The News of May 1, 2011

Every morning my routine is usually the same. I wake up, read for about 30 minutes, then I get my bowl (gotta get my cereal), and then I go and check my messages and turn on the news. You can imagine I was very surprised when the first thing I saw was "Osama Bin Laden is Dead" and then I immediately see a message from the parents about how worried they are for me now. I woke up Chris and said "Osama Bin Laden is dead" and he said "No he isn't" and I said "yeah man, its on the news!" Ever since I got here I always wondered if I would turn on the news one day and see some huge news like this. I will admit I felt a little more nervous that day. Chris thought I should mention that morning was May 2nd, but you in America heard it on the 1st. (also, for your entertainment, this blog is presenting to you my pictures of sand dunes, or in Arabic - Nafood).

I wasn't sure what to expect that day. I thought maybe my students would ask a ton of questions, or my feelings about what happened. I didn't get a single word about it. I did however get the feeling that they were all thinking about it and were hoping I would say something. I knew one student wanted me to talk. He said "Are you good today teacher?" and I said "Yes" and then he said "why are you good?" I told him I was just good. But he kept trying to get me to say why. But I never mentioned anything about Bin Laden's death, and the truth is I wasn't really overjoyed by the death (at least not to the point I would go party in the streets)....just relieved really. For class that day I kept thinking about that saying "the elephant in the room". There was an elephant in the room but nobody would talk about it.

Chris's students were more vocal about the subject. They said they were very happy he was gone. Although some said they felt both good and bad about it. Others of his students don't believe he is really dead. The conspiracy theories sure spread quick. I talked to one student online a few days later. He said he didn't know what to think about it because he doesn't like politics. I told him about the fears of my family and he said that I am safe here and that most people are glad he is gone though there are a few who liked him.

I do want to say to my readers - try not to be worried. Things seem as normal here as they ever have been. Bin Laden was born in this country but they took his citizenship away a long time ago. Bin Laden hated the royal family of this country and was an enemy to Saudi Arabia. In 2003 they orchestrated a lot of attacks in Saudi which made the government crack down really hard on terrorism. Within a year they had captured many people. I think these attacks helped many to see just how bad it all really was.

The interesting thing is that the Bin Laden family is very well respected here. Bin Laden's father started a construction company in this country which made the family extremely wealthy. Their company has been responsible for the building of many fine and beautiful projects and they still continue their work today.

I have to say I feel pretty ingorant about how much I didn't know and how much I still don't know about the events of 9/11, about this country, and about the people of the Middle East. I have learned a lot living here but I want to learn more. In this past week I just kept thinking, "I can't believe I am here right now." I never would have thought 10 years ago that I would be living in this country (especially during the events of this week). If somebody had told me I would have said they were crazy.

Like I said, things have continued on as normal. We went to a birthday dinner for some of the other teachers this week which was nice. Some of the students brought huge cakes to school for the birthdays which was really nice as well. My students are well. I was sad to learn that one of my student's jobs is taking him to a different city, so he has to leave the program. He was one of my funniest students too! Chris, Jared, and I went to a Mexican restaurant the other day which was an interesting experience. It was the first time I heard music in a restaurant here in the capital. It was my most interesting "Mexican" experience to be sure.

I was also very happy to learn this week that two of my students from last semester received scholarships to study in New Zealand, and one of my other students got a scholarship to study in Oklahoma. I am extremely excited for them. I don't think any of them have ever left Saudi Arabia before. If they have they have probably never left the Middle East so I feel like this will be one of the greatest experiences of their lives up to this point. Some of my other students are trying to apply to other schools in the US and if they get accepted, I think they government will help them with a scholarship as well. One student is applying to Boise State University. So that makes me very happy.

After looking at these sand dunes isn't it crazy to think that people live here? Saudi Arabia is really an interesting place. It is a miraculous country in a way. Because of the oil it turned one of they most barren lifeless places on Earth into one of the richest and fastest growing economies on Earth. I don't think I will ever live in a place as different as this. There is such a clash of the ancient ways of life and the modern ways of life. This country has changed so much in one century it is hard to predict which it will be like even 20 years from now.

That is all.

Another Week Bites the Dust

Another week passes and life goes on. I'm happy to stay here and travel, though I admit it will be great to return home again. I'm supposed to finish somewhere around mid August and before then I will have the opportunity to visit some more places (I'm looking forward to Turkey in a months time).

Because I like to put pictures on my blog, and also because I think it makes it more interesting for the handful of people who actually read it, I included pictures of camels in trucks that Chris and I took while driving through the desert.
School has been going pretty well. In many ways things are much more ideal this semester. I like my students. They are getting out of the shy awkward phase and are starting to become friends with the other students, which is nice, but it also means they tend to talk more while I'm talking. Of course, for some reason, my second class is always very quiet. I don't understand why...they are at a lower level...so I think maybe its just because it takes all their brain power to understand what I'm teaching them? I'm not exactly sure.

I wish I had more stories to write about them. They like to drill me with questions about America and how things work there. I wish I could help them understand, but I don't know if they will get it unless they go themselves. Movies clearly aren't the best way to show someone what America is like. Sometimes I get the feeling they think things are pretty dire there, like it is a very dangerous wicked place. They have never come out and directly said this, but once a student asked me why divorces are so high in America with kind of a twinkle in his eye, as if to say, "your country has some major issues." I share my opinions about why things are the way they are at appropriate times. I often wish I could take them to show them all the wonderful things about the US.

I got some new dark rimmed glasses awhile back. I didn't like them at first but now I do. One day I decided to wear contacts to class and my students pointed out how different I look. I had them write paragraphs about their favorite anything, sport, food, place, whatever. One student wrote about his favorite teachers: Mark, Jared, and Dan (me and the two other guys who teach his classes). It kind of made me laugh. It was nice, but I always wonder if students do this to have an "in" with the teacher. He wrote he likes me because I give him hope he can learn English. At the end of his paragraph he wrote a little note "Mark, you look handsome without your glasses" at which point I laughed out loud. I don't know how to take something like that here. I'm certainly in a different world altogether.

More camels. I think camels have to be the most relaxed animals I've ever seen. They always look like they don't have a care in the world. They always just go with the flow. Sometimes I think I need to be a little more like the camels. Jared, the other teacher had the students in my lower class write one sentence about themselves that the others didn't know. One student from a small town wrote "I loves the camells." He even had a picture of himself kissing a camel. He has 50 or so I think. Just so you know, a camel is worth a fortune in this country. Some can be over a million riyals which is about 250,000 dollars. The camels you eat are a lot cheaper though. Salam.

The Kingdom of Bahrain

At my new college we have a really cool Saudi guy in charge of the program. He called a two day holiday last week because the rest of the colleges weren't going to school so why should we? Luckily for Chris, these holidays fell on his birthday (both Chris and I got a random day off for our birthdays, pretty cool). We decided that we would rent a car and drive to the island kingdom of Bahrain. When I told my students I was going to Bahrain they were very nervous for me. They said "don't go, it is too dangerous" but I told them I thought we would be okay. As many of you know almost the whole Middle East has been conducting some major protests causing some major issues in many countries. Bahrain has had a number of protests in the past few months which caused some deaths and Saudi Arabia even sent some military help. As far as we knew at that point, things had calmed down quite a bit. Here is a map of Bahrain. This tiny island is its own country. We could drive across the island in 30 minutes, and it would probably only take a little over an hour to drive from top to bottom. A causeway connects Saudi Arabia to Bahrain. Drinking alcohol and other vices are illegal in Saudi Arabia, but not in Bahrain. For this reason there are some Saudis who love to go to Bahrain and party (including some past students I'm guessing). It bothers me that when I tell people here I am going to Bahrain they assume we are going only to drink alcohol and be with women. I think many people think this about Westerners. Little do they know that I don't drink alcohol or do that other stuff.
After a drive through the hot desert we neared the coast and then crossed the causeway to Bahrain. Above we are crossing the Persian Gulf or as the Saudi's say, the "Arabian Gulf." We got some uncharacteristic cloudiness and rain almost the whole time we were there.

Leaving Saudi Arabia. It is nice to get away every now and then.

One of the first things we did when we arrived was go to the movie theater at the City Centre. They don't have theaters in Saudi Arabia so this was very nice (funny that they don't have theaters but you can watch any movie you want on TV, the internet, or just buy them in the stores). When we took this picture of me at the theater (above) some people from Lebanon came up and said "you live in Saudi, don't you?" At this we laughed. Only people who couldn't go to a theater in Saudi would want a picture of actually going to one. They were some very nice Labanese people. In America I never cared to go to the theater that much. But now that I can never go I find myself wishing I could go all the time. We watched two movies over the few days we were there: Source Code, and The Kings Speech. The latter was excellent, Source Code was okay. After the movie we were lucky to find a great hotel.

We began our next morning with breakfast at the hotel and a drive around the city. Here is one sight of the city above.

Here is Jared walking around the Arad fort. This fort was built as protection in the 13th century, but if you dig deeper it is one top of a settlement that dates back to 2300BC. Dating back to a civilization called the Dilmun. That is probably new to everyone reading this, but if any of you are familiar with the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the world's oldest epic stories, it mentions the Dilmun island and compares it to paradise. The epic even mentions a man who lived there who sounds an awful lot like Noah. The man who lived here, says the epic, survived the great flood by building a boat and obtained eternal life. Gilgamesh went on a journey to find this man so he could live forever, but when he finally obtained what he needed, a snake came and stole immortality away from Gilgamesh.

Another pic of the city. I was very impressed by the architecture here. It was a very nice city. Oh yeah, this city is Manama, the capital of the Kingdom of Bahrain. It is weird to talk about it as a separate city from other cities because it is such a small country.

After our little drive we went to the national museum to get some history of the country. We learned a lot about the Dilmun people.

Here is a picture of the souq (outdoor mall)

I liked these. These are bobble head Arabs. I should have bought some but I didn't.

So were crazy protests happening while we were there? No. We didn't see anything out of the ordinary except for a ton of armored vehicles and tanks placed around the area (Pearl Square, which was recently destroyed, or so we heard) where the protests had taken place. However, in the evening traffic was practically non existant. It was strange to drive around a capital city with very little traffic. We had heard there was a curfew and that explained why we saw

only a few people out at night.We took a tour of the Grand Mosque in Manama. Here is Chris and I. This was Chris' birthday.

Here is the Isa cultural center. Isa is the Arabic name for Jesus, who they revere as a great prophet.

Inside the Grand Mosque. We took a tour of the mosque and had a very nice guide from Pakistan.

The man in the white thaube is doing the call to prayer as tourists watch. In the past the prayer callers (called muezzins) used to climb the minarets and yell out the call to prayer. Now, because of technology he can just use a microphone and it will sound out through the city.

The chandelier of the mosque. Our guide told us that it took 25 million dollars to build this mosque.

Looking out the window of the mosque while our guide, Suliman, answers our questions.

Out the window we saw one of the one of the king's palaces (above). One boy in our group asked if the king lives there. Our guide said he only goes there maybe once a year, to which Chris responded rudely, "well that is a waste" which kind of made me laugh because its kind of true.

More city.

Here is a picture of the king on one of the buildings. This is something I've seen in every Middle Eastern country I've been to. Always they have very big pictures of the king everywhere. Also, you can see the KFC colonel below. They love chicken here.

Here is one of the coolest buildings in the city. It has propellers. I was kind of hoping the building would lift of the ground and fly away. Very beautiful.

We wanted to go find the Tree of Life. It was about 45 minutes to the south. We passed Isa Town on the way (Jesus Town).

We got completely lost looking for the tree of life, which is weird because the country is so incredibly tiny. Most of what we saw out here were oil refineries (which is how the country makes a lot of its money.) Why is this tree, known as the tree of life so special? Well, its about 100 years old. But if you look around it is in the middle of the desert with no other trees around. Legends have sprung up about this tree. In the epic of Gilgamesh this island was described as paradise. Some people say this tree is a remnant of Eden. I read that the people can't explain why this tree has lived so long out here.

Here I am getting some of the fruit.....except it didn't really have any.

The last thing we did was head to one of the ancient cities located in Bahrain. The above picture is the Qal'at Al-Bahrain. This city has been rebuilt a number of times throughout history. This fortress isn't as old, but the city itself goes back to the times of the Dilmun making it somewhere around 4,000 years old.

Inside the Qal'at Al-Bahrain.

More excavations have uncovered more of the ancient city. They have found a great number of very interesting artifacts that date far back including silver coins from the time of Alexander the Great, Greek statues, and snake bowls (snake skeletons found in bowls that were offered as sacrifices to their gods). The island itself has numerous burial mounds and ancient temples as well - some temples they believe are dedicated to the old Sumerian god Enki, the god of sweet water (also mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh).

Here I am in the fortress, one of the rooms.

More foundations excavated from the ancient city.

Outside the fortress.

I like this pic. It is Chris standing on top of the ancient fortress overlooking the modern city of Manama. Bahrain is a very interesting place. We spent 2 days and a night in the country. It was very interesting to visit one of the countries experiencing the protests going on. I watch the news and hear about some pretty tense situations in this country, but we didn't come across any problems here. Many of the people we did see in the malls and other places seemed very happy. I feel like we got to see more culture here. We even went to a Catholic Mass here, just because we could. The people there were very nice as well as the people in the Grand Mosque. After this, it was back to the deserts of Saudi Arabia.

The Fifth New Beginning

Its been awhile since I last wrote. I'm finally breaking the silence. We started our new semester a month ago and things are going fairly well. Things were so crazy last semester that the person in charge of the program (whoever that might have been at the time, we've had a few) would usually say, "its a new start, a new beginning". Well, this is our fifth new beginning and this time it seems to be going smoother than it ever has. This month has gone by really fast. I like my two classes and they have me teaching "advanced" again but really its one advanced class and one intermediate class. The difference between their knowledge of English is pretty big. So far I like my students quite a bit. Their personalities are very different from my last students. Oh, I forgot to mention I'm teaching at a different college now. I like it much better. It is better lit, they have better buildings, we actually have a copy machine now, and there is a lot more color (rather than the typical grey, tan, and brown). We also changed our teaching time. Ever since I got here we have been teaching 4:00pm-10:00pm. Now we are teaching from 1:00pm-6:35. So far I like it better, but we've only been doing it for two days now. Awhile back Chris and I went with one of his students to his father's farm. It is located in a little town called Jalajil (about an hour and a half North of Riyadh). When we arrived it was really late, but the student's father and his friend were sitting in their tent drinking tea which every Saudi does. We went and sat with them and talked for awhile. Its always funny when people offer us tea and coffee (which happens a few times every week) because we always refuse. They are always surprised because we tell them we can't, its "haram" which means forbidden. They give us a funny look and offer us water and milk and we tell them that is haram too (as a joke) and that really surprises them - then they laugh. Saudi's are very hospitable to their guests. This is where we stayed the first night. We just slept on the floor. It was a surprisingly cold night but this room wasn't cold at all....just uncomfortable for sleeping.

Here we are eating breakfast with Chris's student, and the student's father and friend. We ate the food in the tent they had outside. It was very nice.

The father showed us around his farm and introduced us to the animals. This huge monster he lovingly named Saddam (after Saddam Hussein, the father really does love Saddam quite a bit). He opened Saddam's cage so we could get a picture, but we were literally seconds away from getting rammed by him.

Here is the goat pen. This is Chris's student displaying a baby goat for us.

Here is the farm. This town is located in an oasis, the perfect, and only place to actually have a farm in Saudi Arabia.

Chris's student drove us out into the desert to show us some sites. We came upon a little bedouin camp where we saw this baby camel. In this picture it is 5 hours old. It couldn't even really stand by itself, so the bedu man propped it up on its little legs for us. The baby wasn't happy because it kept making camel sounds (which are extremely ugly by the way and hard to imitate).

Another picture of the new camel. It looks kind of wooly like a lamb.

We went further into the desert so we could see these cave things in a big rock wall. Its funny he thought this would be something of a tourist site for us (little did he know we have stuff like this just about everywhere in Southern Utah).

Here we are in the "cave".

These were cool. Jalajil is an old town. It has modern houses but there is also a section of the town that looks like this. Ancient houses, I think hundreds of years old that are today uninhabited.

More of the old town.

And finally, the last meal we ate before coming back to Riyadh. Its Kappsa, but instead of the usual chicken and rice, this is CAMEL and rice. It was really pretty good. At first it tasted like roast beef but then it kind of took on a flavor all its own. Good stuff (it wasn't the baby camel we saw earlier).