You remember prepositions, right? Those location and direction words you are supposed to, at all costs, never let dangle? (e.g., "Yes, Mother, that is the mad ballah whose crib I was at" would be more correctly expressed as "Yes, Mother, that is the mad ballah at whose crib I was.") In school I had to … Continue reading A Journey about/along/amid Immigration
Category: Foreign Girl
Living abroad is humbling, maddening, exciting, puzzling, and a privilege every day.
Adventure Among the Ruins
Despite what my earlier posts might indicate, I didn't come to Saudi-Almighty-Arabia to go to Chili's, or Applebee's (pft-pft kiss-fingers cross-yourself), or Tamimi (Safeway), or Saco (True Value), or even IKEA. No, I came for an Exotic Adventure. Well, if you're going to get technical about it, I came because I'm married to guy with … Continue reading Adventure Among the Ruins
Lost in the Lingua Franca
I'm not sure what to do. I'm having a little trouble with household chores as well. Getting a mite cryptic with the pictures, don't you think? I'm trying to figure out what's going on during the glasses-with-the-nose-piece and the flower cycles. (The tornado is a spin, obviously.) And on some settings, the washer stops, half-filled, … Continue reading Lost in the Lingua Franca
Rookie Mistake, Part II: Getting It Right
Read any guidebook, magazine article, or travel post and you'll get the same tips about Paris: Don't go in August unless you want to wander an empty city. Greet shopkeepers when you enter their places of business. Keep your voice down. Dress well. In Madrid, don't go looking for dinner before 9:00. In London, don't … Continue reading Rookie Mistake, Part II: Getting It Right
Rookie Mistake
You know the one about the frog in a pot? How if you put a frog in cold water, then turn up the heat, the frog won't jump out before it's too late? Yeah, that one. Turns out it's true. Diagram explanation: Hyper-Panda (the pot): Panda is a retail chain around the Kingdom with various … Continue reading Rookie Mistake
Saudi Sjaturdi
I live in a rented, furnished villa in a mostly-Western compound in Riyadh. Now be careful that with the word "villa" you don't conjure an image that looks anything like what I get when I Google "villa": Or that by "furnished" you imagine anything like what I get with "villa interior": I'm particularly fond of … Continue reading Saudi Sjaturdi
Voyage and a Joyous Residence
My introduction to life in the Middle East was a reunion vacation in laissez-faire Doha, Qatar. Men and women move about freely, traffic is orderly, and dress is expected to be modest but you see about everything. For a taste of the range, here's a man in a thobe beside an ice rink at the … Continue reading Voyage and a Joyous Residence
Margo Catts 