Celebrating King Abdullah's return

Today, in honor of King Abdullah’s return after three months of absence for medical reasons, we were given the day off. Actually, not just us, but all governmental employees and all schools were closed. And we soooo enjoyed this unexpected day off.

King Abdullah flew back in Wednesday afternoon.  This morning, we went for a drive, to see the decorations and flags all over town, armed with my trusted camera. Already last Monday and Tuesday crews were decorating bridges and fences along the main highways around town. Official portraits of King Abdullah are all over town, on fences, over bridges and on buildings. The pictures really don’t do justice to what we saw… for some reason the luminosity was so bright that the photos are too light to my liking.

Businesses are showing their patriotism by displaying the king’s likeness as well as a message greeting his return. Some were of small size while others took the whole side of a multistory building. The building right above looks like the Arc the Triomphe in Paris is the Sabic building, a huge building you can see from far away. Its complete bay of windows were covered with pictures of the King, making him over 30 meters high!

All the messages were written in Arabic, whishing a happy welcome back to King Abdullah, I would guess. Not easy to know for sure when you can’t read Arabic.

Even McDonalds was all decorated and saluting the King

Flags were flying and with the wind today very beautifully, If I may add.

It does really give another meaning to the expression “Paint the town green”

Fundraiser

Earlier this week, Alex who is in Grade 3, came home from school and announced loud and clear that his grade was organizing a fundraiser for the Association of the Blind, as a way to give back to the community and that he was going to bring either homemade pizza or crepes. He pondered the pros and cons of bringing crepes vs. pizza and decided to go with crepes. Since the fundraiser was for all students on the K-3 campus, he needed to bring a lot and set his number to 100.


Of course, you can imagine who ended up making the actual one hundred crepes. So, after school yesterday Alex helped make the batter and started a few crepes. Interest quickly disappeared and within 15 minutes he was back outside playing with all the children in the compound…and I was left in the kitchen with the two crepe pans for a good while.

Alex was quite excited about bringing his crepes to school and sell them to the other students. However proud he was, he did not realize that most of the other students would probably be bringing bakery-made products and krispy kreme doughnuts. He packed some sugar and made some cinnamon sugar to accompany the crepes and was ready to sell!

At lunch time I brought a bunch of older students from the main campus to let them purchase goodies. You should have seen the spread: beautiful micro and macro cupcakes, gourmet cookies, popsicles, and of course the crepes. I’m always amazed at the amount of food that is brought to school on such occasions. The children and their nannies deliver the goods in the morning before the start of school so as not to interrupt the classes throughout the day. By the time the fundraiser time comes, the anticipation has built up all morning and the children are both eager to sell their goodies and eat them.

You should have seen Alex, with his stack of crepes, proudly displayed and selling for only 4 SR/1$ delicious homemade crepes sprinkled with sugar or cinnamon sugar. He was successful and sold over half of his stack. Around him were all the other students selling their contributions to the fundraiser. Their customers were holding their Saudi money, pointing at what they wanted and happily trading their cash for their preferred sugary sweet. The fundraiser was very successful and at first count, appeared to have generated over 3500 SR or around $1000, all for a good cause!

It’s fascinating to see the amount of food that gets eaten during such a fundraiser, as if these children were not exposed to sweets…but I guess kids will be kids, no matter where they live! Candies, cookies, cakes and sugary treats will always be their favorites…

Unless the fundraiser is based around the sale of shwarmas or burgers and it’s a whole different story! Maybe another time….

Overnight in the Desert

Yes!!! After 18 months in Saudi, we caved in and bought camping gear after hitting several camping stores (Olayan on Kurais road and Saco World at exit 5). We left with lighter wallets and a heavier truck, full of a tent, 4 cots, 4 sleeping bags, a Saudi desert carpet, 4 foldable chairs and even a collapsible toilet seat! This sudden purchase of camping gear was prompted by two things: a desire to overnight in the desert AND the fact that starting in August, we will be in Malawi and will be able to camp and do safari in the African Savannah.


It’s amazing all the stuff we could have bought. We did not buy everything we needed and will need to check out another camping store later this week.We are missing small rechargeable lights, a table, a small gas stove, better stakes for the tent, but we had plenty enough to have a good first experience and were fortunate to camp with six other families who were experienced campers and had all the equipment that they willingly shared.

We all met in the parking lot of a supermarket and, after discussing the route, we caravanned into the desert. It was quite a scenic drive, taking us down the plateau, by small escarpments and into never before seen corners of the Kingdom. Although we walk in the desert on a regular basis, it’s usually within one hour drive from Riyadh. This weekend, our destination was over 200 kms from town and really took us off the beaten paths and away from the crowds. The further away from Riyadh the less cars we crossed on the roads until we left the roads and went into the desert.

Our first stop was by an escarpment featuring a beautiful natural arch. This was the perfect spot to enjoy our picnic lunch and follow with a climb up all the way to the arch. In his haste to climb, Alex even forgot to change shoes and ended up climbing in his flip-flops!!! Not the smartest move of the day, but he pulled through and by the time I noticed the missing shoes, he was already on his way down. The view from up there was breathtaking of the surroundings up to 20 kms…

After that, we went to our camp site. All cars were 4x4, except for ours, which hadn’t posed a problem on rocky trails… Once we hit some sandy trails, it became obvious that a 4x4 vehicle would have been better suited. We used the Saudi trick and deflated our tires which enabled us to push on. Of course, one of the guys had an air pump, which we used on the way back to reinflate the tires before hitting the black top again.

In the desert, we encountered several herds of camels and their shepards in their trusty Toyota trucks. They all waved and wished us welcome to their desert. Later, after dark, we even had one who dropped by our campsite and extended an invitation to lunch, which we politely declined. This kind of hospitality is straight from the heart and is part of the Code of the Desert. Nowadays, it’s just an invitation, but years ago, desert Bedouins would take in traveling/stranded/lost desert roamers, feed them for a couple of days before wishing them a safe continuation. That was the only way to survive in this harsh desert!

We found the perfect place to camp, a sandy area, with small bushes all around between two escarpments that only called to be climbed. We set up the tents, beds and all camping gear before night fall. Each family had brought stuff to cook dinner, ranging from hot dog, burger, steak and chicken, as well as butternut squash and spicy lentil soups, spaghetti and even a pressure cooker lamb stew! I’m telling you, we were camping in style!

The best part for us parents was that we had 13 kids between the seven cars who all played super well together. They even helped dig a fire pit, find rocks to frame it and wood to feed the fire. They spent the evening running around the camp site, playing hide and seek, roasting marshmallows and just having plain old fun around the campfire!

The starlit sky was amazingly clear and beautiful and the setting of the camp was very peaceful. Not a sound, expect the ones we produced, could be heard. Move 500 meters from the site and you could truly enjoy the silence. The moon cast enough light to create shadows, outlining the desertscape with stunning shadows.

The sleeping quarters were very well appointed, with each of us on our own cot, in a sleeping bag and wrapped in big blankets for warmth, as desert nights at this time of year still can be chilly. We were awaken around 3:00 am by sudden gusts of winds that kept on until dawn, at which time we all were awake and ready to eat breakfast, ranging from croissant au chocolat, crepes, breakfast burritos and crepes.

Before leaving, a group of guys went up one of the tallest “peaks” of the area while a group of children went up another tall hill. They all did great and came back mostly unscathed. We folded the campsite and vacated it, leaving behind only footprints. Within 30 minutes of us hitting the blacktop road back to Riyadh, we were caught in a sandstorm which would have made it really difficult to get out of the desert. Good thing we did decide to head back when we did.

When can we go camping again? This was so much fun!

Grab it while you can

Finding necessary staples is not a problem as Riyadh has many stores, including the French Carrefour, the Saudi Panda, the US Safeway, known here as Tamimi and the other French giant Euromarche.  However, one thing we’ve learned to do is that when we find/discover a favorite product, we grab a few as there is never a sure chance that it will be available the next time you go to the store.  

Best example for this is the laundry detergent: I’ve been using the Carrefour brand Savon de Marseilles liquid detergent soap because it’s natural and does not irritate sensitive skin.  Sometimes the store has two bottles, and then they are out for weeks on end until my stock at home runs low…  So when I spot them on the shelves, I grab a few in order to have some available in the laundry room!  I'd love to know what the cashier thinks as he's scanning the four or more bottles on his checkout belt!

Now, what is your favorite product and how much do you currently have on your shelves?

Red Sands Dunes

Yesterday we finally saw the Arabia desert like we thought it was before moving here. Funnily enough, most of the desert around Riyadh is rocky, made of lots of little pebbles and rocks of all sizes. We’ve found plenty of seashells fossils as well! One of the reasons I believe is that Riyadh sits on a plateau and was at the bottom of the oceans thousands of years ago.

So, yesterday, we went on our desert walk to a spot about 70 kilometers from Riyadh, well known from the local as well as the expat communities.

With the weather being nice, loads of families had decided to spend the day in the desert, bringing along the 4-wheelers, the kites, dune surf gear and 4-wheel drive vehicles.

The place was so peaceful and truly was magnificent. I bet you’d rather see the pictures instead of reading about it…so enjoy!