Well, it wouldn’t have really been a vacation, anyway, just the opportunity to travel. However, the Shura Council [or Shoura Council] is looking into “an alarming problem which surfaced lately, of maids traveling in the company of families.”
This is, no doubt, directly related to the Colorado case of Homaidan Al-Turki who has recently been given a sentence of 27 years to life in prison for sexually assaulting an Indonesian housekeeper and keeping her as a virtual slave. The Saudi Gazette published an article on Friday, September 22, 2003, “Families Traveling with Maids,” which “Particularly [it] concerns those sponsoring families who travel to Western countries and the United States, in particular either on holiday or for educational purposes.” Abdullah Abulsamh writes:
“In those countries, regulations are totally different from those observed in ours. Therefore, it never occurred to a number of sponsors who were planning travel that detaining a maid’s passport is an offense which may lead to imprisonment.
Western countries consider this practice as an infringement upon a worker’s rights and freedom, etc.
A number of friends whose maids have decided to run away (or rather to cease working) have told me that the maids went to the police who then forced sponsors to hand them back their passports, regardless of the issues of sponsorship and liability.
Recently, the matter has become more serious in the United States, as a sponsor detaining a maid’s passport can be tried and imprisoned. The US Consulate is now rejecting applications for visas for maids, unless employment contracts are made in the American style, which means the number of working hours, livings conditions, etc. all indicated beforehand.
It is honestly shameful and sorrowful to watch Saudi families with several maids tagging behind watching the children while their mothers are sitting in cafes. Most of the time, maids remain standing on the sidewalk, at a distance, or sit on the edge of a chair, or run after the noisy, little “devils” who never settle in one place.
Maids can also be seen in the hotels’ hallways with the children while mothers are asleep after staying up at the malls the previous night.
It is the duty of the press to join the Shoura Council in calling for a ban on the travel of maids with families, whether for vacationing or scholastic purposes.
The alternative would be to contact employment agencies to provide local workers or baby sitters who are paid by the hour. This denigration of the Kingdom’s reputation must end.”
If there is a law that specifies “detaining a maid’s passport” could lead to imprisonment, I was unable to find it in a search of the United States government website for international visitors. “Detaining a maid” might, however, be construed as “false imprisonment” if confiscating [“detaining”] one’s passport were interpreted as confinement without legal authority; this is punishable by imprisonment.
Workers in “Western countries,” and specifically, the United States, are afforded a barrage of rights not necessarily bestowed upon employees in other countries, i.e., a minimum wage, maximum working hours, etc. I am not a legal authority but I’d venture to guess “detaining” a passport or person is not allowable and would be considered “an infringement” upon an employee/worker.
A U.S. citizen in Saudi Arabia is subject to that country's laws and regulations. Whether there is any kind of reciprocal relationship in regard to laws and regulations between one country and another is dictated by the host-country. Thus, perhaps it would behoove foreigners traveling with domestic help to ascertain – before journeying – what laws are applicable to specific issues of “sponsorship and liability” should a “maid” decide “to run away (or rather to cease working)” in the host country. That the US Consulate is rejecting applications for visas to be given to maids or other domestic help unless “employment contracts are made in the American style” protects all parties involved, eliminating any guess work as to what is or isn’t allowed.
Although Mr. Abulsamh’s observations may tinge a few raw nerves in his home Country, they will be viewed much more genially by the United States and other Western countries who undoubtedly will agree that it is indeed “shameful and sorrowful to watch Saudi families with several maids tagging behind...”
Showing posts with label Vacation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vacation. Show all posts
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Off Again...
I am very appreciative of the interest so many have shown in my blog… It’s been just over two very, very, very full weeks since I returned to The Sandbox. [Why? Why? Why? Did I fire my HouseBOY?!?] I have several items ready to post, but had to fight with “Blogger” over the weekend [our weekend is Thursday and Friday] and it would NOT let me “upload” pictures no matter what I did. Needless to say, those posts have to wait until I return.
Yes, I am off again. I am leaving in two hours to go to Vienna, Austria, for a week. I will be back in The Sandbox again next Saturday. It has been 110 degrees here – and incredibly humid – which is very odd for this time of year, for so long… It is only 72 degrees in Vienna. I have packed sweaters and my mittens! [Oh, and my umbrella – it is supposed to rain in Vienna for the next four days – sounds lovely, doesn’t it? Cold, wet…] Regardless, am planning on sight-seeing and being a “real” tourist rain or shine.
Look for new posts a week from Sunday. I’ll be back again, and posting on a daily basis.
In Shallah…*
Yes, I am off again. I am leaving in two hours to go to Vienna, Austria, for a week. I will be back in The Sandbox again next Saturday. It has been 110 degrees here – and incredibly humid – which is very odd for this time of year, for so long… It is only 72 degrees in Vienna. I have packed sweaters and my mittens! [Oh, and my umbrella – it is supposed to rain in Vienna for the next four days – sounds lovely, doesn’t it? Cold, wet…] Regardless, am planning on sight-seeing and being a “real” tourist rain or shine.
Look for new posts a week from Sunday. I’ll be back again, and posting on a daily basis.
In Shallah…*
*Means "God willing" in Arabic.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Home: Heat, Humidity, Flooding, Rat Turds
Oh, yeah… It’s soooo good to be home!
Savannah was nice. Savannah is actually very nice. It is a beautiful old city with plenty to do and I thoroughly enjoyed myself every day of the seven I was there. My husband was there for some company business three weeks prior to my joining him, and continued working the entire time I was there. So I amused myself and found plenty to do. Even the one afternoon it rained I sat in the hotel bar met lots of nice people, including an employee named Elena from Russia who I have decided would make a wonderful wife for my son if it should happen to not work out with the young lady he is currently involved with [who he loved dearly until I told him that I actually liked her!]. I shopped; I explored the old tree and moss lined streets with the beautiful stately homes [mansions!]. I ate – way too much – but all the good things I’ve missed while here in The Sandbox – the very first night – baby back ribs! They were absolutely fabulous. And I drank. There are probably a few bottles of Sterling Cabernet left in Savannah in some of the more remote stores and restaurants, but when we left there was none left in the immediate “downtown” vicinity. Savannah’s weather was absolutely perfect [but for the one rainy afternoon – and it didn’t even start to rain until I put my bathing suit on to head to the pool – but of course…], in the upper-80’s, low-90’s every day, some humidity, but not unbearable.
After my husband was done with company business we headed to Buffalo where my parents are. They are actually outside of Buffalo, in the very western part of the state in a teeny, tiny little town which is only on the map during the summer, right on Lake Chautauqua. It is a summer “resort” area and come Labor Day, the sidewalks are all rolled up and put away until the following Memorial Day. How my parents have lived there year-round for so many years amazes me. Upstate New York in the winter – which lasts for a full seven months – is utterly dreadful. Cold, gray, dreary. Depressing. It snows every single day. It is called “lake effect” snow. Call it whatever you want; it still needs shoveled – plowed – and it’s still cold. Very cold! So, we had a perfect five days there and took advantage of the beautiful summer weather. I laid on the dock and worked on my tan and my husband worked on the golf course chasing a little white ball around [no, I don’t play – I tried – it takes “hand-eye” coordination and I have zero]. We visited with other family members; played catch-up with an aunt and a cousin I’ve not seen in almost twenty years. We spent a glorious day at Niagra Falls on the Canadian side, and really, this should be included in one of the Seven Wonders of the World and it isn’t.
From Buffalo we headed to Maryland where one of my sister’s and her family live. It was here that for the first time in sixteen years – yes, sixteen years – that my ENTIRE family – all nineteen of us – got together for a family picture. There have been many, many family gatherings in the past sixteen years, but someone has always been missing for some reason or another. I hope my parents aren’t too disappointed with us all – there are four of us – children – and along with our respective spouses we only produced nine grandchildren for them – and if my brother’s wife wouldn’t have had twins then there would be only eight. My Dad’s sister has twice that many, and his brother has twice that many plus some more. We aren’t a very big family…
After a few days in Maryland we finally headed to what we call “home,” even though we don’t have a home there anymore – Wake Forest, North Carolina. The almost two weeks we spent there flew by. Zoom. Whoosh. Vacation was over and it was time to pack up and head back to The Sandbox. However, while “home,” did attend to some of the straggling “loose ends” that never seem to end – dealing with the bank – we’ve been in Saudi for almost four years now, and even though we have filled out the appropriate documentation, sent letters and e-mails and made repeated, lengthy and costly telephone calls some of our “bank” mail goes to Sudan! – and it was during our last week in Savannah when we found out that one of our credit cards was cancelled because apparently some “bank data” was jeopardized so the bank sent new credit cards to everyone involved and our credit card was sent to Sudan and then returned – but we were actually paying for dinner one evening when we discovered the original card that we had in our possession had been cancelled – that makes for an interesting situation – and thankfully we have more than one credit card. We had to take care of our mail forwarding [mail goes to a “agent” who then forwards everything to us on a monthly basis], get the boat registered, and of course, as always while we are in the States get a shipment ready to send here. Hopefully sometime next week this shipment will be here – and this particular shipment consists of 484 pounds and will cost almost a Thousand Dollars. Four hundred pounds of this shipment is dry dog food. It’s just part of the cost of living in the Middle East. You pay what you have to pay.
It is a long trip home. A very long trip. On the day we left Raleigh, North Carolina, we checked into the airport at about one o’clock for a three o’clock flight to Detroit. We sat in Detroit for almost two hours. From Detroit we went to Amsterdam where we only had about an hour and a half before getting on the plane to Bahrain – but not before going to Abu Dhabi – which added some two and a half hours to our flying time – not because Abu Dhabi is so far – it’s only a fifty minute flight from Bahrain – but once in Abu Dhabi they had to service the plane and pick-up additional passengers. It was almost eleven o’clock when we finally, finally dragged our sorry selves through the front door – after a total travel time of twenty-seven hours.
We arrived to a very, very quite house. The “Kids” were at the kennel. This was the first time we’ve ever come home to such quiet, as in the past The Boy has been here with the House Assistant – the addition of The Baby only happened this past spring while I was in the States for most of February and all of March – so she has never stayed with him. I have no more House Assistant. I fired him on July 1st, six days before I left. He just wasn’t doing his job. Oh, sure, I could have “talked” to him again; we’ve had many conversations in the past where I’ve said “these are your responsibilities and this is what I expect.” And, for several weeks, things will go along just fine, and then we have to have “the talk” again. I’m done. No more talking. It’s detailed… On Wednesday, June 28th, I said “today is floor day,” and he actually gave ME a hard time about it. Wait a minute, here… This is my house. This is what I want done. You are my employee. And, you’re going to argue with me about washing the kitchen den hallway bathroom floor? Umm, no. It was an on-going issue – what needed to be done and what actually got done. My House Assistant’s schedule was that he worked for us seventeen hours a week – in the mornings – and this house should have been immaculate – and it just isn’t – wasn’t. I spent that Thursday and Friday just seething about the whole situation and decided that I just wasn’t going to have “it.” I started making a list of all the times we’ve “talked” and all things we “talked” about. It is three pages long. When the “cons” outweigh the “pros” by two and a half pages, it’s time to make a change. Well, firing the House Assistant, right before I left, probably wasn’t the most optimal way to handle this, and I had to put the Kids in Canine Camp for almost an entire month, but I knew that with the in the kennel – here on our compound – that I wouldn’t have to worry about how much time the House Assistant was spending with them, whether they were getting fed on time, and whether or not they were safe.
Maybe I’ll go into detail on the House Assistant issue at a later time. I am still very, very angry over this whole issue. The bottom line is, however, that I hired someone – he’s been with us almost three years – treated him much better than a lot of household help here gets treated, paid him more than I should have, and I was taken advantage of, over and over and over. I will not have household help again for a while. I just don’t want to go through this again.
So, after just a few hours of sleep, I woke up before the sun, anxious to get to the kennel – which doesn’t open until seven o’clock – to collect my Kids. As I am about to leave the house – it’s 6:45 in the morning – I see this puddle of what looks like “yellow” water on the den floor, along the wall. I am questioning what it is I spilled – it’s not coffee and it’s not from one of the Kids [they aren’t here!] – and was it there last night? Hmmph. Okay, wipe it up with a couple of paper towels, run upstairs to grab my wallet and “put my lips on,” and when I get back downstairs, there is more yellow water. What is going on? Oh, my, the neighbors must be having some plumbing problems. I head out the door and ring the neighbor’s doorbell. No answer. Ring again. Oh well, no answer. Whatever. I jump in the truck [it’s a Land Rover – I call it a truck] to go to the kennel to get the Kids. They are THRILLED to see me – and I am THRILLED to see them! It was a very touching reunion. We get in the truck and come home. We walk in the door and the den and kitchen floors are soaked! Water is just running into my house from next door. I start throwing some old towels down to cover the floor. Uh-oh. The carpet in the dining room is wet, too! It is “squishing” when you walk over it. Great. Just great. I don’t have that many old towels and I really don’t want to use nice towels to clean up something I’m not even quite sure what it is. As I head out the door to go back to the neighbor’s – the Kids are racing through the house – racing through the water – and someone is going to get hurt! – the House Assistant from next door is running toward me – his arms waving wildly and telling me a pipe broke and he doesn’t know who to call. [There is no less than four inches of water on the floor of the townhouse next to ours – the Oriental carpets have got to be ruined – as well as some of the furniture! They have two little “yip-yip” dogs next door and the poor little things are swimming in the water. I make the call to “202” and tell them it is an emergency and they have to come right away. They do. They send plumbers, a truck that sucks water out of your house, a team of men to “squeegee” the house next door and rip up the little carpet they have there – it is mostly tile. Several hours later the same team heads to our house to do the same thing. It is just one big mess.
In the meantime, as I am trying to unpack and get semi-situated back at home, with the Kids, I notice some black pellet looking “droppings.” I think I must have a rat. Great. I’ve seen one rat here – thankfully it was not alive at the time – and it was not pretty. And, now I’ve got one? Oh no, this is NOT good. I call “202” again and they send “pest control.” They little man gets here and says, “Oh, Madam, you have a rat.” Yeah, like I said on the phone when I called. And, gee, thanks for confirming this for me. “We must send someone with a trap.” Yeah, like I said on the phone when I called. So, a little while later another man gets here and he takes one look at the little black pellet looking things and says, “it is a gecko.” Are you sure? Because the man that was just here said I have a rat. “Oh, no, Madam, it is a gecko.” And, to prove this he starts squishing the little black pellet looking things with his finger – on the floor! Eeeuww! “See, Madam, they are soft and contain bugs. It is a gecko. Rat droppings are very hard and you cannot squish them.” Yeah, well, okay then. Now what? “He will leave, Madam, he will not like the cold air [huh?] and wants to be outside.” Sure he does… Not to worry, The Boy will find him if he’s here, because he is after all, the World’s Best Lizard Chaser! The Boy won’t catch the lizard, but I’ll know when he finds the lizard because of the ruckus it will cause. The little black pellet looking things have been cleaned up and there have been no more, so if there was a gecko in this house he’s either hiding somewhere and making a mess elsewhere or he has decided he doesn’t like it here and he has left or I guess, he could be under the stove or one of the refrigerators and dead at this point. There’s no awful smell coming from under any of my appliances so I’m hoping that he has left, gone back outside to the almost unbearable heat and humidity we’re experiencing.
It’s soooo good to be home!
Savannah was nice. Savannah is actually very nice. It is a beautiful old city with plenty to do and I thoroughly enjoyed myself every day of the seven I was there. My husband was there for some company business three weeks prior to my joining him, and continued working the entire time I was there. So I amused myself and found plenty to do. Even the one afternoon it rained I sat in the hotel bar met lots of nice people, including an employee named Elena from Russia who I have decided would make a wonderful wife for my son if it should happen to not work out with the young lady he is currently involved with [who he loved dearly until I told him that I actually liked her!]. I shopped; I explored the old tree and moss lined streets with the beautiful stately homes [mansions!]. I ate – way too much – but all the good things I’ve missed while here in The Sandbox – the very first night – baby back ribs! They were absolutely fabulous. And I drank. There are probably a few bottles of Sterling Cabernet left in Savannah in some of the more remote stores and restaurants, but when we left there was none left in the immediate “downtown” vicinity. Savannah’s weather was absolutely perfect [but for the one rainy afternoon – and it didn’t even start to rain until I put my bathing suit on to head to the pool – but of course…], in the upper-80’s, low-90’s every day, some humidity, but not unbearable.
After my husband was done with company business we headed to Buffalo where my parents are. They are actually outside of Buffalo, in the very western part of the state in a teeny, tiny little town which is only on the map during the summer, right on Lake Chautauqua. It is a summer “resort” area and come Labor Day, the sidewalks are all rolled up and put away until the following Memorial Day. How my parents have lived there year-round for so many years amazes me. Upstate New York in the winter – which lasts for a full seven months – is utterly dreadful. Cold, gray, dreary. Depressing. It snows every single day. It is called “lake effect” snow. Call it whatever you want; it still needs shoveled – plowed – and it’s still cold. Very cold! So, we had a perfect five days there and took advantage of the beautiful summer weather. I laid on the dock and worked on my tan and my husband worked on the golf course chasing a little white ball around [no, I don’t play – I tried – it takes “hand-eye” coordination and I have zero]. We visited with other family members; played catch-up with an aunt and a cousin I’ve not seen in almost twenty years. We spent a glorious day at Niagra Falls on the Canadian side, and really, this should be included in one of the Seven Wonders of the World and it isn’t.
From Buffalo we headed to Maryland where one of my sister’s and her family live. It was here that for the first time in sixteen years – yes, sixteen years – that my ENTIRE family – all nineteen of us – got together for a family picture. There have been many, many family gatherings in the past sixteen years, but someone has always been missing for some reason or another. I hope my parents aren’t too disappointed with us all – there are four of us – children – and along with our respective spouses we only produced nine grandchildren for them – and if my brother’s wife wouldn’t have had twins then there would be only eight. My Dad’s sister has twice that many, and his brother has twice that many plus some more. We aren’t a very big family…
After a few days in Maryland we finally headed to what we call “home,” even though we don’t have a home there anymore – Wake Forest, North Carolina. The almost two weeks we spent there flew by. Zoom. Whoosh. Vacation was over and it was time to pack up and head back to The Sandbox. However, while “home,” did attend to some of the straggling “loose ends” that never seem to end – dealing with the bank – we’ve been in Saudi for almost four years now, and even though we have filled out the appropriate documentation, sent letters and e-mails and made repeated, lengthy and costly telephone calls some of our “bank” mail goes to Sudan! – and it was during our last week in Savannah when we found out that one of our credit cards was cancelled because apparently some “bank data” was jeopardized so the bank sent new credit cards to everyone involved and our credit card was sent to Sudan and then returned – but we were actually paying for dinner one evening when we discovered the original card that we had in our possession had been cancelled – that makes for an interesting situation – and thankfully we have more than one credit card. We had to take care of our mail forwarding [mail goes to a “agent” who then forwards everything to us on a monthly basis], get the boat registered, and of course, as always while we are in the States get a shipment ready to send here. Hopefully sometime next week this shipment will be here – and this particular shipment consists of 484 pounds and will cost almost a Thousand Dollars. Four hundred pounds of this shipment is dry dog food. It’s just part of the cost of living in the Middle East. You pay what you have to pay.
It is a long trip home. A very long trip. On the day we left Raleigh, North Carolina, we checked into the airport at about one o’clock for a three o’clock flight to Detroit. We sat in Detroit for almost two hours. From Detroit we went to Amsterdam where we only had about an hour and a half before getting on the plane to Bahrain – but not before going to Abu Dhabi – which added some two and a half hours to our flying time – not because Abu Dhabi is so far – it’s only a fifty minute flight from Bahrain – but once in Abu Dhabi they had to service the plane and pick-up additional passengers. It was almost eleven o’clock when we finally, finally dragged our sorry selves through the front door – after a total travel time of twenty-seven hours.
We arrived to a very, very quite house. The “Kids” were at the kennel. This was the first time we’ve ever come home to such quiet, as in the past The Boy has been here with the House Assistant – the addition of The Baby only happened this past spring while I was in the States for most of February and all of March – so she has never stayed with him. I have no more House Assistant. I fired him on July 1st, six days before I left. He just wasn’t doing his job. Oh, sure, I could have “talked” to him again; we’ve had many conversations in the past where I’ve said “these are your responsibilities and this is what I expect.” And, for several weeks, things will go along just fine, and then we have to have “the talk” again. I’m done. No more talking. It’s detailed… On Wednesday, June 28th, I said “today is floor day,” and he actually gave ME a hard time about it. Wait a minute, here… This is my house. This is what I want done. You are my employee. And, you’re going to argue with me about washing the kitchen den hallway bathroom floor? Umm, no. It was an on-going issue – what needed to be done and what actually got done. My House Assistant’s schedule was that he worked for us seventeen hours a week – in the mornings – and this house should have been immaculate – and it just isn’t – wasn’t. I spent that Thursday and Friday just seething about the whole situation and decided that I just wasn’t going to have “it.” I started making a list of all the times we’ve “talked” and all things we “talked” about. It is three pages long. When the “cons” outweigh the “pros” by two and a half pages, it’s time to make a change. Well, firing the House Assistant, right before I left, probably wasn’t the most optimal way to handle this, and I had to put the Kids in Canine Camp for almost an entire month, but I knew that with the in the kennel – here on our compound – that I wouldn’t have to worry about how much time the House Assistant was spending with them, whether they were getting fed on time, and whether or not they were safe.
Maybe I’ll go into detail on the House Assistant issue at a later time. I am still very, very angry over this whole issue. The bottom line is, however, that I hired someone – he’s been with us almost three years – treated him much better than a lot of household help here gets treated, paid him more than I should have, and I was taken advantage of, over and over and over. I will not have household help again for a while. I just don’t want to go through this again.
So, after just a few hours of sleep, I woke up before the sun, anxious to get to the kennel – which doesn’t open until seven o’clock – to collect my Kids. As I am about to leave the house – it’s 6:45 in the morning – I see this puddle of what looks like “yellow” water on the den floor, along the wall. I am questioning what it is I spilled – it’s not coffee and it’s not from one of the Kids [they aren’t here!] – and was it there last night? Hmmph. Okay, wipe it up with a couple of paper towels, run upstairs to grab my wallet and “put my lips on,” and when I get back downstairs, there is more yellow water. What is going on? Oh, my, the neighbors must be having some plumbing problems. I head out the door and ring the neighbor’s doorbell. No answer. Ring again. Oh well, no answer. Whatever. I jump in the truck [it’s a Land Rover – I call it a truck] to go to the kennel to get the Kids. They are THRILLED to see me – and I am THRILLED to see them! It was a very touching reunion. We get in the truck and come home. We walk in the door and the den and kitchen floors are soaked! Water is just running into my house from next door. I start throwing some old towels down to cover the floor. Uh-oh. The carpet in the dining room is wet, too! It is “squishing” when you walk over it. Great. Just great. I don’t have that many old towels and I really don’t want to use nice towels to clean up something I’m not even quite sure what it is. As I head out the door to go back to the neighbor’s – the Kids are racing through the house – racing through the water – and someone is going to get hurt! – the House Assistant from next door is running toward me – his arms waving wildly and telling me a pipe broke and he doesn’t know who to call. [There is no less than four inches of water on the floor of the townhouse next to ours – the Oriental carpets have got to be ruined – as well as some of the furniture! They have two little “yip-yip” dogs next door and the poor little things are swimming in the water. I make the call to “202” and tell them it is an emergency and they have to come right away. They do. They send plumbers, a truck that sucks water out of your house, a team of men to “squeegee” the house next door and rip up the little carpet they have there – it is mostly tile. Several hours later the same team heads to our house to do the same thing. It is just one big mess.
In the meantime, as I am trying to unpack and get semi-situated back at home, with the Kids, I notice some black pellet looking “droppings.” I think I must have a rat. Great. I’ve seen one rat here – thankfully it was not alive at the time – and it was not pretty. And, now I’ve got one? Oh no, this is NOT good. I call “202” again and they send “pest control.” They little man gets here and says, “Oh, Madam, you have a rat.” Yeah, like I said on the phone when I called. And, gee, thanks for confirming this for me. “We must send someone with a trap.” Yeah, like I said on the phone when I called. So, a little while later another man gets here and he takes one look at the little black pellet looking things and says, “it is a gecko.” Are you sure? Because the man that was just here said I have a rat. “Oh, no, Madam, it is a gecko.” And, to prove this he starts squishing the little black pellet looking things with his finger – on the floor! Eeeuww! “See, Madam, they are soft and contain bugs. It is a gecko. Rat droppings are very hard and you cannot squish them.” Yeah, well, okay then. Now what? “He will leave, Madam, he will not like the cold air [huh?] and wants to be outside.” Sure he does… Not to worry, The Boy will find him if he’s here, because he is after all, the World’s Best Lizard Chaser! The Boy won’t catch the lizard, but I’ll know when he finds the lizard because of the ruckus it will cause. The little black pellet looking things have been cleaned up and there have been no more, so if there was a gecko in this house he’s either hiding somewhere and making a mess elsewhere or he has decided he doesn’t like it here and he has left or I guess, he could be under the stove or one of the refrigerators and dead at this point. There’s no awful smell coming from under any of my appliances so I’m hoping that he has left, gone back outside to the almost unbearable heat and humidity we’re experiencing.
It’s soooo good to be home!
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Vacation IS Work
I am leaving, at the end of next week, and will be gone for almost a month. This will be my fourth trip to the States in less than a year. Apparently, there is something very wrong with me, because everyone around me seems to be much more thrilled about my situation than I am. They are both envious of me – for getting to “go to the States,” and excited for me – that I’ll get to be in the “real world” and experience “normalcy” again, even if for a short time. My reaction to this? Well, not once have I said, “Oh, I can’t wait!” or “It’s going to be so much fun!” No. Instead, I am dreading it.
The travel, alone, is daunting! I will leave here, my house, in the evening, and take a cab to the airport – which is, at a minimum an hour away – if not longer – so I will allow myself two and a half hours, by the time I get through customs on both sides and finally cross the causeway [I’m leaving from Bahrain], where after arriving at the airport almost two hours prior – as is required for International flights – my plane will not leave until almost one in the morning. That’s not such a bad thing – I’ll be able to sleep – I can sleep almost anywhere. The first leg of the flight is almost nine hours and upon arrival in this country, I will spend two hours at the airport waiting to catch a flight for the next leg of my trip. The second leg of the flight is a little over seven and a half hours long, and at this point I will probably have to force myself not to become to “antsy” from sitting, I won’t be tired, and I probably won’t be able to sleep. Estimated travel time, so far: twenty-three hours. I will arrive in the States and have to go through customs, where it is more likely than not, that I will be pulled aside and taken to a little room for approximately an hour to be interrogated and given the third degree for being an American citizen who lives in Saudi Arabia.
The questions are always the same – yes, this happens regularly – I don’t recall the last time I made the trip where this didn’t happen. My answers will not have changed since the last time you asked me [February] what I am doing living in Saudi Arabia, why I am traveling alone, how much cash I have on me [U.S. Dollars – none], who my husband works for, etc., etc., etc. The nice – and sometimes not so nice – Customs people will hand me back my passport and tickets and I will be on my merry way – to locate some semi-comfortable spot where I will need to kill another four hours until I finally board the plane for the last leg of this trip, for a two-hour flight where I will be unable to prevent myself from becoming “antsy” and where the very slightest provocation will set me off [if that is your child, sitting behind me, kicking my seat, I will – not quietly – be sharing my thoughts about your unruly, obnoxious, misbehaving offspring if it doesn’t immediately stop]. The trip, so far, will have now consumed some thirty hours of travel and layover time. There will be the inevitable half-hour or so wait at the airport of my destination to collect my luggage, before finding a cab to take me to the hotel where my husband is and has been since the beginning of this month. The total time elapsed, from the time I leave my house, will be just short of thirty-one or thirty-two hours!
Yes, I am happy that I will get to spend time with my family and friends, but to do so will require more travel – we will fly from Georgia to New York – a week after my arrival – next week – only to fly south, again, three weeks later, to North Carolina, before getting on flights to return to The Sandbox. My husband will have lived out of his suitcases for two months; I will have done so for almost a month, spending time in hotel rooms or family and friend’s guestrooms. And, this will be an “easy” trip. [The first time we returned to the States, a little more than a year after arriving in Saudi Arabia, in a little less than two months we traveled first to Texas, then to California, to Washington [state] to New York and to North Carolina, where we joined friends who left with us to go to Italy where we went to Venice, Rome and Milan – we stayed in thirteen different hotel rooms or family and friend’s guestrooms at various destinations which required traveling on eleven different flights – International and domestic – and a couple of trains. Oh, no, we will NEVER, EVER do this again!]
It’s not just the travel, and living out of suitcases, with no space to call your own… There is the fact that if you are at a hotel, if you want to get up in the middle of the night and have a bowl of cereal – oh, wait – you can’t – sure you could order room service – but it’s not the same as walking into your own kitchen and opening the refrigerator to find something to eat that will satisfy whatever craving it is you are having. And, if you are with friends and family, I think it would be considered slightly bad taste to just get up and leave the bedroom in your nightshirt to grab that first cup of coffee – I, personally, don’t ever want to have a “first thing in the morning while I pour coffee” conversation with my husband’s best friend or my brother-in-law in my tee-shirt [just the tee-shirt!], hair not yet brushed and the tell-tale signs of mascara from the day before lining my eyes. So, unlike what might be something you are comfortable doing in your own home, you really can’t do somewhere else.
Forgoing the actual travel and being away from home, I’ve got numerous “things to do” before I can even leave… For starters, I make all the “Kids” food. Yes, this is something for which I have no one but myself to blame – but the food that is available for purchase here in The Sandbox is lacking in quality, to put it mildly. So, I’ve now spent an entire week in the kitchen preparing pre-measured bags of food, filling a chest freezer, for the Kids. I have cooked sixty pounds of hamburger, twenty pounds of chicken, ten pounds of turkey, and six pounds of salmon. I have hard-boiled, peeled and chopped more than twelve dozen eggs, cut into “stuffing” size cubes ten loaves of cereal bread, grated some ten or fifteen pounds of cheddar cheese and four or five pounds of parmesan cheese, cooked and pureed bags of frozen peas and cans of lima beans, shredded several kilos of carrots and sliced twice as many kilos of zucchini. I’ve cooked and chopped enough broccoli, green beans and beets that my hands have taken on a lovely light yellowish green and lavender hue. I have peeled, cooked and mashed sweet potatoes, and cooked rice and barley in commercial sized batches along with a couple containers of oatmeal. Thankfully, this is task is finally – finally – done.
There is the list of instructions to be left – which up until this trip – has been on the computer and I’ve just changed and updated it to make it applicable to whatever flights, dates, hotels, friend’s and family’s homes we can be reached at. We got a new computer [oh, yes, thank you, Dear, for getting us something we really needed – without a diskette drive so that I could simply put what I need from the old computer on a disk and plug it in to this one!] and so I am going to have to do the “instructions” from scratch. There are forms that must be filled out, here, that are not an option, and then delivered to their respective offices: One for housing that says we are gone and who is responsible for maintenance, one that is for security authorizing our “house assistant” to stay here with the “Kids,” and one for the vet authorizing treatment for the “Kids” should it become necessary allowing payment of same to be withheld from my husband’s pay, and finally one for the mail – that we never get – to be held. My list of “things to do” includes numerous other items – some of which are relatively important [i.e., get The Baby’s stitches removed – she was spayed this week], and others which, if not done at all [i.e., get a pedicure] will probably go unnoticed.
So, no, I’m not entirely thrilled to be “going on vacation” at this point… And, no I’m not excited. But for the fact that my father’s health is failing – he had two heart attacks in March, just before we returned to The Sandbox – so I want to spend some time with him – I would tell my husband who has been in the States for work-related purposes, that I just can’t do this trip, again, right now. We were in California in September of last year; we were in Las Vegas for the Holidays and returned to The Sandbox in January; our “long” vacation was scheduled for March – I left The Sandbox to go to North Carolina in February – to get The Boy’s little sister, The Baby, and was gone for almost two months. We have another “short” vacation – already scheduled – for this fall – we are going to Thailand – and I could happily wait until then to go anywhere… I really rather wish, already, that this trip was over and done with and that we were home again, because traveling like this isn’t a vacation. It is work!
The travel, alone, is daunting! I will leave here, my house, in the evening, and take a cab to the airport – which is, at a minimum an hour away – if not longer – so I will allow myself two and a half hours, by the time I get through customs on both sides and finally cross the causeway [I’m leaving from Bahrain], where after arriving at the airport almost two hours prior – as is required for International flights – my plane will not leave until almost one in the morning. That’s not such a bad thing – I’ll be able to sleep – I can sleep almost anywhere. The first leg of the flight is almost nine hours and upon arrival in this country, I will spend two hours at the airport waiting to catch a flight for the next leg of my trip. The second leg of the flight is a little over seven and a half hours long, and at this point I will probably have to force myself not to become to “antsy” from sitting, I won’t be tired, and I probably won’t be able to sleep. Estimated travel time, so far: twenty-three hours. I will arrive in the States and have to go through customs, where it is more likely than not, that I will be pulled aside and taken to a little room for approximately an hour to be interrogated and given the third degree for being an American citizen who lives in Saudi Arabia.
The questions are always the same – yes, this happens regularly – I don’t recall the last time I made the trip where this didn’t happen. My answers will not have changed since the last time you asked me [February] what I am doing living in Saudi Arabia, why I am traveling alone, how much cash I have on me [U.S. Dollars – none], who my husband works for, etc., etc., etc. The nice – and sometimes not so nice – Customs people will hand me back my passport and tickets and I will be on my merry way – to locate some semi-comfortable spot where I will need to kill another four hours until I finally board the plane for the last leg of this trip, for a two-hour flight where I will be unable to prevent myself from becoming “antsy” and where the very slightest provocation will set me off [if that is your child, sitting behind me, kicking my seat, I will – not quietly – be sharing my thoughts about your unruly, obnoxious, misbehaving offspring if it doesn’t immediately stop]. The trip, so far, will have now consumed some thirty hours of travel and layover time. There will be the inevitable half-hour or so wait at the airport of my destination to collect my luggage, before finding a cab to take me to the hotel where my husband is and has been since the beginning of this month. The total time elapsed, from the time I leave my house, will be just short of thirty-one or thirty-two hours!
Yes, I am happy that I will get to spend time with my family and friends, but to do so will require more travel – we will fly from Georgia to New York – a week after my arrival – next week – only to fly south, again, three weeks later, to North Carolina, before getting on flights to return to The Sandbox. My husband will have lived out of his suitcases for two months; I will have done so for almost a month, spending time in hotel rooms or family and friend’s guestrooms. And, this will be an “easy” trip. [The first time we returned to the States, a little more than a year after arriving in Saudi Arabia, in a little less than two months we traveled first to Texas, then to California, to Washington [state] to New York and to North Carolina, where we joined friends who left with us to go to Italy where we went to Venice, Rome and Milan – we stayed in thirteen different hotel rooms or family and friend’s guestrooms at various destinations which required traveling on eleven different flights – International and domestic – and a couple of trains. Oh, no, we will NEVER, EVER do this again!]
It’s not just the travel, and living out of suitcases, with no space to call your own… There is the fact that if you are at a hotel, if you want to get up in the middle of the night and have a bowl of cereal – oh, wait – you can’t – sure you could order room service – but it’s not the same as walking into your own kitchen and opening the refrigerator to find something to eat that will satisfy whatever craving it is you are having. And, if you are with friends and family, I think it would be considered slightly bad taste to just get up and leave the bedroom in your nightshirt to grab that first cup of coffee – I, personally, don’t ever want to have a “first thing in the morning while I pour coffee” conversation with my husband’s best friend or my brother-in-law in my tee-shirt [just the tee-shirt!], hair not yet brushed and the tell-tale signs of mascara from the day before lining my eyes. So, unlike what might be something you are comfortable doing in your own home, you really can’t do somewhere else.
Forgoing the actual travel and being away from home, I’ve got numerous “things to do” before I can even leave… For starters, I make all the “Kids” food. Yes, this is something for which I have no one but myself to blame – but the food that is available for purchase here in The Sandbox is lacking in quality, to put it mildly. So, I’ve now spent an entire week in the kitchen preparing pre-measured bags of food, filling a chest freezer, for the Kids. I have cooked sixty pounds of hamburger, twenty pounds of chicken, ten pounds of turkey, and six pounds of salmon. I have hard-boiled, peeled and chopped more than twelve dozen eggs, cut into “stuffing” size cubes ten loaves of cereal bread, grated some ten or fifteen pounds of cheddar cheese and four or five pounds of parmesan cheese, cooked and pureed bags of frozen peas and cans of lima beans, shredded several kilos of carrots and sliced twice as many kilos of zucchini. I’ve cooked and chopped enough broccoli, green beans and beets that my hands have taken on a lovely light yellowish green and lavender hue. I have peeled, cooked and mashed sweet potatoes, and cooked rice and barley in commercial sized batches along with a couple containers of oatmeal. Thankfully, this is task is finally – finally – done.
There is the list of instructions to be left – which up until this trip – has been on the computer and I’ve just changed and updated it to make it applicable to whatever flights, dates, hotels, friend’s and family’s homes we can be reached at. We got a new computer [oh, yes, thank you, Dear, for getting us something we really needed – without a diskette drive so that I could simply put what I need from the old computer on a disk and plug it in to this one!] and so I am going to have to do the “instructions” from scratch. There are forms that must be filled out, here, that are not an option, and then delivered to their respective offices: One for housing that says we are gone and who is responsible for maintenance, one that is for security authorizing our “house assistant” to stay here with the “Kids,” and one for the vet authorizing treatment for the “Kids” should it become necessary allowing payment of same to be withheld from my husband’s pay, and finally one for the mail – that we never get – to be held. My list of “things to do” includes numerous other items – some of which are relatively important [i.e., get The Baby’s stitches removed – she was spayed this week], and others which, if not done at all [i.e., get a pedicure] will probably go unnoticed.
So, no, I’m not entirely thrilled to be “going on vacation” at this point… And, no I’m not excited. But for the fact that my father’s health is failing – he had two heart attacks in March, just before we returned to The Sandbox – so I want to spend some time with him – I would tell my husband who has been in the States for work-related purposes, that I just can’t do this trip, again, right now. We were in California in September of last year; we were in Las Vegas for the Holidays and returned to The Sandbox in January; our “long” vacation was scheduled for March – I left The Sandbox to go to North Carolina in February – to get The Boy’s little sister, The Baby, and was gone for almost two months. We have another “short” vacation – already scheduled – for this fall – we are going to Thailand – and I could happily wait until then to go anywhere… I really rather wish, already, that this trip was over and done with and that we were home again, because traveling like this isn’t a vacation. It is work!
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