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?