To Everything There Is a Season

To Everything There Is a Season

I love fall, at least I loved it in the States.  This is my 4th fall here and I become melancholic each year.  One year I  begged for my sisters to send me pictures of leaves and mountains.  I received pictures and more.  Bless my sister Katie, she even sent me a box of leaves gathered from her yard and mailed across the ocean.  I cried when I opened the box and inhaled the scent of leaves and dirt.  I kept them and used them again the following year.  I still have them, but they are not displayable, except perhaps for potpourri.  It seems that here I have become more aware of the seasons and what I like and dislike about them because they are generally very different in this desert.

I so miss the changing of the seasons from hot summer into cool fall.  Each autumn as the breezes picked up a slight chill  a wave of nostalgia would  hit  me signaling a change in my life.  It meant the starting of a new school year and new adventures to come either as I went to school or later as I sent the kids to school.  It meant the last trip to Bear Lake for the season, and the oncoming canning season at Mom’s and Dad’s and the harvest of the garden.  (I never succeeded in canning on my own.)

However, our last trip to Bear Lake now usually means it is almost time for us to leave the States and head back to Saudi, where it is still hot and humid.  While  you in the States are donning your jackets for cooler weather, we are finally grateful for cooler weather here so we can leave our houses and enjoy the outside, un-air conditioned air. 

Fall still means heading back to school, Joseph in 5th grade at the elementary, Josh in 11th  at the high school off camp, and this year my baby Jordan entered kindergarten.  Last year, I remember visiting Jordan’s preschool where the teacher was reading them a story about visiting “the farm” in the fall.  The story could have been about my parents’ home.  The lump in my throat grew as they talked of picking apples from the trees, choosing pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns and harvesting other crops in the garden.  I had to squelch it down rather than try to explain why I was crying about a picture book of Mr. Jones’ farm.   I longed to see the leaves, choose a pumpkin for carving, and taste the fresh apple juice from home grown apples. 

As I left her class, I was feeling rather sorry for myself.  Or at least I tried for a few moments to justify my oncoming depression.  But the Lord is kind and opened my eyes and heart.  I felt the sun shining on me, a gentle breeze blowing and beautiful scenes before me I hadn’t appreciated before.  Yes, the seasons are very different here.  And yes, I miss the sights and smells of autumn.  But as I try to appreciate where I am and what I have here, I am blessed with a sense of gratitude.  Both places are  good and I feel appreciative to have experienced them both.  That said, if anyone sees any silk  autumn leaves, gather some up for me, will you?  Here are a few pictures of how we are experiencing the fall season this year.

Though not the traditional fall colors, I found other beautiful colors on our camp.  These bougainvillaea plants come in pinks, white, red, an orange here.  They are planted on several streets and in most yards.  

My brothers would probably say this would never come close to qualifying as a "mountain", and it isn't ablaze with fall color.  But it is the best we've got.   It is called a "jebel" which is an Arabic word meaning "mountain, hill, or slope." It probably qualifies as a slope.  

 Here is my fall "harvest".  This is a large open fruit and vegetable market where I go to buy produce from around the world.  Some days I get some good deals, some days I just wish I could go to a US supermarket as it depends on the time of year, the time of day as to what will be there.

Here I am at the market looking for pumpkins for carving.  They are not very orange, but after much searching, I found some that are suitable for carving.  One of the grocery stores does have some large orange ones shipped in from the US.  But when I compare 3 SR ($.80)/kilo to 30 ($8/kilo) I can handle the color.  And out in the open air it is a little more like going to the farm! The men helping me couldn't quite figure out why I kept trying to stand them all up to see if they balanced by themselves.  I thought better of trying to explain to them what I wanted them for. 

This is taken from inside the grade school. 
Someone drew this jack-o-lantern in the humidity on the glass door.

Lunar Eclipse

Last night was a lunar eclipse. And, apparently not just any lunar eclipse, but a relatively rare "central eclipse" where the moon passes through the center of the Earth's shadow. The last total, central lunar eclipse was July 16, 2000 and the next will be July 27, 2018.

The lunar eclipse started at 9:23 p.m. This photo was taken around 9:40.

The total lunar eclipse started at 10:22 p.m. This photo was taken around 10:15 before it became too dark for the camera to actually capture anything.

The previous lunar eclipses I have seen have left the moon a deep red. In this case, I actually lost site of the moon completely. It was amazing.

The Same--And Different

It would be too overwhelming for me to try and catch up all that has happened in the last 2+ years. So we will start where we are at and go forward from there. If time allows we will later include some flashbacks and highlights.  Here are a few things that have happened thus far in May. 

One thing that never changes is that the kids are always busy and growing.  

Josh

Josh has played in a school jazz band since we moved here.  He pretty much self-taught himself to play the bass, thanks to some basics from cello.  His claim to fame now is that he can play 7 instruments:  bass, cello, guitar, (every day after school with the amplifier), tuba, piano (most recently learning Moonlight Sonata), recorder, and mouth harp.  

Josh on the bass.

Joseph

Joseph wore purple socks (something great from the Sock Outlet in Logan) to one of his baseball games.  One of his coaches bet him he wouldn't wear pink ones to the next game.  So he raided my drawer and found pink and white striped ones.  The greatest earning from the bet was the satisfaction that "real men wear pink."

Joseph in his baseball uniform.

Joseph's pink socks - not standard issue.

Each year the grade school has an art show.  The kids' art work is displayed throughout the halls of the school so people can come and look at it.  Here is Joseph's "Picasso self-portrait".  Can you tell which one is the real one?

Joseph or Picasso?

Jordan

As you can see, Jordan now sports some cute glasses.  She is farsighted, which she inherited from her mother, who also started wearing glasses at age 4.  She is headed to preschool, which she loves.  As also shown, her favorite color is pink.

Take a curtsy.

Another day at preschool--this day they were celebrating letter "Z" by catching some "zzzzzz's" and wearing their pajamas.

Pajama Day at Preschool.

All over camp are posted these coolers of water with paper cups.  It's great to have it whenever we are out and about.  Jordan and I had gone this day to feed the ducks and fish, ride her bike and play at the park.  It was hot already at 9:00 am and she ended up running in the sprinkler. Then these "things" started moving towards us.  I had never seen these ducks and they freaked me out a little.  At first I thought they were some kind of wild turkey.  Then I realized they were wanting the bread we had been feeding to the fish.  We gladly fed it to them so they didn't attack us.

Besides the ducks being different, here are a couple of other things we have adjusted to.

We fight cockroaches off and on. This was one of the on days.  I found him in the morning, on its back waiting to be saved.  Sorry, off to the toilet with him--that is after I compared his size to a  double AA battery.  Sometimes I just have to close my eyes and flush!

Nasty cockroaches!

Here in Saudi, when they don't want you to see something offensive in print, they simply black it out. We see it in magazines and on product boxes. Any pictures of women with any skin showing, particularly in bathing suits, gets the magic marker treatment.  The arms, legs, and chests are colored in with black marker. (Wouldn't that be a fun job for someone?!) Of course, pork is outlawed here. (The Arabic term for it is "haram".) As a result, we don't get pork bacon. We get if from some other animal than pig, in this case turkey. The funny thing is that what they are censoring in the photo below isn't the pork itself, but any reference to pork! As you can see, they have tried to black out the word "pork" in the sentence, "Less fat than USDA data for pork bacon."   

Turkey bacon

Don't even think about p***.

We're Back. . .Online!  

It's been some time (understatement, yes) since we have kept up on our blog.  It seems that life never slows down no matter where in the world you live.  But we are going to try again to keep this site updated so we can share our experiences and keep in touch with friends and family around the world.


We are into our 3rd year living in Saudi.  Much has happened, and yet much is the same no matter where you live.  There is always work to go to, laundry to wash, meals to cook, and, much to the children's dismay, music to practice. But life here is also very different.  We hope to update you on some of the things that are different or have changed--those that keep our life interesting--and those that have remained the same and help us to maintain a degree of sanity in the desert heat.