Posted By: Rachel

Camels and a Guilty Conscious

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When we decided we were moving to the Middle East, I very quickly told Mitch, “I don’t care what we do over there, but I am riding on a camel.”
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While were in Dubai last month for our Eid vacation, I did exactly that!  We went on one of the famous ‘Desert Safaris,’ where all of the tourists gather, to enjoy a variety of desert adventures.  Some of the options are: going bashing through the sand dunes in a 4×4, sand boarding, four-wheeler rides, riding camels and a bunch of other stuff.  I was so excited for my first camel ride!

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When it was our turn, we climbed up on the huge creature, (seriously, these dudes were twice the size of any horse I have ever ridden on) put on my brave face (see below . . . it doesn’t look very brave) and rode a camel with my hubby!

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We smiled for the camera, laughed, and enjoyed our short 1 minute and 36 second camel ride.

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At the end of our ride, we had to prepare for the awkward dismount.  To get off the camel, it would drop to it’s knees, and eventually sit on the ground.

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The ride was extremely short, but here I am 5 weeks later still thinking about it, feeling guilty about it.

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I made the decision to ride this camel in the name of a fun picture.  Would I ride an elephant at the circus in the name of a good picture? No, I would refuse to participate in the mistreatment of animals.    I was a part of the problem, I participated in the mistreatment of these camels.     Instead of dealing with the situation with my moral compass strongly in place, I twisted my thought process around into “I might never have a chance to do this again,”  “it will make great pictures” and “you are in the desert, you have to ride a camel.”

So as you travel the world and have the opportunity to experience new and interesting adventures, I encourage you to keep your moral compass strongly in place.  I regret that I allowed mine to slip up a bit, but have definitely learned from this and hope that others can too.

So there it is a major Debbie Downer of a post all about my regrets and the lessons I learn by making mistakes along the way.

Tim Tams and Apple Juice

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We have been crazy busy lately.  We have been working our regular jobs during the day and then at night we have both been running from one side job to the next.  This has resulted in a couple of things:

1. lack of blog posting

2. lack of clean underwear

2. lack of seeing each other

Fortunately when you come home to see this….

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it makes it easier to scramble to get a load of laundry done so you will hopefully have clean and dry underwear in the morning.

 

 

Sounds of Home

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I grew up in a house that was located right near train tracks. I remember when we first moved into the house, waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of the train horn as the train crossed from Canada into the US.  I remember thinking I would never sleep a full nights sleep ever again.  However; something changed, I soon became used to the sound of the train and it shifted from an annoyance that woke me up to a comforting sound of home.  When I moved into my very first apartment on my own it was a selling point for me that it was located close enough to the train tracks to hear them rumble by at night.  Trains were my nighty lullaby.

Upon moving to the Middle East I was nervous about the call to prayer that broadcasts through speakers from each mosque five times a day. I thought the call to prayer would wake me up early in the morning or bother me in some way.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

What is the call to prayer?:

Within the Islamic faith Muslim people pray 5 times a day. Muslims pray at dawn, midday, afternoon, evening, and night, the times vary based on the times of sunrise and sunset.  The call to prayer is sung live 5 times a day, 35 times a week and 150 times a month. When I first moved to Kuwait I thought that each Mosque just had a recording of the call to prayer that they scheduled to play at regular intervals.  It wasn’t until I was in Kuwait for a month that I learned that each of Kuwait’s 630 Mosques had someone signing live at each of the 150 calls to prayer in any given month. The call to prayer is a reminder of what times Muslims are to be praying.

It was amazing to me how quickly I have learned to love the call to prayer.  The call to prayer is such a beautiful sound.   It reminds me that many, many people in the world are taking this exact moment to focus on their faith.

The call to prayer is my new train, it is the sound of home.

The Holiday Hangover

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We are in the midst of the worst part of travel . . . . the dreaded Holiday Hangover.

We arrived back in Kuwait, from Dubai, on Saturday evening. We were back to work and in our typically routine on Sunday morning when our alarm clock went off at 4:30 a.m.  Boo, hiss, yuck!  We had lots of fun on our vacation that lead to late nights and sleeping in until “normal people” sleeping times, like the sun was already up when we woke up.  It was glorious, but it lead to an even rougher Holiday Hangover once we made it back home.

After I struggled through the work day yesterday, I foolishly agreed to go and tutor (dumb mistake #1) when I really just wanted to go home, crawl into my bed, and watch trashy reality t.v. I waited at school for the driver to come pick me up and bring me to tutor, but because of a random police check-point (to check on people’s drivers licenses) he was an hour late to pick me up.   I tutored for about an hour and a half, but then found out that the driver was once again stuck at the police check-point.  He was going to be a while before he made it back to bring me home, so I called my trusty taxi driver Abdul.  Dumb mistake #2, clearly Abdul was going to get stuck at the same police check-point.  Abdul finally made it to me about an hour later. Unfortunately though, by the time he arrived, a shift change had occurred at the guard station outside of the home I was tutoring at, and the new guard wouldn’t allow him onto the grounds to pick me up.  So . . . . I packed up my bag and walked across the grounds towards the gate, which you are probably thinking is not that a big of a deal, unless you knew how unbelievably huge these grounds were!

Throughout this event, which will forever be known as “the longest tutor session ever,” Mitch was in the midst of another terrible part of the Holiday Hangover . . . the trip to the grocery store!  The following is the text messages that we exchanged throughout this entire process…

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As I walked towards the taxi, a bird literally took a deuce on my arm!  It was just enough to snap me out of my Holiday Hangover, as I burst into uncontrollable giggles over the series of unfortunate events. I was then reminded how grateful I was to live a life where I have the ability to travel, even if it causes the Holiday Hangover.

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On the car ride home, I chatted the entire way with the taxi driver Abdul.  I feel fortunate that I have had the chance to meet people who come from completely different walks of life and are willing to share stories of their countries, their families, and their religions.  I walked into my apartment grateful to have a husband who does the grocery shopping and even more grateful for the box of cereal and milk that he came home with, so I could eat dinner without having to cook.  I poured myself a huge bowl of cereal, took a big bite of the most sour milk I have ever tasted!

First Aid Station: Atlantis Dubai

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I have always been a klutz.  I am clumsy and don’t pay near enough attention to what I am doing.  I once stabbed myself with my own ice skate and ended up in the emergency room with stitches.  In college I broken my foot while ….WALKING.  Mitch and I once got into an argument because he believed I was being too “Rachel” while standing near the edge of the Grand Canyon.  Yesterday, I continued the streak . . . I ended up at the first aid station at a water park!

While here in Dubai, we decided to spend a day at one of the coolest water parks in the world: Aquaventure at the Atlantis Resort. We smartly arrived 10 minutes before it opened, so that we could strategize what would be our first ride of the day.  We quickly came to the decision that we had to go big right away.  Our first slide of the day would be the Leap of Faith.  The Leap of Faith is a 60 foot near vertical drop followed by speeding through a clear acrylic tube that goes through a shark tank.  Yes, our first water slide of the day would be the “shark slide!”

IMG_1487We excitedly power walked (we couldn’t be part of the crazies who ran through the park) across the park to the tower that housed the Leap of Faith.  We climbed the bazillion stairs to get to the top, and realized that we were the first customers of the day.  With no time to think or get nervous, our friend Jooles quickly jumped in the tube and off she went, with only her screams to fill us in on what we were in store for.

I decided to go next.  I stepped into the water slide, SLIPPED, and immediately fell.  I barely caught myself on the handle bar saving myself from a trip over the edge, before my arms and legs were crossed, and inevitably the world’s worst wedgie ever.  A sigh of relief came out of Mitch, myself, and the water slide attendant, who humorously reminded me “be careful, it’s wet.”

As I giggled about my clumsiness, I pushed myself over the slides edge and screamed the whole way to the bottom.  (PS…apparently if you are screaming and have your eyes squeezed shut it, it’s really hard to see the sharks on the shark slide) As I splashed into the pool at the bottom of the slide I realized I didn’t possess the same gracefulness that my fellow sliders were apparently born with.  Every other person came off of the water slide by gently lifting their legs, and splashed bum first into the pool.  I however decided to go about it a different way.  I kept my feet crossed, locked my knees, and lifted my shoulders and head up off the waterside, which created a dismount that was more of a tumble rather than a plop.  The result: bleeding from 6 different locations!

To the First Aid station we went, where the kind medics informed me I was lucky customer number 1 for the day.  They were also pretty impressed, because they had never heard of anyone hurting themselves while sliding into a pool of water before.  In fact the medic asked me on numerous occasions if I was sure I hadn’t been running on the wet pool deck.   IMG_1486Once I was all bandaged up, I thanked the medics and began walking out of the first aid station.  As I was getting up from my chair, I stepped in a bit of water, SLIPPED, and barely caught my fall on the door handle.  One of the medics looked at his other medic buddy, and just said “Oh, she’ll be back.”

Al Khiran Beach

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Last weekend we enjoyed the sweet taste of FREEEEEEDOOOOOMMMMMM (make sure you yell that like William Wallace’s Braveheart voice).  Since moving to Kuwait we have been car-less.  Kuwaiti law is that you cannot purchase a vehicle until you have a Civil ID, so as our paperwork is being processed, we have been bus and taxi people.  It is super awesome that our school provides free transportation to and from school everyday, however relying on taxis to take us to the grocery store or to find some entertainment has been….kinda sucky.  We love being able to just jump in the car and go, and that has been striped from us for the last month and a half, so last weekend we rented a car!

I knew that the number one thing on my weekend to do list, after the car was in our possession, was head to the beach.  We have heard from our Kuwaiti veteran friends that if we headed south towards Saudi, we would run into some awesome private beaches that we could spend our day enjoying.

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Al Khiran is a resort town, where they dug out tons of channels to create more beaches and space for chalets on the water. This is a google map view of the area.

 

We woke up early on Friday morning, piled the vehicle full of our friends and headed south.  As we drove through the desert I spotted something strange off in the distance.  As we pulled closer we realized it was a wild herd (flock, school, pack, I guess I don’t know the proper terminology) of camels!….yes you read that right, FRICKEN CAMELS!  We realized in that moment we were in for a stellar day.

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We pulled into the Al Khiran area, which is where many Kuwaiti’s have their weekend chalets, which is like their weekend lake home to us.  Now let me tell you something, these were MANSIONS, not like any cabin I had ever seen before.  These places were the opposite of the outhouse using, lake shower taking, generator using cabins we are used to.  IMG_4663 Al Khiran doesn’t have any public beaches but we were easily able to climb a ditch and jump over a concrete barrier to reach the beach just fine.  IMG_4664 Once we made it to the beach we were in Heaven.  We had the whole place to ourselves.  IMG_4665 We laid in the sun, splashed in the water, and talked about how amazingly happy we were to be having this day.  IMG_4669 The only thing we wished as we had our lazy sun day was that someone would ask us to house sit for them at the Kuwaiti version of a cabin.  10637761_10103538217450747_1213934942_n So if you happen to be reading this post and own a Kuwaiti chalet, and are looking for someone to housesit…I’m your girl.  10152758_10103538221148337_2125341546_nAl Khiran, we will be back again, very, very soon!
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The Scientific Center of Kuwait

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In case we haven’t sufficiently told you how unbearably hot it has been here in Kuwait, let me tell you one more time: we live in a sauna, a sauna where a hair dryer is constantly blowing on you. This climate has lead me to discover something new about myself: I turn into a crabby, crazy person in the heat.

In order to save my husband from feeling as if he has married the spawn of Freddy Krueger and Naomi Campbell, I started to look for indoor activities for us to explore in Kuwait.  Enter: The Scientific Center of Kuwait.

The Scientific Center of Kuwait has a small Kid’s Discovery Zone with some science based experiments, a huge iMax Theatre, and a great aquarium.  It also met our top 3 requirements to do last weekend:

1. It looked like fun

2. It was indoors

3. It was indoors

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One of our co-worker’s husband was the architect who designed this building!

Unfortunately you can't ride your bike, walk your dog or smoke your hookah outside the Scientific Center.

Unfortunately you can’t ride your bike, walk your dog or smoke your hookah outside the Scientific Center.

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The Scientific Center was located right on the PersianGulf.  If it hadn’t have been 263 degrees outside, I would have gone down and enjoyed the beach.

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BREAKING NEWS: We found Nemo!

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I think this picture does a great job of showing how huge the fish tanks were. It kind of looks like Mitch is standing inside the tank with the sharks.

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I’m assuming he is related to Jaws.

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I love that sting ray’s always have a smile on their face!

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Mitch in a starring contest with a super ugly fish. Mitch lost!

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Awesome Aquarium….and it’s indoors.

Live from Kuwait City, it’s Saturday Night!

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As much as I would like to tell you that our Saturday nights involve cheerleader outfits, political parodies, and more cowbell, in reality our Saturday night currently consists of packing lunches, doing laundry, and prepping lesson plans.  Our Saturday nights look nothing like an episode of Saturday Night Live. Now before you go thinking, “man these two are super lame, I am never reading this blog again,” hear me out.

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Saturday evenings are currently spent preparing for the work week, because the work week actually starts on Sunday.  We work from Sunday-Thursday and have Fridays and Saturdays off.  Friday is the Muslim holy day, so the entire country of Kuwait, (and the majority of the Middle East) have a standard work week of Sunday-Thursday.

So far, what this change in the work week has meant for us is that we never know what day of the week it is.  Sunday feels like Monday, Thursday feels like Friday and Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are all a blurry mess.

Apartment Tour

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Mitch and I decided to take today’s post as a chance to invite you all into our home and check out our new apartment.  Mitch recorded and I narrated as we took a quick tour of our place.  We realized, that with the amount I flail my hands as I talk, the idea of me both narrating and video recording would result in a new version of the Blair Witch Project and would have people motion sick sitting in their desk chairs.  

So go ahead hit play, and welcome to our home!