Arabic 101

One thing that we have learned is that language tells you a lot about a culture. So today we will give a crash course in the top Arabic terms we hear the most in a day:

1. If you are coming to the Gulf, first make sure you have a sweet Arabic name. Some of the most common male names we have seen are: Abdulah, Abdulaziz (by far the two most popular), Sultan, Mohammad, Mohanned (had the hardest time hearing the difference at first but the subtle pronunciation difference was very important to the person I was talking to), Khald, Osama, and Nwaf. For girls the most popular names are Reem, Eman, Noura, Haifa, and Fatimah. Some of the most interesting names are: Al Hanouf, Abeer, and Felwalu (still trying to figure out how to pronounce these).

2. Now with the phrases, we'll start from the beginning. How you say hello is: assalam wa alaikum meaning peace be upon you. The story behind it goes as follows:

Abu Hurairah narrated that the Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) said: "Allah created Adam from dust after He mixed the clay and left him for some time until it became sticky mud, after which Allah shaped him. After that Allah left him till it became like potter's clay [a sounding clay]. Iblis used to go past him saying 'You have been created for a great purpose.' After that Allah breathed His spirit into him. The first thing into which the spirit passed was his eye and then his nose. He [Adam] sneezed. Allah said: "May your Lord have mercy upon you, O Adam! Go to those angels and see what they would say.' So Adam went and greeted them. they replied saying: "Peace be upon you and the mercy and blessings of Allah." Allah said: "O Adam! This is your greeting and that of your offspring." (Sahih Bukhari).
3. Next, the phrase you will hear most in the Kingdom is the phrase - inshallah - meaning if Allah wills. For example you will hear this when calling a taxi: diver - "I will be there in 10 minutes, inshallah." You will hear it when talking about schedules - "Monday's meeting is at 10, inshallah. Tuesday's meeting is at 9, inshallah...". And we have even heard it in the classroom - teacher - "Everyone must finish there assignment in 5 minuets." Student - "OK maybe, inshallah." We love our students!

4. Another term we hear a lot is mashala – which means "Allah has willed it." This is mostly said as a protection though. For example, say someone tells you they love your hair. If you do not say mashala, they could begin to become jealous of your possessions and start desiring to have your hair (ok maybe hair is a weird example). So the idea is that to not say mashala after every complement, you are actually harming everyone around you. You will hear it all the time too. For example, say Johny buys a new car and is showing his friends. You will hear Johny repeat mashala after almost every sentence to protect himself and his friends. It's very different for us but it's as natural as you get here.

5. The last phrase we hear a ton is alhumdulillah - (which is by far the funnest to say). The word is a great word and it means "Praise be to Allah (God)" and is one that we say often. There is so much to praise God about and our Arab friends are always quick to remember it. Alhumdulillah!

So as you can see from this quick Arabic lesson, what defines this Saudi culture is Islam. Saudi culture is so closely defined by it's religion it is hard to imagine the two without each other. We really do love it here and love this culture and people so much. We have met the most generous and amazing Muslims here. We love you all and hope to talk to you all soon!

Finally some pictures!

Here are a few pictures we have taken along the way...

The bearded man + his hooded wife

View from the backyard. You can start to see the sandstorm moving in.

We stumbled upon some old forts in the desert.

They are mostly made of mud and straw but were still in amazing condition.

Here comes the sandstorm! Ugh!

Have not had a full one yet but this was a little taste of what's to come.

But not too much worst than Riverside on a bad day right?

Few things to look at: KSA was talking with one of the head government officials from India so they lined all the freeways in Riyadh with Saudi and Indian flags. Also you'll see the sign for Panda on the right. It's like a Walmart and they also have their version of a Super Walmart called what else:

Hyper Panda

In America we have cemeteries with with grave stones. Here they have burial mounds. The more important you are the bigger the mound. You can see how people just build around them through the years.

A favorite weekend getaway for most Saudi's is setting up these tents in the desert. Inside is usually super nice fabrics and woods and some even have air conditioning. Not sure if this is technically camping out.

In California you have cows on the side of the road. We have camels.

Such a different place but we love it! Great hearing from everyone. Please don't stop thinking about us!

Culture shock anyone?

Hello everyone! We are about a week in now and have officially started our first days of work and are up and running with our teaching schedule. Above is a picture of Brendon’s school and believe me it is quiet a maze. It is three stories and I get lost almost everyday. Staci works at a different campus for the females only in a different part of the city because single males and single females can have no interaction what so ever. It's very different but more on that in a minute. We are both fitting very nicely with the job the teaching has been tons of fun. It's amazing what the students think about America and their questions that they have. The top Americans they knew were in their words: President Bush, President Obama, Condoleezza, Hilary Clinton, Oprah, Micheal Jackson, and who else? Akon (I know. Super random). They also thought it was funny that we only wanted 4 kids as each of them come from families with at least 5 or 6 boys and 3 or 4 girls. My favorite question so far that they have asked though was: "How close to your home is the Bermuda Triangle?" Glad to hear that out of the few world facts they know about, Bermuda Triangle is on the list.

Ok so back to some of the different things of Saudi culture. Male and female interaction is what they call haram, which basically means extremely off limits. What also fall in the category of haram are things like: movies, alcohol, music, talking about religion or politics, and of course – chess. Why chess? No clue. But don’t, worry checkers are ok. :) I don't understand it either.

Things that are haram are often very easy to spot here in the Kingdom. For example in the mall you will see huge pictures of a women in the store windows where the faces are all blurred out (sometimes its just the eyes blurred out) and all the skin covered up. How do they cover the skin? Well, as we saw just last night, just staple pieces of paper over it.

The malls are also policed. They are not the typical mall security you think of with their little night stick and watching for burglary. There sole purpose is to to kick out single guys. You see most most malls are woman and family only for 90% of the time. So single guys get the boot, but what happens when your wife goes into the girly store and you are waiting outside? Well that is something that Charlie found out the other day when he got kicked out of the mall after Corrie went into store to look around!

Many times we just have to laugh, play the ignorant american card and scratch our heads later about how different it is here. It is an amazing culture and one that we are growing to love for all of it’s differences. Our interactions have been wonderful with the people and we have learned the amazing hospitality of our Arab brothers. We love you all and always love to hear how you are doing as well. Keep in touch!

We're here!

We made it! Safe and sound and are busy learning about our new home. Man it is such a different place! Many times I just have to laugh because the culture is just so different then ours. So for today I’ll write a top ten random facts that we have picked up so far about the Kingdom:

10. Saudi is pronounced – S ou dee (ou as in ouch)

9. You have to plan your day around prayer times. Why? Every store in the city closes for half an hour during the call to prayer which is five times a day. So that means if you are hungry – all food is closed down. If your shopping – they will lock all the doors of the shop. And if you are in the line at the store – might as well have a seat cause it will be awhile.

8. No carpet in your apartment. Reason: the dust here is super fine and magically gets everywhere even if there is no doors or windows open. Also when inside you have to where sandals of slippers of some kind or else you feet will be super dirty/dusty in minutes.

7. So in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia they have some pretty strict rules and many of the rules are about dress and what is expectable. So for the people in the country is not much problem: just have them cover up. But what about pictures coming into the country where they are showing too much skin? Easy solution. Color woman’s clothes on with a sharpie. No joke. You see it all over. Everywhere from movie covers to packaging on products in the supermarket. I love this country!

6. Riyadh is crazy at nights! As soon as about 8 pm hits the city comes alive and there are people packed everywhere. Just as an example, the last two nights we were still driving around and on the freeways at around 2 in the morning. Hard to believe but at 2 the streets were crowded and there was tons of traffic! It’s not even the weekend for them! Most stores don’t even close till around 1am or 2 am.

5. So we ate at Pizza Hut last night (I know that is random enough) and it was a super nice sit down restaurant (also very random but not best part yet). For woman it can be a very awkward with the headscarf and veil and trying to eat a meal. So how do they work around it? They have either curtains or rolling dividers that they put around your booth so that woman can take off their head pieces. So crazy! And they have this everywhere from Burger King to fine dinning restaurants. Total privacy in the middle of a fast food place.

4. Saudi has some of the longest street names on earth. Just as an example one street name will take up two full lines on the freeway signs. They look something like this:

Prince Amer Bin Saubael Bin Abdia Fahan Rd. Imagine giving out your address to people if you lived on this street. The longest I have seen so far was 9 words long!

3. These next two was all from our trip to Ikea (Yes they do have an Ikea, and yes it is awesome). Random fact about Riyadh’s Ikea – it has a mosque built inside. Now you can shop, park your cart during the call of prayer, pray, then get back to shopping. So random yet very convenient.

2. Oh and this is just amazing, definitely a contender for first but just barely missed it. We saw a sign when walking out of Ikea that was advertising that they were hiring. The sign said this – “Are you tired of getting paid for doing nothing?” Imagine seeing that in America.

1. By far one the most awesome things I have seen in KSA so far was something we learned about gas. As you know the kingdom owns the gas of the world and can set the rules with it as they see fit. So get this: do you now how much gas here? 50 cents a gallon! Oh and they are full service gas stations so you don’t have to get out of the car. Oh and no tax either. We love KSA!

Around the world in 36 hours

Here is our route to Riyadh. It will take about a day and half to get there if everything runs smoothly. We should get there about 9 PM (Saudi time) on Feb 13. Crazy news: The longest flight will be about 11 hours. Ughh! Remember us when you talk to our father!

Now that's a storm

These pictures were taken in March 09 in Riyadh. We are going in february. Clariton anyone?

This was one of the biggest sand storms in history for Saudi Arabia and weather authorities said that visibility dropped to zero in the worst part of the storm. I guess this is their version of school getting canceled for a snow day

Just to give you an example how big this storm is, the building below is the tallest building in the Kingdom at 99 stories high.

Life in KSA