Now about Saudi...
Green is the national color for Saudi and the crescent moon
mimics their flag and national symbol of the crescent.
As many of you know, we visited my family in Saudi Arabia over Christmas for 2 weeks. It was a great time with mom and dad! Saudi is a land of extremes-- very poor and very wealthy (I mean, far beyond Westerners ideas of wealth!); very chic and civilized and very rough and "behind-times."
A glimpse at some of the oil drums that hold the nation's wealth.
(these are on the Aramco compound)
The wealthy houses are massive--actual palaces--
and many like this one, have 2-3 of the exact same house on within their walls
(probably one for each wife)
Yes, this is a house!
a woman at a gate
a glimpse at Bedouin poverty
I was rather surprised to find how western/catered-to-westerners it is in the area where my parents live (I gather the other side of Saudi is not like this) There are many American food chains.
One of several American food chains...(also written in Arabic)
However, it does take a bit to get used to the women covered from head to foot (many with not even eyes showing) in black. Underneath they will often wear scandulous clothing, however. We went to Khobar mall and shop after shop sells exquisite fabric of all types, many hand embroidered very ornately. They shopkeepers wrapped the fabric around the mannequins and pinned it (no sewing) to make gorgeous dresses, but many of them show how little the women wear underneath the abayahs (the black choir robe:) ). In Khobar (the city my parents live near) the western women are often seen walking solely in the abayahs with no head covering nor face mask and could probably even go out in full western garb. The men there will be split down the middle with half wearing western garb, the other half the traditional thobes (a long white, brown gown) and ghutras (the tablecloth looking head scarf that the men wear--traditionally red and white checked like a tablecloth unless they have been on Hajj--then it can be solid white)
An example of the two different types of ghutras.
my father sporting a thobe
various styles of clothing along the corniche
the magnificent "dresses" of fabric wrapped on mannequins
Also perhaps more suprising to me was how truly barren and desertic Saudi is. There are miles of nothing but sand, a few short shrubs, jebels (rocky hills-often quite large), bedouins (or their camp remnants), huge houses plopped in the middle of the desert in very little order, and trash...The Saudis have trash everywhere; the landfills appear to be wherever they decide to plop them--including next to 30,000 square feet homes. (as seen below)
Trash!!!
a mile or two of trash along a fence
Their warehouses consist of
piles of "trash" heaped in the desert.
And then there is the sand...
a business along the road is about to be snowed in under sand
The sand was so bright that it was incredibly hard to take pictures.
Even with the proper exposure, most of the pictures were somewhat washed out.
a couple of jebels
And the Bedouins...
this one has a satellite dish :)
Camels grazing in a Bedouin campground
On the camp where my parents live, there are most modern conveniences and amenities. It is heavily irrigated and so it actually is quite lush. They trim the trees and bushes to make various fascinating topiaries. The community on the compound is about 20,000 people of whom only about 10% are westerners, however, there is much more freedom on the compound and the official language of the compound is English.
Just two of the many shaped trees
While we were visiting we had the opportunity to go to the beach twice (brrr....it was record lows and oh, so cold-30s)
Another Saudi Aramco compound in Ras Tanorah has beautiful beaches
The Half Moon Bay Aramco private beach at very low tide
Is he sunbathing on the beach?
Full garb on the beach
(the weather was great for full garb then, but how about the summer?)
How about a camel ride?
We also went to an old fort and walked around
the fascinating fishing town of Turut
beached fishing boats
a donkey cart
Michael is in a fishing basket,
to give perspective of how large they are
They even had flamingos because this is where the flamingos go for the warm winter weather
(albeit it was freezing the day we were there)
Michael and I are in the fort ruins looking out over the rest of the town
fascinating doors (most old and wooden)
street cats everywhere (in all of Saudi)
and a view of the outhouse (the shack attached to the side of the house,
with the plumbing lines coming down from it)
arches of all sizes and shapes
We enjoyed the Eid celebrations (their New Year festivities) and went bowling (on the compound)
we loved this common site of the ladies in full abayahs
wearing sunglasses and sporting fashionable purses
Mom, Dad, and Michael pose in front of the abounding festivities
(it got much busier the later it got...since Saudis do all their eating and partying late at night)
Michael in the bowling alley
Mom and Dad stop for a breather while bowling
More exciting, we went sandduning (out in the desert we went with several families to a HUGE sand dune and the kids slid down on sleds or sandboards (like snowboards)). The hardest part was the climb back up!!!! It was also very cold (did I mention this before) and oh, so windy! (which if you have never been in the desert on a windy day, it is not a good combination. The sand was whipping around and on the drive home we even had a small schamal (sand storm) so that the visibility was limited to about 10 ft. in front of us). Our ride decided to start a daring trend and we took his four-wheel drive car up the back of the dune and straight down the front! It was truly scary for the brief instant when you can only see sky and then drop to see an extremely steep incline several hundred feet up. We did survive--and he went on to take others down the slope too.
The quite large sand dune that we scaled and slid down.
(the cars and people give it a bit of perspective)
The second round, we were able to appreciate the danger from the ground!
The schamal on the way home
We also bargained in the souk (or market), went to the very modern mall (where all you see is black ghosts walking around), went to church (on the compound again), and played lots of bridge.
All in all, this was an interesting time and wonderful opportunity to see a very different way of life. (the prime example is that prayer time shuts down the city --everything-- 5 times a day for 30-45 minutes. This makes it very hard to get anything done at all!) You can hear 4 different mosques from my parents house. Oh, and since you are not supposed to take pictures of people or animals (they consider that idolatry), all our pictures were taken driving about 130 kph (60ish mph) or underhandedly while walking. Pictures on the fly.
This is one of the many mosques.
They are all have minarets topped with crescents
and loudspeakers so they can call the people to prayer.
They had some incredible vegetable carvings made as floral bouquets etc...at Friday buffet in the dining hall.
Just had to put this photo in...This is the Dining hall.
Is it the Awful Lounge, or the All Full Lounge?
We are now adjusting back to life in the States but our heads are full of memories of curiosities and time with family.
Sunset in Saudi
