Days 33 and 34, Sunday, the 18th, and Monday, the 19th of December, 2011

Dear Readers,


It is time to take stock of my writing. I feel I have done quite well. I have had a lot of help from dedicated readers like you, who do not need a post on facebook to visit this blog, and from Facebook, where I keep plugging this blog the moment I have added an entry. Truly, in the digital age, it is quite easy to let others know what you are up to, if you are willing to take some trouble to write and let them know; also, it is easier to maintain relationships and friendships through the comments columns here. There are some of my regular readers whom I have never met in my entire life, and yet, I feel close to them because they write back so encouragingly. On the other hand, there are several of my regular readers who do not want to/like to/remember to comment, and yet, they pray for me silently, and I am equally grateful to them. 


Through the agency of this blog, I have also realised that it is possible to share stuff that we would otherwise, in the course of a normal one-to-one conversation, never talk about. It is possible to be public about private matters without taking or giving offense. It is possible to share one's innermost fears and ventilate these with hope of a therapeutic letting off of steam or fear. This is a great achievement of a blog, and I am really thankful for this medium of sharing as I feel greatly unburdened or relieved after writing about my concerns/fears/doubts ... even if there is no feedback or suggestion from you all. 


I have, through this blog, garnered some new friends too, and they have accepted me as I am - open, sincere, truthful and honest in my writing. It is not as if I wasn't open in my real life in India. I was, and I think, as a result, I rubbed several of my friends/colleagues and relatives too the wrong way. Now, as I sit several thousand miles away, I am metamorphosing into a calmer, more understanding person, with dividends of goodness and warmer relationships to collect in future from those who did not exactly like my way of working/behaving/talking etc.


In addition, I have learned to observe things more closely, and many of my entries are a result of this calm observation of people and events around me. The wealth of detail may seem trivial at times, but it is sure to enable me to be a better chronicler and writer. 


Okay, so coming to the last two days ... Sunday was a routine day. The silver lining was that my backache is finally going away. From a regimen of 3-4 tablets, I was able to come down to just two today. In the evening, I had to take help from Dr. Narendra to go to the local gas agency to change my empty cylinder and get a new one (SR 16/cylinder). 


On Monday, that is today, I crossed one more milestone in my march towards full acceptance in this country. I attended and cleared the Basic Life Support course (CPR) today, along with many other doctors and nurses. Clearing BLS is a requirement to practice in this country and it cost me SR 200 to take the course, but I am glad that I am finally done with that. I would have to take this course every 2 years to re-certify myself, and hence, I will have to take it again sometime in December 2013 or so. The re-certification cost would be SR 150 as per today's rates. The other thing I did today was to take the annual Influenza vaccine, which is given free by the administration to anyone who cares to take it or ask for it. This will be an annual feature, by the way. I thought this to be a prudent thing to do, as I keep seeing kids with respiratory symptoms.


I went to a local Kerala restaurant for dinner today after Ishaa prayers, and to tell you honestly, it was a great feeling to have Kerala style fish curry with a few slices of bread, followed by rice. I don't think I am going to skip this in future ... at least one such meal every week should get me over the blues for another four or five days. They not only served two fairly larges pieces of fish, they also supplied free gravy twice, so as to enable me to finish off the bread/rice. And, wallah, this meal cost me just SR 6.00 - including the cost of a bottle of water and a milk tea. Only the bread was mine.


That's all for now ... will return for more conversations with you in a day or so. Thank you for reading.

Round 2 of observations

As I am up to date on the blog, let me use this chance to note down some more observations in relation to my stay in this country. I had made some observations concerning Ta'if city in my previous post on this issue. to read these, click here. Let me go ahead with some more observations concerning Ta'if. 

TA'IF:

• Truly, one can fall in love with this big, beautiful city. It is one of Saudi's tourist spots. The winter here can be very cold indeed, and I experienced a lot of chill every evening when I went out with Dr. Raid on the walk. As I was only carrying a fleece jacket, sometimes, the cold got to me so much that I had to abort the walk and go back inside the house at Mukhattat-ul-Visam. 
• The market area of Ta'if is spread over large tracts of land and is mostly centred around two major junctions: the one where there is Abbas Mosque and Abbas Square, and the one around Panda and Ta'if's heart Mall. In addition, the Tareeq (=street) Abu Baker and Tareeq Shubra has several large food shops, banks, electronics and white-goods shops, pharmacies and many other businesses. There is a huge "mobile souk" to cater to the needs of the ever burgeoning but trusting population. The Children's hospital is located in the narrow streets that connect the two aforementioned roads.
• The Gazzaz mall is located at Abbas square, and is quite near to the Keralaite area of shops where most of the Keralaite Indian run shops are located. These include grocery shops, restaurants, shops that sell odds and ends, utensils, toiletry and so on. The "Thara Restaurant" here is a famous joint for Indian cooking food, albeit, with emphasis on Kerala food, such as mixed vegetable with parathas, dry chicken, large grain rice and similar stuff. However, you won't find idlis, dosas and the like. The food here is fresh and cheap. Located next to it is a calling cabin for people to call their near and dear ones back home at rates much less than the calls that I can make with my mobile call, but more than what I can do with video calling on Skype.Each has its own advantages. This area also has laundries which will wash and iron your clothes for a small fee of SR 3 per cloth.
• The Ta'if Burj (tower) is located a little distance away from the Abbas square, and at its foot is the Ta'if's Heart Mall, popularly known by the name "Panda" which, actually, is the supermarket located within the mall. The Arabs, of course, pronounce it as "Banda", since they lack the "P" sound in their language. The mall is really huge, and its food court has to be seen to be believed. It is vast, with over 30 counters, ranging from the ubiquitous KFC and McD to the more unique counters which are specific to this country. I had a plate of rice with chicken tikkas and accompaniments of sauces, a little cooked brinjal (very frequently eaten by all Arabs) for SR 17 on one occasion. On another occasion, I tried a Fish sandwich (SR 5) from Al Baik, the biggest and most popular food chain in Saudi. It is like a Saudi-ised version of McD or KFC, with very low prices. For example, the chicken dish here will have 4 pieces of chicken legs, 6 breads (burger style), sauces and cheese for just SR 10! The food court has a skating rink in the centre for children, and large dining areas with modern chairs and tables where one can just hang around for as long as one wants.
• On yet another floor they had an amazingly big electronics store with dozens of models and huge inventories of TVs, refrigerators, computers, laptops, etc. Finally, before I move on, I must say that they had escalators without stairs - they kept going up and down like ramps which are even suitable for those who are in wheelchairs.
• On at least 4-5 days, I went to Ta'if only to surf the net, either in Abbas square, where I would sit in a garden  that is situated just opposite Gazzaz mall (see picture), or in Panda, where they did not mind me sitting for hours on end at one of the tables.
• Ta'if has broad roads, and their main road is called the Tareeq Shaher, which has big outlets like showrooms of Toyota and Mercedes cars, buiders' offices, food chain outlets, garments and jewellery show rooms, and so on.

I would now like to move on to things I saw and heard at the Muderiya Saha (the Ministry of Health) at Ta'if.


MUDERIYA SAHA:

• I will not be able to point out the exact location of the Muderiya to the reader, but suffice to say that it used to cost me either SR 10 or 15, depending on the idiosyncrasy of the dabbab driver who took me there from Mukhattat-ul-Visam. The Muderiya has a front entrance and a back one, and the offices of the guys who are in charge of the doctors who come to Saudi Arabia from all over the world are located close to the rear entrance. You are first welcomed to an outside cabin. Here, your passport and other papers that you brought from India are scrutinised; a clerical person then checks the photocopies of the certificates against the originals in your possession; finally, a medical form is given out to you to go to King Faisal Hospital for blood and urine tests, a chest X ray and a physical examination.  
• I took the necessary things with me but I was not aware that I had to take my original certificates for verification. In the event, I was lucky because the clerk did not insist on my producing them. He merely took an acknowledgement from me on each of the certificate's photocopies that I had got my originals back after verification. He then made the medical form for me and sent me on my way.
• It came as a surprise to me that the formalities at the Muderiya turned out to be simpler than I had thought them to be. It helped that both Raid and Sobhy had already prepared me for the procedures. As a result, I almost breezed through the complete cycle.
• After I had the results of the tests on Monday (exactly 2 days after I had submitted my blood and urine samples), I re-visited the Muderiya. They were very quick and I was soon led to an Egyptian doctor Mohd. Ashref, who gave me my allotment letter to go to Al Moweh Hospital. I pleaded with him to post me in Ta'if, but he refused point-blank. When I reached Al Moweh, I realised why. One of the pediatricians had just left and they needed a replacement for his departure. 

 I guess that brings me to the end of this rather long entry ... will try and share more news and views some other time. Please let me know how you found this entry. I will await your comments.

Life in Saudi Arabia ... some observations - Part I

I am going to divert a little bit and share with you some of the experiences I have had over the past ten days … stuff that is too inconsequential to include in a diary, but which adds to the sense of what Saudi Arabia is all about. I will highlight most of the things I have seen and experienced in a sort of bulleted list, and will try, whenever possible, to provide the readers with additional input in the form of thoughts, ideas and suggestions of my fertile mind. I may also digress to compare what I saw with the way similarities or differences exist in respect of the same things in India.

FLIGHT AND ARRIVAL

• ·        The Saudi Arabian air hostesses were dressed elegantly, with a dupatta going around their neck and over their heads, over which they wore a semi-Gandhi cap that looked pretty, actually. The male stewards were young, polite and spoke broken English, but were adept at what they did, namely serving their passengers.
• ·        The aircraft was a large, international airline with a total of 11 seats per row, (3 + 5 + 3), and it was a bit cramped in the economy section. My co-passengers were a worker with some level of English on my left, and a completely illiterate young fellow on my right. The latter was obviously on his first overseas journey, so intimidated was he. He simply looked around to see what the others did with their food etc., before imitating them.
• ·        The arrivals section of Riyadh airport is quite well-organised - and then you reach "Immigration". Here, there are huge crowds, and I saw Asians waiting for as long as six or eight hours in a queue to get themselves photographed, fingerprinted and so on. There were skirmishes, but they never escalated because the cops and airport staff were everywhere, and they kept the people on a tight leash. I tried to speak to some of these people to explain to them that I had a connecting flight after a few hours,  and it was only after repeated requests from me and several others like me that the airport staff created a separate queue for us and began to take us for our check as a priority. I cleared my own self just a few minutes before eight p.m. My next goals were to take my luggage and to proceed to the domestic terminal to catch my Riyadh to Ta’if flight, scheduled for departure at 9:35 p.m.
• ·        Most of our luggage had been cast off the carousels, and I had a tough time searching for the three pieces of luggage that I had sent into the cargo section at New Delhi. After locating these, it was another task to load it all on to a single trolley along with the two pieces of luggage that I had in my hand - the overnighter and the laptop bag.
• ·        The box of tablets and medications was taken away by the customs guys for a thorough check, and it was after nearly 20 minutes that they brought it back, saying there was no problem and I was free to take it with me.
• ·        At the domestic terminal, I stood in the wrong check-in crew for almost ten minutes before I was guided to the right one, which was nearly 100 meters away on the opposite side.
• ·       The flight to Ta’if was in time. I had about half an hour to spend at the waiting area, and I bought myself a bottle of water for SR 2 before settling into an available chair in the waiting area.
• ·        The problems I faced after getting off at Ta’if are part of the main blog, but it is only later that I learned that the “Airport Health Post” is not an office but an ambulance that is parked outside the airport. I should have reached that ambulance and presented the occupants with my documents, instead of doing all the silly things I did. However, it is because of those silly things that I spent some nice afternoons and evenings in the Children’s Hospital, a place where I saw not only a good load of patients but also met and got help from several doctors and others. It is also the place where I got shelter for a night and a day, something that is not so easy in a foreign country where you know hardly any people and hardly any of the language they speak.

MUKHATTAT-UL-VISAM

       

• ·        At this place, I began to assimilate information about the ways of the people of this country. The personal observations, combined with input from Drs. Sophy and Raid (from Egypt and Syria respectively), led me to understand the Arabs in general, and Saudis in particular, bit by bit, much as a builder creates an edifice brick by brick.
• ·       The house was very well furnished. It was wall-papered all over, and its floors were tiled with floral or geometrical motifs. The ceilings had cornices, mouldings and elegant floral designs that gave them a sort of beauty one sees in older, heritage structures. The living room had sofas in a very good state of repair and a large LCD wall-mounted LG TV. The set top box listed over 500 channels, and showed nearly all the free to air channels. The channels that I saw, for the most part, had content in English, either exclusively or for the most part, including BBC World, Al Jazeera International, Dubai One, MBC 2 and MBC Action. CNN was not available. All the popular Hindi and linguistic channels  are available only on subscription. This included Zee, SONY, Setmax, Colors, NDTV etc.
• ·        My room had two beds, both with two mattresses each. I kept both my suitcases on one of the beds and slept in the other. A long side-table with a bank of drawers helped me to organise the stuff that I brought outside my big bags for daily living, such as the soaps, cosmetics, etc. I think I must have hardly removed 10% of my luggage over the entire 8 days or so of my stay here.
• ·        I washed  my clothes manually, as there was no washing machine, and I had to buy an iron as there was none at the house. The electrical appliances work on a different type of connection here, and one has to plug in a three -pointed plug into a two-holed adapter which then goes into a two-holed wall socket. This is the norm all over this country, so I had to buy a few of these adapters for myself. The kitchen has a microwave, a tea and coffee maker and a cooking range that works beautifully. As Sophy cooked, I observed, and over the eight days, I have picked up tips on how to cook in an oven. It should serve me well.
• ·        Hot water through large storage water heaters was available, both in the bathroom and in the kitchen. As the days progressed, winter brought in even more cold temperatures, and it was a delight to be able to wash hands with hot water, or to heat the water to even higher temperatures before going in for a bath.

In the next part, I will discuss more about these things …