Weekend Trip to Egypt

This fall we had a baby. He's real cute and we love him. But as a result, we have been somewhat cooped up since then. This isn’t to say that we aren’t living our lives as we are. Harris is a flexible and chill little guy who behaves well wherever we take him. Rather, this is more of a statement on the kinds of things, and the timing of things that we can do. One of, if not the number one reason to work overseas is the travel. We travel to a new place 3-4 times per year. It allows us to take advantage of our wanderlust and our location. Due to how fresh and raw he was during our November break, we did not travel anywhere. Due to family visiting and Harris’ lack of a passport, we only traveled for a few days to Bahrain for the New Year. For teachers, it’s a long stretch between the start of the second semester and Spring break, so Shannon and I decided that we needed to break up the monotony and get out of town. So we planned a weekend trip to Egypt this past weekend.

We chose Egypt because it’s always been on my list of places I wanted to go, and it’s a short, direct flight from Riyadh. We wanted somewhere close to see how Harris would do on his first flight, and it doesn’t hurt that we had a chance to visit a continent we had never been to before, and to check off a bucket list location as well. Prior to going, we asked around for advice from some of our friends who had been before. The only bit of advice we heard from everyone was to make sure we stayed in a nice place. We were told of horror stories about hotels that looked amazing online and were terrible in person. So we decided to heed that advice and book a stay at a location whose reputation we trusted and we booked at the Four Seasons.

Since it was a three day weekend, we didn’t have to worry about rushing out of town to catch a night
flight and arrive all crazy late. Harris is just now developing a routine so we didn’t want to stray too far from that. So, we booked a flight that departed at 12:00 to make it easy on him and us. We figured if he was going to scream on the flight, at least he wasn’t going to keep anyone awake at night. We packed light, shunned the stroller, and brought the baby backpack instead with the intention of checking nothing. Somehow, despite all of the baby accessories that need to be accounted for while traveling, we pulled that off too.

We got to the airport and walked around a bit. We waited in our line to board when a nice Egyptian grandmother gestured to Shannon that she wanted to hold Harris, to which we politely smiled and said no thank you. Needless to say, this was going to be a theme for the weekend. When it was our time for our flight to take off, we were a little nervous about how he was going to react to the pressure change, but as we were taxied to the runway, he fell asleep cold. He took a 30 minute nap that conveniently got him through the ascent and we played until it was time to land. We made our way to our car after customs and immigration and we were told by our driver that we could and should anticipate many other kind grandmothers attempting to steal our baby for cuddles. Our driver was among the most skilled I have ever seen. With Cairo being a city of 20+ million, and our arrival at 4:30, we were in for some rush hour action, but he bopped and weaved his way through everything with the skill and precision of a surgeon. There were a few times where he pulled his car into a makeshift fake “lane” and we were so close to the cars next to us, that I would swear we could have put an index card in between the cars and it would have stayed pinched between them.

Once we settled into our rooms, we fed the baby, got his crib set up, bathed him, and put him to bed. Our hotel was beautiful and overlooked the Nile, which prompted some great dad jokes on my part. I’ll let your imagination run with that one. Then we had some delicious local food called koshery delivered to the hotel on a recommendation from some friends who had lived in Cairo. Koshery is delicious, and it is cheap. We ordered two medium orders and a small desert to split. Each order was essentially two KFC buckets worth of fried onions, and like five kinds of noodles with a tomato sauce, garlic oil, and chili sauce mixed in with chickpeas. It was absolutely incredible.

The next day we set out on our tour and brought some lunch. The ride to the Great Pyramid was less than a half hour. It was absolutely stunning. Shannon had been before so it was less of a surprise to her, but I was in awe by how big they were. I had obviously seen photos before, but I had no idea they would be so big. It stood at about 455 feet! We took some photos and climbed on the pyramid a bit and wandered around a bit as we took in the history from our guide.

After we left that site, we went to a beautiful panoramic vista point that showed the three most centrally located pyramids, including the Great Pyramid of GIza and had our lunch and took some more photos. Then we wandered over to the solar boat site, which was pretty cool as well. It’s a boat that was excavated and theorized to have been a vessel for a king to travel to the afterlife upon for his judgement to the afterlife. After the solar boat, we took a short drive to the Sphinx, which was amazing. It was way smaller than I thought though, standing at about 25 feet tall. It would have fit in a basketball court, with room to spare, which was in stark contrast to the pyramids. While we were there, a couple got engaged. (I think we accidentally got in a few of their celebratory photos) I have to say, hats off to the guy who planned that location for the proposal.

When we left the historical sites, we were taken to a essential oil and perfume shop where we were
given tea and shown how people make essential oils and perfumes. It was really cool to see how seemingly odorless liquids can be transformed and made into potent perfumes. At this shop, Harris was taken (gently but firmly) from my arms and played with and doted upon. He was cool with it and while it made me a little wary to have a stranger passing my baby around, it was clear to me that this was not going to be a Liam Neeson ‘Taken” situation so I relaxed a bit. I think I realized it when I was handed an iPhone and asked to take her photo, with my baby.

After buying some sort of sandalwood and eucalyptus concoction, we left and went to a nearby papyrus shop where we were shown how the first paper was made. It’s a pretty cool process and one that was neat to see in person. They start by soaking the papyrus reeds to make
them flexible. Then they split the reeds long ways with a knife, as one would with string cheese, and they soak them again to make them malleable. The thickness at this point resembles a yardstick so I wasn’t sure how they were going to turn that into paper, but they used rolling pins to get some of the water and sugar out of the reed, which thinned it out a bit and allowed it to be even more flexible. Then those strips were woven together and put into a press to create a woven, thin paper. It was really cool to see. We wandered around the shop for a bit until Harris decided that he was ready for a nap so we took him back to the hotel and got him situated. It turns out historical adventures are the secret key to getting him to sleep through the night! The poor, exhausted little man slept for the next 12 hours until it was time to get him up for our flight the next morning. Prior to the trip, he slept through the night one time. On the weekend of the trip, he did it three nights in a row! It’s a big world out there, there are a lot of new things to experience, and it can be exhausting.

After an uneventful flight back, we made it home in time to unpack and do some weekend errands before we went back to work for the week. I’m incredibly proud of our little trooper who hung in there for a big adventure and of us for taking the chance to travel with him. I’m glad we got to check out some really amazing sites and get out of our compound bubble for a little while. We enjoyed Egypt very much and we thank all of the kind grandmotherly women who were gentle and loving while snatching our baby from us and who treated him like a tiny pharaoh.

Trip to India

One of the many benefits of living and working as a teacher overseas is the ability to travel for work. In the past five years, I have attended professional development training in Brazil, Peru, Bahrain, and now India. It’s an incredible way to see the world, get better at my craft, and enjoy the company of my colleagues. 

One of the most attractive aspects of our school’s compensation package for teachers is the generous professional development fund for each teacher. Earlier this year, we were a little busy with lots of Harris related stuff, but the school published some possible options for our professional development including some regional conferences. I signed up for the conference in Chennai, India.  Traveling to India was always something I've wanted to do; ever since my senior year at college and my history professor made constant analogies to the exotic land of spice. Every assignment we had was "Leaving port for our long journey to India." It became a sort of symbolic destination that I suppose found its way into my subconscious. Shannon had no interest in going to India for a vacation, so this was the perfect opportunity. So I signed up, forgot about it in the chaos of living with a newborn and in the midst of it all, and it stayed out of my mind until the week to leave crept up.

My first concern the week of departure was getting the house and Shannon ready. See, while women can legally drive in Saudi now, we have not yet had the opportunity to get Shannon a driver’s license or added to our insurance. This means that she still can’t drive off of the compound, thus she can’t run any of our errands. So the week of the conference, I ran around trying to stock the house with food, medicine, diapers, wipes, and everything else I could think of. We were effectively preparing her for quarantine for the weekend, and every provision was key. 

After loading the house up, the next step was to pack and get myself ready. It’s truly amazing how having a baby makes you re-evaluate what sort of things you consider necessities. I had all of my clothes, toiletries, and work stuff packed into the equivalent size of a shoe box in less than five minutes. 

The day I left, I woke up with the baby and said my goodbyes. It was going to be the first time I haven’t been within 100 yards of him since we brought him home. I was a little sad and I definitely felt some guilt for leaving Shannon with exclusive baby duty for the weekend.

The trip to India took about a day. We had a layover in Dubai where we were able to begin the cross-divisional bonding with some early afternoon lunch. When we got to India, it was about 8:15pm due to some weird two and a half hour time zone difference. I thought time zones were usually in the “whole hour” measurement, but alas you learn something new every day. The process to get through immigration took another hour and change. We hopped into a cab and got to see first hand how Riyadh traffic and driving can be taken up to another level. Upon finally arriving at the hotel and dropping my bags off, it was time for a late dinner at the hotel. It was my first foray into proper Indian food while in India and it blew me away. The blend of spices had no equal to anything I’ve ever experienced. After dinner, it was time to crash. 

We started early the next morning with the bus leaving the hotel to take us to the school at 7:00. The training was good and the campus had a beautiful, open, outdoor layout with outdoor hallways and courtyards. . I had seen our presenter in a previous year in Brazil. During coffee breaks, the school arranged for some local snacks and some vendors to sell some hand crafted goods. It’s a good thing they did, because despite my ingrained desire to explore, I spent 0 minutes outside of the hotel, school, or airport. Having a slice of local culture available at the school was a great touch. The training went until 5:00 at which point we went to the hotel. When we pulled up to the hotel, there was an outdoor parade (I think that’s just called a parade) leading into the hotel. People were dressed in traditional Indian outfits and the colors and designs were awe inspiring. A few of us filed that away into the back of our brains and we all met up shortly after that and had dinner together. I'm also not going to pretend that I wasn't texting Shannon for baby updates every 20 minutes or so. The guilt was strong.

After a quick shower, a few of us wandered over to the main lobby and found ourselves at the wedding reception. We were invited in and enjoyed the music and scenery for a bit of time while hanging out. After we had been there for an hour or so, it came to our attention that a member of our group actually knew the groom through some sort of distant family friend of a family friend sort of thing. It was at that moment that we went from being the strangers in the corner, to regular guests. We stayed for a bit longer, toasted the couple, danced a bit, and retired for the night after a long day. 

The next day was a quick one as well. We set off for the conference at 8:00am and stayed there until 12:00 when we had to leave for our flight back. The flight back was a doozy, but everyone has troubling travel stories that I won’t bore you with. We got back to Riyadh at 12:30 and I was safely kissing my son’s forehead goodnight by 1:30 before another long day at work the following day. My whirlwind trip was fruitful from a professional development standpoint, I had a good time, and my attendance at the wedding of the couple whose names I never learned provided me with a cultural experience despite my short stay. 

Getting into a Groove with Basketball

We work really hard. Most of our work days are of the 10-12 range or more when you figure in time we spend grading at home, meetings, getting to school early to set up lessons and the like. One of my personal outlets in dealing with the workload is basketball. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but we have weekly games of pick up basketball that keep us in shape (sort of), keep us sane, and allow us a moment to juggle those goals with socialization. It is one of my refuges from the stresses of work and the wonderful responsibilities of family life.

I detailed in a previous post how we gained enough attention in our play to be invited to play the Saudi National team. We got smashed, as we should have. But that exposure also led to us getting some other games. In addition to our weekly pickup games, we have been contacted about scrimmages against local professional teams. Not long ago, we hosted a local team at our gym. They came in looking way better than us in warmups. Part of that is because most of their guys were 6’6 or above, and, you know professional athletes. We were a group of guys who like to play once or twice per week for fun. We played them in five games to 21. Their coach worked on some plays to help them with their league and we just got out there to have some fun. We ended up winning 2 out of the 5 games nonetheless.

About two weeks later, our school hosted a charity basketball tournament with different divisions for different ages. We showed up early that day and watched some of our high school students take on other local clubs. Then in the afternoon, it was time for the adults. Our team of teachers plus two parents of students at our school was prepared to take on all comers. We showed up and had to wear borrowed pinnies from the PE department, while various other teams rolled in with their custom jerseys and in some cases coaches. We rolled them. The first game was against a team of guys from the Phillipines. We beat them 78-30. The next game, against a group of Saudi guys was a bit closer at a final score of 74-33. The last game was against a group from Lebanon and was much closer. That game ended up being something like 52-38. It was weird how each team had a collective nationality. It was sort of a quasi-Saudi based basketball Olympics of sorts. But in the end we prevailed. We even had one of our tall guys become a sort of celebrity that other teams wanted to take photos with. It was surreal.

One of our well connected players was so excited about our recent performances that he had some jerseys made for us for future tournaments and exhibitions. So now we will be rolling into these tournaments with the same level of professionalism as the rest. Of course our team name had to be the "Compound Kings." But win or lose in the future, the games have been a great outlet and a fun way to get to know people outside of my usual social circle.