Day 102 in the Kingdom, Wednesday, November 23rd, 2016

Today, I stayed "home" for my mental well-being.  As the Matchbox 20 song  “Unwell” states: “But I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell. I know right now you can't tell. But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see. A different side of me. I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired.“  

Hello tomorrow, I am assisting Ms. Neena, our school counselor, with the Human Sexuality Girls’ talk for the 6th grade girls.  So, as we were talking about the content of the presentation, I asked about where the pads and tampons are located in the school for girls to access if needed.  Well, guess what? We don’t talk about tampons.  We don’t bring that up because of the Muslim religion.  Now, I had heard about this before, but wasn’t actually convinced that this was the mindset, the practice, the belief.  Well, there you go.  It is.  So I have been instructed to only talk about pads and if a girl asks me about tampons, I should not tell them anything in front of the group and they should make an appointment with me privately in my classroom.  Yup, you can’t make this shit up. [Imagine my WTF look on my face.]  Want to know more, Google it. [Still shaking my head....]

India is coming up for us February 17th-20th.  Jake and I are leading a trip with one of my middle-school colleagues, Nesireen, who is from India.  We are taking 12 students to the two day International Schools Writers Conference.  We’ll be spending a free day in Pondicherry.  The school is paying our airfares, hotel, ground transportation and meals.  Pretty. Sweet. Deal.  I am looking forward to this and I am learning a lot about the visa process for the different passports as we’re working with the Embassy of India based in Riyadh.

So, when it’s 60 degrees, I’m freezing.  My body has adjusted to this new climate.  Our bodies are amazing.

___

Intelligent conversation:  I attended a workshop and these are my notes:  conversational competence might be the single most overlooked skill we fail to teach our children and ourselves.  There’s no reason to learn how to show you’re paying attention if you are in fact paying attention.  I value conversations where you walk away feeling engaged and inspired and feel like you’ve made a real connection or been perfectly understood.  [when I wrote this, I thought of my best friend, Lily.]  I need to pay attention, be present, be in the moment.  If I don’t want to be in a conversation, then I need to get out of it and not be half in and half out of it.  I must enter every conversation assuming that I have something to learn.  Everyone I meet knows something that I don’t.  If I don’t know something, I will say that I don’t.  Talk should not be cheap.  I should not equate my experiences with yours if you are telling me something personal.  Your experience is the not the same as mine.  Your experience is individual to you.  I will listen.  Why can’t people remember that real conversations are not promotional opportunities?  It takes effort and energy to actually pay attention to someone, but if you can’t do that, you’re not in a conversation, you’re just two people shouting out barely related sentences in the same place.  I strive to keep my mouth shut as often as I possibly can.  I keep my mind open and I’m always prepared to be amazed and rarely disappointed.  

Shawarma:  we’re eating this quite a bit.  The school ordered this in for staff during our Parent-Teacher Conferences. Delicious.

___

Fun fact: we’ve become “Dumpster Divers!”  We have treasures that we've picked up over the past few weeks that others have set out for rubbish collection.  Our collection includes: 2 cloth folding patio chairs, a small wooden table, a glass table, a pot with reeds for the patio, 4 sharp knives, a cheese grater, envelopes and labels.

Unbelievable!  That is the word to describe our patio garden transformation!  We’re hosting a Patio Warming Party this Friday and have invited our compound friends who are from Florida, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland and South Africa. We’re serving Thai appetizers and I hired Kyle, who is a singer/guitarist, to play a 45 minute concert!  

New Patio Furniture from Sultan Gardens

Bahrain:  We visited this country again and stayed in the Al Juffair area which proved to be a better second impression!  We drank real beer, ate pork quesadillas [which was a dream] at the Texas Road House and I experienced a 90 minute Thai massage at  Ann's Spa.  The massage combined the benefits of Thai massage with the healing powers of heat provided by a Thai herbal ball.  Thermotherapy and compression were fused to alleviate muscle soreness in sensitive areas.  The Thai herbal ball was rolled across trigger points and isolated muscle groups of the body while steam promoted muscle relaxation and increased body energy.  The small yet powerful Thai woman climbed on the massage table several times and my body has never been twisted or stretched in those ways!  One very cool landmark with wind turbines is the Bahrain World Trade Center!  Learn about it here.

3 wind turbines between the buildings!

Street sign in Bahrain

And now we have President Elect Trump…….  On election night, which was morning here, I had the electoral college vote map on the big screen and the election was the talk of the school.  The students and staff were all following the results.  No one could even teach because of the chaos.  I actually could NOT believe the intense interest, but it all makes sense because 90% of our students are expats, like us, who are from other countries which are deeply connected and interdependent on the USA, meaning whichever direction and policies the United States moves, this directly affects their lives and families both here in the Kingdom and their respective home countries.  I was personally depressed regarding the final outcome, but as my Trump supporting friends here reminded me, they felt the exact same way when Obama was elected.  We had a good laugh over that.  

Normal scenery by our school.

Saudi Woman at International Day at the Dhahran Campus 

Recently, I have been starting countdowns to upcoming events such as 24 days until Thailand, 85 until India, 123 until England, 129 until Spring Break-destination TBD, 207 until Slovenia & Austria, 224 until MSP, MINNESOTA for the summer and 589 until we move back to Waukenabo.  Living here is psychologically and emotionally challenging, pushing one to depths of creativity and resiliency never experienced before…….

Normal scenery on the way to work

Please send some love to my daughter, Megan Mary.  Every time we have a face chat, we start crying. Here's her email:  mrubbelke@isd166.org. Thank you friends.

In trying to conclude this post on a positive note, here are the happy things about living here: quality time with Jake, making new friends, beautiful sunsets, teaching again [most days], saving money and the ability to travel outside of this country. That is it for today, I truly can not think of another positive at the moment.......