Flighty Farukh and Siphoning Sharukh

Yesterday was one of the most interesting I've had for a while. Wanting to grab a few things for *ehem* 'holiday season' from Dhahran myself and two other like minded ladies called up the local (safe?) cab company Majestic and ordered a cab thinking because it was an extended trip we'd get Saiful the king of all safe driving. Instead we got the dodgiest bugger on the face of the planet and as he didn't know how to speak a word of Engligh (bare in mind he's working for an expat cab company) we couldn't ask him his name. So I've decided to nickname him Flighty Farukh. My guess he was one of the newbies from Bangladesh whod never driven on a Saudi road. Well after about 15 near death experiences. (Your's truly sitting in the back middle seat able to witness everyone of them) we told him to drop us off at the nearest shops and to bugger off. He looked really confused but took the money and dissapeared and I went in to the local ladies loos to see if I'd truly wet my pants!

A note about the driving here. People don't break. Actually people don't know how to break I'm guessing because what they do is drive up really fast behind you flashing their lights and tooting their horn to tell you to get out of the way because there is no way in hell they can slow down (approx speed 150-200kmph) and both parties are in it if your car does not get out of the way. None of this is done arrogantly. Its just a courtesy to move out of the way so the gentleman behind you who hasn't yet discovered his brake pedal can have some more breathing space to find it before the next car going slightly slower. Because the brake pedal is (easily?) confused with the accellerator...he frequently speeds up before the next guy only to experience the same panic all over again.

Flighty Farukh obviously didn't understand this couteous custom which prevents both party's cars from intimate (haram?) contact and decided that what all the guys speeding up behind him wanted was for him to go faster instead of merely changing lanes. Needless to say I'm still having flashbacks and had, for want of a stiff drink, a dodgy coffee at the local starbucks.

So after a relatively unevently schmooze around the shops we decided to go off to one of the local Pakastani restaurants downtown. It was absolutely great bar the smell of the ladies loos right next to our table (don't even begin me ranting about male cleaning standards). We had a pleasant meal and then getting the bill in a folder put in enough money for the meal and a generous tip. On the way out the dodgy manager (Siphoning Sharukh) calls out and tells us we have not payed half of our bill. The money he says we haven't payed him is directly in front of him and the waiter helpfully pointed this out. However he insisted that we hadn't payed him and that we owed him. To avoid drama one of the girls forked over the money (30 riall or 8-9 aud) and we got out of there. The daft thing is, the food was brilliant and all three of us would have brought people back and probably tipped more generously than the amount the guy extorted out of us. The guy, knowing that one of us was Pakastani was still a bastard so I don't think it was even angst over us being potentially American...stupid.

The next stop was a supermarket on the way home for some groceries. We managed a record breaking endevour and in 20 minutes before prayer time we were all out of there and in the cab of a nice Pakastani cab driver who told us (or rather Aisha in Urdu) that a lot of the time Saudi women get in his cab and get out without paying. These guys would make about 300 riall a month (90 aud) so we gave him the trip to Ras Tanura and a bloody good tip too.

It might seem like all I do here is venturing into town and shopping but that's probably only one day out of seven or more. Most of the time here I've been reading, doing a bit of research and a whole lot of oil painting. The social scene here is, as aformentioned, agressive. My phone doesn't stop calling all day and I've started to take it off the hook in the mornings to at least have a coffee and breakfast after my walk along the beach. Otherwise people start calling around 6 or 7. The weekends are really layed back. Anthony and I usually get out and kick back at the cafe on Friday just in time to listen to the militant local imam blasting out his sermon through the loud speaker. We could swear he's yelling 'kill all the white infidels' in the camp next door although the local guys assure me he just has strong convictions about what a good lecture on Islam should sound like. So I'm guessing shirty is the order of the day.

However safety wize its really good here. The joke is that all the local boys who want to be militants are in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan right now so the only worry is what is going to happen when they get home!

On the visa front I don't have it yet but we're chilling out. Jen took off on our trip yesterday morning and I did mope a bit (actually a lot) but c'est la vie...what can you do. We knew when we came here I might not get it in time. As a result however, my head still hurts as a result of the sideffects of the local grapejuice imbibed the other night in commisseration. (I still can't remember half the night...Anthony's been holding this one over my head and it will probably come out of the closet everytime I annoy him from now on. Try driving an innebriated lady home in a golf cart when she doesn't want to go home!)

Anyways off to do some boring admin stuff.

Somewhat Naive

Two episodes struck me this last week of complete naivity. The first was mine and the second was a kiwi evangellical's.

Ok so here goes. I've taken my paper down to the cafe on camp and am waiting for the waiter to come up and take my order. So he comes up.

Robert the waiter: Ma'am you are here so early in the day, where's Tony?
George the Ditz: At work, I was a bit bored at home so I thought I'd read my paper here.
Get slightly strange vibe off waiter at 'bored' but don't pay much attention.
Waiter: Tony's away at work? Do you want anything?
George: Tea with milk.
Waiter: No no ma'am do you WANT anything. (sidles up along my chair)
George: Oh uhm and some cake too please
Waiter: No no ma'am...(sidles up even closer) Do you NEED anything.
George: (looks up) oh uhm...just the tea thanks...
Waiter: (Looks awkward and walks off)
George: (Just realising that she's been propositioned is somewhat worried about what he's doing with the tea)

Apparently a few of the more...lonely...ladies around here supplement the income of the cafe guys for services rendered on a fairly regular basis so they are always looking for more business...

The other example is a bit more serious. The other night I found out one of the ladies here has been busing to downtown Khobar with her little one year old and hailing taxis off the street, getting into them by herself and going around. Now theres a golden rule here than all this is fine as long as you have two or more ladies along. The incidences here of lone women being abducted and raped/lost never to be seen are pretty high so some common sense is mandatory. She seriously didn't believe me when I told her that what she was doing was ridiculously unsafe. Most of the taxi drivers here aren't the guys liscenced for the taxis so if anything happened she'd be untracable. She still doesn't believe me though and last I heard she was planning on going into town...Its probably going to take a nasty reality check to change her mind. One of the last high profile (gang) rape cases here in Saudi resulted in the guys being jailed for a minimum of 2 years and the victim (get this!) having 200 lashes because she was in a car with men who weren't her relatives. (How fucked is that!) Anyways even this bit of info hasn't dissuaded this lass from trumping herself off to the shops so hopefully nothing will happen. I suggested she hire a driver so maybe that'll work...we shall see...

Booring Lunch and Impersonating a Lobster and the visa of vengance

The highlight of our week last week was Anthony impersonating a lobster after going slightly insane at some colleagues house after the third hour (no joke) of looking at their home videos of the same beach and their same children...he grabbed a pool noodle or two and decided looking slightly insane would be preferable than sitting looking at the tv for much longer. AHHHHHH

The people we were visiting didn't even notice me mouthing (BEHAVE) behind their backs and punching him in the kidneys when they weren't looking. It was truly the most booooooring experience of my life.

Anthony went and ranted at the visa guy last week and his boss and they are sending some guys to 'negotiate' with the government. (coughcoughbribewadsofcashcoughcough) so hopefully things will sort themselves without him actually quiting and getting rehired in the same day which frequently happens here...

In contrast to the incredibly booring dinner from last week this week we had a kickass one with two californian/cuban school teachers. I like cuban food. Its such a brilliant change to *shudder* burgers. As of last week burger or the 'b' word is considered a profanity in this house more henious than the s word the f word the c word and the whatever the buggery else word. Other than refinery all this camp smells of is bad American 'burgers' (If thats what you can call them). And they look like slow moving botulism with less personality....so needless to say the Cuban beans and plantains were brilliant...as was the 'grapejuice' although my head is somewhat suffering still from the latter.

How Many Cars?

Last Wednesday we had one of the thickest pea souper fogs you've ever seen come in off the Gulf. Thankfully the bus didn't run because there was a 80 car pileup on the Abqaiq Dammam Hwy which AJ would have been busing along on. Needless to say no drivee when its fogee.

http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=40688&Itemid=146

Reef Sharks my Arse!

A few days ago a number (2) of bull sharks were sited just off the beach here. Now I know they were bull sharks because the dive lady who was a metre or so away from them in the water told me however she (the giant porky teller) is telling everyone that they were reef sharks so that they don't freak out. Now as you will observe in Figure 1 and 1.1. A bull shark is big and nasty looking. (observe potential of large pointy teeth)



Fig. 1



Fig 1.1 (note the surliness of the dorsal fin)


Now the above sited beasties were definately not one of these...



Fig. 2

As you will observe in this slightly vague image that this is not as nasty looking a shark (coughcough) and much less threatening...really...(My Bum!)

So for all those people who said my shark research was wasted...if I get eaten by one of those buggers at least I know which one's taking a chunk out of me.

Oh and camp gossip which is oh so accurate now has the number of sharks sited up to 14.

Its Saturday..no Wait...Thursday Morning...Whose going to play with me?

Am currently watching the videoclip from a self proclaimed 'king of arabic pop' Amr Diab...just so you get some of the joy I'm getting here's his mugshot and I know you all can't wait to go to his website and follow the link the the marriage agency:P. They do love the crooners here.

http://www.amrdiab.net/index.php

Had a wonderful day yesterday. Went with one of the girls here to a French restaurant down by the beach on the Corniche in Al Khobar. we were both on a bit of a downer, she had found out her son was getting up to a bit of michief here of the herbal variety which would result in punishment if found out of the head chop chop variety (all the kids do it and their parents let them but its so dumb and the kid in question is currently grounded and waiting for his father to come home off a rig and kick his ass. He's a really good kid actually just got caught up doing what the other kids do...comes over a lot and kills things on the computer with AJ:) You wold not believe it...parents here even seem cool with their sons driving cars out on those highways...20 thousand deaths on these roads so far this year and they let them out at 17 in their very suped up cars (BMW Z4s and MX5s are really common as are Suburbans gah) without a driving lesson in site...Gives me nightmares. You know, I've yet to drive into Khobar (an hour away) without seeing a least one fatal accident. Yesterday's involved a Semi running over a sedan...there is a reason we're not getting a car and take the bus. Bus verses car always comes out with bus winning!

Anyways...We both had to roll out of the place...smoked salmon, russian caviar and blinis, escargot, (btw...I didn't know snails were halal but there you go), and steak chateaubriand...we were the only Western guys in there, the rest were Saudi girls. Ve haf now found their lair! Its been a bit of a quest of late to work out where the Saudi guys eat. We've found the Pakastani quarter (great food and material), the filipino quarter (Fish head curry), the thai quarter(Yum), the bangladeshi and the Indian quarters (Foods and bricabrac and for some reason a meelion lighting stores) (the latter quite some way away from the Pakistani) but no where the Saudi's eat until now.

I just brought a seven foot 'ehem' 'Holiday Tree.' (As long as it has the right name you can buy yuletide stuff everywhere.) Tinsel is classed as 'art supplies,' Tree Ornaments are sold everywhere as general bricabrac and the most obvious stuff is usually available from under the counter. (no kidding you have to ask to see the 'special tree hangings'

I tried to send Jen a t-shirt with a document the other day and the guy at the post office arbitarily decided that would be too hard and that I'd have to pay 100US dollars for the priveledge...even though the sign in arabic numbers (which you lean to read here in the first week or get ripped off) said that it should only cost about 20 hmmm. when I argued the price went up to 200 dollars. So AJ n I are trying to work out how to get everyone their 'Holiday' presents...it may be a case of buttering up the post office guy with chocolate.

We're still experiencing a large amount of visa angst. AJ's planning on going in to the office for another loud yell this coming week and hopefully that will work. You will all hear me going mental from Aus if I don't get to go on this holiday to Europe with Jen..it will not be pretty. The admin works here in a way completely opposite from home. At home if you badger someone they get shirty and may not do what you want. Here, if you don't badger people they don't think you really want what you've asked for/applied for and really wont do it. This is the case with absolutely everything. We're calling this a 'learning curve' hmmmm.

Anyways...its a very sunny autumn day here...round 24 degrees...just nice. I"m thinking of trundling down for a coffee after AJ gets his butt outa bed and a snoozy read on the beach. I've started my PhD again during the week and between that and just organizing bits and pieces with finalizing reparation from shipment damages and other bits and pieces its been a manic week.

Still watching the arabic music channel...the ladies are so plastic you could sell them as Fulla Dolls! And the video clips are so overdramatic...very entertaining.

Oh just watched 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead' (The Richard Dreyfus screen adaptation) last night...it was brilliant...get it out and watch it!

Our Little Brown Palace

Here's that promised tour of our Saudi palace. Yes, that is Babylon 5 and those are Anthony's legs attached to Anthony geeking it up. We're slowly getting more furnature and bits and pieces. I also somewhere have pictures of me being a stepford housewife in our kitchen but I can't unsideways them and they give me nightmares.



This is our delightful Hallway


This is our front room.


This is our Lounge/Dining

A belated picture of two felonious felines

This is tweedle dee and tweedle dum about five minutes after they got here a week or so ago... I have more but they're all along the line of cat head on boobies drooling. (both and the cat and a certain male member of this household seem to fixate on the same things it seems when it comes to photography)