Beyond Samarkand

Looking out my back window the predominate color is green. This is surprising, as I live in At Taif, Saudi Arabia, and the country is pure desert. But, my gardener keeps a small plot of grass, a vegetable garden and banana trees, yes, banana trees, growing. And I must say having my own oasis helps me keep my sanity. The colors of Saudi Arabia are not the first thing to come to mind when you think of coming here. But soon after you arrive you are overwhelmed by them. Women, shrouded in their black abbayas you expect. Or you should if you have done any kind of research before coming. Saudi men in their white thobes are everywhere as well. More colorful are the expatriate workers – Bengalis with their dark skin and brightly colored shirts, Pakistanis in shalwars of light earth tones, and Sudanese with their green head wraps and grey, or green or brown working clothes. One place you see the same color is Mekkah. The hajji men are in white towels. One around their shoulders, the other wrapp...

Sushi Yoshi! Originally uploaded by Kevin.Haroun This has been a lifesaver - sushi! The restaurant is on the corniche and only ten minutes from the Jeddah compound. Having a place to go and eat good food makes a huge difference in living here.

Riding Lesson Originally uploaded by Kevin.Haroun We finally got boots and jodhpurs for Ash and went riding. Only to find out that women aren't allowed to ride until the new arena is finished. The local "Committee" members came and told the trainer that if he trained any more women they would kill him. Yes, really. It's sad how much damage the last 100 years, and oil wealth, has done to Islam.

I taught the womens' class for about five weeks, three evenings a week. It was very challenging and at times very rewarding as a teacher. Some of the challenging parts included: - video failure - audio failure - students opting to reschedule I sat in a different room from the students, so at a minimum audio was required to interact with them. Invariably settings on the microphone and speaker would cause problems. I would be too loud, then I would have an echo, then I couldn't be heard and so on. Other times, the video wouldn't work. This wasn't as much of a problem as you might expect. I couldn't see them anyway, and them seeing me wasn't that necessary. I did use a whiteboard part of the time, but it was seldom required for class. Not being able to see my students is VERY frustrating as a language teacher. I'm used to a lot of non-verbal feedback, that I then use to encourage verbal feedback. As a result, I wasn't getting visual feedback, and they wo...