Memories of Night

Originally posted 8/24/06

Night time again. Cool. Quiet. Still. Most people are starting to think of going to bed if they haven't already turned in for the night. I just can't do it. The dark night tends to make me feel rather feral and restless. That's left over from bygone days, though, and isn't something that I'm going to go into here. These days, more often than not, I end up getting out of bed to enjoy the stillness, the quiet and the darkness of the house after everyone else is asleep. Given the fact that I've been a lifelong night owl, I suppose that it's appropriate that some of my favorite memories are from the night, then, isn't it?

There was one night soon after we arrived in Saudi when the company arranged for us to have a picnic on a beach by the Red Sea. They called it the Goat Grab, though I'm not sure if they had any goat there, but you never know, eh? It certainly wouldn't be the strangest thing that I ate while I lived there. The beaches along that part of the Red Sea were different than they are here. Sure, there's sand, but that's abundant through much of Saudi anyway. What made it different was that the Red Sea had extensive coral reefs along the shoreline that slowly build on themselves as the old coral ages and dies, so you sometimes had to walk through a shallow water area of old coral, sea urchins, mollusks, crabs (and sometimes even a lost pufferfish) for about 50 to 100 feet (or sometimes more) before you get to the drop-off where the waves were breaking. It was strongly advised to wear shoes in the water because there were all sorts of sharp or poisonous things to step on. Another oddity of these beaches was that there were often parts of the beach that were mostly enclosed on the land side with cinderblock walls, as if someone were claiming it as beachfront property, but without any houses on them. Just walls around the beach in the middle of nowhere. Odd, but typical.

In one of these "courtyards" at the beach that night, they spread two long rows of table cloths with oriental carpets along each edge to sit on; on the table cloths were spread dish upon dish of the most mouth watering middle eastern food that I had ever seen in my life. We took off our shoes and sat on the carpets to eat while some of the Saudi nationals who were along with us were playing traditional music. What a great experience. However, the most memorable part of the evening was when we first arrived at the beach. All the kids (myself included...hey, I was only 14) ran down to the waterline as kids always do when they get around water, and we stood there listening to the waves breaking against the coral somewhere out in the inky darkness at the edge of the reef. Eventually, most of the kids ran back to the group, but I stood there, intoxicated by the smell of the sea air and enoying the feeling of the night breeze on my face.

And then I looked up and saw something that I had never seen before: a sky full of stars completely untouched by any trace of man-made light. It was unlike any sky I had seen before or would see again, painted by seemingly thousands of stars, like a barrel full of diamond dust had been poured from horizon to horizon across a sky of black velvet. There was not one place where you could point your finger and find blank sky. I was awestruck. Unfortunately, I only saw this for a few minutes. They fired up the generators and much of the sky was lost as the light haze in the humid air bleached out the dark sky.

Those few minutes have stayed with me throughout my life, though. Every time I look at a starry night sky now, I think of that night and what the sky looked like, glad that for one time in my life I could see all that lies hidden from our eyes in much of the western world.

On the Threshold of a Brand New Life

Originally posted 8/2/06

Okay, so, in the story of my young life, I had reached one of the major turning points: I was leaving the only town that I had ever lived in and was moving to, of all exotic places, Saudi Arabia. Expatriate life. What an adventure!

Now, the company figured that the hardship benefits for taking a job like this had to be very generous because, when you live in a place like that, you make considerable lifestyle sacrifices. Everything becomes more difficult, from food and clothes shopping to getting medical care, but things can be particularly hard if you're a woman or a girl... being unable to work or drive, unable to go out without being covered up, being isolated on a compound in the desert with limited things to do. These things can really wear on you. So, other than covering all your living expenses and giving you a generous food allowance, how do they sweeten the pot even more? Travel. Lots and lots of travel. One home leave a year back to the States and three vacations a year any place else in the world but the US... with the company paying airfare and providing a very nice spending allowance.

In my 13 year old mind, we had hit the JACKPOT. My first time out of the country! I had a shiny new passport in my hand, ready to see the great cities of the world. Dreams filled my head of seeing London, Paris, Rome, all the great places in Europe... and beyond! And we were taking that first vacation on the way to moving to Saudi. Oh, the possibilities! Where would we go?! The suspense was killing me... where would my parents choose for that first trip?!

When we were finally in Saudi and I was meeting the other expat kids from the company, we were comparing notes about our European stopovers. The other kids had all been to places like London and Paris and other celebrated places in the world. Where had we gone? What was the first country outside of the US that I stepped foot in?

Iceland.

Shit. Even among the misfits we were misfits.

Culture Shock in Saudi Arabia

Originally posted 8/3/06

So, imagine that you've been plucked from your comfortable, temperate home of lush greenery, tall trees, winding rivers, lakes and been spun around until you were dizzy then plonked down in a 125 degree Fahrenheit desert. If you were like me, you'd stand there, slackjawed, dazed, trying to absorb what just happened.

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. There we were. The new Jeddah airport was still being built (that's why we were there in the first place), so we arrived at the old Jeddah airport close to, or even in, town... I can't even remember anymore. But if ever there was a time to mutter the oft overused quote, "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," this was it.

Anyone who has ever gone through Saudi customs can relate to what an alarming experience it can be for a first-timer. After claiming your luggage, you brought it to the customs area, which, at the old airport, was a cavernous white room with long, low counters and bright overhead lighting where they would rifle through all your bags to determine if you were trying to bring in anything forbidden. Pornography. Pictures of women with any skin other than hands, faces, or feet showing at all (to them, the same thing as pornography). Pork. Alcohol. Even, in one story we heard, mentions of pork and alcohol. The customs agents had black markers and used them with impunity to black out anything that they deemed offensive. That is, if they didn't take it away from you instead. After a while, you learned what things to avoid bringing into the kingdom so that you could get through customs with the least hassle. To add further enjoyment to the customs experience was the clear, plexiglas barrier where the people who were meeting you stood. On those counters, before the throng of onlookers, all your dainties and not so dainties were spread out for everyone to see.

But this is something that you eventually get used to and, over the years, you tend to rack up customs stories. Like the friend who was bringing in her precious contact lens solution (a hard to find item there at the time) and frantically trying to stop the customs agent from squirting the entire bottle all over the counter while he was feverishly trying to light it because he was convinced that it was alcohol. Or the time when I was coming back from a european ski vacation and the agent reached into my ski boot bag where I had also packed my furry boots (all the rage in the french alps at the time). With his hand still in the bag and looking into my eyes, he started slowly fondling the goat hair with a lecherous smile on his face and a look that I can still see today. I doubt that I even tried to hide my disgust and there's no way that I can emphasize the word "eeeew" in print to accurately describe what I was thinking at that moment. It's a good thing that I wasn't as outspoken then as I am now or I might have made some crack about his last date and then I would have really been in trouble.

But back to that very first time. It was an eye opener to have my things treated so roughly by a stranger and it was a taste of how different life was going to be now. Finally cleared through customs, we made our way past the armed guards at the barrier into the teeming mass of people from seemingly every possible corner of the globe; once we finally found the company driver who was there to pick us up, we walked out the airport door into the hustle and bustle of the hot, steamy Jeddah night.

"Welcome to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, folks. Enjoy your stay..."

Father's Day

I couldn't let this day go by without posting at least a little something about my father. This is one of those weekends where Father's Day and his birthday fall on the same day, followed the day after by the anniversary of the day that he passed away. He would have been 73 today, but unfortunately he died the day after his 59th birthday. These kinds of weekends used to be very raw in the beginning, but it's been 14 years now and it has mellowed to merely a remembrance.

My father wasn't perfect and it wouldn't be right to turn him into a saint. He had really grumpy moments. It was my father who once, when he didn't want to speak to his mother when she called, added the phrase "tell her to go sh*t in her hat" to the family lexicon. (In his defense, she wasn't very nice.) He rigidly held to the attitude that his opinion was always the right one. He was not very patient at times.

There were many good things about him, too. Even in the grumpiest mood, he was never, ever negative. He could be lots of fun and he definitely knew how to laugh at himself when it was required. For example, he and I went food shopping during a trip to France and he bought a huge can of what he took to be mixed fruit ("Apples and apricots, what an interesting combination," he had said at the supermarket), but when we got back to the chalet, my brother took one look at it and said, "Dad, do you know what you bought? 'Confiture' is jam." Now realizing what a silly mistake he had made and faced with the most enormous can of jam that any of us had ever seen, he laughed, got out four bowls, dished out several spoonfuls of jam in each bowl, poured mineral water over his and sat down to eat. "Come on, kids, it's great with mineral water!" Of course he didn't expect us to eat it, but we gamely took a bite each when we weren't laughing. Making light of these kinds of mistakes was really his way of dealing with them.

He devoted himself to his family despite not having much patience for the nuts and bolts of child rearing. Instilling honesty, a good work ethic, cultural appreciation and excellent manners were of utmost importance to him. Academic achievement was really important to him. Over the years, he made a lot of sacrifices for his family and always worked really hard. When we were younger, he would often be gone for work before we got up and come home from work after we had gone to bed so that he could support his family. Weekends were always about family and because of his love of the outdoors, much of our childhoods were spent in the Adirondack Mountains, hiking, kayaking, x-c skiing, or camping, all on a shoestring budget. When we were a little older, he finally switched to a corporation which eventually gave him the opportunity to work overseas, which, with the excellent pay and hardship benefits, would earn enough money to pay for college and offer the opportunity to show us some of the world. He strongly believed in trying new things and he encouraged me to take flying lessons, learn to scuba dive, and study abroad during college.

I have many really good memories of my father, but I'm going to share one of my favorites. Right after I graduated from high school, I met my parents in Vienna, Austria, before we headed to the middle east for the rest of the summer. Early one evening, we went to the Stadtpark (City Park) for some cake and wine. There's an ornate, old building there where a small orchestra plays on the terrace where they've put a dance floor and my parents got up to dance a waltz. My father was a really wonderful dancer and I sat and watched them disappear and reappear amongst the other couples. At other times, I watched the peacocks wandering amongst the beautiful flower gardens and across the lawn. It was lovely.

As the sun was setting, we finally got ready to go and were only a little way down one of the gravel paths.

"Why didn't you dance?" he asked me.

"I don't know how to waltz," I confessed.

"You don't? Here, let me show you." He showed me where to put my arms and hands and there on the path in the twilight, to the orchestral music that was floating across the gardens, he taught me how to waltz. Of all the memories of my time with my father, those several minutes, dancing on the path in the twilight with my father is the one that makes me smile the most.

Happy Father's Day and Birthday, Dad, and Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there.