I'll be back!

People often have an erroneous idea of what the expat life is like. It goes from the idea of a miserable, boring life, to one of a lazy, luxury, pampered life.

So where does the truth lie? 

Probably somewhere in between...

Sometimes it isn't any different than the life you had in your home country: sleep, work, eat, see some friends, just the regular routine.

Sometimes you feel lonely and you wish you were home, your expat country doesn't look so welcoming any more.

And sometimes you experience the true joy of being an expat, and it reminds you why you enjoy so much being away from home.  

Yesterday was one of those days...

I got up in the morning, took a taxi to go to my Arabic school. On the way I chatted with the orange-bearded Bangladeshi taxi driver (I should tell him that henna does not look good on white hair, especially if it's your beard you're dyeing!).

When I arrived at the school, one of the Saudi administrators invited me for an Arabic coffee with a piece of delicious cake, and then I wrote my final exam (which I aced by the way!). 

Back home, I had the most interesting chat with my South African neighbour, in particular about the Apartheid period in South Africa, and how the society has changed and is still changing regarding interracial relations. 

A couple of hours later I was at my Belgian neighbour's, helping her with a translation from Flemish to French.

That's the real magic of being an expat: you might be living in a quite ugly and boring Saudi town, many times it feels like you're travelling to many countries in the same day.

Speaking of travelling, I'm off to France tomorrow! I'll be spending Christmas and New Year's there with my family and I can't wait!

This lonely Christmas tree is waiting for more presents!
(Let's hope KLM doesn't lose my suitcases again!)

Happy holidays!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

Obviously - and thankfully - I'm not referring to the weather but to the Christmas carol that I had the pleasure to hear in a shop in neighbouring Bahrain. 

Here in Saudi, there's absolutely no hint of Christmas anywhere: no Christmas songs (actually no music at all!) in the shops, no trees, no lights, no chocolate, nothing at all, except for some expat neighbours who have decorated their houses with smuggled tinsels and fairy lights.

In Bahrain Christmas is just another seasonal event, and although it's a discreet one, it was enough to lift our Christmas spirit!

I feel it in my fingers...

I feel it in my toes...

Christmas is all around me...

And so the feeling grows!

Fancy a good laugh at my expense? Keep reading! 

Now picture me on Friday night, coming back from abaya-free Bahrain, stopping at a mall in Al-Khobar (to exchange a clothing item, as usual, since we cannot try clothes on before buying them!), busy writing to a friend on her birthday, when I suddenly cried out: "no mames, mi abaya!" (which could be translated as: "no kidding, my abaya!"). I had indeed forgotten to put on my abaya before stepping out of the car! The minute I realized it I just felt sooo naked! Thanks God we had not entered the mall yet, but we were a good 100 meters away from the car. The worst part is, I was wearing a skirt, heels and a leather jacket... Although in Europe no one would actually have turned and looked at me, in KSA I was feeling like a woman of ill-repute! Thanks God I made it safely back to the car without any mutawa scolding me!

A foretaste of the Christmas holidays

School's been canceled today.

Not because His Highness decided to grant us yet another bank holiday, not because one of the many industrial plants in the area exploded or leaked (which would actually be more likely to happen), not because it's snowing (!), but simply because of a (sand)storm alert. 

So we're in for some cocooning!

Love to watch the rain from a safe, dry place

Some cat trying to get inside
(oh please don't pity him, it's not so cold outside, and the porch is dry, and I gave him some milk he didn't even deign to touch... ungrateful cat!)

Drowning plants in our backyard

Our nochebuena reminding us Christmas is coming very soon

For the moment it's only raining. And I wonder if a sandstorm is actually compatible with rain: would it be raining mud then??

The sky might be dark, Lila Downs's luminous voice is lightening up my day (thank you Ramiro!):

A little generation clash

This post has nothing to do with living in Arabia but it might give some of you a laugh, so what the hell! I'm the one you'll be laughing at anyway!

Some context first: I'm teaching some 14-17 year old at the international school, mostly girls, who wear make up and nice clothes and whose hair look better than mine, and who are quite mature, too. I, for my part, am in my late 20's now, but still feel as if I were just out of college. So sometimes, I don't feel there's so much  of an age difference with the students although, as much as it might hurt to admit, it's almost a one-generation difference. 

So I was doing this game during the Spanish class (a fun, interesting and obviously pedagogical game featured in the movie Inglorious Bastards), where we had to pick famous Spanish-speaking people for the rest of the class to discover. 

As I thought Shakira would be too obvious (which it actually was: it was picked by two students in the same game), I thought about this guy:

Much to my distress, I soon noticed that half of the class had never heard his name before, and the other half could hardly remember what he sang! I suddenly felt soooo old!

The worst (or best?) part is, when I was thinking about how to help the students recall what Ricky Martin used to sing, I obviously thought about the 98 World Cup. Somehow - and thanks God! - I didn't mention anything to the students. Only later did I realize that my 15 year-old students were only 2 years old back then! No wonder they can't remember that!

Have a good Sunday everybody; I for myself will keep thinking about who my next famous person will be (I'm between Julio Iglesias and Selena Gómez...)

Science ≠ boring

When we're not working, eating or socializing, we try to attend local events or visit local points of interest. 

Speaking of local events, which are fairly scarce, Al-Khobar is hosting a Red Bull motorsports race next Wednesday, which unfortunately - although it was something to expect - will not be open to women. 

Anyway, after we'd eaten a reasonably good brunch at the Intercontinental and socialized a bit with our Saudi friend, we decided to go to the Sci-Tech museum (whose IMAX we'd already visited in January) and visited the Sci-Tech part this time. This is a great museum with many many practical activities to try so you can learn while having fun.

We used robots to stack up some foam blocks

We tried to manoeuvre a plane moved by a blower

We helped a solar powered car model gain speed

We built a suspension bridge model

It looks like we passed this one!

We discovered the power of pulleys to pull our own weight up

We built an anti-seismic building model
(which collapsed once the shaking belt reproduced an earthquake!)

We went on a NASA mission (which we also failed!)

We also tried to solve complicated puzzles (with the help of the security guard!)

Richard learnt a lot of new stuff; I only realized how vast my ignorance actually is...

A great read!

Sometimes - rarely! -  reading can be just as good as travelling. As we were forced to stay home during the Eid holiday, my only salvation was reading!

Girls of Riyadh - Rajaa Alsanea

This book was such a good pick I wanted to share it with you. Described as the Arabian "Sex and the City", it's just a must-read if you want - and who doesn't? - to get to know the young Saudi girls, their dreams, their conception of love, of friendship, of happiness. As they fall in love, get engaged, get married, get divorced, fight against their families, their friends, and try to find their place in a conservative society, you'll find yourself thinking they're not unlike your own friends.


What about love in Saudi Arabia? The last paragraph of the book sums it up very nicely:

"As for love, it still might always struggle to come out into the light of day in Saudi Arabia. You can sense that in the sighs of bored men sitting alone at cafés, in the shining eyes of veiled women walking down the streets, in the phone lines that spring to life after midnight, and in the heartbroken songs and poems, too numerous to count, written by the victims of love unsanctioned by family, by tradition, by the city: Riyadh."

Discrimination or privilege?

What's wrong with this picture?

I went to the bank yesterday. As I am an independant woman (!), I went on my own. Only, as I'd been told my husband's absence could be a problem and I didn't want to lose my - precious! - time, I decided to try the bank's ladies' branch. I only knew, as the name says, that these branches are for women only to go to, but I'd never actually been to one before.

When I approached the tinted glass door, a nice female guard opened the door and greeted me before she locked the door behind me. I entered a nice, clean, spacious office, took my turn and sat down, waiting to be called. After about 2 minutes I was invited to sit down in front of a - female - executive. She was wearing a very elegant suit by the way. As did the rest of the female workers. She greeted me with a smile, took my cheque, handed me a pen to write my name and number on it, took it back, gave me the corresponding amount of money, said ma'a salaama, and off I went!

Boring story eh? Well the reason I shared this, is because this experience took the very last bit of feminism I used to have inside me. I mean, I used to think, why should there be places for ladies only? Are we any different that we can't go to the same bank men go to? But yesterday I understood...! Because, as you probably don't know, some places in Saudi Arabia, especially downtown Jubail, are not quite civilized! So my experience in a regular bank branch used to be: come in, take your turn, stand around for half an hour in the middle of a crowd of stinky workmen, go to the window, don't receive any greeting, barely get looked at or spoken to by the bank assistant, and leave under the stare of the workmen. Not the nicest of experiences, and not one you'd like to repeat. 

What would you do? Have I lived in KSA for too long already? Is it time I got back to a country where women are treated without discrimination nor privileges?

Just so you get an idea of downtown Jubail:
people queuing in front of a remittance office on a Friday night.

Storks flight over Jubail

It's common knowledge that power cuts can turn out to boost birth rates, but only few people know that living in Saudi Arabia, for some reason - which I wouldn't be able to explain here, even though I heard there might be something in the water...-, has the exact same effect!

This phenomenon has two main consequences:

   - Families in Saudi Arabia are much larger than in Western countries: with an average of 4 children per woman (which has fallen to 2.3 in the last two years), families with 5-8 children are more the rule than the exception. I remember one day as a Saudi friend invited me to her brother's house, so both her children and her brother's were there: with a total of 10 children running around, it felt like being in a nursery!

    - Expats are not exempt from this fertility boost! Only they're much more discreet, regarding the numbers of children (usually 2 or 3, rarely more), and because the mothers usually emigrate to give birth, since most of them don't feel comfortable about giving birth here. So we see our friends leave with a huuuge belly (well only as huge as the airlines allow them to be!) and coming back a few months later with their new baby.

The only thing we can do to help them, is wish them good luck, and organize a great baby shower before they leave!

(Warning: pink ahead!)

Good luck Loles, I'll miss you, come back soon!

A new fancy place in town...

What's this new, fancy, most fashionable place in town? ("town" refers to Al-Khobar, one long hour drive away from the village of Al-Jubail) 

Yeah, it says "fresh foods" on the front so, in spite of the crazy lights, it's probably not a nightclub (besides, we're in Saudi Arabia!)

It's more likely to be... a supermarket! But not just any supermarket: I'm talking parquet floor, subdued lighting, friendly staff, fresh vegetables, organized shelves, and loads of yummy importation products! 

Look at all these exotic (Mexican!) chilis: (my kitchen already smells of salsa verde and rajas con queso)

Lettuce coming by air from the U.S... Eco-friendliness or diet, my conscience is guilty either way... (Oh, and not only does it hurt my conscience, its price hurts my wallet: 6 euros for a bag of American lettuce!)

On a less enthusiastic note, here's a link for those who'd like to read about the Shia protests in the region:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-police-open-fire-on-civilians-as-protests-gain-momentum-2365614.html

The best burger in town

Being French, my first reference of what a good burger should be, was - dreadfully - McDonalds... And then I moved to Mexico, discovered Carl's Jr., my standard for a good burger went up, and I swore never to eat at McDonalds again. But that was before I moved to Saudi Arabia, discovered Johnny Rockets, and swore never to eat at Carl's Jr. again!

I mean, look at these!

And they also serve ketchup smiley faces!

Table jukebox which unfortunately does not work (The restaurant looked so western, the waiter had to remind us music is forbidden in Saudi Arabia)

You were not thinking about drinking a Coke with your burger, were you?

A vanilla milkshake is the best way of enhancing your burger's flavour
(twice the calories, twice the pleasure!)

The emptied restaurant just about to close for the evening prayer

Happy Saudi national day!

Yesterday was Saudi Arabia's national day, commemorating the unification of the Kingdom in 1932. As it fell on a Friday (weekend for us), the King was very generous and gave us today (Saturday, normally the first day of the week) off! How cool is that? 

Obviously the roads were very busy yesterday, many people had adorned their cars with green Saudi flags, and the malls were absolutely crowded! It was nice though, as many kids and young men were wearing green shirts / thawbs / wigs / make up! (It would almost feel like St. Patrick's day!) And on top of that, there were National Day offers!

Can you figure out what all these green heart-shaped balloons are?

Let's have a closer look:

Balloons portraying King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia

Isyraf, Merwede, Jabran, Zainab and Co.

Teaching at an international school offers great challenges, some of them specific to the international audience you're facing. Here are a couple:

- Learning the students' names is never an easy task, but here it's particularly hard! (and getting the pronounciation right is another challenge) 

- As a French teacher, working on nationalities had never taken me that much time. When listing everyone's nationality in French, I thought the list would never end: most kids have at least two nationalities and they didn't want to leave out any single one!

- Pronounciation and language difficulties are different for every student, since their mother tongues are as diverse as Rumanian, Afrikaans, Urdu, Spanish, Arabic, Malay, Italian, Tagalog, English, etc.

- Having so many languages spoken in the classroom, it's very likely that some kid will find a similarity with his own language and want to highlight it in front of the class (guaranteed interruptions!)

- Assignments written by Arabic speakers who are still relatively new to the English language can be very hard to read! It kind of looks like it's been written with the left hand... (which is probably what my Arabic teacher must think of my Arabic handwriting!)

- You want to be very careful about what you say in the classroom since the kids, in spite of being only 12 years old, already have their own (or their community's) political opinions. 

  For instance, mentioning Denmark can put you into trouble (I thought the cartoons affair was an old story, but apparently it's not!).

  Or, when working on French-speaking countries with an atlas, you'll catch a Pakistani kid pointing at a map of the Indian subcontinent and arguing with a young Indian about why Pakistan has more legitimacy over Kashmir.

On the positive side, when asking them why they wanted to learn French, they were able to name plenty of good reasons, and these didn't include the typical "I like the way it sounds", or "my parents want me to". 

The fact that they're both immature young and already open onto the world actually makes it really fun for me, and I hope to have some more stories to share with you soon!

Imagine a world...

... where, getting up on a Sunday afternoon, you don't need to face the first tough choice of the day: decide whether you feel like having breakfast or lunch;

... where well-behaved boys are rewarded with balloon dogs;

... where Parmesan cheese does not come out of a box and can be savoured without pasta (but yes with wine!);

... where pasta is prepared to order with fresh ingredients;

... where the chef actually understands how much Nutella you mean when you order a crêpe with "a lot of Nutella";

... where oysters does not have to be eaten by the dozen;

 ... where everyone eats at his own pace, four hours long;

... where you can pick the sweet just because of their colours, and not be disappointed;

... where you can wear ridiculous balloon hats and not be pointed at!

Come and visit me, and experience the magic of a Friday brunch in Bahrain!

The post everyone is waiting for!

Oh yeah, I'm setting the expectations really high here, but I'm not afraid, not at all! 

And for good reasons: this famous middle eastern sweet is everyone's favourite, and I can see more than one reader lands up on this blog hoping to find the famous recipe. 

See where I'm going?

Luckily for you, I've got this ancestral Om Ali recipe from a Saudi friend. The basis of the Om Ali can be puff pastry, croissants, or even corn flakes. I personally prefer it with croissants, and the better the croissants, the better the Om Ali. 

If you live in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, you'll be lucky to find delicious croissants at the Suisse Patisserie (one thing to be really thankful for!), if you live in France, you should be able to get reasonably good croissants (probably not as good as these though...!) and if you live in Mexico or the US, you'll have to use the famous canned croissants (nothing as good as the real thing, but fun to bake!).

You'll need three or four of those

Crumble up the croissants and place in an oven-proof dish

Ingredients:

4 cups of milk
2 eggs
4 tablespoons of sugar
1 small carton of thick cream
Vanilla
A pinch of cardamom
Raisins (you can also add almonds, pistachios, etc.)

Mix the ingredients and pour the mix onto the crumbled croissants

Cover the dish with aluminium foil and bake in the oven for 45-60 minutes at 180°C

You can also top it with sweetened condensed milk and leave it for another 5 minutes. 

Enjoy!

It's best served warm, and you can also pour some extra warm milk on top to make it creamier.