed into a suburban. Garnet and I got into the vehicle along with the brand new principal of the schools here. We later found out that there must have been a car coming for the two of us as the suburban staff had thought that we were the principal's husband and child. I guess Garnet knows one person now…. and like me, when I was in school, it was the principals that I knew the best. 8-) Well, maybe not, but we were often on a first name basis.

We have been into Jeddah twice now to get some things like electrical plugs and a radio controlled car toy that they do not have here in the grocery store, and passport photos from the local town beside the university campus. The photos story is quite funny.

At the end of a work day, four of us went to Thewal, about a 3 minute outside the university gates. We caught a ride in Felix’s VW Touareg. One of the passengers was Kannan who wanted to send money home through a bank transfer. After this, we went back down the single main street and found the photo shop that I had used many months ago. We were taken inside and I told the man I wanted 40 passport photos – he said it would be 40 SAR ($10.00), sitting and processing. Garnet sat on a wooden bench against a white background and the guy came in with an oldish digital camera with the flash held onto it by tape… Two shots taken and we were told the processing would take 15 minutes. We left and crossed the road to attempt to find some electronic plugs that we needed (no success), but did source a beard trimmer that I might go back for and also to meet the other guys at a fruit shop. I purchased some guava, peaches, mango and a dozen or so small walnut-sized apricots. We had fruit salad that night. There are two guava still left to eat and I better get at them soon because they are leaving a distinct rancid armpit odor in the house. 8-/

We went back to the photo shop and picked up Garnet’s photos. As the two of us were standing around and the last few photos were being cut apart we commented at the example photos on the walls. The shop specializes in taking the heads of people and placing them into photo sets. People can get themselves put in a white/brown/black suit or Arabic garb (standard body shape and all) and be placed in the environment of their choice, be it in a lush garden or in front of a mosque or even in some location in Mecca (which I used as an educational opportunity to talk about forbidden locations for Christians in Saudi). We paid the 40 and exited the store. On the way home, I pulled out the photos and had a great laugh! They had put Garnet’s head on an ad image for the store but the problem was, that Garnet had been turned into ‘Plastic Garnet’! Common practice here and I should have thought about this before I asked for the photos, is to lighten skin and remove blemishes, and enhanced his lip color (I think they thinned them a bit too… The art of ‘exact passport photography’ has not yet reached Saudi. This was his THIRD photo session in as many days here in Saudi -- thank goodness that he had already had a second session of photos and fingerprinting take place on campus the day after his immigration session, but that time, for university security and ID card.  I am sure he is seeing spots by now. This set of photos is for the MANY miscellaneous forms etc that need to be filled in for different things. For example, he needs two photos for his registration for school here…. He might need up to 5 for his National Identity card which we will get next week but I am hoping that they can pull his Immigration photo off their system rather than use Plastic Garnet – I hear that they do that now.

Oh, and about those 4 hours of sleep that he got. He is falling asleep all the time during the day. If he is not actively occupied with something, he just drifts off. Last night I went to sleep at 8 pm and had a light sleep. His light was finally turned off at 11 and he told me that he was up at 5 am this morning when I staggered down the stairs at 10:20. I have been trying to keep him awake in the day but it has been a challenge.

During one of our trips into town, we walked through the electronics and hardware section of a large grocery store, a bit like Walmart, called Hyper Panda.  Garnet spotted this gem of a product.  We are not sure what it does, but it was a legitimate product and not a gag.

I will not write a full blog on our summer trip but have made a photo-story that does a better job.

Also, you can view two short video of the kayak trip we went on.  On the Shore and Kayaking.

Enjoy