Random thoughts @3rd & 4th month

We are in this together (Jan 31, 2006)
Tutoo pala si Dan ng sabihin niyang alam mo pag nasa ibang bansa ka, parang laging out to prove ka that they are no better than you and you can/are even better than them. No harm in thinking and being this way because you always strive to be better than you are now. The sad part comes when they don’t believe nor trust you just because you are of a different color and race. My Syrian neighbor asked me why I was so angry at my patient, I told him because I have nothing but good workmanship and intentions for my patients since I came here and I don’t want to be shouted at w/ no valid reason, not paid because of the fault of others, and treated with no respect. Often times I feel if I were a local Saudi, would they even dare treat me this way?

Now that I have simmered down, I realize, I chose this path and this is one of the challenges I really have to live with coping and adapting to a race which I feel has never felt the hardship of life.; who I feel has been spoiled rotten by their country’s wealth. Sorry if I am generalizing on the race, but one thing I do also want them to realize is that we are all working here together needing each other. Without each other, nothing good will happen. Therefore each of us need to respect and trust the other that we are both working for the good.

Handling the Cold (Jan 31, 2006)
It’s now cold again. Back home, I never felt having your finger and toes almost numb from the cold. A day without a bath was dreadful. But because of the cold (wala pa tong snow ha….), you just don’t feel like moving at all. The best therapy though is to have other thoughts than the cold. My therapy is I cook. What better way than hitting 2 birds w/ one stone. You keep warm near the stove and you are able to prepare food you will eat for the next 3 days. My other therapy is to sleep the cold away. That’s the best.

I often wonder why buildings here and houses are so solid. Having small windows, little glass. Then I realize the extreme weather as the cause. One will never survive the cold without a good heater. Winter food of soup, soup and warm soup, hot tea and warm coffee. In the desert heat on the other hand, everything is so hot that if you want to take a bath, even the water is hot. What they do here is to have a tub of water and let it cool off overnight and use it to take a bath early morning while the sun isn’t shining much yet. Well, that’s desert life.

See my Garden Grow (Feb 8, 2006)
About 3 months ago seeing the kingdom with few plants and trees I was surprised that my lowly onion and garlic pieces started growing tiny buds out of them. I wondered if I put them in water, would they survive the extreme weathers of the Kingdom? Seeing that I did not have any pot or soil, I said I will try growing them in water.

Today Oh am so proud the gardener with no garden for I have harvested my very own spring onions in the Saudi winter. The garlic bulb has brought forth long sprigs of “spring garlic”. Both have been delicious garnishing to 2 dishes of pancit palabok and continue to do so when their long weeds start bending. Their bends is a call from my spring delights saying, “Go & cut my long hair’.

Today I have also taken them for a bath to change their water…I think so flies won’t bite them as well….hehehe.

And what’s amazing is they also have long “togue like” roots that smell of what they are. I have cut them also and put them in water to try in my next cooking session.

Oh you should see their cute pots…they’re made out of pepsi liter covers. That’s another discovery. You cut the half of the pepsi plastic container with its cover and invert it to look like a short sundae serving glass. What’s good about this is its easier to clean coz the cover can be removed at its end.

So even without much trying, my garlic and onion grows buds wherever & whenever they can just to be of use…to anybody. Lets learn from my spring delights.

Waste not! (February 9, 2006)
The kingdom has everything in abundance. And in the land of many, it is here that I learn of putting to use things people usually throw away.

I mentioned the pepsi liter container I now use as handy pots.

The small egyptian orange plastic crate box (which held about 24 pcs of oranges) is now a small trash bin handy beside my bed.

Funny but everytime I go to put something in the trash bin, I take so long thinking, “talaga bang wala nang use ito o meron pa”.

I have to thank my parents as well for rearing me to “waste not”. Even my food, Yaya always told us to finish everything on our plate “at maraming nagugutom”.

But that’s a different story. Yaya’s line now is over-abused.

Now I put too much food on my plate and eat a whole lot than I actually should. Sabi ni yaya kelangan daw ubusin at daming nagugutom e. Tama ba yon?!

Smelling the flowers (feb 9, 2006)
Do you know that it is only here that I am able to use up a ball pen without losing it first?

Even the grip cushion of my used up pilot ballpen is now re-used as a grip cushion for my reynold’s pen. Also part of my “waste not, reuse more” principle.

Do you know that it actually takes 2 months for a whole pen to be used up?

You would wonder why a 37-year old wonders so much and even care writing about a ballpen? Indulge me, I have learned to be more observant of even the smallest things around me I used to take foregranted

Is this what they mean when I hear that phrase, “smelling the flowers?” Ironic but it took a land barren of any blooms to awaken my sensibilities.

Add-ons to life (feb 9, 2006)
I saw Ricky Martin giving out rebuilt houses to Thais hit by the tsunamis on TV the other day and he asked one grateful mother what she learned the most being homeless since? She realized that when she lost everything to the tsunami, and have survived since then, “that we don’t actually need much”.

I started looking at my life right now and realize it is true. You only have to have the basic needs of food, clothing and shelter for yourself. Of course your means of livelihood is a given to sustain all this, plus your health. All the rest are “add-ons” to life.

Even back home I would always ask myself before I buy anything, “do I need or want this”. The first opens my wallet, the seconds shuts it tightly.

But now I ask, can wanting (terribly) - a Nokia N80, worth about p30,000, to be able to take pictures of my world now & share with my loved ones, and to take pictures of my patients’ progress - be a need as well? Serving a dual purpose, communication and picture-taking, is it a created need? Hahaha.

It’s definitely an add-on that would definitely make me happier. HAPPINESS breaks open my tightened wallet.

Unfortunately, N80 is still yet to be released…maybe around March or April of 2006.

Wanting something so badly that I’ve created needs to have it isn’t wrong. Having something doesn’t actually need any justification as long as I’m not doing anything bad nor hurting anyone along the way…and if it does need any reason, HAPPINESS would be it. Agree?

So to each his own happiness … need, want, whatever…..

My first Desert Storm (Feb 9 2006)
This is a first!

I come out of our clinic and see fog with a smell. The smell of very dry soil whiffed with a mist of water...I cannot take off my mask. I cannot breathe it in because I cough.

Imagine everything covered with a layer of dust! Oh my gosh, I left my windows open!!!!!!

My fellow doctors postpone their bbq session today, our reception sadly tells us she just cleaned her house today…huhuhu….more cleaning tonight, driving is not going to be easy, shopping is postponed for another day. Everyone says why does it have to happen on a weekend?!!! (weekends here fall on Thursdays & Fridays)

Do you know the solution to a dust/sand storm? Rain.


Here’s praying for that miracle in the desert.

Kissing Men (Feb 14, 2006)
I still feel very uncomfortable seeing Saudi men kissing each other 2-3 times alternately on each cheek as a social greeting to each other. We would flip seeing men kiss each other much less hold hands.

How can this gesture be accepted but with women in public, be a crime? Even shaking hands with men…oh …even looking at the opposite sex is not allowed.

Sometimes I think this very strict tradition has to be re-evaluated for its good and bad. If having the woman covered from head to toe is to inhibit carnal thoughts of the woman, these thoughts can be still be instilled in the minds of the men some other…imaginative or…for lackof a better word…creative way.

I guess if I had the chance to talk to the King, this would be the first question I would ask in my quest to understand the unique ways of his kingdom. Why?

The Queen arrives!

On my arrival, midnight of October 10, 2006. I was directed to a line at the immigration. 6 very loooong lines of almost all women...mostly Pinays. Since ours was a direct PAL flight, we had endured 9 hours on the plane already... seeing new faces was most welcome.

Saudi men. That's the first thing we saw.

The first time to see men in dresses & cloaks, kissing one another was strange. Ay mga bakla (Gays), you'll never see that in my part of the world.

They were laughing happy, all men, among themselves but once they faced us, women, all turned formal, cold, not even a "welcome to the kingdom", barely looking at us....you'll never see that in my part of the world.

Surprised that I was told to surrender my passport and wait for my sponsor to come. I found that strange but as all the women were giving up their passport, I followed. I got my luggage from the conveyor belt, as everyone did and made sure my phone was open for any calls. Slowly saw all the women forming the longest line ever ...but the feeling I got was that of a herd of animals being rounded up...not good. They left for where? I don't know but I was told to wait so I waited.

I waited...and waited...until I was all alone by the baggage counter...all lonesome by myself. You know that feeling of being the last person in the world, in an airport, at 1 am in the morning? Only the echo of my voice could be heard. I finally called Dr. B (my boss) and he said a Mr. B would pick me up, the hospital administrator.

30 minutes later, sitting by my lonesome, an airport security guard who did not speak a word of english started ordering me to go to the REAL immigration line. My baggage was opened and searched & for the first time in the kingdom I saw a smile. But the smile had a "naughty-look" to it. Yikes! What is it with people here, haven't they heard of "hospitality"???!!!!

I was led to a woman's waiting reception hall, more of like a "glamorized but huge" prison cell than a hall, walls with designs, carpeted but musty. Full of Filipinos, Indonesians, Asians...all women. My first taste of women segregation. I hated the place. A hall with double decker beds, but most of us were sitting on the floor...idle. About 50 or more of us...seated.....waiting. It was humiliating.

Strict airport women not allowing you to even go out of the reception once you're inside. A feeling of being looked down upon creeps into you. Especially when a lady hollers and shouts for a specific group to line up...reminiscent of slaves being rounded up to meet their masters. Worst was I lost my telephone signal and was beginning to worry. How in the world would Mr. B find me among all these halls (about 4-5 halls), amidst hundreds of women!

Finally I figured out thatthese women were all domestic helpers waiting to be brought to their final Saudi province. Then I saw another hall for health professionals with sofas and a bit an upgrade of where I was staying. So....this was where I belonged. I decided to stay there for awhile, met a fellow pinay, a nurse who made me understand.

The way of the kingdom for newly arrived women was to wait for their male sponsors are their representatives to pick them up from these halls and be brought to their final work place. There were only 2 kinds of women who entered the kingdom....domestics or nurses.

Peering through a small window, I saw the men swarming over a counter fighting over getting the women who had come. What is this? I felt like a commodity being sold over the counter and hand picked. They were the sponsors bringing the goods home.

Alas Mr. b came. Relieved at last of all my worries and fears! It took them 3 hours to fix my documents for release since it was the first time that their clinic was hiring a doctor from the Philippines.

It was 3 in the morning and the whole kingdom was still asleep.

The queen arrived feeling more like a slave, a prisoner.

My queendom come

It's been half a year since I landed in a country ruled by a king.

Revered by his people, he rules with religion by his side. A monarch so powerful, with oil as his queen....they rule forever. His kingdom is ruled by men with women clothed to the toes, their beauty hidden from the world.

It is not to say it is not a happy kingdom. To each his own, it is.

I am now a part of those hidden beauties..hehehe...and we have our own "queendom", revered by all with truth by our side. Empowered by words, with technology as our king...we rock forever! The beauty hidden shall be unravelled...shall bloom to the hilt.

7 months ago, I was living in a place where all wanted to rule and be king, the people becoming restless, fearful of the future.

Today, I live in the world "exactly" opposite of my world then.

It is not to say I am not happy. On my own, I am.

Now I share with you why.