The Weeks are Flying by…….

Well we have been here for nearly 4 weeks now and in many ways it seems like years but overall we still have to get so much. Huge culture shock to move in with nothing but what we could fit in our luggage. All I can say is I am so looking forward to pay day so I can buy a toaster – I am so looking forward to having my first piece of toast, as it has been my staple brekkie for as long as I can remember. Jesse is constantly being amazed by my ability to adapt and make do with what is there like fry pan toasted cheese sandwiches – All I can say is it is a matter of survival :) lol

We went on a day trip about 2 weeks in, to a cultural centre/museum that one of the professors at the uni (this word is purely Aussie slang as I used it and the blank faces looking back at me from every culture was something to see) had organised. We had 2 Nissan buses that ferried us there and all I can say is their aircon works really good :) – Thank Allah :) lol……. Jesse has the photos on his hard disc and hasn’t put to my computer yet, so when he does I will post late pics for everyone so that they can get a good idea of what it looked like. I will try to explain as best I can.

We drove into the front entrance and I held my breath as the driveway opening was so narrow that I thought the sides of the bus would scrape the 3 story high kerosene lantern on one side & bus shelter the other – but we made it thorugh with no catastrophe :) – As I was looking around as one does in a new country, I was amazed that outside this cultural heritage centre there was a drive through 24 hour atm machine at window height and positioned in such a way that you never have to leave the comfort of your airconditioned vehicle – These are a standard feature everywhere, sometimes placed without any reasoning or thought.

We then made our way inside and my first impression was the beautiful very large courtyard pond (more like mini lake) complete with platform covered in rugs, cushions, arm rest & low table for dining all very well done and 2 or 3 very large white plastic swans complete with plastic swan babies on back floating around (I know that they are called cygnets) I certainly would have thought it was a wonderful thing as a child. We then looked in all the rooms that had cushions on floor and arm rests to lean on and lovely carpets on floor – Jesse made me not very gracefully lower myself down to take a pic and luckily it wasn’t the camcorder as it was a sight to see me hoisting myself back up of the floor. He proceeded to do this in every room (there were about 20) and in the last room i had to duck to 1/2 my height to get in and he didn’t like where i was sitting so made me shift and when I sat down my butt caught the edge of a very very hard piece of concrete and the yelp I let out followed by the child like limping and moaning and holding of the butt that followed had him feeling, as intended, a lot of remorse :)

We were then shepherded up to the top level by lift (for 2 only) to the gift shop and it was amazing at what they had – over the shoulder gun holsters, that I might add one or two of our lebanese or pakistani friends tried on :), and I fell in love with a large basket complete with leather bottom & leather lid which I thought would be great for my knitting, so Jesse being the obliging & loving gentleman that he is ferried this large basket around for the rest of the day :) I haven’t put my knitting in yet because when I got it home I realised that they hadn’t cleaned whatever straw they had made it with and it was full of little black dead bug things – I have banged it on the outside verandah rail and the amount of these bugs that came out was amazing, but will still wait until i get some plastic to line it before use – needless to say it won’t be coming back home with me.

They then herded us into 2 private dining rooms (did I mention it was a restaurant as well) and imagine my dismay at seeing a table that was no higher than my ankles. We folded our large frames down onto the cushions and the feast that awaited was actually really good. There were huge silver tagine dishes about 3 foot across with rice & 1/2 chickens and the most delicious puffed mini Lebanese type bread that were cooked in their own bakery section. The dessert was a really strange stringy gluggy bread pudding that nearly made me gag when it hit my mouth – needless to say that wasn’t eaten.

Once we were back on the bus and pulling out of the equally narrow exit, Jesse & I were amused to see on every vacant block a couple of workers picking up any stray piece of paper & sweeping them – keep in mind that these vacant blocks are very unkempt looking with piles of rubble and sand – makes you wonder why they would bother to sweep them. So that was our first group outing – and a very enjoyable day apart from the big butt bruise that made it’s appearance.

Our Next major outing was on Thursday just gone and it was down to the very happening & must go to place at weekends – the Corniche which is a very large park on the sea front. We had the taxi drop us off at the only Safeway store (called Tamimi Market) in Khobar and Jesse’s very determined purpose was to find where we were told we could purchase art supplies. Our friend from our first night here told us where we could find as his mother is an artist – so off we set and about 4 very warm blocks later filled with uneven pavement, broken pipes sticking up, rubble in piles that you had to dodge around we turned where he said, and there was the only craft shop in Khobar – 3 stories of any craft you can imagine – swarvoksi crystals (their spelling) even a very limited supply of rough coarse wool. I was so excited to find some pins after combing every shop in every mall so you can imagine my dismay as soon as I found them that they announced were closing for prayer – I flew down 3 flights of stairs so quickly to make the registers before closing it was a wonder I didn’t break my neck :)

We then found the overpass to get across to the corniche – no hope of getting across the road without it – I haven’t seen such a constant stream of non stop cars going in one direction. It really is a lovely place full of restaurants, GRASS, train rides, kiddie play grounds and a very very very long walk along the seaside which Jesse keeps reminding me is the Persian Gulf. It was lovely to stand right on the path edge and have such a refreshing breeze blowing, even though it was a very warm breeze. It was then the big decision what to eat – we opted for TGI Friday and it was surprisingly good although their idea of a cappucino is American drip style coffee with a frothy something on top and dusted with some really bad tasting cinnamon type of spice. REALLY REALLY BAD – undrinkable.

It was then back to Safeway to get some groceries – and I was surprised at the range of things available I bought a really tacky outdoor mat with coloured reindeer for front door and they also have individual shops inside that sell things like replica watches, clocks, prayer beads etc. I am really surprised at what crappy junk is only available for decorating the home – I really thought they would have top quality things like Egyptian cotton towels etc, but no - all towels I have found so far are made in Pakistan and when you wash them the amount of fluff and crap that comes out of them is unbelievable. I am so glad I have a sense of humour.

All the supermarkets have booths inside them that have big bins of any herb or spice or chocolates you can imagine to buy in bulk. The amount of different things they do with dates here is amazing – they sell stuffed with almonds and all sorts of things – and they are all shapes & sizes not like you see at home. They actually have date shops :) which I haven’t been to yet as the time we have to shop when bus that takes us each night to our local supermarket centre is getting shorter & shorter as the days are getting shorter – Keep in mind that everything here closes for prayer time – nothing is available in this 20-30 minute frame – with the days getting shorter for the winter months – the prayers are getting earlier as they are timed for when the dawn & when the dusk arrives. It is such a mad flurry to get around to get food for the following day – but it is a free service provided daily so it doesn’t really matter.

Well you will be all sick of reading this by now so will update again soon – hope you are still enjoying the posts :) Love & Miss you all

Respect please…..

I think that I am a fairly accomplished person. I have studied many things and have obtained several academic qualifications here and there. My fantasy has always been that someone, somewhere would award me one of these honorary degrees for simply having “experience” in some endeavour. Another words I would like the glory without the effort. (I think several of my offspring have inherited this trait from me)

So imagine my sheer delight, my exultation, my rapture upon receiving the following email:

Dear Dr. Jisse,

Browse the following website

http://www.menokia.com/vb/t56718.html

Best Regards,

xxxxxxxxxx

PMU Librarian

This was IT!!!! I have a Doctorate. I did not have to anything. Nothing at all. Perfect outcome. My kind of degree.  Universities are awesome. Simply being present on a campus obviously bestows unheard-of intellectual powers upon one’s person.

Yes baby, I’ve come home.

So please in future as a sign of your respect you are all to address me by my appropriate title that being a DOCTOR. Thank you.

However I will draw a line at being called “Professor Juicy” (Don’t ask)

Posted by Jesse from Jill’s account

And they teach us….

Notwithstanding my rising respect and admiration for the academic classes I still never fail to be amazed (I know, American spell checkerJ) at the twists and turns that human reasoning produces.

Here are several instances of people with several doctorates attempting to live ordinary lives:

An utterly defeated looking professor came to enquire as to why his cordless kettle would not work. His understanding of cordless was that it did not need any cord whatsoever so naturally he did not see a need to plug in the power cord. Frustration, anger etc followed J Advice sought, advice given, plug in the bloody thing. Instant success J

I seem to have become a bit of a resident compound computer fix-it boy. Got a call from a lady lecturer subject: Printer not working. Went over and true printer was not printing despite being on. A quick cable trace revealed that one end was plugged into the printer whilst the other was lying on the floor. “Not terminated” you might say. After taking a great delight in sarcastically advising that “Hey, it can happen to any of us” I plugged it in and proceeded to demonstrate my extensive computer assembly knowledge by printing something. Bastard of a thing wouldn’t work. Jill was sitting next to me. She quietly said “You sure you plugged it in the right place”. “How dare she insult my professionalism like that?” was my first thought. I was wounded. Deeply. But I checked anyway knowing perfectly well that SHE was going to be wrong. Imagine my utter dismay upon discovering that I had actually pushed a USB cord into an Ethernet slot. Having corrected that minor oversight the printer printed as printers are meant to do.

So how do you teach common sense and street-smarts ??

Posted by Jesse from Jill’s account

Scuola di Nissan Civilian….

Scuola di Atene or school of Athens is one of the most celebrated institutions in human civilisation. It is of course the school where Socrates taught and developed some of our most fundamental philosophical principles that govern and serve us to this day. Just little ideas like the necessity of doing what one thinks is right even in the face of universal opposition, and the need to pursue knowledge even when opposed J

This is the famous painting by Raphael depicting an environment full of academic endeavour being the best that humanity can offer.

What is the point of the above narrative you may well ask? Where is he going with this??

Well I too now belong to such an environment. The only difference is that mine takes place in somewhat less illustrious environment. A Nissan Civilian mini-bus to be precise. Every morning 30 of us board a 20-seater bus for a 40 minute ride that is more of a stunt-thrill seeker-adventure exhibition of not-so-precision driving. (More to come on this in upcoming posts)

So imagine a crammed-to-the-rafters bus of distinguished and maybe not so distinguished academics debating everything under the sun. Actually you don’t have to imagine. Here is a photo J

There is actually two more rows of seats behind me J

I simply did not realise how competitive academics were until experiencing this “zero-personal-space” situation. If you imagine every second sentence uttered as being “Yes, but I am PhD in so-and-so” whereupon someone will up the bid with “But I have 3 Doctorates and 5 Masters in x” and so on raising to ever higher levels of one-upmanship and absurdity. Finally it was my turn to brag. As all eyes and ears turned to me I smiled and simply said “Oh, I don’t teach. I Do.”. First time I heard the damn bus fall silent J Time for reflection hey!

Unfettered every day they continue their debates but somehow they all seem to end in the same way. “My degree is bigger then yours so I win! There!”

Academia, don’t you just love it J (Sorry sis)

Posted by Jesse from Jill’s login

Beautiful Homes & Gardens….

I am thinking of starting an expat magazine called “Beautiful Homes and Gardens ”. Here is an example of the contents sourced from our own compound that I am thinking of. What do you all think?

How to produce gorgeous, smooth, golf putting style lawns

An example of careful, selective tree pruning that not only aesthetically enhances the canopies but aids in creating a distinctive, forest like environment.

Note the combined effects of meticulous lawn grooming and tree sculpting, how they complement and enhance the whole lifestyle experience.

Of course let us not forget the beautiful interiors. Here is an example of finest workmanship as it relates to electrical wiring work. Note the extensive efforts at concealment of unsightly wiring complemented by the exemplary approach to safety.

There are many more fine examples of refined lifestyle that is available here in the compound.

So what do you all think? Is this a best-seller or what? J

Posted by Jesse from Jill’s account.

The attack of the Mulla-Walla….

“Look! Is that a Mulla-Walla” Jill excitedly enquired as we were strolling through the Al-Rashid Mall the other day. This took me by a complete surprise as I would never have expected to see a member of Australian marsupial species wandering about your typical middle-eastern shopping mall.

”Er,, what exactly you mean?” I asked.

“You know, the Mwafti, Is that a Mwafti?

This had me completely baffled now. From what sounded like a distinctly Australian fauna had now evolved into and African sounding species. Having quickly scanned the mall for anything that resembled marsupials, vermin, feral cats, exotic lizards and the like I was still at a complete loss as to what exactly was being referred to here.

At that exact moment I also happened to spot a couple of local Muttawa (religious police) hassling some boys about whatever it is that Muttawa hassle local boys about. I had a suspicious thought that perhaps this may be what Jill had on her mind.

Do you mean those Muttawa’s, I asked her. “That’s it, that’s what I meant, the Myutawa”.

All was clarified in an instant of course. Upon reflecting back it is obviously an easy mistake to make. Word jumbling happens to the best of us and Arabic of course is a positively a linguistic mine-field for us, the speakers of that distinct Australian native dialect called Bogan-Bogan which survives (and is indeed prospering) in the outer reaches of Australias major cities.

After all, Mulla-Walla, Mwafti, Myutawa, and Muttawa are technically almost indistinguishable from each other. They all contain letters M, W, U and A

Here is a quick if somewhat dodgy attempt at scientific explanation based on a very loose approach to statistics

	Length	M	W	U	A	Total	%
Mulla Walla	10	1	1	1	3	6	60%
Mwafti	6	1	1		1	3	50%
Myutawa	7	1	1	1	2	5	71%
Muttawa	7	1	1	1	2	5	71%

As you can see from the above the occurrence of the common letters is between 50 and 70 % so really it is a very easy mistake to make J

Posted by Jesse from Jill’s account :)

Forgot to put a pic from shopping centre ……

This is also at Rashid Shopping centre – they have these guys walking around all over the centre with huge bunches of cool helium balloons. I am also attaching below a pic for Ebony that Jesse took especially for her of Baskin & Robbins Ice cream and one for Julian of the Saudi Subway type place called Kudu which is slightly dark coz it was closed during the prayer time – they turn the lights of all the shops and close the doors at prayer time sometimes twice a night and only open again after about 20 minutes each time. The food court eatery’s are pretty good as most of them cook it as you order – there is only a few places that have them sitting around in Heated Bay Marees (don’t know how to spell it).

So glad that everyone is enjoying the pics and the commentary :) makes it more worthwhile writing.

A Week Later……

 

Hi Everyone – well it’s hard to believe that we have been here now for almost a week it feels like forever. I am getting lots & lots of sleep day & night as I think my body clock is still on Melbourne time. It’s 3pm here now but 11pm in Melbourne…… Well that’s my excuse for being so lazy anyway :)

Jesse gets home like clockwork everyday at 5pm which is a first for him and then it’s the decision of do we go on the 5pm free bus to Rashid huge mall to look around for 1 1/2 hour or free bus to the local Panda supermarket if we need foodstuffs – Usually we need foodstuff so the decision is easy. They give us an hour at the local which you might think is a long time but…… with Jesse hobbling around like the hunchback of Notre dam and trying to decipher what we are buying an hour goes pretty quickly.

Me shopping at Rashid Mall at Lebanese sweets booth – the guy was great I was buying toffee peanuts and he gave us a sample of lots of his wares which were all delicious – a wise decision for him as I came away with more than toffee peanuts ;) I got pastry covered dates & sesame seed biscuits – and next time will get the dates with nuts in centre which are really yum! They come on the coolest decorated plastic (glass like) plates that will be kept for use at home. It was really great having free dessert after our dinner at food court.

Me coming out of local Panda supermarket after getting aforementioned food requirements – bread is safe, milk is safe, and the rest will be decided as we go. Bananas seem to be really soft so I don’t like but Jesse eats like a monkey :) They have a whole DIET section there so makes it easy for sugar free treats without too much fuss. Jesse didn’t get into Panda this time shopping as he is trying to get his feet in ship-shape so he sat and had a cup of coffee at the MEN ONLY coffee shop in front. After we finished on this our first free bus trip – we were sitting out front with our trolley and the next moment a strange man came & grabbed the trolley and started to make away with it – we literally jumped to our feet asking what he was doing and after much hand waving etc we established he was our bus driver – he recognized me (I wonder why as I am only white haired person around) and was merely taking our shopping to the bus for us :)

I prefer to go to Panda coz they have packers there that pack your groceries for you as they are going through the checkout – Carrefours you have to do it yourself – and me being lazy I give that one a miss :)

My first trip to supermarket was a bit strange as you have to line up at the bakery for loose items and the fruit & veg stand to get your stuff weighed there – as you can imagine I took mine up to register like at Safeway or IGA and caused a mini EGAD what are you doing??? moment

All the restaurants and food courts have 2 registers – one for women & one for men and women can’t go to men’s and there is total freak out if a man goes to the womens. Yet what I find it strange is that there are only men serving, as women aren’t allowed to. Even buying an Abayer it is all men that do the selling and ordering of sizes. Even in lingerie shops etc it is all men which is a bit strange seeing as women are so shrouded in mystery! The range of Abayers are amazing – you can certainly be a little bit individual if so desired. The special occasion ones are certainly something.

There are some pretty weird sights here as far as scenery – you see very new (I won’t say modern) buildings next to empty blocks piled up with rubbish from the block that was just built on. They clear the block they are building on by dumping it all on the block next door – then if the owner of the block wants to clear and build something on his block he clears & dumps it on the next empty block – imagine doing that at home – we get put in jail for throwing a can out the window of the car. When we were going to medical centre on Sunday we drove past what looked like a proposed future housing estate – it was huge with roads set out in a very precise square formation with funny light poles & fittings everywhere along – but the building blocks were hollow rubble filled holes much lower than the road surface – it was a really weird sight and once Jesse gets his licence & car we will try to find and take pictures – only a picture can describe it. There are no footpaths anywhere – even the one in the compound that leads to front entrance ends at a bush and you have to get off and go around on roadway for the rest of the distance.

Well that about raps it up for today……… after all I have the monumental decision of where to go shopping tonight :) Glad that everyone is reading and following our blog coz it makes it so much easier than e mailing everyone individually :)

Love & Miss you all :)

First day on the job….

 

My first day at work was last Wednesday which is also last working day of the week Thursday and Friday are the weekend days here. So the first thing that I was told is why are you here? You should be at home resting. I knew I was onto a good thing then and there.

I was greated ahrtily by my boss Osama however it was hard to tell if he was happy to see me or just happy to be leaving as that was his last day at the job. Nonetheless the reception from eveyone was so pleasant with an endless stream of Phillippino administrators greeting me with “Wellcome Mr Jesse”.

The day was a whirlwind of introductions, form filling and campus tours. I have a staff of 8 direct reports who gave me the impression that they were very happy to see me. This orientation will probably last for about a week as I have yet to meet all of the Academic and administrative staff.

The University is an amazing project built over the last 3 years Everything is brand spanking new/ The students will start arriving next week. Here are a few photos of the campus:

The above is where my office is.

So all in all it was a very good first day

When you are supplied with EVERYTHING…..

Yeah, Right.

Tell you a really funny story. When negotiating with PMU we were told that we will be supplied with everything that we need in order to start us off. Do not bring anything they said.

 

That everything consisted of the following:

Set of pots and pans with only one very large pot and one humungous pot enough to cook a medium size camel in.

Set of paper thin cutlery that one finds in fast food establishments of questionable heritage. The tensile strength of steel used in the manufacture is perhaps a bit better than that of tin foil.

 

Dinner set… Lovely floral pattern but one small problem. Just that. Small. The main plates are the size of bread plates. A heaped up plate is only a handful of food. But hey, now I can have 6 plates of food for dinner without feeling either guilty or full.

Two very thin pillows. When lying flat could very easily be confused for pillowcases. They have been put to immediate use as foot cushions on top of our coffee table. Jill made me cart around two of our pillows which was rather cumbersome and I thought highly undignified for a person of my stature in the world, not to mention attracting some serious sniffing attention from customs dogs. But a wise decision nonetheless as it turned out.

One unfitted bed sheet and one blanket (which is admittedly very nice but unused as yet)

Really nice kettle and a vacuum cleaner although all floors are tiling. There is not a scrap of carpeting in the place.

Six bottles of water.

So on day we arrived we had to immediatly go and get the following in order of importance: Toilet papier, towels, dishcloths, detergents,power adaptors coat hangers, more bedding, kitchen utensils, knives, an iron, food, drinks etc etc 

Jill’s comment was that she felt as if she was 18 again and starting out with nothing. I guess the situation does make you feel young and desperate.

By the same token it sounds as if we have done extremely well. We spoke this morning to a newly arrived lady from UK and she did not even have water provided.

So next time someone offers you EVERYTHING just smile and think Yeah Right.

First few days…

Jill has pretty much described our arrival and first day here. It was tiring and bewildering but still very exciting.

It was really nice to get off the plane after 15 odd hours and have a really good latte in a bucket sized cup. As I mentioned before the first unusual sight was the two falconers inside the airport

You would not find this at Tulla :)

And here we are just after disembarking

At this point little were we to know about what awaited us at Causeway, otherwise we would have been much more prepared with food and water. Always learning around here :)

Back to blogging….

It has been a few hectic days around here so not much chance to blog but it is better no so expect a few more posts from now on :)