Week 18: The Return of the King

Today just happens to be my birthday, the big horrible 29. Today is special for another reason though: King Abdullah returned to Saudi Arabia. He has been away for 3 months now because of a spinal surgery in New York and a brief stay in.....Morocco...I think. For a week now they have been putting pictures of the king everywhere and all my students have been talking about it. They tell me he is like their second father. Below is a picture of the king and I. It is very fortunate that the king returned today because I have the day off of work for the celebration. Also, the king declared that the first day of next week will also be a day off for us. I like to think of it as the kings birthday present to me.

Here is everyone lined up outside waiting for the king to pass by. You could really feel the energy from everyone in the crowd. I could tell that the people really love their king. I heard one guy shout in English, "I love king Abdullah!" I found it interesting that most of the Middle East is protesting against their corrupt leaders at this time: The president of Libya has sworn to kill everyone who opposes him(and is), Mubarak of Egypt is gone due to protesting, people are dying in Yemen and Bahrain; but the people of Saudi all come together to welcome their king home.

Here I am joining the celebration.

Everyone waiting in anticipation.

So many people were driving by honking their horns and waving flags. It was pretty crazy.

Here is Chris waiting for the king.

More excited drivers. The crowd cheered everytime these guys or women drove by.

People just kept driving by, loop around, and come back honking their horns. I like the bus with the flags.

Jets would pass by periodically to welcome (or maybe protect?) the king.

More jets.

Here is a vehicle with pictures of the king and flags all over it.

These guys waited a few hours for the king to show up. You can see a billboard with his face on it in the background.

Below is the moment everyone waited for. It was over pretty quick, but in one of these vehicles I'm guessing is the king. A helicopter was following it and they had tons of police and ambulances following as well. Quite the welcome home.

I'd like to think that everyone was gathering for my birthday and the king was just the icing on the cake. This event actually made my birthday somewhat interesting. It was fun to be with everyone.

It was a pretty good week of school I must say. I think the students in all the classes are getting a little burnt out. After all, 6 hours of English 5 days a week is way too much. As usual I continue to have interesting conversations with my students. Here is one little conversation with a student:

STUDENT: will the United States go to Libya and help the people fight President Khadafi?

ME: No, I don't think so.

STUDENT: Why?

ME: Well, we are already fighting wars, and most of the world hates us for getting involved in other countries problems.

STUDENT: But its your job to help people!

At this I laughed. Its our job to help people? Interesting to me because this particular student (along with 99% of all the people here) hates President Bush and the fact that we went to Iraq (although most of them like America and its people). He said "but Khadafi is bad and is killing his people" so we should help. As much as I would love to help people in need I don't think the U.S. will get involved too much in this one. But who knows?

The rest of my birthday was pretty good by the way. After king Abdullah passed by I went home, relaxed for awhile, and later I went to dinner at a Turkish restaurant with Chris and Jared. Not bad because I usually have pretty boring birthdays. Good times. More to come later.

Weeks of Revolution: 15, 16, and 17

It has been a crazy month for the Middle East. With the ousting of Hosni Mubarak and protests erupting in many of the Middle Eastern countries such Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Iran, and others people have asked me if things are okay here in Saudi Arabia. The answer is yes. The political situation here in Saudi is much more stable and for that and many other reasons I would be very surprised if the people here were to start anti-government protests. My life has been so unaffected by the protests in the other countries that I might as well be back in the U.S. watching it all unfold on the news. It is pretty cool to be in the center of it all as it goes down though. I wonder if this will result in a major revolution for most of the countries in the Middle East? I do know that the other countries here are tired of corruption and injustice that occurs in their governments. During the Egypt protests my students told me that this was a good thing because Mubarak is a bad leader and steals money from his people.

When I got back from my Oman trip things were pretty crazy as I suspected they would be when I left to go to Oman. Classes had been rearranged somewhat and a few of our temporary teachers quit which was frustrating. Things did go back to normal again 5 or so days later so I'm back to my normal classes again. I had gotten very tan in Oman and when I returned one of the students said "Teacher, your skin is so dark!", I said, "I know, do you like it?", and he said "No" Which I thought was funny. It is interesting to me that people in America spend a lot of time making their skin darker when many other cultures try their best to make their skin whiter. Here I get the feeling that lighter is better.

A few days later I was trimming my beard but I forgot to put the part on my electric razor and took a big chunk of it off on accident. For that reason I had to shave off the whole thing. My students, who had only seen me with a beard, were completely shocked. When I arrived at school I said hello to the first student I saw and he said "hello, what is your name?" as a joke. One of my students saw me and just started laughing uncontrollably. At the first of the semester my students were guessing I was 35...some even said 40. Now they kept saying "you look so young teacher!" Another student said "Now your head is too small for your body" Saudis have no problem pointing out if you are fat or not. Its funny how cultures are so different when it comes to that.

On one of my weekends my students invited me to go and hang out with them. We drove around town, saw some sites and other stuff. We also went to the Kingdom Tower. I had been there many times but had never gone to the top. So we decided we were going to pay a small fee to get a view of the city.
It was pretty fun hanging out with my students. It was also another way to see that in many ways Saudis in their young 20's are very much like Americans in their young 20's.

Here we all are with the city in the back.

Beardless me and student. My beard is back again now though.

Me and another student in the car.

After the Kingdom Tower and walking around town a bit we went to one of my students homes. A lot of the homes here in Saudi have another smaller building for guests. This prevents men and women from mixing together. It had a fireplace, a tv, and other things as well. A nice little place to hangout.

Just talking about life and the Egypt protests. This was the day before Mubarak resigned I think.

Here I am with a student from a different class. During our breaks I get to know the other students a little better. Although at this point, I think I've taught almost every student in the school. They love to take pictures and make the teachers wear their kefia's and other stuff. For the student above I put my tie on him which everyone thought was hilarious. They don't wear ties here.

I call these things kefia's from past experience but that is not what Saudi's call them. I know the name but have no idea how to spell it. The students love doing this to me. I think they would love it if I showed up at school one day wearning a thaube.

Here I am eating with some of my students from a few months ago.

Here I am with about half of my students. Good times.

Oman Days 5 and 6: Muscat

When we arrived in Muscat it was night, but as we entered the city by cab I could tell that it was completely beautiful and clean. The streets were brightly lit with mulit-colored lights and flowers and all the buildings were white. This is me at the top of our hotel for breakfast the next morning. We had an incredible view of the city. The city is built around the mountains that line the coast and so Muscat is actually made of a number of smaller cities connected by various mountain roads. I seriously couldn't get over how clean and organized the city was. There is a law here where you must have a clean car. The traffic wasn't bad either and people drive more safely here.

The building you see with all the cars is the fish market. You can see a cruise ship on the water. This area has a large number of tourists coming into the city by ship.

Early in the morning the fishermen bring in their catches and get them ready for sale.

Chopping up the fish parts.

Cleaning the fish.

Anyone for a wheelbarrow full of shark?

After the fish market we went to the souq to check out what was for sale. They have a very popular gold souq here with a number of of expensive things to buy.

Here is the other part of the souq with the typical things for sale. Hats, incense, knives (called Khanjars) and other popular tourist things.

Here is a tour group getting ready for a bike ride around the city. I took this picture from the cafe we ate at. They had excellent hummus.

We walked along the city's corniche because it is popular to do a walking tour of the city. The gate above leads into the official part of Muscat where the Sultan's palace is. There is also a museum in the gate. Omani's seemed to really be proud of their history. They loved art, music, and culture from what I could tell which was a nice change from what I'm used to.
This is me in front of Sultan Qaboos palace. This is like the Washinton D.C. of Oman. I have to say that from what little I have learned about Sultan Qaboos, I have to respect the man. 40 years ago Muscat only had a school or two, a hospital, and no major roads connecting the different towns. Today Muscat is incredible. When Sultan Qaboos began to rule Oman he promised his people he would turn their country into a modern nation that would restore the former glory Oman knew thousands of years ago. I have to say its probably the most beautiful city I have been to in the Middle East. It reminded me of San Francisco.
Another view of the palace.
500 years ago the Portuguese were in control of Muscat. They did this to control the shipping in the area. Because of this you can see various Portuguese fortresses all around Muscat. The mountains are filled with different watch towers from that period. Today, the Sutan's palace is surrounded by two very large fortresses.Here is another fortress next to the palace.
Above is the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque. The Sultan built this mosque during his 30th anniversary ten years ago as a gift to his people. On the 40th anniverssary, last year, there was a huge celebration with a lot of fun and interesting things to see and do.

The grand msoque has five minarets (towers) to symbolize the five pillars of Islam.
This is the area where Muslims wash themselves before prayer.Here I am in the main prayer area of the mosque.Beautiful right? It was incredibly peaceful and calm inside. They allow tourists to come here in the morning hours when nobody is praying. It was a wonderful place.
Its hard to see me in the picture above but here I am looking at the mihrab. The mihrab marks the direction towards Mecca and it is the direction the Muslims pray towards.

The carpet on the floor of the grand mosque is the largest in the world. It took 4 years to make by 600 women.

Walking around the outside of the mosque.

There were a lot of flowers and trees outside.

Chris walking around getting his pictures.

More outside of the mosque.

Below is just simple picture of the city. It was very white.

The last thing Chris and I did was take a boat ride to dolphin watching.

Checking out the view of the city from the boat. The weather was awesome.

Muscat from the sea.

Here are some of the dolphins we saw.

We followed this group of dolphins around for about 40 minutes. It was pretty cool.

Chris and I after our boat ride. This was the last thing we did before taking a cab back to the airport. The trip went by too quickly and as I expected I would be returning to a chaotic situation at work but thats life.