Saudi Arabia - January

Sorry, that it has taken me so long to update my blog. Anyways, I am in Saudi Arabia right now visiting my family until April 5th. And I know everybody wants to see what I have been doing while in Saudi Arabia. Just to let you guys know I won't be able to take a lot of pictures. One is because there isn't a lot of things to take pictures of, and if I want to take a picture with people in it I have to ask them for their permission. So I might not be able to take many pictures, but I will try.

So the first picture shows one of my FAVORITE arabic food. It's called a falafel and its basically a vegetarian burrito. Actually a burrito is an understatement to how amazing this thing is O.o First they use flat bread, and inside the falafel is something called Lebna, which is basically plain yogurt. Then there is chopped vegetables like cucumbers, tomatoes, pickles, french fries, and I think onions. Then the falafel is basically a fried ball made of chickpeas. You mash up the chickpeas and combine garlic, cilantro, flour, and falafel seasoning, and then fry it in oil. I made it once and it was AMAZING! This is a falafel that I got off one of the street vendors and it is amazing!

Here in Saudi Arabia the women have to cover themselves up by wearing an abaya. The foreign women have to wear an abaya while in public, but the native Arab women and some Filipinos have to wear the full burka, or at least cover their hair. So one of the benefits to wearing an abaya is that I can wear whatever I want underneath it!!! So this is a picture of what I usually wear underneath my abaya while I am out shopping. As you can see I don't have to care about what matches cause nobody will see it!! :D haha This is my favourite part of living in Saudi Arabia is while in public I don't need to dress up! I can actually dress down! :D

Even though I don't have to wear nice clothes while in public there are still some very nice and expensive stores here. The Arabian people take pride in their appearance. Sometimes while at the mall I will see women in their abayas with a Dolce & Gabbana handbag. So some of the women still wear expensive and nice clothes underneath their burka.

One thing that is a little annoying at clothing stores is that women cannot try on clothes. Women have to buy their clothes first before they can try it on at the bathroom. So while being here I have been forced to remember my size in clothing, and check whether the clothing is stretchy and everything. This may seem annoying but I can see the sense in the reasoning as to why. One problem that can be avoided without dressing rooms is preventing the men or other people trying to peep into the dressing rooms while women are changing. Another thing that can be prevented is the stealing of clothes by the women. If you think about it, women are wearing a big flowy gown that reaches down to the ground. So women can go into a changing room and walk out of the store with the clothes they were trying on without anybody knowing! So I don't complain about the absence of fitting rooms because I can see the logic as to why they don't have any. As long as I get my nice clothes I am fine :)

This house is the gathering house for religious purposes :P I am not sure whether I can say church on my blog because I am worried that some Arab person will see it and tell the government. So I am going to call it meeting house. So we meet in a house just like we did in China. The first time I went to church here I half expected to be walking up a giant hill and taking my shoes off at the entrance because that is what I have done in China for the past three years. So I have gotten into the habit of thinking that when I go to a house on Sunday/Friday for church I will be taking my shoes off. But it is different here. We don't take our shoes off, but we have things that make the gospel here in Saudi Arabia unique from other places. Since the government doesn't really know that we are here in Saudi Arabia there are two doors to this house. The first door is the one to walk into the house, and then there is a second door. The second door is to prevent Arabians that are walking by from seeing what we are doing inside. So once the first door is shut there is somebody there at the second door ready to greet us. I thought that was pretty different. What I love the most about this branch is that once that second door is open, the sound of beautiful hymn music is played, and there are people all around smiling and chatting and greeting each other. I seem to always smile whenever I walk into this house.

When I first went to the branch there was one thing that surprised me. There were Filipinos everywhere! I think there are only like four or five Western families, and the other 60-70 people are Filipino. But the Filipino people seem to always be happy and lively. During sacrament meeting whenever somebody says good morning the whole branch will say good morning back. I am used to everybody being reverent and silently listening to the speaker, but when that speaker says good morning everybody is smiling and gives a jolly good morning back. At first I got a little mad because I was used to tired college students sitting during sacrament meeting not making a sound. But here everybody is happy and talking to one another. Another thing I like and I never realized until todays meeting is how happy the members are while singing. During the opening hymn or closing hymn the whole branch is putting their all into singing. Which I like cause in the living room that we meet in it sounds like angels from heaven are singing.

So I am enjoying myself while being here in Saudi Arabia. I will try and take more pictures of where my family and I go to school as well as the malls and stores here. Honestly it basically looks like America, but there isn't very many colors and everybody is wearing robes. But I love it here, and I don't see why people are so afraid of the Middle East. The people are really nice and willing to help. I would say they are better Mormons than I am!!! They are always wanting to help, and they are really nice, and they pray five times a day! Sure its a scripted prayer, but they aren't embarrassed about their religion. In America I think people would be embarrassed about having to stop hanging out with friends to go and pray. But here you will see people close down shops to go and pray! I applaud them for that. So I don't like how Westerners believe that everybody from the Middle East are terrorists and hate Americans. That's not true! Anyways I will try and post some more stuff up later on. :)