maintenance changes our lightbulbs

I wonder if people will lose respect for me when they find out I do zero amounts of housework. I'm just not very good at it, and I can't motivate myself to clean things that I know will only get dirty again. I don't have kids, but we have a maid anyway who comes in twice a week because we can afford it here, whereas back home in Canada maids are very expensive in comparison, and I have to make a half-hearted effort to clean up after myself =(

Many families love it out here because the help is cheap and living in a compound makes having a house pretty easy. If anything goes wrong you just call maintenance and they'll fix it for you. When I say anything, I really mean anything. Like, if you can't reach the lightbulbs on the ceiling, they'll come by with a ladder and change them for you, and if you can't figure out why your freezer door is not closing, they'll fix that too. Living on a compound is expensive, so it's not like we don't pay for these services, it's just that I know that is one big thing that I will miss about Saudi Arabia when I go home. I just can't stand cleaning!!!

pork substitutions

As you all know, pork is illegal here in Saudi. In Dubai, you can go into grocery stores and those products are in their own dirty little section, but in Saudi they are banned outright. I confess, I'm not huge on pork. In Canada, I typically choose chicken and beef over pork. Pork's just...I dunno. It's just there sometimes. It's that in-between kind of meat, in terms of flavour. I don't miss it all that much.

That being said, I believe there are a couple of no-sub pork items that just don't taste as good with beef when you've gone oink. I'm reminiscing here, so I hope no one takes offense. Perhaps sone of you are disgusted with me now, but all I can say is oink. Oinkity oinking oink pig snort oink!!! =D

Exhibit A: BACON

Beef bacon is okay, but I think beef bacon will always be jealous of pork bacon, like Cinderella and her step-sisters. No, to be fair, actually some of that beef bacon is pretty good, and pretty close to the 'real thing' but I swear I can taste the difference. Please do NOT even defile me with the mention of gobble gobble bacon. That's just revolting... My favourite bacon dish? Brussel sprouts fried with bacon and walnuts. Yes, I miss pork bacon terribly. There's a specific ache near my spleen that aches only for oinky bacon.

Exhibit B: BABY BACK RIBS

Okay, now this picture just says it all. I don't have to write anything, but I will. There's nothing more succulent and flavourful than a slow roasted rack of baby back ribs. It must be the pork fat that makes it so perfect. There is a reason why God put pigs on the earth, and ladies and gentlemen, this could be it.

As a sidenote another product that can be difficult to get in Saudi is Vanilla. Not the cream or powder - I'm talking the delicious smelling dark liquid - the nectar of the gods that make cakes and cookies so delectable. Those of you who have it in your house in the West take a look at your bottle of vanilla and you'll see our dear friend Mr. Alcohol, another banned substance here in Saudi.

Toys Toys Toys

So I shop a lot at Carrefour, a chain of grocery stores here in the Kingdom. The stores stock half food/grocery items and half completely random sh*t. The random half usually has a household section and an electrical section, a section where they sell tacky clothing, etc. etc. And of course there are the toys. Now don't get the wrong impression - they do have cheap knock-off western toys, but I think what's more fascinating to see are the muslim geared items.

For instance, muslim Barbie.


And a board game to teach young muslims that mosque can be fun (???) I'm terribly curious about how to play this game, so if any of you could shed light on this, I'd be uber grateful. I won't lie, there is a part of me that really really wants to buy this game just to see what's inside.


Here's another one. I assume that the game doesn't really revolve around washing your face and going to the bathroom, 'cause I mastered those skills at four and fail to see the challenge in that.... No, it must have something to do with prayer time, am I right?


And this is just a picture I took at Ikea. This is their stuffed beaver display and it reminded me of home. There's something kind of macabre about seeing your national mascot scattered on the floor like this. Is Ikea trying to send us a message, Canada?

Iftar

Iftar is the meal when the fast is broken during Ramadan. Tonight hubster and I were treated to an awesome traditional Iftar buffet at the Marriott by our friends. Sorry guys, I would have taken pictures, but I'm bad at doing the I-didn't-know-that-was-a-rule face when security starts shouting at me. I could expand on this section but I will not. =)

This was my first time having some of the 'national' food. We've had lebanese food before, and I'm sure a lot of the dishes could be classified generally as 'middle eastern' but hey. To me it was mostly new. Some things I've never had before - date juice - "Jalab". MMMmm that was good. It wasn't too sweet, which was nice, and I had 3 cups of it. Dates are commonly the first food that a muslim will break their fast with, so of course I had a couple of those too. There was a lot of delicious grilled meat - lamb, chicken, beef, though no camel, and of course no bacon. A ton of different types of appetizers and salads, and all kinds of dessert. Many of the traditional desserts seem to be coated with some kind of sugary syrup that makes your teeth hurt. But that's okay, right? 'Cause who needs teeth? My favourite by far was the Um Ali, otherwise known as Ali's mom. Let me tell you - Ali's mom tastes like buttery creamy goodness with almonds on top. I will take Ali's mom home with me any day of the week. Don't ask hubster how he enjoyed dessert because all he got was fruit and a marshmallow. Hubster is on a diet and that's how he likes it, so don't feel sorry for him, because I don't. (I do a little but it's important that I don't show pity or he might cave) (it's okay he never reads this blog)

One kind of weird thing was that a clown showed up to dinner. This clown was all decked out in clown ecoutrements - you know, the wig, the big shoes, the crazy costume, the scary makeup. We were sitting in what seemed like a giant pile of screaming children, and as soon as the clown showed up you know what happened, right? I don't even have to tell you what happened because you already know that all the children started crying. Because let's face it, that's what clowns *really* do to children. We were told that it isn't the most common thing to see clowns around during Iftar(thank god, for the children) but that it does happen occasionally, since this is a festive time for everyone. No Santa, right? You gotta give the kids something I guess...

Speaking of kids - next post will be toys!

Ramadan

It's a beautiful concept - like Christmas dinners for a month, I hear. People put up Christmas lights and last year when I peeked into some homes that were celebrating on my compound, everyone looked like they were having a great time. It was like that scene from Home Alone when Kevin watches the old shovel man reunite with his family through a window.

But for expats a lot of us are here without family and without our friends from home, what we see of Ramadan is that we can't eat in public during daylight for a month, the stores all keep even wonkier hours than they normally do, and there's chaos on the roads and in the malls in the evening. Because of this, many expats leave the country during this holiday, which leaves compounds deserted, and the remaining people sitting around wondering when everyone is coming back. Another trifle of inconvenience is wearing a headscarf. During this month in public, even non-muslim women are expected to cover their hair out of respect. Headscarves were specifically designed to fall off the head while you are holding groceries, so that people around you can give you dirty looks. Ahhh... Ramadan.

On the upside, we'll hopefully be having some people over who celebrate Ramadan during Iftar, the breaking of the fast. Looking forward to that! Hubster also has shortened hours, which is also a very good thing. There's always some kind of silver lining, right?

jet lagging it

I've been bouncing between the world of the unconscious and reality. The last couple of trips I've had here I've been able to adjust pretty quickly, but now, a full one and a half weeks after my arrival, I've only had a couple full nights sleep. Either I sleep only for a few hours at night and then get up and putter around, or else I sleep for 12 hours and I get up and putter around. This means I've also been missing all the morning bus rides to get groceries and to go to souks and the like. Disappointing! Hopefully I'll get into the swing of things in the next week or so. I've been taking the odd antihistamine to help get to sleep, which works, but I don't want to deplete my supply in case something major happens, like if I get bitten by a muttawa and have an allergic reaction. No, I jest. But seriously, I can't get Benadryl here - they don't have even a generic brand of it. They have chlorphenirmine, which could be a good antihistimine....for me to poop on! No, I jest again. I suppose there's nothing wrong with chlorphenirmine and I could try it, I'm just used to Benadryl. So. I've been rationing my supply. Hubster says we should go buy some Ambien, which is a prescription product in the US, but is an ask-and-thou-shalt-receive product here. And I could always try melatonin or valerion here, I suppose... Or I could just do nothing, which I'm pretty good at doing according to my mother.

marhaban back

I love to welcome myself back to the kingdom. It has been a nice week back on the compound and I've met a few new faces and said hello to some old ones. Each trip back gets a bit easier. I did a little bit of practice at the driving range at the Intercontinental this and managed to leave my abaya at home. Which is not the biggest deal, because you are allowed to be unsheathed on the golf course. But obviously I am still getting back into the swing of things here. Some people ask if you can get thrown in jail if you're not wearing an abaya in public spaces and the answer is no, but you *can* get harassed and stared at, which is every foreigner's dream come true. The good news is that they come in a variety of colours, ranging from jet black all the way to blue black, and all the black you can handle in between. You know what they say - "Black: it's the new rainbow."

I went to a maa salama party last night, which is basically a goodbye party. Riyadh is a transient place for many westerners and people come and go, quite often collecting on hardship postings and then returning home or jetting off to some other form of civilization. They are typically all-evening affairs and guests usually bring some kind of maa salama gift, often serving as a reminder of the person's time abroad. Or, if you are a guest like me and are suddenly informed of this custom in the car on the way to a maa salama, you bring a dolphin shaped balloon (that has nothing to do with anything) because that's all you could find at Riyadh Gallery, a mall that seems to sell women's clothing exclusively, and it would be even more (but not much more) ridiculous to bring women's clothing as a gift.

Anyhow, I thought it was interesting to begin my trip here with a goodbye. It was really kind of sad that it had to be that way because they were a very very nice couple, but at the same time everyone was happy for them to be moving on.