I live in the airport

I've never been to Ethiopia. Now, I've been to the Addis Ababa Airport, which is in Ethiopia. But it doesn't count. I never left the terminal. I gazed out the windows at the Ethiopian landscape, and then did crossword puzzles and took a nap while I waited for my next flight. Airports are a special place: A place for people just passing through, a place that's neither here nor there.

Living on a compound is sort of like living in an airport.

See, technically, I live in Saudi Arabia. I have the stamp on my passport. I have an iqama, or residential visa. My postal address says "Kingdom of Saudi Arabia" at the end.

But at the same time, I definitely do not live in Saudi Arabia.

For instance: The official language, where I live, is English. Most women don't wear the abaaya. Cultural events like weddings don't take place here. And, if I wanted to, I would never have to interact with any Saudis, at all. There are enough Americans here that I could stay entirely within a Western clique without having to engage with the local culture.

To be honest, I've found the entire experience...disappointing. I've wanted to move overseas for years. But I live in an airport--a place that's neither here nor there. The compound is eerily defamiliarizing: It's like living in a Middle-Eastern impression of a small Western town. The coffee shop is a replica of an American chain. Middle-Eastern "festivals" held in the public town square are attended overwhelmingly by Westerners. There are so many Americans here that it's easy for us to duplicate the exact routines we used to have at home. And since we're so far separated from the actual culture of Saudi Arabia, we're missing out completely on the most valuable thing you can gain while living overseas: community. While I might have Arab friends sprinkled here and there, I have virtually no connection at all to an actual Saudi community.

So maybe as a first "living overseas" experience, this isn't actually representative.

Which is maybe why I have another itch to move, but maybe....maybe not home.

Arabic is my music

I'm back to language learning, which makes me about the happiest camper on the planet. Back to spending lunch hour practicing gargling sounds! Back to complicated mimes/diagrams to help me get my point across! Back to propping my Arabic notebook on the treadmill at the gym! Back to annoying people by explaining points of grammar they have no interest in!

I'm thrilled to discover that I actually forgot a little less Arabic than I originally anticipated. By this, I mean that I can understand my teacher when she speaks Arabic to me, but when I want a word like "confused," for instance, I dig around in my brain to no avail. It reminds me a lot of playing music. I was super committed to playing music in high school; I played about four hours a day at one point. But I haven't played in...a while. Years. So anyway the point is that when I pick up my instrument now, my fingers remember things I don't. My eyes see the notes and my fingers just play them, by memory. Obviously not perfectly--but they surprise me.

That's how it is speaking a language you haven't practiced in a while. You remember things you didn't know you remembered.

Alhamdulillah.

Holy Cyberspace, Batman!

An excerpt of an essay I wrote officially got published by an online magazine! And it feels swell!

I Meant to Tell You the Soup Story

So Husband is feeling sick in the mall, and I want to buy soup for him. Soup and tea, actually. We head up to the food court; Husband sits down and puts his head on the table, and I march over to the nearest shop.

"Salaam-aleikum," I say. This just means "hello." Everyone in this country knows how to say "hello." It is not ground-breaking for me to say this. Or, anyway, I certainly don't think it's ground-breaking.

"What?!?" Clarification: This wasn't a Sorry-it's-loud-in-the-kitchen-and-I-didn't-catch-that what. This was a Did-this-white-girl-seriously-just-greet-me-in-Arabic-even-though-I-probably-speak-English what.

"Salaam-aleikum?"

The guy's jaw literally falls open.

"Aleikum-salaam," he manages to mumble.

"Uh, andak hassa'?"

"WHHHAAAAT?!?" Again, he heard me. But he's staring at me like palm trees just started sprouting from my ears.

Now I'm stuttering. I can't figure out if this guy is just really surprised that I should speak Arabic, or if I'm actually saying it wrong and accidentally asking him if he has heroin, or something.

"Hassa'?" I say in a tiny voice.

"Na'am." He points to the menu, which is simple enough for me to read. There are two soups, and one's vegetarian.

"Hal haatha buhaaraat?" I want to know if it's spicy.

He literally can't even answer. He just stares at me, slowly shaking his head, which I take as a no.

It was the easiest order I ever placed in a restaurant. I knew every word I needed and never stumbled once, not even when I asked for change (and the word for change is "fucka," so that can be kinda difficult at times).

But I'm pretty sure I almost gave that dude a heart attack with my Arabic ninja skills.

Watch out your abaya!

I shopped for 12 hours in the big city yesterday. And I've managed to boil the entire experience down to six awesome photographs.

Taken near an escalator:

The translation was clearly done by Google Translate, which doesn't believe in prepositions.

Taken at a restaurant with separate lines for women and men. The sign in the upper left-hand corner reads "LADIES."

I'm slightly confused about the point of side-by-side separate lines for men and women in a fast-food joint, but these dudes seem to be just confused, period.

Taken at a restaurant called "Thai Thai":

Um, cutest teapot/tea cups EVER.

Taken at a Toys 'R Us:

That's the wall of Hannah Montana dolls. Apparently, her cult following is just as enormous in a country where religions other than Islam are prohibited.

Taken at a supermarket called "Hyper Panda" (uh, best name for a supermarket, ever):

Spring Roles. Maybe inside the package you'll find theater bills?

Also taken at Hyper Panda:

That would be Pillsbury dough boy products, labeled "Organic Food."

No news is...boring

I love, love, love Google News Alerts. Getting them is the first working strategy I've ever had for keeping up with the news.

Once in a while, though, it's a boring News Alert day. All the articles are about financial acquisitions, or new businesses opening, or political dealings I couldn't care less about. I pity the journalists who have to cover such things.

Now, if you were getting Google News Alerts on my life, let me tell you: It would have been a super boring week.

News:5 New Results for Beth

Somehow, Decision is Made to Visit Turkey
Husband randomly bought Beth a ticket to Istanbul, where a five-day visit is anticipated for October. Though previous discussions had been made about visiting the Great Pyramids or the Taj Mahal, somehow the duo decided attending some conference on poverty was more important. Also cheaper, since Husband's trip will be covered by his sponsor.

Husband Grateful for Gourmet Recipes, Sorta
Thanks to the recent acquisition of the book The Flexitarian Table, Beth has come under the delusion that she is in fact competing for the title of Top Chef, and recently purchased items such as fresh Parmesan and capers to prove it. While hours spent in the kitchen have recently increased, she's pretty much wasting her talents on Husband, who, while expressing his appreciation, seems to be just as satisfied with plain beans and rice.

Arabic verb tenses fly completely out of head
Thanks to a summer spent in an English-speaking country and a failure on her part to even once flip open her Arabic books, Beth has recently discovered she has forgotten how to say the word "yesterday" in Arabic. The realization came about as she attempted communication with a dear friend in Riyadh, who somehow managed to gloss over the error, probably because she was trying to remember the word for "move" in English.

Totally Deserving Non-Profit Adds New Content
The non-profit group Coburwas recently added new content to its website, which Beth finally got her butt around to writing this week. She also received an e-mail from Coburwas member John, which ended with: "KISS! KIIIIIIIS TO YOU! Your loving brother, John." This prompted Beth to express a desire that more people would follow such conventions in e-mails.

Butts Officially Kicked at Gym
In a turn of events that would probably horrify those people convening in Geneva, Beth has recently begun using torture to punish her thighs and abs for a summer spent eating cake and not running. In particular, she's been doing these nasty lunge-squat combinations that probably aren't even legal.

Thank you humidity...

...for doing this every time I walk outdoors wearing glasses:

Six Rules for Behaving in Public

You already know the obvious ones, right? Like try not to wear a mini-skirt or take swigs from a paper bag?

There are two options for being an expat in the Middle East. You can try to blend in to the culture (an impossible goal if you're blond), or not. I opt for the former, which means I spend a lot of time observing and asking questions and noticing when people look at me funny. Here are the six rules for public behavior I've picked up over the last couple years:

1. Always take the time to greet everyone you've ever met on the street. Even if you're on your way to work and you're running late and you've only ever met that person one time at a party and you don't remember their name. Say hello, shake hands and kiss, and ask how they and their family are. Otherwise, you are just asking for them to complain to mutual friends about your rudeness. I know, because I have been that mutual friend before. I spend a lot of time trying to explain American behavior.

2. Don't eat or drink in public during Ramadan. I don't care if you're not fasting. It's illegal.


I don't care if it is 105 degrees; leave that "Akwaafeenaa" at home.

3. Girls, make all reasonable efforts to hide the fact that you have hips. Actually, this is your exception to the no-mini-skirts rule. I've seen local girls wearing them over their jeans. Also mini-dresses or super-long shirts. I love that toga-style shirts came into fashion right before I moved over here.

4. Don't leave the house with your hair still wet from a shower. It is somehow an indicator/advertisement that you just had sex. Which doesn't make sense to me, because humidity's at 60 percent, which means everyone needs to shower twice a day...whatever.

5. Don't offer your hand to someone of the opposite sex. A lot of Muslims won't shake it. I thought this one was more well-known, but I see Americans have the awkward "Um, sorry, but I don't touch women" conversation all the time. My rule of thumb is to give guys the nod and wait to see if they extend their hand. If they don't, you get to do my favorite greeting ever: the right-hand-over-your-heart salute. Like, "My heart is touched to meet you...don't touch me."

6. Don't put your arm around your significant other. I've noticed that in a lot of places, hand-holding is okay (uh, well, if the person is your spouse). But putting your arm around their waist? You might as well make out on a park bench.

Did I miss any?

Why Ramadan is No Fun

A couple of years ago, while we were living in the U.S., my husband decided to fast Ramadan. For clarification, he's not Muslim; he just wanted to see what it was like and grow in his understanding of Islam. He went the whole hog (errr...scratch that, more like he gave up hog and wasn't eating or drinking all day). It seemed like every night, he had someone else's house to visit, feasts to share, prayers to say. He got a lot closer with some of his international friends and really valued the entire experience.

I never fasted Ramadan, but still, when I was Stateside, I thought Ramadan was fairly neat. Some of my friends were certain to invite me to their house or to mosque, and on those days, I'd go ahead and fast too, and then enjoy a feast of couscous and cake later on.

But here in the Middle East, Ramadan kind of stinks.

We've been around for Ramadan for two years now. So far, I've never been invited to come visit the mosque, and I've never been to someone's house for a late meal. I spent the last Eid alone in my house, and I expect the same this year.

The only invitation I've had to take part in the holiday came this last week. A friend (who is also an expat) who works as a cashier in the supermarket asked me and some friends to break fast. (We ate in the back of the store, off the Styrofoam trays used to package fruit. I was enormously pleased to be invited.)


Fruity feast. Thank you, Khan!

"But you're not fasting," you might argue. "Ramadan is about fasting!"

It wouldn't matter if I were fasting, though. Case in point: I have an American friend who is a Christian and decided to fast Ramadan. He's following the whole thing to a T--even breaking fast with dates, which is a bit of a technical rule. But he isn't invited to take part in any other celebrations either. He is experiencing all the hard parts of Ramadan, with none of the benefits and fun.

But all this just got me to thinking: I bet most international students in America spend Christmas alone in their rooms, too. I mean, out of a whole month of celebrations, parades, shopping, choir concerts, church pageants, cookie swaps and white elephant gift exchanges, how many international students do I normally invite to partake in the festivities?

Being an international student automatically makes you curious about the culture you're in. But when holidays roll around, you start feeling even more like an outsider than usual. You'd love to see the festivities up close--attend a Christmas Eve service, drink hot chocolate, take home a terribly tacky gift from that white elephant exchange (still confused about why Americans call it that).

But unfortunately, I think holidays are also the least likely time for the nationals to open up their eyes and take care of the strangers in their midst.

Choose It/Lose It: YouTube!

Choose It: Literal Trailers
The guys doing literal trailers are genius. Someone needed to question how many scenic helicopter nature shots are truly necessary in movie trailers these days, anyways.

Lose It: DieAussen-something
I don't read German, but in any case, I think this sucker was misfiled under the "News and Politics" section. Doesn't it seem like a lame self-promotional music video about retro toys to you?

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Ramadan

The grocery store near my house, all dressed up for Ramadan. All that was missing was piped-in music--which is pretty much forbidden right now.

My husband is an environmental engineer. More specifically, he is pursuing a job working on water systems for impoverished communities. After a year of living with him, sometimes I can talk the talk. I know what TOC is, and that high levels of that in your drinking water is bad. I know how expensive reverse osmosis is, and I know that about half of the stream water in America contains antibiotics (yes, you're drinking them). I can even draw you a picture of how microbial fuel cells work (although I'll probably confuse positive and negative charges).

But in reality, I'm just repeating what I've heard Husband talk about. In reality, I'm clueless.

In much the same way, I can talk to you here about Ramadan.

This is my second year of experiencing Ramadan in the Middle East. Ramadan, for the people who don't have the time to Wikipedia it, is a holy month for Muslims. It goes like this:

*During daylight hours, no eating, drinking (Psst! It's 105 degrees out!), smoking or sex.

*At sunset, you break fast in community by sharing a big meal.

*A lot of Muslims go to mosque more often during Ramadan, or make an effort to read a lot of the Quran. Some people even read it three times during the month. (The Quran is about the length of the New Testament, to give you a frame of reference.) Some of my friends are traveling to Mecca and Medinah this month, too.

*The end of Ramadan is marked with the biggest holiday (Eid) of the year, and the whole country shuts down for like two or three weeks to celebrate. Literally.

It's a Very Big Deal here. The scale of the holiday is somewhat like Christmas in the States--except that here, stores are less likely to have sales and more likely to shut down all day. Everywhere you go, there are banners wishing you "Ramadan Kareem," or "Bountiful Ramadan."


I don't care what culture you're from, holidays=candy, and lots of it.

A slightly lesser-known fact is that during Ramadan, a lot Muslims in this part of the world talk about one thing: television. Ramadan is essentially sweeps time in the Middle East. It's time for the soap opera stars to die, or get married, or have a baby, or whatever. A lot of people just sleep most of the day, spend their few hungry hours watching TV, then break fast and stay up all night.

I do not understand this in the least. When I ask, people tell me they fast Ramadan for these reasons:
1. Obedience to God

2. To learn sympathy for the less-fortunate in the world

3. To cleanse the body (in the sense that fasting can be good for your health)

4. To seek closeness to God

But it seems to me that spending all the month sleeping and watching TV is directly going to hinder a person from all these pursuits. One because I don't believe that God desires technically correct external behavior without an internal repentance and intention to seek Him. Two because the less-fortunate of the world do not distract themselves from hunger by watching soaps. Three because being a couch potato is terrible for your health. And four because I have yet to meet the person who had a divine encounter while sitting in front of the Tube.

What would Dewey Decimal say?

Today, I took a picture of the "Religion" section at the public library.



Myths, myths, astronomy?, myths, Eckhart Tolle (aka myths), and a book on the Hajj.

p.s. The bug is fixed, and I can upload pictures now...finally!

Downside and Upside

We've been in the Middle East almost a week now, and I haven't adjusted a bit! Here's a look at my last week:

On the downside, I have the worst case of jet lag I've ever suffered. Waking at 2 a.m., sleeping til 11, napping in the afternoons, tossing and turning at bed time--and I'm eternally tired.

On the upside, I don't have anything special to do, so I can pretty much sleep whenever I want. Including the middle of the day, if I want.

On the downside, I have to adjust my diet...again. This is because I can't always find the ingredients I want (the grocery store here is a total crap shoot--some days you find delicious organic granola bars; other days you can't find frozen food--like, you can't find any frozen food, at all.)

On the upside, I am 100 percent in control of the menu at my house! Which means I get to eat things like tofu and lentils, when I can find them.

On the downside, I have yet to get into the swing of a schedule, and I probably won't until Ramadan is over. A big chunk of my time is normally devoted to language-learning, but my teacher/student will be celebrating Ramadan and then Eid for a few weeks yet, meaning we won't be having any lessons. Also, a bunch of people will be vacationing over the break coming up week after next, so I probably won't get into the swing until after everyone gets back.

On the upside, Husband and I are officially back into spending all day on Fridays on marathon dates--and I can't wait to swing dance, get coffee, and play racquetball this week. (p.s.--I could not spell "racquetball" for the life of me. I had to have the computer do it.)

On the downside, it's butt-hot here.

On the upside, our air-conditioning is working, thank God!