Tuesday, August 30, 2011 (people on the compound)

Bruce arrived back in the States this morning.  There was a seat in business class for his 14-hour flight... he was very happy!  So now that we four girls are alone in Saudi Arabia, we thought we'd venture out to main camp and see if there was an Eid celebration.  We were disappointed to find that the Eid celebration is tomorrow night, so we just hung around the playground and the dining hall and took pictures.

I thought it would be fun to show you all the people around the compound.  Here is a couple at the park in Main Camp, watching their child play on the playground.  The women wear the black abaya and the men wear the white thobe.

I think these girls are nannies, taking care of children at the playground.  Reese is wearing the blue and yellow.

The men behind Reese are wearing the traditional Saudi dress with the white thobe and red & white ghutha or head dress with a black band on top.

We had dinner tonight in the dining hall.  Reese is ordering a chicken sandwich with fries (Good-bye Chick-fil-A!) for $2.40.

Jordan ordered the "budget meal" which comes with soup, salad, and dessert.  This one is meatloaf and rice with pumpkin for $3.07.

She didn't care for the pumpkin.

Brooke chose the pasta and salad.

Here the chef is making stir fry for $4.00.

Yum, what a nice job he did!

Even little boys wear the thobe.

This father approached us as we were leaving the dining hall and wanted to talk about America.  It was difficult to understand everything, but he once lived in Texas and wanted to reminisce.  He was very proud of his two sons.  The son on the left is a doctor and the son on the right is studying to be a doctor.  I don't know why one son wears the thobe and the other doesn't, but it was the first time I have had the opportunity to speak to an Arab man without my husband doing the talking.  I asked them if I could take their picture and they were very friendly.

He offered to let Jordan try on his ghutha.  Here you can see his tagiyah, the white knitted cap that is worn under the ghutha.

Here's a picture of the fire station.

Everyone on the compound is very nice.  As you can see, there are a variety of people everywhere on camp, and everyone accepts the differences of each other until we leave the compound.  We'll be going off camp soon in order to buy Bruce's birthday present - I won't tell you what it is in case he reads this!