Morocco 2010

Nothing is ever simple here

Those of you who have read my prior blog postings will know about our attempt to get to Egypt for holidays. During that attempt, I had requested and received a multiple entry/exit visa for Garnet. The law states, that upon the issuing of these visa, the holder has to exit or ‘validate’ the visa within 90 days. Hmmmm The day before we were to depart for our holidays – me to Morocco to meet Donna and Garnet to fly to Dubai to be with a school friend and family and attend convention, I realized that his visa had not been validated by leaving the country, as per law. You see, we never did get to Egypt and Garnet being in school and me working, we had no need to fly out of the country. I learned that to have an expired un-validated visa was to cost me over $350 in a fine on top of the cost and panic (thinking of contingency plans for him to stay) to get another one issued ‘that’ day for our departure the day following. A pox on SAMA Airlines I say! 8-/

BUT, everything worked out as planned and I was able to get to the airport with Garnet by 7am. Once there… after waiting in line at the ticket counter, the attendant looked at Garnet, then back to his ticket and then promptly walked away. Both of our hearts sank… now what else could go wrong? He returned a while later with a supervisor who issued the ticket, asked Garnets’ age, suggested that maybe he would not be able to fly alone and then told us to go talk to customer services. Off we went with Garnet asking me if he would not be able to fly – and me thinking what to do as my flight was in 4 hours time. Customer services had us fill in a brightly colored pamphlet with my contact details in KSA (but I was not going to be here…, and the name and contact of who would meet him in Dubai). We carried this through immigration and at some point along the way, it was taken from us and we were told to carry on. I do not believe Garnet ever saw it again. I have a feeling that VERY few minors ever fly alone out of this country!

Started 10 days before Garnet and I departed on our holidays, I contacted a company to get travel insurance. Through much effort I was able to receive a scanned emailed copy of the policy on the day before we left. I received the official documents by FedEX package 7 days after I returned from the 10 day holiday which was 4 days after the policy expired. Thank goodness for email!

Casablanca

I flew into Casablanca a day before Donna and both of us were met by our driver Husain and guide Mustapha Ayoub. Husain drives his own tour van and we found this self-interest in the well-being of his vehicle to be a definite plus regarding our safety on the roads.

Here is a You Tube video I made of a few short clips I recorded http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZLxY-uEWZ4

I will place a link to our photo diary at the end of this blog.

The hotel that we stayed in, in Casablanca (both coming and going), was right on the beach and can only be defined with one word… ‘tired.’ In the Lonely Planet guide for Morocco, it is said to be a family-run hotel. I think the whole family that built the place is still working there too – I suspect that the average age of those working there is around 60+. The place had that ‘old man’ mustiness to it… The one day that I had before Donna arrived provided me with time to walk along the beach, looking out over the Mediterranean Sea. It was Armistice Day and I suspect that the close proximity to the Islamic holiday of Eid also added to the lack of activity because no one was on the roads, even at 8 am. I walked along corniche with morning joggers and local fishermen.  At about the 8 km point I reached a small fishing village that turns into an island each time the tide comes in. 

I was sitting down in the lobby lamenting the fact that I could not use the computer in the lobby when Donna walked in – how wonderful it was to meet her in this distant land! Did you know that there is such a thing as a ‘French’ keyboard? This is what flummoxed to begin with as I tried to log into my gmail account. I could understand the French, Google interface but when I typed, it was like someone had not only swapped around the keys, but also changed the wiring behind them. 

The next day we luxuriated in the fact that we actually had a ‘private tour.’ With only Donna and I in the a van built for 10 passengers plus the driver and guide, we had a lot of room to spread out and swap seats. This first day was spent visiting the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca as well as a few other buildings around town. Really, there is not much to see in this rather run-down quasi industrial city of more than 3.5 million people. Our 4 hour trip took us for part of the way, along a toll road and past vast tracts of agricultural land much like a ‘slightly’ hilly Saskatchewan. The analogy breaks down though, with the presents of small utility tractors or horse-and-plows and people sowing their fields by hand. 

Marrakech

Upon arrival in Marrakech we are taken to our hotel. In Marrakech, small hotels or B&B are called ‘riad’. Ours is the Riad Aquarelle.  We were looking at each other and wondering what we had got ourselves into as we were being driven into the depths of this old city down one way streets with two-way traffic equivalent to any large NA motorway. We unloaded our luggage beside one of these busy one-way streets and took off after our guide on foot into a side tunnel, along a warren of small cobbled pathways with 4 story buildings on each side an arm’s length between. At the end of a ‘take a right, first left and second left’ we stopped in front of a carved wooden door and knocked. Our concerns were washed away when the door was opened and we were ushered into a jewel of a B&B. We dined on the roof under a camelhair tent that evening and morning and punctuated the meals with a walk to the old souq down the road about a 20 minute walk.

The souk,

...Something that you just have to experience. Dubai had a few imitations…. This place has the real thing!  All I can do is encourage you to view the photo-diary we have put at the end of this blog. Something that I wanted to take photos of, but was not able to, was of the area that had animals, leopard skins, live chameleons, live birds of prey, live turtles and tortoise, large stuffed lizards, antelope skulls, bones herbs and bottles with mysterious pickled or dried objects inside. I believe this place was the witch doctor/medicine area (I kid you not!). There were also artisan areas for: tinsmiths, leather-workers, a few odd shops here and there doing carpentry, rug-makers, tailors, and just about any odd trinket you wanted to purchase. Over the period we stayed in Marrakech, I believe we made over 5 trips into the souq. We would only come out when we became hungry and then, we would take a rest in one of the ‘upscale’ restaurants around the edge of the large central square. We were careful to not eat any of the food from the local ‘venders’ as we wanted to make sure that we remained healthy for the whole trip. I think one of the things that I found most interesting was that this country was totally authentic and that Dubai has taken most of this place’s architectural key features and rebuilt whole districts which look the same. It was nice to see where all the ideas of the imitations came from.

Tuluete

Our first stop on our way out of Marrakech was in Tuluete (which we were told was 52 days walk by camel to Timbuktu). Just on the edge of Tuluete is the castle or Kasba (earth block building) of Pasha Glaoui whose claim to fame among other things was a bloody tyrant who attempted to beat the will to live out of the local Berber tribes with the help of French fire-power back in the ‘50s while he managed the trade routes that crossed his land. Websites claim that he was one of the richest people in the world at the time – who would have thought a person from Morocco eh? This illustrates how active these trade routes have been.

Following our visit to the castle, we stopped at a nondescript wreck of a place and were told that we were going to be eating lunch there. Donna and I got hesitantly out of the van, looking around at the few scruffy individuals – and no other tourists visible (not a good sign!) and followed our guide inside the Palace de Telouet restaurant, through rooms that looked clean and newly painted but still without anyone around and up onto the roof to find four other groups of tourists ‘taking the air.’ What a total surprise. Above all else, this place had the best food on our whole trip!  (you might need to refresh the site as there is a slide show that loads slowly when you click on the ‘visite’ link. A link at the bottom of the main page is to a You Tube video of a wedding on the roof terrace where we had our lunch) .

Kasbah Ait Ben Haddou

 Anyone who has seen a movie with an ancient desert fortress has probably seen this town. No one lives here now as it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987. Many movies have been shot here – about 2 per year since ’82. Gladiator is probably one of the recent popular movies. The current village is on the West side of the river as the river floods frequently and cuts the town off from trade and transportation from the road on the West side. So the leaders up and moved the town, leaving this wonderful structure cascading down the hillside abandoned. These days, many of the old buildings have been refurbished and now contain small curio shops. We arrived just in time to see the sun set from the top of the hill. Our hotel that night was in the new town and had much to desire, but gave Donna and I lots to talk and laugh about – as one has to have a sense of humor in these situations.

On the way into the area we passed a gas station – no, not a ‘petrol’ station as that would be something relating to the local economy – this place was a movie set. I think it was a Phillips 66. I could just picture the empty highway movie scene; coming over the hill to find an abandoned gas station with dusty door flapping in the breeze and tumble weeds piled up against the garage bay door. But this was in the middle of nowhere in Morocco! Go figure! We were told that it was a famous location… but both Donna and I not being movie aficionado, it was all rather meaningless – other than being surrealistic.

Ouarzazate to Tarauddant

We traveled on to the modern (could I say brand new?) city of Ouarzazate where Jacques Chirac, the former president of France has a home – this place has wide (wide!) modern roads and is really clean – with lots of brand new buildings and shops where we picked up a few snacks and exchanged some money. We continued our trip swinging west from our southerly direction to curve around northwards and on towards Tarauddant. We stopped at one of the many women’s cooperatives that have capitalized on the newly publicized health benefits from the oil of the seed of the Argon tree.  

That night we stayed in another Riad called Riad Hida which is just outside of the city of Tarauddant,  which was a nice surprise as it was a rich person’s old home with private orange garden complete with about 10 peacock strutting around in the undergrowth and beside the swimming pool. We wondered around the grounds sampling the different varieties of oranges hanging ripe for picking on the trees. I brought one home for Garnet in Saudi Arabia for a little taste of Morocco.

The next day we traveled into Tarauddant proper, to see the silver smiths and silver shops that this town is famous for – which happened to all be shut due to the Eid holiday…. I think this was the only souq that I got quite concerned about being lost. Even using the compass on my watch, I still felt a little bit panicked because we were not much interested in being there in the first place and nothing was open that we wanted to see, so we walked in and then turned around to come out. Thanks to Donna recognizing a shoe display (one among HUNDREDS) she was able to say, we 'turn right' here and 'go straight'… we got out. 

Tizi N Test pass and the High Atlas

We picked up lunch fixings for our extended trip over the High Atlas mountains for a second time. We traveled to/through the Tizi N Test pass (6900 ft) on a well kept, paved, single lane road with a suspiciously high number of breaches to the retaining wall at many of the corners (see video at beginning of blog and photo-diary).

We spent the night at another B&B (hotel), the Ksar Les Sel Dailleurs.  This one had an interesting dynamic to it that we did not appreciate. The place was nice for the paying guest, but when our drive and guide inquired about where they could stay, the owner brushed them off like they were low-life. They had to travel back the hour and a half to Marrakech 5 times (4 ‘extra’ times) than they had planned because that was the closest place to find a bed (they had an apartment there) and most of the hotels were closed due to Eid. I was not sure how the extra gas consumption was dealt with since the driver was an independent operator…. Both guide and driver were Berber and they were quite happy to give evidence of how much more hospitable the Berber were than the ‘Arabs’ who had colonized the country hundreds of years ago – which was the owner’s heritage.

The next morning Donna and I went for a 2 hr., 10 km hike, from 976m at lower hotel to 1233m at the guest house that we reached -- through some of the local Berber villages. Everyone we passed as we walked was dressed up for Eid. This morning was ‘killing day’ and every man we passed had a knife in hand. Generally, the oldest married man in the home was to bless a goat or sheep, turn its head towards Mecca and then cut its throat and hang it quickly to bleed out. We observed one family butchering their animal below us at the guest house (Dar Tassa) at the top of our hike where we had a lunch break overlooking the local village.

 Marrakech and home

The next day, we continued on to Marrakech to the Riad we first stayed at – did some last minute shopping in the souk and the next day on to Casablanca. The day after Donna and I took a small taxi (were ripped off on the fair) to the light rail transit train station, then on to the airport where I saw Donna off on her return flight through Paris, Montreal, Ottawa, and then Edmonton. 24 hours later, she had landed in Edmonton. I was still in Casablanca as I remained one extra day due to the availability of Saudi Airlines flights to Jeddah. I got home at 3:30 am, and returned to the university campus, then back to the airport again for Garnet’s flight at 3:30 that afternoon. Garnet had a blast! And promptly went into recovery mode by going to sleep at 8 pm for the next couple of days.

Here is our photo-diary.  Hope you enjoy.  8-)

Oh, and as of the writing of this blog, I have 12 days before we leave KSA for good. It has been an interesting year and a half for me. A new job awaits me in Edmonton and I am ready for it.

Plans are Afoot

Going Home
Most of you will know already that I have put in my resignation here at KAUST and Garnet and I will be home in time for Christmas. But that is in the future; here is a bit of history before I tell you more about our plans.
Things that fly and crash
Garnet is heavily into radio-controlled cars and helicopters. We have a landing pad on the coffee table for the helicopters and assortment of jumps, ramps, speed bumps and other traffic control structures created with a combination of yards of silver duct-tape, clear Sellotape and cardboard for the cars. There is a ‘road’ built over the carpet so that the cars can get over it without getting high-centered. He and I both have helicopters and I can tell you, he is much more adapt at controlling these magical mechanical mosquitoes and is able to land them where he wants. Mine, well, let’s just say that I have added weight to the thing so that it goes slower and responds a bit more sluggishly so that I can react in time.
Mobile phone
I have been wanting to get a new mobile phone so went into Jeddah after quite a bit of online research. I wanted to get a phone with the Google Android operating system so that I was not so tied to ONE company (Apple) like my KAUST iPhone. So, I decided to get a Sony Erikson 10X. When I got home I found that one of the most important things was ‘missing.’ The store where I purchased it did not tell me that in the Middle East, the online shopping component was not included in the phone. This is like purchasing a car and not getting the axels included! No way to take it back as return policy in this country seems to be as long as you are still inside the store… And I did not want to exchange it for anything else that they had. So I keep it and am waiting for an upgrade that I read ‘might’ have what is missing. I am not holding my breath as I know better, having lived in this region for almost 7 years now. I suspect that even being back in Canada, that the software will ‘know’ the phone from the M.E. and will retain its restrictions as if I was living here.
No Egypt trip!
Well, I never got to Egypt. The airline went bust and repeated attempts to phone, email and text have gone without a response. I have sent what is required on their website to get a refund for the airfare but know that when I leave here that they will have no obligation to pay-up, if they ever do. I guess by law, they have to show a semblance of an attempt to honor their commitments – but that is all. More often than not,’ intention’ to fulfill is not part of the equation in customer service.
Underwater
Tomorrow I go scuba diving again and Garnet will remain at home. I have asked him if he wants to try but he is a cautious boy by nature and snorkeling was enough for him. He would probably be more interested in snorkeling if we went spear-fishing, but since most of this area is a nature preserve and we do not have our own transport, just looking is about as far as it goes. He says he has seen most of what he will see. I must add though, that he did get rather disappointed with snorkeling recently when he forgot that he had his precious IPod in his pocket after being out in the sea for about a half hour. We tried to dry it out, but it was totally filled with rust. Events like that can take the fun out of things!
This added the day after I went scuba diving.  NEVER got diving with a headache!  Man, I was ill...  I think by the end of the day I had consumed over 2400 mg of Ibuprofen and was still in pain.  The next day was spent at home recovering and still feeling a bit of pain.  Whew!
Creatures in the night
In the middle of the night a few weeks ago – sound asleep in bed -- a half-inch black cockroach ran over my hand! YUCK! My eyes SNAPPED open and my arm reacted like it had a mind of its own as it flung out from me, all on its own. If there is anything that grosses me out more, I do not want to know about it! I now have trails of white ‘Pifpaf’ roach and ant killer sprinkled along the edges of the room. Haven't seen one since.

Fishing
With the slow progression to cooler evenings Garnet and I have been out fishing a short bike ride from our home. We go out to the south tip of the island to the KAUST Beacon. Garnet found a piece of metal pipe with a fishing line tied to one end, a bolt tied about a foot from the end where a hook was attached. Garnet has great fun catching crabs and with the rod in hand, now has a use for them – he attached them to the hook and low and behold he was the first to catch an edible fish. He says that it is his first fish that he has caught on his own.
Groceries
The grocery store here on campus has free delivery. The majority of us living on campus main mode or transport is by foot or bicycle. We have taken the local KAUST bus a few times but prefer to bike as it takes much less time. The grocery store have a number of delivery times. I have often got the 8 pm one but this time we went out at about 8 pm and I thought that my stuff would be delivered by 10, but by 11 pm it still had not come. I was a bit anxious and thinking that the store must be closed so did not phone and went to bed realizing that I had left the receipt as my delivery note.  I drifted off attempting to itemize what I had purchased.  I was woken up at 12:45 am by the door bell and the delivery. I have made it a point to shop earlier now!
Things that grow
This summer/fall has had high humidity. I was told that Saudi Arabia has the highest amount of mold in the world with India being second. When you think of the difference in population, this place must really have a productive ‘culture.’ I hear from many people that they have developed asthma problems and other respiratory problems here. The schools sent an email to parents to keep their children at home if they are showing a fever or coughing to reduce the chances of spreading infectious viruses. I suggesting that there might be a larger issue but have not received a response. On a related issue, someone, who I work with found mold growing all over leather belts and purses in her home. Many homes have mold growing on the walls. I heard of this in Dubai, but that was from the air conditioning being shut off over the summer. Here, we have been told to have it running 24x7x365…. I have kept my exhaust fans in all 4 bathrooms as well as the AC running since I move in (1.5 years). I am glad to say that I have been one of the few who have not had mold growth on my walls but DID find it on shoes which I had left in a closet. 8-/
Dubai and Morocco
I will be dropping Garnet off at the airport in Jeddah for him to travel by himself to Dubai while I depart shortly after to meet Donna in Casablanca, Morocco. Garnet will be staying at a friend’s place and getting to Dubai Conventions during the time. Donna and I will be going on a private tour of most of the ‘sights to see’ in the Atlas Mountains -- ancient historical walled castles/towns and staying and dining with the local berber tribes while spending some time wandering the narrow streets in Marrakech. I am looking forward to seeing and photographing the leather tanneries in Marrakech. They tan in open vats with natural dyes and work the leather in these vats by treading on them. I hope to have many excellent photos to share! Donna just sent me a text saying that she was getting excited now that we have a plan for our tour in place. Me too!

Exploding dishes and interminable waiting

The other day, when we were traveling into Jeddah to pick up a radio controlled car for Garnet, we passed a travel agency with the indescribable name of Open Clam Airlines. I wonder who their clientele are?

We arrived in town at 10 pm and most stores were closed. We wondered if Friday was just a day where NO stores opened, but our driver assured us that all stores were open… from what we could see, none of them were. I guess it is a matter of perspective. To them, all the stores ‘are’ open, in that they ‘will’ be open sometime that day. Sometime.
We went to a small mall first and while driving by another one on the road, we glimpsed through the glass windows (glass, floor to ceiling and wall to wall with double glass doors) row upon row of people on knees in prayer; maybe 200 people in total. Along the fronts of other stores in the shopping center were people waiting for the store doors to open and the store employees to return. I guess those outside had finished their worship already.

Then we moved on to one of the large malls, and upon leaving there around 1 am, we came to the full realization that Jeddah comes alive after midnight! The lineup to drop off people at the front door went WAY down the road. I hear that stores are open till well after 2 am.
The other day, I had put two chicken breast under the broiler in a glass dish that I had used for the same purpose for a year now. I had turned the chicken over after 15 minutes and about 5 minutes later, there was an almighty explosion in the oven and when I got there, the chicken were sitting on the grill rack with glass covering the bottom of the oven. With a little bit of inspection, I saw that I could salvage the meat and with a brief wash under the tap, we ate it. I guess not all cookware is made equal. Odd why it would survive more than a year before it did this.
Nothing......
Garnet is in his second week of school and each day, like any interested parent, I ask, ‘so, what did you do today’ and the inevitable, teenage response is ‘nothing…..’ I need to learn how to time my questions. 8-) Later, at his own time, he often opens up and shares things. I find it interesting how universal teenagers are. I guess on the other hand, you just had to ‘be there’ to really understand what all goes on in a the day of a teenager.

To fly, or not to fly? That is the question
I was woken up the other night by a phone call at 1 am. A very pleasant Arabic speaking lady greeted me in Arabic and said a bunch of stuff I did not understand … I came up with the bright idea and asked 'can I help you?,' whereupon she said ‘yes’. I was then passed to someone who spoke English.
Let me back up here a bit. Some of you who follow me on Face Book might have seen a few posts about the airlines that I purchased our Egypt tickets on. Well, it has gone bankrupt. I was told this by some students while at the beach last weekend. When I got home I checked their website and sure enough, they have shut down. I read something online that said that they would honor those who had paid for flights. This week, I have spent MANY hours calling the company and being put on hold. Today alone, I have spent more than 5 hours with the phone on hold (speaker phone), while I continue to work around the house. I did get through three days ago and was asked if I wanted to still fly, I said yes, and they said that they would get back to me with ticket information. Then, there was the 1 am phone call with the same questions and information …. Odd, I think I even recognized the voice of the lady as the one that I had talked to first. Then yesterday, I got another phone call during work hours (for me) and another lady (same one????) asked the same questions! Today, I have yet been able to connect and I have 2 more days before my original flight time and tour booking in Egypt occurs. Garnet and I wait….. I think it will either be, that they have just put a face (or a voice) on their ‘effort’ to attempt to replace my flight, or maybe I will have six seats or more, booked in my name. I am resigned to the fact that if they do not give me replacement flights, that my money is lost on the flights and I will not be able to recover my deposit to the Egyptian tour company either – and will probably just go back to work and send Garnet to school rather than spend our time here at home. Getting a flight anywhere now would be silly-expensive.

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

End of the academic year and looking forward to going home

Salary symphony, music to my ears. Each end-of-the-month, some 30 or so people who sit around my area on the fourth floor of Building 14 on campus receives a text message at just about the same time as we are notified that our salary has arrived in each of our bank accounts. We all bank at the same bank which has set up office here on campus and has some sort of special agreement with the university. Definitely a sound we all look forward to with anticipation.

A large group of us went out to one of the fish restaurants in the small town right next to the campus (Thewal). It was an Arabic meal all spread out on a low table with us kneeling or sitting cross-legged on the floor. The fish are mainly grilled. Interestingly, they slice the fish to make large squares of meat and then grill the fish. When presented at the table, we reach out and grasp one of the cubes of meat and pull them away to set them on our plate. Put some tabuli (chopped parsley and onions) and hummus beside that with some salad and a few other things and you have a good feed. Drinks were 'Saudi Campaign' (apple juice and pop) and a glass of water.  I found the meal to be good but for the price, I think I could find something else of better value. The gathering of like-minded folk was sure worth it though.

Shopping for a new computer. Well, our 'old' Dell laptop purchased before we left for Dubai in 2003, has finally been retired. I blew the sound card when we were setting up our first rental place in Dubai and the thing has had sound issues since. Lately, it was taking over 15 minutes to start up -- and this was after I formatted it and installed the operating system again before I came here. I now have a Dell desktop computer in a smallish box. I have moved from 40 Gig HD in the laptop to 325 with an additional 1000 Gig in this new one! 8-)    Arindam and I purchased the same machines but I got additional memory. I am really happy with the speed I now have.

Of royal account. Each year at this time of year, the whole Saudi government moves from the center of the country, where the capital city is located, out to the cooler climate of Jeddah.  Recently we have had a number of VIP visits including one from the King and then shortly after, from his brother the Crown Prince. The highway between Jeddah and the university was closed as well as the roads inside the campus and people are notified shortly before the road closure to leave campus early if they need to go to Jeddah. We, who live on campus were also told to vacate our office buildings or be prepared to stay till the visit was over which could be 7 pm or much later.

Talking about royal activities around Jeddah, Arindam and I were down in Jeddah and as we drove around we saw many military helicopters with scanning devices attached and open side door with people looking out. As we had arrived at an electronics store, we watched the road as it was shut down with blockades and police driving back and forth. Shortly, about 20 black vehicles drove past at high speed flanked by police cars. Included in the convoy were a black flatbed tow truck, two ambulances that I could count, a few Hummers, a fire truck, a bus, and some other large vehicles. Most of the extra vehicles were probably along 'just in case'. Definitely, it is a major undertaking to move royalty around by vehicle.

World cup fever is definitely present and accounted for here. There are a number of public locations on campus where large screen TV or large theatre-sized outdoor screens are set up to show the matches. You really have to be out of Canada or the States to grasp the fervor surrounding these competitions. One good thing here, is that the games start in South Africa at about 2 pm our time so most people can get in almost all of a regular day's work before their attention is pulled away by the matches.

I have given the house a cleaning, especially the second bedroom in preparation for Garnet to arrive. I pulled up the duvet and discovered that there was only a single sheet under it -- no mattress cover and no fitted sheet. So I put in a call to 959 and I have some being delivered tonight at 8 pm. I sent a text to Donna asking for another set as well. I did not know I could ask for things like this when I first arrived. I have even found that I can call 959 and ask for them to come and replace burnt out light bulbs! Hmmm, probably making a call about being low on milk would not cut it though.

It was HOT today! I looked at my iPhone around 2 pm and it said that the temperature in Jeddah was 47C. Someone in the office said that at 12 it was 51C! One great thing about being right on the coast is that there is usually a breeze and oddly enough, it is mainly dry, so the heat is not too bad -- definitely not as oppressive as Dubai was most of the time.   This was the first time that it has been anywhere close to this temperature since I have been here and might even have been a record.  Actually, we are often rather cool in the AC of the buildings so a 5 minute walk around the campus at noon is a nice opportunity to warm up. I would not enjoy the heat as much if I had to work outside though.

This weekend is my last dive before I leave. We are on a boat again. We are going out with a company called Desert Sea Divers. I am looking forward to sharing the magic of scuba diving with Garnet when he comes.

Which brings me to my final paragraph. I am leaving for Edmonton at 2:40 am on the 1st of July so not much sleep for me that night! I will arrive in Edmonton around noon the same day having being in transit for something like 20 hours... We will be heading directly to Mellowdale convention and then back home for a short retrofit of the trailer and then off to Vancouver Island where we will go on a 5 day sea kayak trip. This is from the website.  " The Islands and the surrounding crystal clear ocean are the home of Sea Lions, Seals, Pacific White Sided Dolphins, Otters, colorful birds and the largest starfish and clams of the world. Ancient trees along our shore provide nesting habitat for more than 200 Bald Eagles." I might not do a whole lot of swimming in the cold water, but will bring along my underwater box and lean over the side of the kayak and shoot a few photos of what drifts below us. 8-) Once the kayak trip is over it is back across the mountains with a stop each way at my Mom and Dad's place for a night stop before we need to get Donna back for work again. Donna tells me that I will only have ONE weekend at home! I am devastated. How can a month go by that fast? I sure hope I can cram in a visit with all those I want to see in that short a time. Oh, and I KNOW that Donna has the contents of the 'job jar' prioritized for me. I am ready, bring it on!

Panic and Relaxation at the End of the Semester

General panic ensued for our little team during the last few days of the semester. I am thankfully sheltered a little bit by my wonderful co-worker, Vanessa as she took the brunt of the data manipulations that had to happen. I played the part of data integrity checker and general assistant to her efforts. Everyone knows that this is a start-up university and as normal day to day events pass we are sometimes lulled into complacency thinking that everything is in place and then something comes up and slaps you awake and you realize again, that everything is not as it appears.

This past week was our most important week of the semester as our application, Blackboard, becomes the focus of every instructor to put their final grades into the grade books in each course. Theoretically, these data-sets are supposed to be compiled and then uploaded into the University’s student records that form their permanent performance matrix. We then become the nexus to ensure that this student data gets moved. Well, we had been waiting for something called a ‘Building Block’. for quite a while (since before I went to the conference in Swansea actually…). We finally got this component and I helped install it in our Test server. Everything went OK and then we installed it in our live server and it seemed OK. Luckily, we had spent a few days working with the existing building block for final grades before this event. To work with the data, Vanessa working her magic with Excel, goes through about 30 or more steps that she developed, to get the data into the format needed by the student services system – Course, Number, Student ID, and ultimately, the students’ final course grade. Well, when we installed the now component around 5 pm on the 31st of May, the next day we got an email from an instructor saying that their student’s final grades were changed and they could not alter it back! We found that all the B+ grades were changed to B and a few other things. We (Vanessa mainly) worked through the 1200 or more grades and compared the old data to the new and found that the new component had associated a new ‘reference table’ to compare % grades to, and displayed a changed set of Alphanumeric final grades. Oh, and the table it was drawing upon did not have a B+ in it so when an attempt at correction happened the B+ produced an error. Vanessa removed the new component and activated the old and ran the whole process again and compared, multiple times, ALL the grades and spot checked new changes – because faculty were actively still putting in grades and changing things on the fly… So, by Thursday afternoon this week, we were finally sure that everything was in place. The new component was sent back twice I think and it did not work as we expected it to either time… 8-/     So the plan now is to spend the summer testing and ensuring that our system will be more automated and less hands on for next semester. But then again, that was what our current plan and incidentally, last semester’s too!  In the end, not a single grades was lost, and for all intense and purposes, all of this activity went on behind the scenes and not a single student or faculty record was negatively impacted.  This reminds me of a saying I heard when I was running my own construction company:  The difference between an expert carpenter and a novice is that the expert knows how to fix his errors.

 During this time, I had been working on other projects as well. I have now got the Schools (K-12 schools) set up with a section of our Blackboard system so that they can manage their own users and courses (this was really fun to do and enjoyable to be involved with schools again). I have been building a course for the Dean of the Biosciences department here; working on a course for Occupational Health and Safety department related to Lab Safety practices at the University; and most recently have been working with the Human Resources department. This last project was fun because I found that the university does not have a hand-held video camera so I used Donna’s brand new camera that I purchased in London. I have found that the video quality is so spectacular, that it is better than any hand-held video camera I have seen so far – and it is a point and shoot camera! I purchased some software this week for editing because I did not have anything to edit High Definition video which this little camera produces. The software is simple, quick and produces exceptionally clear results for ANY kind of video file format. If you are interested, you can find it at: http://www.avs4you.com/video.aspx I am not selling this! The twist with this site is that you purchase use of ALL their software for either a year or forever – two prices. This is not ‘pay for one and then pay for the second’, it is ‘pay once and get all’ for the time period you chose. I have worked with probably a dozen different video editing programs and these produce seems to be about the best of the lot, so far.

Either side of the panic period, I have had two really nice scuba dives. We went north of the University to an area called Petro Rabigh which is the name of a Saudi petroleum company. Well actually sadly, there are three different industrial plants spewing gunk into the air along the coast in the same area which inevitably blows down towards where we live! One is this petroleum refinery, the second a power station (probably using fuel from the refinery), and the third, the second largest cement factory in the world (I have been told), no doubt using the near-by electricity source. Well, we boarded a small boat and went about 30 km further north to a reef called 5km reef. These areas see few people that one could consider it to be ‘near pristine’. We did two dives that first Thursday and between the two, a bit of fishing. I saw a barracuda over 6 feet long jump out of the water just before we left for home. We caught a yellow fin tuna that got away and a barracuda which I kept and brought home. I filleted the fish and ate ¼ that evening. I also I cut off its head and boiled it and then rebuilt it. Incredible! This thing is out of someone’s nightmare! The lower jaw is overshot and like a crocodile, only able to move up and down, not sideways. The upper jaw has a set of solid slicing (like knife tips) molars and then the teeth towards the front are on a separate set of two bones. Think of an old man who is able to take his upper set of dentures and move them forward with his tongue. This fish can push its front set of teeth forward about 1/3 the length of its lower jaw and then pull them back like a saw. If ‘grandpa’ had a set like this, no 15 oz steak would ever be a challenge!

The second Thursday took us to the same area and we saw a turtle resting on a slope of a coral wall that we were swimming alongside.  For perspective, this turtle had about a 30 inch shell.
During this same dive, we were surrounded by a very large school of young barracuda, each about 2 feet long. I enjoy looking up towards the surface as I swim along the coral wall, and at one place, I am sure I saw the same 6 foot barracuda that I saw jump the week before – the mother of all barracuda! I brought along my rod this second trip but was not lucky.

This Friday I went to the University pool for the first time and gave Kannan some pointers on swimming. He sits next to me and sees all the photos I take during my scuba diving and would really like to learn – but realizes that knowing how to swim first might come in handy.

And thinking of the future and what to do when Garnet gets here regarding transportation -- I finally got the lowdown! I now know that I do not need to consider the cost of fuel. I shot this image with my iPhone at the location where we met our dive boat. The small car is a Chevi and the truck, a Ford Explorer. The person renting the small car says it costs him SAR 13 to fill the tank; the owner of the Ford SUV, SAR 35 for his full tank. The exchange rate is 3.57 SAR to $1 CDN. You do the math! This is not an error either! This is from people who drive here and fill their tanks on a regular basis.