Did you notice the title of my post? Well, I had my first experience of feeling like a minority in this country, twice actually. The first came when I called the hospital where I was scheduling an appointment with the chief of obstetrics for my 24 week appointment and upon calling was prompted to "press 2 for English". I was caught off guard a little because I wasn't expecting to get that option, but I was extremely relieved to hear those words. I was impressed with the voice on the other end once I got through to someone and I made sure to be very patient with her while giving her my name and contact information.
The second moment came when Brooks, Gavin, Micah, Stephanie, and I went out to dinner to celebrate Gavin's actual birthday. The moment we walked into the restaurant, we were escorted to the Family Section- yes, the restaurants here are segregated based on gender. If a woman is with a man, you must sit in the Family Section. We went to one side of the restaurant, which is separated by a wall, and even went a step further and went into a small "room" that was separated from the rest of the restaurant with a curtain. We kept our curtain opened since Stephanie and I don't mind anyone seeing our faces, but curtains or particians (spelling) are used to allow the Native women the opportunity to eat their meal, without their vail on and then no one sees their face. Anyways. the main part about this evening that made me realize we weren't in the states anymore was when it came time for us to leave. Prayer time had started by then, and by law here, places of business are suppose to close or stop serving customers to adhere to prayer. Many restaurants have curtains that they pull out to cover there front windows to "observe" prayer and they will close down (by putting up a sign saying closed for prayer outside), but business is still going on inside the restaurant. Anyways, we needed to leave the restaurant, but prayer was going on, so we were escorted through the back of the restaurant, through the kitchen, and let out the back door. Very, very interesting moment in my life. That was a first. Here's a pic of the sign at the front of the restaurant when we were leaving and you can see the curtains are pulled. Sorry- forgot to turn my flash off.
There are many other situations/incidents that are a continued reminder to me that we are clear across the world and I thought you might find them interesting or just may be curious as to life here....
- a majority of all products in grocery stores are printed with one side in Arabic and the other in English-- thank goodness. I'd have no idea what I would do if it was all in Arabic. You'd be surprised how SOME of their packaging is a little different that it would be hard to tell what it was. For instance, tortilla chips are found in a box that you are suppose to heat up in the oven upon serving.
- temperature is recorded in Celsius... so when you're told it's only 52 degrees outside, you think, hey, that's no big deal-- well, convert it and you quickly realize it's like 150 degrees.
- weight is recorded in kg (try ordering 1lb of turkey meat and the meat packer hears me say 1kg) Yikes!!
- I went shopping for an abaya last week and am now having a custom one made and fitted to my body. Never in a million years would I have thought I would have walked into a store, searched a rack full of black "robes" and discussed with my husband which ones we found cute or liked more. Plus, I didn't think I'd ever have something custom made for me, but somehow I never pictured it to be an abaya.
- It's HOT here!
- I was always told when we came here that everything is filtered through TV, books, magazines, etc. Our TV is shown to us through some European satellite. We get around 40 channels. So far, I've watched the movie Fire Proof (unedited); HBO shows are broad casted (something called Big Love?!), and we get the "E!" channel-- you know, with shows like The Kardashians, Kendra, Holly's World... um, yea, we get all those shows, plus several movie channels that are, um, well.... not anything I thought we'd have. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying our TV is filled with all bad stuff, it's just not what I thought there would be on our TV. There are lots of sitcoms, series, and "reality shows" like Project Runway and The Biggest Loser, however, they are all from several years back. No biggie though. We really haven't been spending a lot of time watching TV.
- NOW..... going into a store and looking at a magazine or a product on the shelves... it is VERY common to see women's bodies covered up, faces blocked out (sometimes), and even young girls covered... Here are two things I found while in Toys R Us:
On our way back from Khobar yesterday, Stephanie and I witnessed a wreck just moments after it happened (this was our 2nd to see). We were advised by our CIA representative never to look at the accidents, never to stop, never help, but just keep going. I understand now why. First off, Muslims believe everything is "insha'allah", which means God willing. I'm not going to get into the meaning of that, but just know it is used ALL the time here and is part of their daily lives. I'm not going to give you the details of the wreck I saw yesterday, because it was something you'd see out of a movie/tv show. What I will say is people got out of their cars to stand by and watch, medical vehicles could not get to the scene of the accident because cars were 6 lanes across on a 3 lane highway and there was no shoulder or even off road for the "ambulance" to go. It was, again, horrible. I did take this one picture before coming up on the scene just to give a glimpse of the small amount of chaos that was going on. Now, I did not realize the scene was going to be what it was, so I apologize if anyone feels this picture was not necessary or needed and that it was insensitive to take. You can see the people starting to line up on the median from the other side of the freeway. They literally just stopped their cars, pulled over, got out, and went to watch. The people on the right side of the picture, out of their cars, were trying to move cars by so the ambulance could get through. I will NEVER just "look" at a wreck again while I'm here. I do not need those images in my head, ever!
Hope you all are doing well. Do me a favor, next time you're in the grocery store or pull into Sonic during the middle of the day, be grateful!! and think of us!!
No comments:
Post a Comment