Saturday, August 27, 2011

It's Desert Monday here, first day of the work week and a whopping 117 degrees Fahrenheit here in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia today!  We feel like we are melting.  Ya know, it doesn't matter how many times you've been told that it's unbearably hot; when you live in Georgia, you think you can handle it... but, it's really hot here!

The sun rises here before 5:30am and sets a few minutes after 6pm, so the day starts early if you want to catch the sunlight.  Everyone who works in the offices here works from 7am - 4pm, so fathers can be home with their families--such a novel idea.  This is the first time for us to have a car over here; on previous visits we have had to take the company buses and carpool on Bruce's scooter, but today I got to drive my blue Subaru Forester.  It's not a big deal to me, except that in this heat, it's even unbearable to wait for a bus!  The only way to explain it, is to think about standing in front of an open oven with the hot air blowing on you.  And because we were going off-camp to visit Jordan's new high school, we had to wear long pants!  The air conditioning in the car isn't great, but compared to the alternative, it's a God-send!  It's against the law for women to drive in this country, but they make allowances for it on the compound.

As the five of us loaded in the car this morning, one of my girls immediately began to have an emotional melt-down because of the heat and from being packed close together in the back seat.  It made me think how it must feel to live here your whole life and never have any hope of leaving... to always be uncomfortable until the cooler months... to only want to go out at night.  We drove to Dhahran High School, which is on the American Embassy's grounds.  I had my camera ready to take all kinds of pictures for you, but after shooting a few blurry pics from the highway, we arrived and found signs everywhere saying, "PHOTOGRAPHY PROHIBITED."  I guess because the school is at the American Embassy, they don't want pictures of their security getting out.  So, this is all I got.

A picture of the highway,

A picture of the embassy and high school from the highway,

and a blurry picture of the guard ready to meet us.  Since it's Ramadan here and also summer vacation, everything is deserted.  We didn't get to see much and a lot of the campus is outside, so it was just too hot to walk around.  There are three schools on the grounds and they are all kept separate from the embassy.  Jordan will have to blog more about this after school starts.

We went to the commissary on camp afterwards and had fun looking at all the foods available.  The food is only expensive if we insist on eating American-made foods.  There are two different potatoes available at the comm, but the American potatoes are much more expensive than the local potatoes.  We just have to be aware of what we're buying.  We can also wait to see if things don't sell very well and then get marked down. Today I found Reese's favorite granola bars for $1 per box!  Cheaper than home.  And a medium bag of Cheddar Chex Mix marked down to $2.20.  It's kind of like a game... to see what deals they have each time.  Here are some examples today:

Potatoes for baking - local: $0.58/lb or $1.16 for 4 medium potatoes
Milk - 2 L: $1.87 or $3.52 per gallon
Onion - local white: $0.40 each
Apples: $0.32 each
Oranges - local naval: $0.26 each
Baby Carrots: $2.35/bag
Tomatoes - Green House: $0.36 each
Broccoli - imported: $4.91/lb or $2.92 for a small floret
Bread - Loaf: $1.27
Eggs: $1.70/doz

Arabian Food Supplies Ground Beef X/lean: $5.79/lb
(American or Brazilian beef is more.  I think Australian beef is low.)

Here is the dried fruit and nut bar in the comm.  

Bread and potato chips aisle...

It's a nice store, a lot like an American grocery store.  The only part that is confusing to newcomers, is that all produce must be bagged and weighed in the produce aisle.  One time I took my produce to the cash register, thinking they would weigh it and ring it up like home, but they had to send the box boy to the produce aisle for me to have them all weighed and marked before they could ring them up!  I really backed up the line that time!

I got a call last night that our luggage all made it to Dammam - yay!  So, we have to go back to the airport to pick it up.  It's pretty scary to drive to the airport... this is one time that I'm glad it's against the law for women to drive!  That's all for now... thanks for stopping by again!

-- Pattie --