Happy New Year 1432! (Weeks 10-11)

Happy 1432 everyone! Actually, that happened about one month ago. In the Muslim world the years are different. They begin their year system from the time of the prophet Mohammad. When 1432 hit here, there didn't seem to be much of a party or celebration. My students told me it was their new year, but that was all I heard about it. During our new year a few days ago, not much happened. It was pretty uneventful, but my students wrote on my board before I came to class "Happy New Year" so I though that was nice of them. How would you like to keep track of two different years? I can hardly keep track of one.

Things have been mostly uneventful as I said. Although in my classes my students are always saying and doing interesting things that I will have to wait to tell you about unfortunately. Luckily I haven't experienced any class changes recently so I have had my current class for over a month which is kind of a miracle here. I'm really getting attached to some of my students. Two of my students always talk in class, ask a million pointless questions, and they are best friends. I call them the Taliban. Why you ask? Because the word "taliban" literally means in Arabic, "two students" My students taught me that. So I call them the taliban to their faces. When ever I do they always ask "you mean the taliban in Afghanistan?" and I say "no, just the two students"

Another one of my students always makes jokes and smiles all the time in class. He reminds me of myself when I took a foreign language in school because I would always say silly things in the language we were learning to try and make people laugh. This kid always has a smile on his face and I have always told him he must always be happy because he smiles all the time. Yesterday he was talking to me and told me that his father died in a car wreck 10 years ago. He told me that even though he smiles all the time he is "happy on the outside, but on the inside he is very sad" I asked him if he had other problems and he told me he didn't want to make me more sad, and so he just left it at that. This same student had a brother that just went blind in one eye for some unexplainable reason. All of this reminds me of the hymn that says "in the quiet heart is hidden sorrows that the eye can't see"

I really should write more. I kind of feel bad that I'm not writing down all the things my students say because it is really fascinating to hear their views on life. There are so many things that I love about them, and a few quirky things I wish I could change, but obviously that is not my role or responsibility.

Other than that there isn't much to say. At home I read a lot about Islam and the history of this place because I want to learn as much as I can while I am here. We still just spend a lot of our time reading, although my roommate Chris and I just bought an X-box so we play some videogames in our sparetime (the Saudi man's favorite pass time) We often go out to eat at the mall or some surrounding restaurants. Below is a picture I thought was hilarious:
Does anyone feel like "Grilled Chicken Rice Problem"? I wonder what the problem is....it must be a surprise. In Saudi we find mistakes like this all the time, but I have to wonder what they meant to write instead.

Here is a picture of me looking angry. Probably because our internet has been so awful these past few days. If I don't respond to emails quickly it is probably because I can't get the internet as easily as I used to.

Here is a picture of Chris at one of our many many mall outings. We really liked this advertisement. Incidentally, I have a student who looks just like this guy in the picture! Fun stuff. Chris and I managed to schedule a vacation in 3 weeks. Our plan is to go to Oman which is south of Saudi Arabia. We hope it happens....anything can happen in the country, but we're hoping. A vacation sounds extremely nice right now.

Happy 2011 to all my American friends and family!!

Mada'in Salih, the Cursed City

I suspect that Mada'in Salih will possibly be the greatest thing I will see in this country. I loved everything about it. It is funny because when we were putting this whole trip together in Riyadh, our travel agent said "why do you want to go to Mada'in Salih? Its just an ugly desert" I thought to myself, you've got to be kidding right!? This is one of the top archeological sites in the world! Interestingly enough, the area of Mada'in Salih and the city of Al Ula (which is about 20 minutes away) were, in my opinion, the most beautiful parts of Saudi Arabia that I have yet seen.

Mada'in Salih (or "Cities of Salih") are significant for many reasons. It was created by the Nabateans about 2,000 years ago. These are the same people who built the famous site Petra, in Jordan. But the history of the city goes back many thousands of years before that. In the Qu'ran you can read about a prophet named Salih. He was sent by Allah to this city to call them to repent of their idol worship. These people (named the Thamud) said they would not believe unless Allah would call to them (or maybe create out of a mountain?) a she camel. The prophet Salih did call this great pregnant she camel to the people. But the people rejected the sign and killed the camel, and sent the camel's child screaming back to the mountain. So the story goes that the people were destroyed by lightning and earthquake. Our guide told us the prophet Mohammed said that the area was cursed and that whoever drinks the water of this region will also be cursed. It is for this reason that MANY people in Saudi Arabia refuse to come to this incredible place. Our guide also told us that in the city of Al Ula, the Bangladesh boys, and the Sudanese boys who pick dates, will have to lie when they sell them to other cities and say they came from another place because the dates are cursed and people would not buy them otherwise. Now on to the pictures:
This is our guide, who was amazing by the way. He knew a lot about the area and told us a lot of incredible stories. The circle he drew in the sand is a model of the area Mada'in Salih. He is telling us that the circle in the center is still off limits to all people because of the curse! So we could not go into that portion of the site. He tells us though that there is probably much that could be excavated there, and there are still many treasures yet to be found that people would love to find and sell on the black market.

These were some of the first tombs of the Nabateans that we saw here. There are over 150 tombs like this at Mada'in Salih. Each tomb belonged to a family and they would bury their family in that spot at death.

This is Chris and Sam looking at the burial place of the tomb. The bodies of the Nabateans were placed in these areas with their treasures at death. Today most of them are gone, but there are still some tombs with bodies and treasures in them. But we could not go inside

Me in one of the tombs.

This tomb is fenced off because it still has a body and maybe some treasure inside.

The picture above is of the Nabatean holy place. This was an area where they would go to pray to their gods. I think it functioned like some sort of temple for them.

Here we are sitting in their holy place. Our guide is explaining to us the functions of the area and their gods.

These slots in the wall are where they would place statues of their gods and pray to them.

Continuing our march through the Nabatean holy place. There was a lot to see here. Many slots in the walls for the gods, and places to ritually wash themselves as well. We saw an area where they would sacrifice animals as well.

This grafiti was placed in the Nabatean holy area. Our guide told us it means "No god but our god" , obviously placed there by a Muslim

Also located at Mada'in Salih was the old Hijaz railway station. It was destroyed during World War I by Lawrence of Arabia and his army of Arabs who fought off the Turkish empire. Lawrence was near this area for some of his battles. The old rail station still remains today.

The old train.

Here I am under the train now. I look so happy.

I thought this random lamp post looked really cool by itself with the desert background.

Back to the tombs again.

Me, Sam, and Chris in front of the tombs.

This was a common feature of all the tombs. Do you see the eagle above the door? Well its head has been knocked off. That is because this eagle represented a god to the Nabateans and so the Muslims destroyed all the eagle heads because, as the grafiti in the earlier picture said "our god is the only god" The five flowers you see in the picture represent the number of sacrifices this family would do (I think on a yearly basis) Some tombs had only one or three flowers. Five flowers meant you came from a rich family. Also, can you see the head with the two snakes at the side? This is a warning to people who enter the tomb. You can only go in your own families tomb or other tombs IF you have permission. The snakes at the side of the head mean that god will curse you if I remember correctly.

Another look at the inside of the tombs.

From one of the tombs, if you climbed up it led up the mountain. We were able to climb up to the top of this particular moutain. That is our guide waiting for us below.

Getting higher and higher.

At the top of this mountain were the remains of an old fortress build by the Ottomon Turks. You can see the old walls in the background. Far in the distance is the Kings Tomb.

Everyone enjoying the view.

This is the Kings Tomb. Probably the most spectacular of them all.

Here I am in front of the Kings Tomb. That was all for our time at Mada'in Salih on this day. We went home that night and we watched the movie "Lawrence of Arabia" in a bedouin tent, using a computer and projecter screen. It was the first time I had ever seen the movie and it was really great. There was probably no better place to watch the movie than right near where he fought some of his battles.

Medina to Al Ula (Mada'in Salih Vacation)

The last three days have been the best of my Hajj holiday. For the past month all I could think about was going to Mada'in Salih, ancient city of the Nabateans, and we actually made it. We wondered if it would be possible because we needed to obtain permission from the government, flights to and from Medina (and hope for the best we could get on the plane with only a copy of our passports), hotel reservations, and transportation. Fortunately, the hotel was able to do most of that for us. My main worry was if they would let us on the plane (they did) and the funny thing was I felt like it was more of a hassle to get on the train to Dammam last week. From Riyadh to Al Ula, it would have been 13 hours by bus, so flying was definitely the way to go. I was surprised to learn we could actually fly to Medina. It is the second holiest city in all of Islam. It is the location of the prophet's mosque, the place where the prophet is buried. Of course, we were very limited to where we could go in the city. The trip by plane was about an hour and a half. We passed through the very flat and somewhat dusty deserts I'm used to in this part of the country, but when we got nearer to Medina, the landscape became very mountainous. Here is a view of the landscape near Medina from the plane. The blackish blue stuff on the bottom is not water, it must be some kind of volcanic rock or something.

This is the most I will probably ever see of Medina with my own eyes. Luckily Chris got this amazing pic from the air, and I managed to get a number of pics from the ground as we drove through the city.

We were surprised that our hotel arranged a bus for us rather than a van from Medina to Al Ula. Our driver Abdullah was very nice. He was already there waiting for us when we arrived.

It was great to see mountains again! Medina was a beautiful city from what I saw. Above is a sign marking the Haram area, the area that only Muslims could enter, which is a big portion of the city. I'm sure the sight of six white Americans was somewhat unusual in this part of the country. Throughout our trip we had a police escort follow behind our bus or van to keep us safe from danger.

From Medina to Al Ula it was about a 4-5 hour drive. Again, we passed some very nice mountain areas and a fair number of camels. I was extremely surprised when we entered the city of Al Ula. It looks almost identical to Moab Utah, my second home, and for that reason (and soon for many more) it instantly became my favorite city in all of Saudi Arabia. We arrived at the Al Arac Hotel and had a few hours before we left on our tour of the city (Mada'in Salih would be saved for the next two days). We took a badly needed nap since we were up at 3:45am to catch our flight that morning.

Below are our hotel rooms. Since we were pretty sure we weren't going to Mada'in Salih on our first day, we wondered what we would do to keep ourselves busy. I had no idea the city of Al Ula was as awesome as it was. Al Ula is actually a city mentioned very briefly in the Bible (under the name of Dedan) as a city that traded with other more famous cities and in connection with the battle of Gog and Magog that is supposed to take place at the end of the world. The Dedanites lived in the city as early as 600BC and have left tombs behind today. The picture below is a small walled mountain. It used to be the location of a pagan Dedan temple that was destroyed by the Muslim inhabitants 300 years ago. The Muslims then built a city out of mud bricks taken from the ancient tombs of the Dedans. The remains of the city still exist and this was our first stop.Here is the inside of one of the many old homes in the mud city.

Climbing to the top of the city.

Here is a picture of the city 300 years ago compared to the new modern city in the background.

Here is another view of the city. It kind of reminds me of the city that you see in Disney's version of Aladdin.

Here is another view of the old city with the new. I love that red rock in the background.

Before we came here we saw on the itinerary we would see "mud homes". That sounded so lame to us. How wrong were were. Everything about this trip was so much better than I thought it would be. Below is Sam, and I think Jim exploring the city. Currently the city is being restored to look more like it did 300 years ago, which will probably take the people a good amount of time to do. I was happy to see it in its current state.

After the mud city we drove to the other side of the valley to look at the ancient Dedan tombs (the same tombs they build a lot of the mud city from). It was fenced off because they believe that there is still ancient Dedan treasure there.

If you look closely at the picture above you will see some holes in the mountain. Those are the tombs. Below is a close up view.

Nearby this location is a Dedan city that remains underground. They have still not excavated the site (this place is seriously an archeologist's paradise). Afterwards we drove out into the desert to a location known as Elephant Rock. Can you tell why?

Its kind of hard to tell but the little dot there next to the trunk of the elephant is me. This spot seems to be pretty famous for four wheeling. I think it gets a lot of visiters. Below is what they call the Bowling Pin (the hole in the rock)

On the other side of Elephant Rock there was a lot of grafiti in both Arabic and English. Here is Sam climbing all over everything.

Here is our whole group on the other side of Elephant Rock. Below is our security guard patiently waiting in the shadows to finish our visit to the site.

Our last stop for the day was to drive up into the mountains and watch the sunset over Al Ula.

Here is a view from our ascent up the mountain. I couldn't believe how much it was like Moab.

The sunset over the amazing red rocks.

Chris says he imagines this is what Mars looks like.

Here is the city of Al Ula from the top. That was pretty much our day. We went and had some kappsa at a restaurant in town. I have to say the day was far better than I could have dreamed. Our guide was amazing throughout the whole trip. He is one of the best guides I've ever had on a vacation like this. He was very knowledgable about the area and fun to be around. It was extremely interesting to hear his thoughts on Saudi Arabia and the things that happen here.

This was all great to me, but the best part of the trip was yet to come. Mada'in Salih was mind blowing, but I'll end here because this post is already long enough. I feel like I put too many pictures in my posts, but there were too many incredible things to see. I discovered I took 519 pictures when the whole trip was over (which probably isn't surprising to those who know me). I'll post about the rest of the trip in a day or two.