Sand Golfin'

There aren't many golf courses in KSA.  There were a few grass courses around Jeddah, but they recently closed.  There aren't many locals who take a liking to golf.  Most of the golfers are from somewhere in Europe or the US.  Also, as you would imagine, it costs the golf courses too much to keep the grass alive.  It makes sense that you wouldn't see a golf course anywhere over here.  The only golf course I have seen anywhere around Jeddah is the Desert Lakes Golf Club.  It's located on a barren, sandy plot of land just north of the airport.  I golfed there last week and it was a very unique experience.

Turf mat, your best friend

for the round.

The cost was 180 SR for the golf, 80 SR for club rental, and 80 SR for cart rental.  I think that amounts to around $90 or so, not too bad.  They give you a little square green mat of turf, which you use to hit your ball off of in the fairway or rough.  The sand on the course is more of a fine gravel than sand so your clubs wouldn't be happy if you hit directly off the sand all the time.

Below is the view looking out at the first hole.  As you can see, no trees, no grass, nothing but sand.  There are steaks along the edge of the fairway that mark the line between the fairway and rough.  The "rough" consists of a bunch of mounds of sand.  Hitting into the rough doesn't really affect your shots as much as it would on a normal course.


View overlooking the first hole.


So you hit your ball, pick up your turf buddy, and then do the same thing again until you make it up to the "brown".  Now, this is probably the most unique part about the course.  What would normally be a grassy green is a sandy brown.  The browns are made up of fine sand mixed with oil.  Surprisingly, they roll pretty much the same as a normal green.  The most tricky part about the browns and the course in general is that your ball rolls forever.  Sometimes it seems near impossible to land the ball on the brown without it rolling off the other side.  Some of you will say that it was my terrible golf game that made this so difficult, but I assure you that you would struggle as well.  Next time you're in Jeddah, you can find out for yourself.  Later in the round, when the sun started getting really hot, I could smell the oil coming from the brown.  It was funny to think that they use oil to maintain the course since it is cheaper than water.  There are brooms on the sides of all the browns so you can clean up your tracks after putting.

Rough

 The course was the same length as any other golf course.  I didn't do too bad considering I was playing with rental clubs and it was the first time out this year.  Now I can leave Jeddah saying that I golfed on sand.  Pretty cool.

Speaking of leaving Jeddah, that is exactly what I am doing in about 9 hours from now.  I'll be back in Chicago for at least a few days, weeks, months, not exactly sure how long.  So Scribbles might be taking a break for a while, check back for updates soon!









Brown





Sign

Home Sweet Home (wait, what am I saying!)

I have a new home now...Sharbatly Village.  It is a community with close to around 3,000 people.  The entire community is walled off from the outside with only one main, secured entrance.  The reason for this is to keep the community seperate from the outside so that the residents living inside can live as they would anywhere else in the world.  That means that women can dress how they want, shorts are allowed, and if one were to be drinking an alcoholic beverage, no one would stop them.  Saudi locals are not allowed to live here, so most everyone here is European or from elsewhere in the Middle East.  I haven't run into any Americans yet.  There are quite a few communities similar to this around Jeddah.  They are usually referred to as "compounds".

Sharbatly Village has 2 pools, a restaurant (which I eat at basically every night), tennis courts, basketball courts, a fitness center, grocery store, laundry, and even a bowling alley.  The villa I live in has 3 bedrooms and is really no different than any 3 bedroom apartment.  It is a nice place to live, especially with all the recreational activities available.  Plus, the shisha at the restaurant is only 15 SR which is pretty cheap in comparison to all the other restaurants that sell shisha in Jeddah.

Shisha, or hookah, as it's called in the US, is pretty popular over here and in the Middle East in general.  If you don't know what shisha is, you can read the wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hookah.
I have been smoking it fairly regularly, mainly because there is nothing else to do.  It is really the only vice, besides cigarettes, that one can legally have in KSA.  I was thinking about giving it up for Lent, but then I remembered that it is illegal to practice any religion other than Islam over here.  Sorry Jesus :(.  I'm sure He will forgive me.

Still, no one has come to pick up their car.

This past week Jeddah got some rain.  It was amazing to see how freaked out people get over even the chance of rain here.  Everyone leaves work early if there is even a chance of rain.  No one wants to take the chance of getting trapped in a flood or even drive in the rain.  I guess I would feel the same after what happened in January (look up "jeddah floods 2011" on youtube and you will see what I mean).  The drainage here is terrible, but I suppose when it rains only a few times a year, its not all that necessary.  However, from what I hear the King was pretty upset about those floods in January.  I'm sure it really hurt the tourism industry here in Jeddah...

It didn't rain much but the next day most
of the roads were under water.

This past Friday I spent my day off by waking up early to go golfing at the only golf course in Jeddah (I think).  It was probably the most interesting thing I have done in Jeddah so far.  I definitely recommend it if you ever find yourself in Jeddah.  What's so unique about it is that there is no grass.  The course is entirely made up of sand!  I will save that for the next post.  I need to watch Michigan pull off this upset of Duke.  Can anyone tell me if MSU is still in the tournament?  You can just leave a comment, thanks.

The Old City

I don’t know how many of you had the chance to watch Michigan dominate MSU for the second time this season, but I certainly enjoyed it.  I was able to watch the game online and hopefully I’ll be able to do the same for the tourney games.  Here’s to hoping the internet connection is better than it is now.  I’m sure you have all experienced a painfully slow internet connection or the constant disconnecting and reconnecting.  Well, it’s about ten times as bad over here.  I must say that it’s very frustrating, not only because you can’t connect to the internet, but because you are worried that the Saudi internet police might have taken control of your computer because you clicked the “Entertainment” tab on CNN.com and happened to see a picture of Jessica Alba in a bikini.  OK, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I’m pretty sure it’s not too far from the truth.

I was thinking about writing this entire post about the fact that Michigan beat MSU twice this season but then I figured that you Sparties have taken enough of a beating this year.  I'm sorry to say that it's only going to continue in the fall.  

There is a district in Jeddah called Al-Balad, which means "Old City".  Here you will find many old buildings and traditional markets called souqs.  Souq just means "market in an Arab city".  I think they are in most cities in the Middle East but I can't believe that any of them are as large as the one here in Jeddah.  I'm guessing that it's so large due to the fact that Jeddah has the largest seaport on the Red Sea and was a major trading city long ago.  When they began getting wealthy selling oil in the '70s and '80s many Jeddawis (residents of Jeddah), moved out of the old city and many poor immigrants took their place.  Most of the buildings in the area are made of coral from the Red Sea.  They are very run down and many of them look like they are about to topple over. 



There was an area of the souq selling all
 different kinds of spices and dates.



 We went to explore the souq on a Friday evening a few weeks ago.  Before going there, I was thinking it would the size of about a few city blocks with shops selling spices, different foods, and cheap watches.  This was not the case.  I bet we walked about 2 miles through that place.  It was seemingly endless.  There were shops that sold cheap electronics, fabrics, dates, spices, toys, perfumes, and jewelry.  The funny thing was is that there were about 50 different shops selling each of those things.  So really, there wasn't much of a variety of items being sold, just many different vendors selling the same thing.  It was very difficult trying to get pictures because there were so many people.  If I stopped too long to take a picture I probably would have been run over.  It was definitely worse than Michigan Ave a few days before Christmas.  The shops were all so close together and there was so much to look at that it was even hard to focus on where you were walking, let alone take a picture.  I didn't buy anything, but I plan on going back to buy some things before I head back to the US.

There are quite a few butcher shops with lamb

carcases hanging around. 

Some of them still have the head attached!

The souq in Al-Balad is not the only one in the city.  There are actually quite a few scattered around Jeddah.  I have only been to one souq (Souq Al-Shate) other than the one I described above and it wasn't as big and the shops were more modern, similar to an outdoor mall.  I walked through it at around 11:30 pm on a Thursday night (equivalent to a Saturday night in the US) and I was amazed at the number of young kids running around.  I know it's sad that I was doing this on 11:30 on a weekend, but it was probably the most exciting thing going on in Jeddah at the time.  I almost witnessed a fist fight between two 8 year olds but then some jerk came to break up the fun.  That would have really made my night.

Some kids playing video games at a
shop in the Souq Al-Shate.



 

 

 



Very old building made from coral.



One pretty common occurance at these souqs and on the streets of Jeddah in general are beggars.  As you probably wouldn't guess, almost all of them are female.  I don't even think I have seen a male beggar.  Usually, they will sit outside a shop on the sidewalk and ask for money as people are walking out.  Not much different from Chicago or Detroit, except the fact that it's mostly women over here.  I'm guessing since none of the women work over here they don't have any means to make money unless they have a family providing for them.  Another thing you will see is kids, usually around 10-15 years old, walking through cars stopped at traffic lights trying to sell shami cloths, flowers, or homemade necklaces.

I just moved into the compound last night so look forward to details on that in the next post...

Oh yea, GO BLUE!



Salam!

I will give you all an update on my living situation out here.  I moved out of the hotel and into what is  basically a furnished studio apartment with room-cleaning service.  It's in more of a middle class area and not as nice as the hotel but still not a bad arrangement.  I have been at this place for a week already and some of us are moving to a nicer villa style compound within the next few days.  It looks like it is more westernized and I've heard most of the people that stay there are European or American.  Hopefully, there will be a lot more going on there.  Stay tuned.

We have also now moved into our own office instead of sharing office space with the other consultants.  Since we have moved there we have been visiting on numerous occasions by our local sponsor.  I am not totally sure how this works, but every company who does work in Saudi Arabia is required to a have government sponsor to represent them.  I am sure this is true in other countries as well.  I don't really know what his role is other than talking very loudly when he comes to disrupt...I mean visit...us in the office.  I have noticed that everyone who speaks Arabic speaks very loudly. 

A view from the office window.  Notice that
there are still unclaimed cars from the floods.

Another view, its very dusty out there.

I have been learning some basic words and greetings in Arabic thanks to some of my Arabic speaking colleagues.  I try to use these words whenever I can when talking with the locals.  Most of them are pleasantly surprised that a foreigner is trying to use their language.  Although, once last week I was in a cab and the cab driver thought I was Syrian.  After I responded that I was American, laughing, he said that many Syrians look like Americans and that it was probably my beard threw him off.  I guess I fit in more than I want to over here.

If you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to speak Arabic here are some helpful words and phrases to know (I will spell them out phoenetically):

Salam - Hello

Na'am - Yes

Laa - No

Shukran - Thank you

Anaa laa afham - I don't understand

Maa ismuk - What is your name?

As-Salam alaykum - Peace be upon you (this is most commonly used when greeting someone)

Wa-Alaykum as-salam - and Peace upon you too (this is what would be said in reponse to above)

Now you are basically as fluent in Arabic as I am.

Almost every cab over here doesn't use a meter.  When you tell the driver where you want to go, you should ask him how much it will cost.  If you don't, then when you get to your destination it becomes a haggling game.  They will typically charge a bit more if there if traffic.  A few times I have gotten to my destination and asked how much and the drivers just said "help".  They were asking me to pay what I thought was fair.  If I had my choice I wouldn't pay anything, so I tell him 10 Riyals.  Then he says "more".  What's the point of asking me if they already know what the cost should be?  Anyway, the cabs are very cheap here.  The most I have paid for a cab was 50 Riyals (about $15) for a 40 minute ride.

I've been here almost 5 weeks now and I'm starting to miss a lot of things from home.  I found out the other day that I can't watch TV shows online due to liscencing restrictions.  That means no watching Jersey Shore, no watching Modern Family.  I was really counting on that around this time.  It's a good thing I brought a lot of books.

I have some more details to post, hopefully I will get to that on my day off tomorrow.  As-salam alaykum.