Saudi Arabia, the Country that Changed Me (Part 4)

I want to apologize to all my readers for taking so long with Part 4! I had to wait for my stuff to get here, and then the next day we went out of town for the weekend. I would have put up a post saying I would be late with Part 4 because I was going out of town, but I didn't think that was a smart thing to put on the internet for everyone to see... Anyway here is Part 4, and I PROMISE Part 5 will be up on Wednesday! Enjoy!

Day 4 started like every other day, early! We woke up at 6 am again to get a start on all the things we were going to do for the day. After another delicious breakfast, we went to King Abdulaziz's vacation palace outside of Riyadh. (In case you forgot, King Adulaziz was the Saudi's George Washington figure who unified the country. For those of you struggling with remembering all the Kings I've been mentioning, we will go over them in more detail later.) They said he usually would only stay at this palace for a month or so back in the day, but it looked like no one had lived there for a while.

When we first arrived we were greeted by the little Beaver Scouts (Same rank as American Cub Scouts).

Our Beaver reception.

They read a letter to us and sang a song in English that they had practiced while we did the sword dance.

Reading a letter to us.

They also gave us delicious drinks consisting of mango, pineapple, and many other tropical fruits. That surprised me at first because around me all I could see was desert for miles, but then I realized that they were very close to the tropics of Africa or Southeast Asia.

After our wonderful reception we got a tour of the whole palace. I think they said it was still under renovation, but it was still pretty well kept. Except of course as expected in the desert, there was sand almost everywhere.

Me at King Abdulaziz's Vacation Palace.

Beautiful architecture and detail.

The view.

Once we finished the tour of the palace we headed over to a Prince's office. I didn't understand much of the hierarchy of the Princes, but it was explained to me that this Prince was like an American Governor. He ruled a province of the country, but was still under the command of King Abdullah (the current King). This was a great honor to meet and talk with him, especially because he is a strong supporter of the Saudi Scout Association. (In case you forgot, thats the whole reason I came... Part 1). He talked about the many activities that the Saudi Scouts had been doing in their own country and abroad.

The Capitol.

Me meeting the Prince (Governor).

The Prince.

Soon it was about time for 1 of 5 prayers for the Saudis, so we were honored to be guests at one of the large mosques nearby while they prayed. It was my first time in a mosque, and I'm sure for many of the Muslims there that day it was their first time seeing an American at their for prayer.

To enter we had to take off our shoes, but then Musa stayed back with Dr. Qureshi and they explained everything that was going on while they prayed. I learned a lot because, like I said, I had never been in a mosque before!

You can hear them talking faintly in the video but here are a couple things I learned:
- For their 5 times a day they pray at sun-up, mid-day, 2 hours after mid-day, sunset, and 2 hours after sunset.
- You don't have to go to mosque to pray if your circumstances won't permit, but usually you try to.
- Women don't usually go to mosque and pray at home.
- Muslims have special Friday (their Sunday) services where the imam will give a talk/sermon.

After they had all finished praying the imam came and talked with our group for a little while. We then put our shoes back on, but has to check our shoes first. I forgot to mention this earlier, but just like living in Australia or Arizona (where I'll be going on my church mission... Daily Double: Part 1), you have to check your shoes before you put them back on.

Back home I usually would slip my shoes on without looking inside and shaking it out, but in Saudi Arabia you never know when a scorpion or little critter could go inside your shoes and not like your foot coming in and squishing it.

After we safely put on our shoes, we were off to a scout camp in a nearby town. This time the camp wasn't a school but more of plot of land outdoors. After the greeting cushion (no tent this time) with dates and coffee, we played some volleyball against the Saudi Scouts and had a good time. They had some camels, but we didn't get to ride camels because they weren't in a good mood.

In my previous post I showed a video of me getting on and off a camel (Here), but that time you saw wasn't very bad.  Usually they aren't that gentle, and sometimes, like this camp, the camels are just too angry for rides.

Camels in Saudi Arabia have some serious spunk and attitude, that is why Saudis call camels "The Kings of the Road." In the United States we encounter deer in the road and sometimes almost hit them because they freeze up and stop in the middle of the road. In Saudi Arabia sometimes camels get in the middle of the road and stop there because they want to.

Camels in the road.

A couple times a herd would just cross the road and even though the drivers would honk their horns, they wouldn't go anywhere. In fact, I think the more you honked your horn, the more they would want to irritate you and give you the "I'm not going anywhere" look. Here is our encounter with the "Kings of the Road":

Camels... a love/ hate relationship.

Once we go past the camels, we went to the world largest dairy farm! I know what you're thinking, "dairy farms and the desert don't usually go together."But in Saudi Arabia they do! We toured their feeding places, the lactation room, the processing room, and everything! I thought it was way cool because I had never been on a dairy farm ever, let alone in the KSA.

All the cows.

These were baby cows born that day.

When the tour was done we had a nice lunch in a little room at the dairy farm. I expected it to be just mainly milk and cheese products, but they gave us a huge buffet!

After our lunch we were on the go again to finish the schedule of our busy day. Our next stop was to a house converted into a museum. He had a whole bunch of old Saudi artifacts and some old technology that our older scout leaders had to explain. I thought I was pretty tech savy, but some of this stuff I had never seen before! It's crazy how much technology changes and evolves, I'm sure in 20 years I'll have to be explaining Ipods and cameras with lens to my children... I thought I took more pictures, but this was all I could find of the museum:

My only picture of the museum :(

We next went to a scout camp in town, but I felt bad for the scouts because we were running very late and I think we missed out on a lot of things they had wanted to do.

One thing we did do was an obstacle course that they did timed runs on. It was pretty difficult, but one of our guys had a flawless run and was still 7 seconds under the record. After that all of us Americans pretty much gave up because Graham was our best guy :P

After our attempt at the obstacle course we shared some songs with each other while eating desert. The Saudis all had scout songs they knew and liked to sing, but all of us Americans were all from different parts of the U.S. and all had different camp or folk songs. So our solution was to do nursery rhymes or children's songs because we all knew them. So whenever we shared songs our hit song was the hokey-pokey!

After the scout camp we were all a bit hungry and decided to make a stop for some good ol' American comfort food...McDonalds. I sat next to Mousa and Fahad our driver, and it was a blast! They told stories and jokes and Mousa would translate and all of us would laugh. It's amazing how no matter the language or culture, there is nothing more bonding than sharing a good laugh together :)

I was surprised at how nice the McDonalds was in Saudi Arabia... to them it wasn't a low-class restaurant, it was somewhat fancy! They had waiters that brought out our food and cleaned our table afterward, and they even delivered!

An Arab McDonalds!

Fahad and me at McDonalds!

Community fries!

McDonalds delivers.

In general I noticed that Saudis are very happy, generous, and hospitable people. They offered everything to us and made sure our stay was comfortable and went smoothly. Mousa even warned me that you can't tell Saudis that you like something, or else they might give it to you.

Both Musa and Abdulaziz were very kind and friendly, and by the end of the week I felt that we had been friends for years, not days. I all my Saudi friends very much, and hope that someday I can return!

Thanks to everyone for continuing to read my blog, I know I'm bad at being consistent, but I try! I hope you are enjoying my blogs of this trip, and who knows, maybe you will want to go to Saudi Arabia too :)