A Camel is a Nobel Animal...(Said the Camel.)
Another Weekend
We are whacked, buggered, bushed
Spent the day today wandering around the Al Rashid Mall in Khobar scoping out the local merchandise. Its pretty diverse actually. I was expecting a lot of the same from home but thats only a part of the story.
However, I'd argue strongly that downtown Khobar is by far the most fun place I've been here. Its all little streets full of shops that sell the same things i.e. the gold street, the rug street, the mobile phone street...(very old and ancient family business is the selling of mobile phones) I brought some marvellous intricately thingied silver earings the other day and managed to do some good haggling...well sort of...I just looked vague and the guy kept coming down in price. Its amazing...I've finally found a use for my really vacant got-no-sleep stare...gonna have to perfect it more I think. At the moment I'm waking up at 3 or so every morning to the morning prayers coming from the nearest mosque (there's two on camp plus one pretty close in Rahima). And I'm staying awake after that. Like really awake...like getting up at 4.30am to make waffles awake... Someone paint me blue and call me charlie but I'm going insane!
We're sitting at our on loan dining table waiting for a Columbian guy from down the road to come pick up some King Fahds for a Golf Cart I just purchased off him. He's late. Like really late. I think he's sleeping...He only lives just down the road and I'm wondering if its rude to do burnouts past his house in his soon to be mine golf cart...hmmm....the thought has potential. If he wasn't so nice and hadn't offered to use Wasta to help Anthony get a drivers license I'd be surly...I want to go for a walk by the beach...well nix that...a golf buggy burn out by the beach! Seriously...I made it go sideways...I was so impressed!
BTW wasta is like a hmmm what would you call it...favour system. We've been told and have seen that money won't get you as far as favours here. So if you help a guy out, he then owes you a favour which means if he works at the liscencing dept he'll process your request for a liscence a bit quicker for you that he would have. Or he could do it faster if you asked and then you'd owe him a favour. The term gets thrown around here a lot.
Oh, the story about the Paint and the Mattawa. The other day, Tracie called and asked if I'd catch a cab to downtown Rahima to get some paint from this store called Jotan...(she'd run out) anyway it was just before prayertime but we thought we'd get in and out just in time. So we go in and the guy takes ages to mix the stuff up (I got some paint to...we've not got an ultramarine loo...pissing in the ocean instead of in the rainforrest for anyone who saw our bathroom in Aus.) THe announcements came on for prayer and he keeps mixing so we're thinking...ok...we're fine here, no dramas he's just going to finish mixing it and we'll leave while prayers are on...then he looks out the window of his store and gets frantic, mumbles Mattawa (the name of the religious police) and opens the door frantically hussling us out. We go out, he slams and locks the door of the shop with our paint still inside and yells for us to sit in the Taxi. So we're watching him and he's frantically mixing, then opens the door, shoves the paint out, madly runs a calculator out to the car looking around furtively and shoves it through the window at me. Ok, I got out the money, paid him a bit more than he was asking for because Tracie was getting a bit stressed and was grabbing money out of my wallet. He then put his hand in the car to signal that he wanted the calculator. Tracie, misconstruing his intent, grabed his hand and shook it. Now, the poor guy almost died. Its prayer time, its illegal to have your shop open and he's out on the street being touched by a strange white woman. (I'm referring to it as the 'groping incident.' Oh and the mosuqe was right over the road and the religious police chose to come round the corner just after she grabbed his hand. Muggins here then asks him for some paint brushes. which were manically thrust through a moving taxi's window then followed by him pulling down his shop front, putting his hands in his pocket and walking off in a hurry...Our taxi buggered off back to camp with the taxi driver shaking his head and repeatedly saying to us 'This is Saudi Arabia!'. I'm now calling Tracie the local groper:) It could have been much worse... but thankfully neither the shop guy or us got into any dramas. So all is good...
Anyway...I'm off to stalk a Gold Buggy owner
We are whacked, buggered, bushed
Spent the day today wandering around the Al Rashid Mall in Khobar scoping out the local merchandise. Its pretty diverse actually. I was expecting a lot of the same from home but thats only a part of the story.
However, I'd argue strongly that downtown Khobar is by far the most fun place I've been here. Its all little streets full of shops that sell the same things i.e. the gold street, the rug street, the mobile phone street...(very old and ancient family business is the selling of mobile phones) I brought some marvellous intricately thingied silver earings the other day and managed to do some good haggling...well sort of...I just looked vague and the guy kept coming down in price. Its amazing...I've finally found a use for my really vacant got-no-sleep stare...gonna have to perfect it more I think. At the moment I'm waking up at 3 or so every morning to the morning prayers coming from the nearest mosque (there's two on camp plus one pretty close in Rahima). And I'm staying awake after that. Like really awake...like getting up at 4.30am to make waffles awake... Someone paint me blue and call me charlie but I'm going insane!
We're sitting at our on loan dining table waiting for a Columbian guy from down the road to come pick up some King Fahds for a Golf Cart I just purchased off him. He's late. Like really late. I think he's sleeping...He only lives just down the road and I'm wondering if its rude to do burnouts past his house in his soon to be mine golf cart...hmmm....the thought has potential. If he wasn't so nice and hadn't offered to use Wasta to help Anthony get a drivers license I'd be surly...I want to go for a walk by the beach...well nix that...a golf buggy burn out by the beach! Seriously...I made it go sideways...I was so impressed!
BTW wasta is like a hmmm what would you call it...favour system. We've been told and have seen that money won't get you as far as favours here. So if you help a guy out, he then owes you a favour which means if he works at the liscencing dept he'll process your request for a liscence a bit quicker for you that he would have. Or he could do it faster if you asked and then you'd owe him a favour. The term gets thrown around here a lot.
Oh, the story about the Paint and the Mattawa. The other day, Tracie called and asked if I'd catch a cab to downtown Rahima to get some paint from this store called Jotan...(she'd run out) anyway it was just before prayertime but we thought we'd get in and out just in time. So we go in and the guy takes ages to mix the stuff up (I got some paint to...we've not got an ultramarine loo...pissing in the ocean instead of in the rainforrest for anyone who saw our bathroom in Aus.) THe announcements came on for prayer and he keeps mixing so we're thinking...ok...we're fine here, no dramas he's just going to finish mixing it and we'll leave while prayers are on...then he looks out the window of his store and gets frantic, mumbles Mattawa (the name of the religious police) and opens the door frantically hussling us out. We go out, he slams and locks the door of the shop with our paint still inside and yells for us to sit in the Taxi. So we're watching him and he's frantically mixing, then opens the door, shoves the paint out, madly runs a calculator out to the car looking around furtively and shoves it through the window at me. Ok, I got out the money, paid him a bit more than he was asking for because Tracie was getting a bit stressed and was grabbing money out of my wallet. He then put his hand in the car to signal that he wanted the calculator. Tracie, misconstruing his intent, grabed his hand and shook it. Now, the poor guy almost died. Its prayer time, its illegal to have your shop open and he's out on the street being touched by a strange white woman. (I'm referring to it as the 'groping incident.' Oh and the mosuqe was right over the road and the religious police chose to come round the corner just after she grabbed his hand. Muggins here then asks him for some paint brushes. which were manically thrust through a moving taxi's window then followed by him pulling down his shop front, putting his hands in his pocket and walking off in a hurry...Our taxi buggered off back to camp with the taxi driver shaking his head and repeatedly saying to us 'This is Saudi Arabia!'. I'm now calling Tracie the local groper:) It could have been much worse... but thankfully neither the shop guy or us got into any dramas. So all is good...
Anyway...I'm off to stalk a Gold Buggy owner
posted by George at
7:36 pm
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