Saturday August 15

No major problem with jet lag unlike others who are wide awake by 3am. Had a good day for getting the place back in order. Walked over to the store to drop off laundry and to get some vegetables. The round trip takes about 50 minutes. I was ready for a quick dip in the pool before going abaya shopping. I was told by many ladies wearing beautiful abayas at Effat college to shop at Al Sharq souq on Macaroni road or at least that is what it sounds like to my ears. Sanwar knows the place and he dropped me off and I had an hour before prayer time.

There were many abaya stores and I browsed through two of them. The first place had prices from 250 – 450 riyals and I was hoping to spend about 200 SAR. I really wanted to get one with crochet but these were the higher end ones being handmade in Turkey. After much debate on style and size I ended up with a size 56, having kimono style slevees, and new embroidery on the slevees and head scarf. The starting price was 250 SAR and I paid 230 SAR about $61. I am happy with it but still need a cheap one for over the head to wear out on my walks.

The rest of the day was cleaning, washing, swimming, ironing, and attending the BBQ for the new teachers. Everyone who is back attended the event and it was nice to be all together again and to hear about vacations. People went to the Philipines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Germany, Greece, Caymans, Canada, USA, South Africa. Ended the day with watching a special on Bernie Madoff – he gets 150 years for ruining people’s lives. He played the con game and people played along.
As you can see not much focus on school yet. That starts on Aug 17. I heard there have been many changes made over the summer. I will wait until then. Tomorrow is setting up the last few apartments for the new people.

I will insert a photo of the abaya when I take one.

Friday August 14

Arabic Word of the Day: saakinah (female) – living

Ana saakinah fee Jeddah.  I am living in Jeddah.

The living room.

     Arrived yesterday to Jeddah on time after a nerve wracking start in Mystic, CT.  The bus I wanted to catch at 4:30pm was and wasn’t at the “bus stop”.  The bus was in the huge parking lot but did not swing by the designated stop as told to me by the PeterPan bus person.  That meant instead of relaxing on the 4:30pm bus arriving at Logan Intl airport in Boston at 7:05pm in plenty of time for my 10pm flight to Germany, I scrambled with my mom to get to the Providence train station by 7:19pm for a train to Boston.  I did make it with an hour to spare but too close to comfort for me.  Thanks to my sister playing info assist at home with her laptop giving us updates, train schedules, and directions and to my mom for making the drive to Providence and back.

     Sanwar was at the airport with his brother-in-law and we made the necessary stops to get fruits and vegetables, juice, water, and rice & chicken before stopping at the apartment.  Besides a few ants scurrying about, the place was as I left it with no major surprises.  Nice to see Sanwar’s smile again.

     Today was a day for cleaning, unpacking, visiting, swimming, and washing clothes.  I met three of the new teachers: Harry from CA, John from Kansas City, and Jim from Pittsburgh.  Two of them have taught in Saudi before and were even roommates during their stay.  They also know other teachers here so that will make the transition easier. 

     Despite being yelled at by another teacher ("you had no right…"," what were you thinking…"," I told you not to…" as you can see she won me over with her kind words) I am glad to be back in Jeddah and ready for another school year. 

     Tomorrow abaya shopping because I left one of mine on the dining room table at my mom’s house by mistake.  A few glances came my way at the airport with me wearing a skirt.   Good thing I was at the foreign airlines terminal where it is a little more forgiving than at the Saudia Airlines terminal.